Post 100

This is the 100th post.  I’d like to begin by complaining about having to wear my glasses for 7 days while I nurse my pink eyes. Surely about the time I can put my contacts back in and sport my new sunglasses the rain will return…and I will have no need for sun spectacles. But, we have been blessed with many days of absolutely perfect weather.  I’m talking 70 degrees and HOT sun.  Shade is cool, sun is HOT.  (I am rethinking our need for an outdoor pool membership). Apparently this was the nicest Memorial Day weekend in 30 yrs.  Glad we got to be a part of that!  We spent the entire weekend outside with our neighbors (yes, the 3 yr. old is the one both Chris and I are thanking for the pink eye).
Saturday they invited us for a hike.   Here is a picture so you can know who they are.  Meet David (carrying Ava) and Jennifer (carrying 9 month old Tinsley).

We decided on a 2 mile hike (1 mile out, 1 mile back).  We figured the girls could handle that.  We drove and drove and drove to get to this place which to me seemed ridiculous since we have tons of hiking practically in our back yard.  Why in the world are we driving for 45 min. when we could drive 5 minutes to a local trail?  We pull up to the road leading to the trailhead and discover there is too much snow to drive any further (SNOW??  why did we drive to snow?  it’s 70 degrees and we drove to the mountains!!).  We parked and walked up to our neighbor’s car.  Jennifer was loading up snacks.  Geez Jennifer, we’re only going 1 mile out, don’t you think we can manage without snacks I jest.  She is always prepared.  I am NEVER prepared.  Jennifer is the neighbor whose house is immaculate ALL THE TIME.  She never sits.  She is not lazy like me.  She has single handedly transplanted probably 30 plants in her yard, and I am not exaggerating.  We spend a lot of time together.  The girls  are inseparable.  She always has a plan (and all the ingredients) for dinner.  She does crafts with the girls, rotates her toys, and did I mention how clean and tidy her house is?  If I didn’t like her so much I’d hate her.  Why are my good friends always so darn NEAT and TIDY?  And their husbands too?  (Remember Elizabeth & Jon??!!  Jon the cleaning machine??)  I need more slob friends to make me feel better.  But I digress.  Turns out, the trail is covered in about 2 feet of snow.  We could have actually used our snowshoes.  Seriously.  This is just the road leading to the trail.

From May Hike 2009

See Camille with half her leg burried in that foot hole?  There were holes like this throughout the trail.  Some had no bottom.  Or the bottom was actually a streem underneath.  As we walked and struggled through the snow (which the girls thought was a blast) we encountered other hikers who, when asked about the trail ahead, mentioned words like “challenging” and “difficult”.  At one point we heard a voice calling though the trees.  “Are you on the main trail?”    This fellow, with his 3 kids who were middle school age,  had lost the main trail because of all the snow and was asking us for help.  Hmm.  The little girls wanted to plug ahead, but he and his 3 teens were looking at us with our babies in backpacks with skepticism.  This was the creek/river that the trail followed.  It was RAGING from all of the mountain snow runoff. 

A bit later, a young couple is on their way back.  The fellow has scrapes on his legs (this is the second person with a scraped up leg we have seen).  They tell us it doesn’t get any easier, and we decided to stop and have a snack.  SEE, we did need them afterall.  Anyway, it was a pretty fun adventure.  We will definitely try that trail again in August, when all of the snow is gone.  Sunday we went to a fancy dance-y “cookout” complete with a seafood extravaganza.  Yummy clams, scallops, salmon, just my type of cookout.  Monday we felt like we just needed some time at home to relax.  The girls and I walked to the grocery to buy lemonade for a lemonade stand.  That was the big event of the day.  The girls and Ava made money, which we are going to use to have a real HOMEMADE lemonade stand with fresh squeezed lemonade (maybe this weekend).  We are excited about that.  Anyway, we ended the weekend with salmon and smores.  We were sad that Chris’ parents weren’t able to be here to enjoy Seattle at its finest, but we made the most of it without them.  We hope they’ll be able to come on another glorious weekend this summer!

Link to all photos: May Hiking Photos

New Friends

While I was still living in Cleveland our good family friends the Mrosses introduced me to a fellow Clevelander named Elizabeth Cecil.  The Cecils and the Mrosses were family friends in Baltimore back when the kids were in school.  Elizabeth & Jon, and Chris and I had dinner one night, and the relationship just took off from there.  Elizabeth and I quickly moved from aquaintances to close friends… I stood beside her as she became Elizabeth Reuter, she & Jon stood beside us as godparents when we baptised Elyse, and Chris & I are godparents to her son Charlie.  Elizabeth & I had many a lunch together mulling over the trials and tribulations of motherhood, and wonderful family gatherings for birthday parties and holidays too.  Chris and I even had some opportunities to go out to dinner with just Jon & Elizabeth.  The 4 of us got along swimmingly.  Sadly we moved to Seattle and they are in Abu Dhabi for a couple of years for Jon’s work, but she is like a sister, and will always remain my dear friend.  I am forever greatful to Eileen for introducing us.
So fast forward 9 or so years to our life here in Seattle.  Thanks to Eileen, Harry and I made 3 new friends today.   Meet Rachel, Caleb (in her lap) and Eli (not Eli our cat).

The picture isn’t the greatest (taken with my lousy old camera by Camille) but you get the idea.  Rachel is married to Eileen’s nephew Sean and they live about 40 minutes south of us (funny-Elizabeth and her family also lived about 40 minutes away from us in Cleveland).  It was so much fun to meet them in person, especially after having read the story of the boys’ adoption on Rachel’s blog:  http://kerriganadoptionstory.blogspot.com
If you start the blog at the very beginning (as I did) it is so amazing to read.  Their patience was tested, their faith remained strong and the ending is a happy one.  The boys are darling, fun, engaging, they love their mother, but warm up to strangers too. I got to feed Eli his bottle.  He is snuggly like Harry once was.   I look forward to watching them grow.  I’m going to drag Rachel up to our neighborhood periodically for a baby playgroup:)  Here’s to holding on to the old friends and welcoming the new ones.  Thank you Eileen.

A note from my mother

I know mother’s day was last weekend, but what can I say, I operate a week behind.  I think I inherited that from my mother.  Speaking of whom, I received a letter in the mail a few days ago from her.  She is one of the few people I know who still takes the time to pull out a piece of stationary, find a pen, address an envelope and put a stamp on a good old fashioned letter.  And she has the most beautiful penmanship.  I love seeing letters addressed in my mom’s handwriting.  Letter writing is truly a lost art.  Anyway, she starts off saying that she had spent mother’s day with her children and grandchildren.  Hmm, that’s funny because I’m pretty sure all of us kids were here in the Pacific Northwest last weekend.  Do I have siblings I don’t know about?  NO, it turns out she spent the day with her mother looking at photographs of us kids and the grandkids.  Now, some of you know that my grandmother Nini’s memory has been slipping this past year.  She is also declining physically as well. She has trouble walking, pain in her back, etc.  So what a wonderful way to spend a day with someone whose memories of long ago are much better than  those of yesterday and today.  My mom has a gift.  She is extremely selfless and she makes others feel like the most important people in the world.  She writes what a wonderful gift being the mother of 3 is and how lucky she is.  She doesn’t complain about how all of us moved away and left her alone on Mother’s day.  Instead, she spends it with her mother thinking how greatful she is to be a mother herself.  She told me on the phone that she didn’t send me a mother’s day card.  What she didn’t realize was that in her letter she gave me something more important that that.  She reminded me that even in difficult and trying times you can still be gracious and thankful and enrich the lives of those who need you.  I am so greatful I still have my mother, even if she is all the way across the country.

It took Harry 1 1/2 hours to fall asleep tonight.  This is a long time for a baby to cry.  It is an even longer period of time for a mother to have to listen to her baby cry.  So let me preface this  blog entry by saying if you don’t care to read about baby’s sleeping habits, then go surf the internet because this entry is going to deal with nothing but sleep.  I know many moms worry, obsess even.  Each have their own “thing” they fixate on.  I admit, I fixate on sleep.  I obsess over my children’s sleep.  It tears me up if my kids, but especially my babies, don’t get the sleep then need, when they need it.  Take this week for example.  Harry seems to need lots of extra sleep lately.  Maybe it’s a growth spurt, maybe it’s teeth, maybe it was his one yr. old shots.  I don’t know.  But he has been taking 2 1/2 hr to 3 hr naps lately.  This makes getting Camille to and from school difficult.  He wants to fall asleep before it’s even time to leave in the morning.  It is physically PAINFULL for me to wake a sleeping baby.  Especially if I have to do it more than once a week.  It is also painfull for me to try to keep a baby awake when they are blatantly wanting to go to sleep in their bed.  I go to extreme measures to keep a sleeping baby asleep.  For example, remember the time I sat in the car so that I didn’t wake up Harry by transferring him to his crib after his allergist appointment.  And today I purposely didn’t use the restroom because I didn’t want the flushing to wake him.  I know, it’s extreme, but a baby needs his rest to be his most woderful self, and I feel I OWE it to my kids to let them be their best.  So all week Harry has been sleeping the whole morning, and then taking an afternoon nap too.  I figured that the reason it was taking so long to fall asleep at night was because he was getting so much sleep during the day.  BUT, today, he slept for 2 1/2 hrs. this morning and then I didn’t put him down for an afternoon nap (he wasn’t showing his usual tired signs until about 5 pm–too late for a nap) but instead put him to bed at 6:15.  He had been awake since noon.  He should have collapsed right?  No.  I guess he was overtired.  But I go in to put him back down and he needed a diaper change.  Then again because he had thrown his monkey blanket out of the crib and couldn’t get it back.  Finally at 7:30 Chris gave him a bottle.  Then, he curled up and went to sleep.  It agonizes me that I made him go that long without sleep.   8 hours since he had last slept.  That is too long for a little buddy to be awake.  Especially when he took 4 whole steps all by himself today.  Again, no camera available to capture the priceless moments.  But the darn pediatricians tell you all kinds of stuff and they said Harry needs to be weaned off the bottle right?  So we’re trying not to give him a bottle.  (OH and my neighbor’s ped. told her that cereal is a bad breakfast for kids and my sister’s ped. told her she shouldn’t give a baby tylenol or motrin for a fever-  I mean, COME ON!!).  Anyway,  in my ideal world my little man could go sleep when tired and wake up happy every time.  In heaven, all of my babies (and I will have lots) will be able to sleep as needed, and I’ll have grandmas and grandpas and aunts and uncles and family all tripping over each other to babysit so the little ones can sleep in uniterrupted bliss in their beds..  But, I live in the real world and I do my best.  But it is agonizing for me that my best is on most days not that great and I just had to vent.  I only pray that he will get a good night’s sleep tonight and that he can nap freely tomorrow.  Of course, Elyse has Young Author’s Day at school tomorrow and we (Camille, Harry & I) are supposed to go for the luncheon.  Good luck, right?

Birthday/Mother’s Day recap

Lots to recap, so little time.  I’ll start with Mother’s Day.  I had abolutely no expectations for the day.  This is the way to do it.  Then, if by some miracle I get a moment to myself, or get out of some chores, it is a pleasant surprise.  Chris spent from 10:30 until 1:30 preparing for the big event of the day:  the first annual Mother’s Day Family Bike Ride.  Da da da DA!  Again, I had absolutely no expectations, but my friend Chris, was all decked out in his biking gear.  This made me chuckle to myself.  He packed his biking shoes which lock into the bike pedals and his biking gloves.  Are you kidding me??  We are taking our three children with us.  How far can we possible get?  I don’t think “gear” will be necessary on this ride.  I don’t say a word though.  He also packed snacks and water.  He throws the girls’ bikes and the bike trailer in the car, and then secures our bikes onto the bike rack.  We get into the car and the girls are already asking for their blankies.  NO.  We drive away and five minutes into the drive to the biking path the girls are “starving” and need snacks.  NO.  Someone remind me why we are doing this again?   We arrive at our destination, park the car, unload the bikes, hitch up the trailer, strap Harry in, and hop onto our bikes.  But, we got lost in the parking lot, we were surrounded by cars and we can only find the dog run trail.  Elyse is rusty on her bike and keeps vering off into the grass.  Harry is fussing and has only been strapped in for a couple of minutes.  My vote, let’s give up.  But we continue wandering around and finally stumble upon the bike path.  We throw Harry the water bottle (go ahead and drench yourself kid, just let us ride).  And actually, once we hit the bike trail it is fairly exhilarating to be a family of 5 out on bikes.  If you get onto Chris’ picasa site you will see 27 of the most boring biking pictures ever.  http://picasaweb.google.com/chris.browder/MothersDay#  Look at one picture and you’ll ge the idea.  But we biked, paused to watch a lacrosse game and some remote controlled airplanes.  This park actually has a remote controlled aviation field.  Seriously.  There is also a cricket field, in addition to softball fields, soccer fields (of course), a  huge rock wall for climbing, and playgrounds.  And all of that was just in the 3 miles we covered.  Chris and I have plans to return to that park for a real ride hopefully this weekend.
One thing I did want to do this past weekend was to spend some one on one time with each of the girls.  Saturday Elyse had a play date so I took that opportunity to take Camille.  She chose to go shopping.  We skipped through the mall hand in hand, and giggled while she tried on some pants in the corner of the store because we couldn’t be bothered to wait for a sales assistant to unlock the fitting room.  We went to Target to look at cards, and she and I danced in the aisle to Aretha Franklin–good old musical cards.  She is fun.  She has a great sense of style, and she advised me on a couple of bathing suits which I greatly appreciated.  We had a great couple of hours.
Sunday after the bike ride, Elyse and I also went shopping.  I was hoping she would pick a different activity, but she wanted a bikini, and since all I cared about was having one on one time, I went along with it.  She and I had a good laugh over the fact that Daddy had tied her shoelaces so rediculously tight that neither one of us could untie them so she could try on her suits.  Perhaps some of you recall the commercials where the little girl about Elyse’s age starts talking and just keeps going and going and going…Well, that is Elyse these days.  She is 7 and enjoys making an elaborate story complete with details out of her ordinary everyday world.  She did end up getting a string bikini and new underwear.  A lacey g-string.  No, I jest.  It was Littlest Pet Shop underwear, of course.
So that was Mother’s Day more or less.  Saturday night we had my childhood friend Gwen and her husband Shane over for dinner.  They live about 15 min. from us but we have a hard time getting together because they both work full time.  They are expecting their first baby, a boy, in late June.   I was thrilled to unload some of my baby gear on them.  We got to eat outside  on the back deck and had tons of time to catch up.   The girls were extremely well behaved.  It was wonderful.  They did not clammor for attention, show off, or interrupt us at all.  They ate at their own kids’ table, then played in the back yard together, and then put themselves to bed.  That was a fabulous Mother’s day gift they gave me, without even realizing it.  But, they also made me lots of cards, which they presented to me in bed on Sunday morning.  Elyse gave me a snail she had made out of clay and then Harry ate off one of the eyeballs and then wiped off the red paint from the clay snail onto my pajama shirt.  Thanks for that buddy.  Camille gave me her gift yesterday at school–a marigold plant and a card.  She ended up missing school on Thurs unexpectedly.  Harry went down for a nap at 8 am.  Usually when he goes down this early, he just takes a short nap (1 hr. at best).   Again, he must have known I was waiting for him to wake up so I could take Camille to school because he took a 4 hour nap.   FOUR hours!!  He hasn’t slept 4 hours for a nap since he was a newborn.  What the heck?  Then, to really mess me up, he took another 2 hour nap that afternoon.  Which leads me right into Harry’s b-day party.
As I previously blogged, we had invited 2 families over for dinner to celebrate on his birthday.  Sheri (mother of 4 boys ages 7 to 10 months) called a couple of hours before the party saying that she had to go to the chiropractor because she had hurt her neck and couldn’t even turn her head.  My other friend, Jennifer (mother of Ava 3 and baby Tinsley 9 months and super sleeper extrodinaire) had hurt both of her thumbs at different times and had them in metal splints.  Great, I think to myself.  I will be the only fully functioning (well, phically if not mentally functioning, anyway) mom at the party.  Sheri and family arrive at the door and as I open it, Kacin (her baby) was pulling her mom’s hair and inadvertantly her neck.  So much for the chiropractor visit.  Sheri cries out  and tears of pain run down her face.  This of course scares Kacin and he starts crying too.  Camille meanwhile, to divert their attention, grabs her make-shift water balloons (made from doctor examing room gloves) which proceed to explode onto the kitchen floor before she can get outside.  I wipe it up, but the floor is then so clean that all 3 of Sheri’s other boys wipe out in their socks on the slippery-just-cleaned wood floor (luckily the rest of the floor is so filthy we don’t have that problem anywhere else but that one particular spot).  This sets the tone for the rest of the party.  No joke.  3 yr. old Ava is terrified of Eli our cat and screams and cries in terror whenever he walks into the room so Jennifer “no thumbs” is left trying to hold both Ava and feed baby Tinsley (her husband was only in attendence for  the last 45 min. of the party because of work).  We had hoped to eat around 5:30 because the kids get hungry, but typical, the chicken Chris grilled wasn’t ready until 6:45.  Luckily, they say it was worth the wait.  And, I think even despite the wipeouts, the crying children, the chaos of kids, everyone had a really good time.  Pictures of the party are here:  http://picasaweb.google.com/chris.browder/HarrisonSFirstBirthdayPart2 
Harry went for his one yr. check up yesterday and was very average.  50% for height and weight and head circumference.  So, in order to prove himself, last night he pooped in the potty.  Now, he is anything BUT average.  He is very advanced.  Or, maybe his mom is just very quick.  Who knows.  But he DID poop in the potty at age one and 4 days, even beating out Camille’s first potty success record at age 19 months.  Also he did take a couple of wobbly but cute steps tonight.  Camera and video were unavailable at the time.
One final sidebar.  If you want to get license plates in Washington, I hope you have a lot of patience.  It took Chris and I 2 days and  3 trips to the licensing office to accomplish this seemingly simple task.  I went to the licensing office, but was “unauthorized”.  I am not on the title.  I am just the wife.  It seems like I am never authorized for anything.  I can’t even call to find out the balance on our health related flexible spending account because Chris is the employee.  I am not authorized to provide information regarding our children’s college funds.  I am NOBODY.  Why do I have all of the responsibility and none of the authority?  Can someone please answer me that?

3 hours ago I put Harry down for a nap.  In 3 hours I could have accomplished a tremendous amount.  But instead I have squandered them away, waiting for him to wake up.  He already took a 2 1/2 hour nap this morning…why would he sleep 3  more hours??  Because he knows I am waiting for him.  He senses these things.  He must hear me tapping my finger.  Puttering around the house doing quick meaningless tasks to kill time.  How does he know??
I wandered around the kitchen aimlessly, contemplating what to have for dinner.  We have plenty of food, but nothing “dinner worthy”.  I put in a yoga video… but, by the time I go upstairs to change out of my jeans and get my outfit on he’ll have woken up.  So I blog….OH, funny.  He is now awake.  He must have heard the typing of the keys…
Maybe I’ll blog about the weeks events tonight, or maybe Harry will be up past my bedtime because he slept too long.  Maybe I’ll let him blog next.

Harrison Driving

Hi. This is Chris. Until Emily catches up on Harrison’s two birthday parties and a weekend of activities, I’ve got a funny little video to share from today.

Harry turns 1 on Thurs. and cousin Zack turned 1 last Sunday.   Bits, Zack & Andy came up to celebrate the b-days over the weekend.  Take a look at Harry below, with an empty plate.  His cupcake was devoured in 10 seconds, and so he decided to go ahead and help his cousin who is rather tentative with new foods.  ALL the better says Harry.  The more cupcake for me.   Of course, he had to fight his sisters for it.  We are all like vultures around here.  “Gonna eat that?” seems to be our motto.  Bits is envious that Harry is a good eater.  But geez, around here you better eat it or someone else will.  Harry is on to us too.  He doesn’t want the baby friendly foods we put in front of him, he wants what we are eating, including the plate or bowl and utensils.  We are having 2 other families over for dinner on Harry’s b-day.  This is a joke.  Chris and I can barely get dinner for ourselves and the kids, let alone 10 additional people.  I’m not sure what we were thinking doing this on a school/work night, but this was the only time everyone could come.  SO, if you call to wish him a happy b-day and no one answers the phone, it is because in typical fashion, I am running around like a chicken with my head cut off trying to clean up, make food, and keep the kids from destroying any progress I make.

From Harrison’s First Birthday

 In other news, Chris had a review at Amazon last week.  I read it and was thoroughly impressed by the comments made about him.  Things like “Chris is a rock-solid project manager with excellent communication and client skills who can find his feet quickly and securely in a complex environment.”  “Chris is agile in his work…makes smart decisions and reacts to change well”.  “Within months of starting ,Chris is managing the largest project to date” within his group (Amazon Enterprise Solutions).  I was thrilled to hear he is doing so well.  In this fragile economy, I need him to be needed.  He actually exceeded their admitedly high expectations.  This is good.
One other picture just because I’m running out of time to blog and this picture says a thousand words:

From Harrison’s First Birthday

More pictures from the boys’ party and the tub here:  http://picasaweb.google.com/chris.browder/HarrisonSFirstBirthday#
Oh, and thanks to Chris for giving up his computer for an hour so I could blog.