Monday, July 18, 2011

Intro to Idaho

Last week while Chris was in Maine for a nerd conference (I mean atmospheric science conference), Elliott and I traveled to Idaho. I was excited to introduce the little munchkin to my old haunts, but mostly I was looking forward to all those extra adoring arms to get some naps in. :)

The additional help and rest proved to be essential, as I discovered that this is how Elliott feels about road trips:
When I told family and friends that Elliott cried at least half the drive, most replied with comments like,
"you think he'd just fall asleep" and, "weird, most babies like riding in cars."

Yeah....weird, and you would think.

But not this baby. He was fed, changed, and still turned all reddish/purple on the road. This turned the 4-5 hour drive into a 7-8 hour drive when I kept stopping to make sure he wasn't hungry or wet or having his fingers amputated or something. I finally figured it out after a second or third stop at a rest area to make sure he wasn't in horrible pain. Anticipating that I would pick him up, he stopped crying and gazed up at me like this:
When I asked him, "Elliott, were you just screaming like a crazy person so Mommy would pull over and pick you up," he replied with this:
Unfortunately, loneliness cannot be helped on a road trip. So, I maybe turned up the radio and put in ear plugs to make it through the rest of the drive. Judge me all you want folks, but if I had continued to stop to soothe the babe, we'd still be somewhere between Seattle and Post Falls, Idaho.

Anyhow, we eventually made it and on our first day visited cousin Dana and her new baby Kori. Kori was born a bit early and had to spend some extra time in the hospital, but Mom and baby were fortunately able to go home a week later. Here is Grandma Carren holding Kori:
The next day we traveled to the "Ranch", which is great-Grandpa Erickson's property near St. Maries, Idaho. Lots of cousins and second cousins and third cousins (or whatever Elliott would call my cousins' children???) to meet. Dana and family were missed, especially since Dana had gone to all the trouble to coordinate the gathering and could not attend. :(

Grandma, Grandpa, and cousin Lilly:
One of my favorite pastimes at the ranch, eating:Speaking of eating, my Mom made the most amazing chocolate chip cookies. Elliott wanted me to eat 4 of them, so I did. You know, anything for the kids....
I then told my Mom, "my cookies never turn out this good," to which she replied with a shrug and a "hmmm." Her reply seemed to convey this was my fault, but I found out later she uses a secret ingredient - crisco. Gross. And, oops, I guess it's not so secret after all.

Anyhoo, more photos below.

Uncle Jake and Elliott. They were making their "I'm too cool to smile" faces:Elliott likes Lilly, as you can see by his "OK" sign in the second picture:The girls started picking daisies to make crowns. It was adorable.
The week of visiting family ended with a BBQ at Grandma Carren's house. Having spent his entire life in Seattle, Elliott was not used to the 80-90 degree heat. He had to go topless at the party. Good thing he's not shy.
Finally, the sun set and things cooled off a bit:
Elliott and his cousins had lots of fun, as evidenced by the hilarious photo montage this week:
Fortunately, he recovered from the tears in the above photos. When we got home, he asked Aunt Sunny where she was from. She replied, "I-da-ho." He was all, "that's right Aunt Sunny, U-da-ho." Then he laughed like this:He must have learned that lame joke from his cousins, because I'm sure I never found it funny.

Friday, July 8, 2011

Freedom

Oh man, this blog post is really overdue. No posts for over two weeks! Chris was busy getting ready to go to Maine for a conference. Summer has been busy getting ready for residency applications, battling another round of mastitis, and preparing for her alone time. Elliott has been busy learning how to sleep at night, which makes all of the above (minus blog posting) a little easier.

We celebrated the 4th of July weekend first by heading to a friend's BBQ on the 3rd of July. This was actually a party in honor of the 148th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg, fought from July 1-3rd. The invitation referred to the "war of northern aggression", which made Elliott concerned that his parent's friends are either confederate supporters, or just huge nerds. So, he decided to show his support for the UNITED States by wearing this awesome bib. I mean cape!
Laughing or crying? It's hard to tell these days.Mom, please stop taking pictures of me in this dumb outfit:
On the 4th of July, we decided to celebrate an early event of the American Revolutionary War by breaking free from Seattle and going for a hike to Twin Falls, about 35 miles north of Seattle. Summer and Chris had a lovely 3 mile hike enjoying the scenery. Elliott pretty much just had a lovely nap.
We then stopped at Target to buy one of these. It seems like this thing has been a sleep aid miracle, or it could just be that Elliott was developmentally ready to start sleeping more at night. I think it is funny that people will ask me, "is he sleeping through the night yet?" I excitedly reply, "no, but he just started sleeping during the night." Since I've had the pleasure of knowing the little guy, he has been quite the night owl. He rarely slept more than 6 hours total between 10 PM and 10 AM. A couple of weeks ago he was only sleeping from 2-5 AM straight, and was making up for it during the day. For the past week he has been sleeping 8-10 hours with only two nighttime feedings, but he still does not go down before midnight, and often not until 2AM or later. But I'm so excited that he is sleeping during the night, I can wait patiently for our schedules to align.
The real reason this rock and play sleeper is a miracle is that Elliott is finally doing most of his sleeping not being held. This may be confusing to some people who have/know babies who sleep in their cribs or cosleepers from birth. This was not Elliott. Even in the hospital, he wouldn't sleep for more than 15 minutes unless he was being held. We're all finally getting some good nighttime sleep around here and everyone smiles a little more in the daytime because of it. Yay for freedom!

The sleeper is also pretty good for not sleeping.
Big smiles after a night full of sleep:
Relaxing in the shade at a family BBQ:We rounded out our 4th of July weekend with some stove top popcorn, smoothies, and episodes of Dr. Who. Yup, we're all nerds.