Game Night

Put Me in the Zoo!

Swinging

That Looks Comfortable....

Scrapmania II

Charlotte recently re-discovered the scrapbook Suze made for her.   I first blogged about the scrapbook two summers ago, and how it has been a family tradition.  My sisters and I all had one when we were kids that my mom made, and now all of her grandchildren do too.

So Charlotte is back to looking at the scrapbook multiple times a day with me, but with a twist.  She points to at least one picture on each page and asks me to sing a song about the picture.  This works just fine when it's a picture of something like a boat or a cat that I can easily sing a real song about readily, like "Michael Row Your Boat Ashore."  But when she asks me to sing a picture about a lemon I have to make something up.  Fortunately these songs suck, so there is no way she will ask me to replicate the exact songs. There is no way I could remember them, and that does not appear to be a problem.

Another new thing is she likes to grab a book, put it on her bean bag, sit on the potty while I sit in the rocking chair, and we read the books together.  It's pretty funny because she scoots around in the potty as if it were an office chair with wheels.

Lastly, my mom broke her ankle pretty badly the day before the tree fell on our garage... the same week the Spurs blew game six and then lost game seven to the Heat.  Bad things come in threes, so we're covered.  But sadly it was a bad break it is really hard for us to be so far away from home and unable to get there.  I was looking up airfare online about three hours before the storm hit and our summer was redefined.

If any good came of this, it is that Calvin, our nephew is coming to visit us for a week and change as a substitute trip for the vacation he was supposed to take to Yellowstone with Suze.  Selfishly this is great for us and we are thrilled to have him coming.

So here is a video of Charlotte and me looking at her scrapbook and me having to sing a song about a watermelon and whatever random stuff she pointed to.  And then we have a little conversation about the garage, Suze, Calvin, and his sister Sophia.

Irony

Happy Update

I've been planning to post for so long but then this happened:

A big storm with straight line winds came through June 21.  Mike was upstairs putting Charlotte to bed and I was downstairs.  It got super dark outside, the lights flickered and I heard a loud crashing sound.  My first (irrational) thought was that the tree in our backyard landed on our house, but since I didn't hear screaming from upstairs I figured everything was fine.  The lights flickered because the mast that connects the electrical wires to our house was ripped off by a falling branch.  We still had power, but with a live power line in our backyard.  The exact same thing happened a couple months ago from an ice storm, so when I looked out the window and saw the line down I was like, "man, that was expensive to have repaired!"  When Mike came downstairs he said something like, "oh %$&!?%."  And I said it wasn't that bad and he asked me if I had seen the garage.  I had not.  Comically, the motion light still worked and it had come on.  A large branch the size of a medium tree fell on our garage.  With a car in it.  The tree also pulled down the cable that brings internet into our home.  I can post from my phone, but it's annoying to do any writing.  So, there you have it, my excuse for not providing important vital statistics on Abigail!  It's also worth noting that the ice dam situation happened shortly after Charlotte was born.

Abigail, 5 weeks

Abigail has been slow to gain weight so we've been to the doctor for weight checks several times.  At four weeks she was 21 inches and 9 pounds 2 ounces.   Otherwise, she's doing great.  She has been sleeping through the night somewhat regularly, which seems too good to be true.  The downside is that she nurses every 1-2 hours and takes short naps during the day (another excuse for not posting).   I don't know which is worse, being sleep deprived or being stuck on the couch all day nursing a baby.  Actually, I do know what is worse, being sleep deprived.  Abigail is going to smile at me any minute now.  Mike says she smiled at him the other day and I think she was smiling at the art on the wall in the living room this afternoon.  She has a very expressive face - even when she was only a day old as demonstrated in this photo taken by her uncle Ben.

Scrunch face

I hate to compare Abigail and Charlotte, but it impossible not to.  I am struck by how different a full term baby is compared with a preemie.   Charlotte was very pliable while Abigail is so strong.  She's lifting her head up and could probably do some planks with her dad.  This whole short naps thing is very different too.  Charlotte came home on a schedule (in the NICU she had feedings at 1, 4, 7, and 11) and she took naps that were long enough for me to do something, like blog.  Another thing that is really different is just seasonal - after Charlotte came home it was winter and if we wanted to go for a walk we had to go to Target and wander around.  When Abigail came home it was summer and we can  go for walks, go to the playground, or just sit on the front stoop - it's pretty awesome.