resemblance and coloring part two

The original post was hailed as “so obviously the best thing on the internet,” but it’s  yesterday’s news because NEW BABY

winter pictures

Here are a few recent non-holiday family pictures:

2018 in review

This was the year of Dd, with pregnancy, birth and his “fourth trimester.”  

Friends Family and Pets
Here’s how D and our pets looked at the beginning of 2018:

and here is how the kids looked at the end of 2018:


Before Dd was born I worried quite a bit about the heartbreak some older children are reported to feel when they are no longer only children.  Perhaps because of sons’ four year age gap, so far it has not been an issue.  Yes, D occasionally wants more attention from us, but he and Dd are always enthralled by each other.   Watching them together is a joy I hadn’t really anticipated.

• babies born: Beau to P&K, all of Dd’s new PEPs friends Opal, Micah, Max, Jax, Leo, Finn, Weston and Garrett
• Just before Dd was born, we said goodbye to Emo.
• We didn’t have any visits from far away friends or family, except a very quick interview trip by Jessica and Adam.
• I joined a new PEPS group, which has been great for this wintery maternity leave
• My uncle was diagnosed with brain cancer in the spring and is now taking things day by day.
• Our friend from Little Louisa Photography took some family and maternity pictures for us in late August.

House, Car and Stuff

• The biggest project we did on the house was the roof: pavers are done,  the roof is ready for summer,  roof is wrap.
• We put in a doorbell and a few other smart home things: house technology update
• After much discussion and financial prioritization we decided on the type of blinds we want and ordered them for part of the third floor and part of our bedroom.  A few have even been installed… stay tuned.  So long faded paper blinds!
• We got a new car, the first one that either of us has bought.
• Two plus years into living in our house, we are drowning in stuff!  We’ve gotten rid of over 400 things (so much stuff) but still have a long way to go to feel like the house looks and functions like we want.
• Our original wedding rings are white ceramic, but even when I’m not pregnant, I struggle to wear a ring regularly.  This fall we tried out some new flexible silicon rings (also white) and so far they are working out well. 
• It’s kind of a silly thing but for the first time ever, I bought an app for my phone.  It is a baby tracking app, which has been useful for managing Dd’s sleep.
• Similarly trivial but useful to me, we improved our packing strategy for camping, hiking and snow play.  Using a laundry basket for gloves, coats, etc. makes things much better.  I get frustrated by having so many insufficiently sized bags and having to paw through all of them to find what I need, so this really makes me feel satisfied.
• Several windows in our house leak(ed?) and for almost 2 months at the beginning of this year we had window repair people doing noisy, messy repairs to every single window in the house, including several weeks of having scaffolding set up.  The original problem windows are in the corner of our bedroom and they were "fixed" twice in 2018 (and once so far in 2019).  Ugh!

Travel
D went to Disneyland with Jack’s mom and step dad in the spring, but for the first time in the twenty years we’ve known each other Jack and I did not fly anywhere. We only left the state once for a trip to Oregon, but we did get around quite a bit from January through July.

• Wenatchee - We played in the snow, visited Leavenworth and stayed with Jack’s aunt and uncle.
• Cape Disappointment  - With two other families we stayed in yurts and had some nice Washington winter fun on the beach and short hikes and balance bike rides.  Since then all the kids have transitioned to pedal bikes.
• Portland and Anacortes – visiting friends in our March Rounds
• D to Disneyland
• Columbia Hills State Park Camping
• Iron Springs again
• Deception Pass for the fourth time
• Blake Island

Recreation and Food

• It was D's first season of T-Ball and Jack's first time coaching, which prompted D’s obsession with all things baseball that lasted through the playoffs in September.   Thank you to all the grandparents who played “Calvinball” with him. 
• I did Fit4Baby HIIT classes once a week, with only one or two weeks missed, for the first 8.5 months of pregnancy.  I wasn’t quite doing burpees at the end, but saw some pretty impressive moves by pregnant ladies and was definitely better off for what I was able to do.
• Jack’s baseball team finished fifth….. out of seven.  Jack’s season was pretty good personally though.  He pitched a few good innings, which is more than he had in the last few years.
• Jack joined the fitness watch crowd with a Garmin watch.  It actually makes him get off the bus a bit early or walk at lunch, in addition to running home from work.  I’m still enjoying my Apple watch from late 2017.
• D is riding a pedal bike now.   Balance bikes are such a cool way of learning and he rode the pedal bike successfully his first time trying it in the week after Dd was born.
• Jack’s bike stolen from our back yard, after someone presumably saw him put it away there, skipping the step of locking it up while our kiddo was loudly melting down.
• It was the best hiking year since D was born, excluding our week in Scotland in 2017.  Highlights were on Blake Island and Rattlesnake Ledge.
• D did a few swimming and ballet classes again.  In June he was the kid refusing to get in the pool, so it was a relief to work past that, even if he still can’t actually swim.
• Pregnancy had one funny effect on my palate in that I was much less interested in chocolate than I usually am.  I didn’t dislike it but was substantially downgraded.  At the same time the raspberry jam sold at Trader Joe’s was the best thing ever.  Now chocolate has re-ascended and the jam is just very good.
• I’m really grasping at straws here (but they are not made of plastic, Seattleites), but the other innovation of the year was putting pickles in sandwiches we make at home.  They add so much pizzazz.
• We used a few types of meal kits this year, which was especially great with a newborn.
• I discovered raspberry leaf tea, which has a really nice flavor and is naturally caffeine free, which can be handy.  According to pregnancy lore, it "tones the uterus", whatever that means!

Reading, Watching and Thinking

• It was a great reading year, including lots of kindle reading (you can do it with one hand while nursing or trying to get a baby to sleep in the dark), audio books, books read with Jack and books read to D.    I read about 30 books, including  about 3000 pages from from one author, Diana Gabaldon, who wrote the historical fiction series called Outlander.  Happily she has written many more books that I look forward to reading.   Having a reliable stream of good books to read is such a treat.
• Jack’s favorite read was the Area X Trilogy by Jeff Vandermeer.
• We started reading chapter books to D, starting with Roald Dahl, then reading Brambleheart and some books from the Magic Tree House series and The Princess in Black series and The Hobbit (in progress).
• Jack and D had a great time at the Seattle summer teen musical, which was Cinderella this year.  I think it will become an annual outing for us.
• Together the best fiction book Jack and I read was Uprooted by Naomi Novik.  The best non fiction book we read (via audiobook) was Educated by Tara Westover.
• We spent quite a bit of time trying to come up with another boy name.  Our girl name candidate was the same as last time, so that part was easier.
• We spent most of the year thinking we would be getting an au pair in 2019.  After a truly obsessive amount of time searching and considering options, we gave up on it in December.   Luckily we covered our bases by getting on multiple infant care wait lists for Dd in January 2018, paid a deposit for a spot in May 2018 and will make use of it in March 2019 (part time).  Such is the current Seattle childcare scene.

Work, School and Community

• August felt like the summer that didn’t happen due to the nasty air quality from all the forest fires.  Our upstairs was 90 degrees at time with our windows closed and it was not fun to be pregnant through that.
• We’ve both have been at same jobs since the spring of 2012 and have gained more responsibility over the years.  2018 was the first time Jack was salaried and truly full time at his firm.  At my job, a few key people left so I had to step up a bit.   I worked from home even more than usual during my third trimester.  Despite the fact that Dd was our second baby while I was at the same job, figuring out maternity leave details was more complicated and drawn out than expected, but it has worked out for the best, at least so far.
• D finally started drawing recognizably late this summer.   Here’s a picture of our house.

house technology update

In December Jack completed two long anticipated house projects. When we wired up the house we forgot about a doorbell so Jack installed one, which required a fair bit of electrical work to bring power out by the door.   It also took us a long time to decide what we wanted. Now we have a Nest doorbell with the camera on it hooked up to the Google home app, with a motion sensor alarm on the front door.   I think our best home security is still the fortress like quality of our tall house, with only one door.

We also now have two old-fashioned cordless phones which take incoming calls to our landline (which we are required to have because of the elevator) and both of our cell phone numbers.   This, along with our smart watches, allows us to leave our phones at a central point in the house. The watches are useful but not entertaining so it helps us reduce our screen time.

Another benefit of the phone system is in relation to kids. On cell phones I make the talk on speakerphone to reduce his radiation exposure. I do the same. I like having a phone that he can talk on normally, that we all can easily locate in case of emergency  and something that is just a phone, rather than a camera/game console/computer.

Of course, since I am breast-feeding  and recording Dd’s naps throughout the day I do still end up using my phone often. On the other hand, our new surface charger for the phones actually makes it impossible to charge my phone unless it is in the central location, because the regular charging plug-in is blocked by the adapter needed for the surface charger.  There are a few kinks to work out regarding contacts on the phones but I would say it’s a  solid start to using our phones less.

 As for the google home hub, it’s in the kitchen and at this point is mostly an expensive digital clock. We have the Always Listening mode (where are you can say “OK Google” and then a command) turned off because it creeps me out.

 Can you tell Dd is having a long nap right now?

baby sleep

Question: What do gondolas and truffles have in common with perusing and sleeping through the night? 
Answer: The words (ok, phrase in one case) have multiple meanings that can’t be easily distinguished through context.

• I rode a gondola.    Great, was it a boat or a compartment suspended on a high wire?
• I ate a truffle.   Okay, was it a mushroom or a chocolate someone thought looked kind of like a mushroom?
• I perused this article.  Wait, does that mean you read it thoroughly or you skimmed it or… both?  Please strike this word from your vocabulary because directly conflicting meanings are not okay!
• My baby slept through the night.  This popular phrase is meaningless on its own.  Many sleep books define it differently based on the baby’s age and often as about six hours or something like the time between midnight and five a.m.  When regular people say it, I think it usually mean a chunk of time that is long enough and at the right time for the adult(s) to sleep a nearly normal amount, but that’s the whole problem, I can’t tell what they mean unless they lay it out in detail because “sleep through night” is so vague. 

All of this is to say that Dd has been in a good sleep stage lately where 2-3 times per week he has slept an 8-9 hour stretch from about 8 pm to 5 am.    We quite appreciate it, though since he’s still in our room we wake up when he cries out suddenly (and briefly) between sleep cycles, while slowly rotating himself like snuffling sundial around the crib.

chocolate sugar cookies

These were good and easy. Next time I will measure how much mint extract I put in the green icing so that it is less refreshingly reminiscent of toothpaste.

Mix together:

• 3 c flour
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp baking powder

In electric mixer, mix up:

• 1 c softened butter
• 1 1/2 c sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 2/3 c cocoa powder

Add flour mixture to the other ingredients and mix. 

Dump it out and knead in to a ball and refrigerate for 1+ hour. 

Roll it out 1/4 inch thick. 

Bake at 350 for 9-11 minutes. 

We used food coloring from natural dyes for the first time and was happy with the vibrant colors.  

ready for Dd’s First Christmas

I knit one more “experimental”  (meaning I don’t know how to use a knitting pattern) stocking for Dd, so we are ready for his first Christmas.  I don’t think we will actually fill it up though because milk would leak out and attention and sleep don’t fit.

two months in to the second time around

 A friend of mine with a personal blog does all of her posts  as a list of three items related to a theme. I find myself thinking up posts with that format now as well, though I often don’t managed to write them.   Now since I am writing this post on my phone, via dictation, I think a nice simple structure is helpful.

Dd is now about two months old.   I have lots to say about our experiences so far but will limit myself to three ways parenting has been different the second time around so far.

1) nursing
Nursing a newborn requires a lot of learning on the part of both the mother and the baby, but this time I was surprised by how much my prior knowledge helped. Dd regained his birth weight a little bit faster than D did.  I was less concerned about the initial pain and more confident that we would get through the tricky beginning phase.

2) confidence
 Many people have told me that their second child was much easier because they weren’t “freaking out about things.”  I bristle a little bit at describing our first parenting experience in that way,  but certainly recognize that we have more confidence this time.    Talking to other new moms I am feeling very grateful for Jack’s competence.   One night a week we’ve been doing a complicated routine where I walk both boys to swimming pool for D’s lesson, then Jack meets us there and we transfer Dd  (often asleep) in the carrier from my body to Jack’s body. Then Jack helps D get dressed while I swim laps and meet them at home for dinner.   I think this is much more than the average first time dad could handle.

3) schedule
Parenthood imposed a higher degree of scheduling on our lives  and most of the schedule marches on despite the fact that I am on maternity leave.  We still have dinner times and bed times and preschool obligations. While I dislike dragging Dd along in the car to drop off D, I feel like the structure and social contact required by D’s life reduces my risk of depression while facing a dark winter with a young baby.

Rattlesnake ledge

This has been a good year for hiking with D.  In the space of a few months, the idea of asking to be carried has disappeared from his mind  and we have done several hikes in the 3 mile range.

This past weekend we did his longest hike yet, up hill for two miles and back down again at Rattlesnake Ledge.   The distraction of friends is quite helpful,  but it also adds drama. On this hike there was a lot of interpersonal distress about whether all three kids would hold hands and be a train or whether they would exclude the smallest kid.   I can still hardly believe that we found ourselves saying things like “If you can’t all get along we will have to turn around now and not make it to the top”  when it seems so recent that he was complaining about being tired and unable to go on.

We are so excited to be at the point where D is getting to be a good walker and Dd is still easy to carry.

happy Halloween!

This was D’s first time carving pumpkins.  The two part mouth was his idea.

I didn’t argue when he wanted to wear the ghost costume I made last year for a second time!  His preschool paraded around the block and then we went trick or treating with friends in Leschi again, after eating spooky spaghetti.  It didn’t even start raining until we’d already decided we were done for the night.

happy birthday, Dad!

A few weeks ago we celebrated my dad’s 70th birthday with brunch at our house.  The fall is the prettiest time of year in our neighborhood, I think, and it’s nice for us to have the motivation to clean off our dining table every now and then and see our house looking closer to the way we envision it.  We made buckwheat waffles and cardamom vanilla waffles with all kinds of toppings.  I’m not a fan of maple syrup so I like the variety and my new favorite topping is applesauce with chunks of candied ginger in it. 

Right, but back to my dear old dad -  we are happy to get to spend regular time with him and our families.  I hope we’re in such a good place when we turn 70, or rather 71 and 70.  We’re at that thought provoking point in life where my parents are twice as old as I am.

pictures of baby Dd’s first two weeks