Sunday, March 27, 2011

Jamie

There's nothing like the sweetness of a brand new baby.  This is before the begin to spit up all the time and cry for 10 hours a day.  Even then, they're still sweet.  Now, even more so.

 
 
 

Friday, March 25, 2011

New Baby Boy!

 Our brand-spanking new baby boy (yet unnamed but we have a shortlist).  Born March 25th 2011 at 5:52 am.  6lb 12oz and 19 inches.  Perfect in every way!!
 
 Already sucking fingers those long skinny fingers.  His nails are long and sharp, too.
 Boy, do I look tired!  I also note here that Eric looks as though it's the middle of the afternoon and nothing's out of the ordinary.  Having a baby at 3pm after a full night's sleep was certainly less exhausting than having one at 6am not having gone to bed at all the night before.  I think if we switch birth pictures with new baby and Lucy, Eric would be the one who looked like he hadn't been to bed yet.
 
It doesn't take long to forget some things, like how to swaddle a newborn in a receiving blanket.  This is obviously an "us-job" and not one of the nurses here on the wing.  They have this kid wrapped up like a sausage.
 Lucy's first peek at baby brother.  When she woke up to our friend Sara she was really excited about getting to meet her baby brother and to touch him as well.  So far she thinks that I'm in the hospital to take the baby out of my belly so we can put him into her belly for when Grandma and Grandpa come.  Obviously the idea of being baby storage is more appealing than the idea of sharing any of Grandma and Grandpa's visit with him.
 So proud and in love with her baby brother ...
 ... until she got a cookie.
Wish us luck - the journey begins!

Thursday, March 17, 2011

Best Indoor Fun

Last week Lucy & I headed 30 minutes north to try out an "indoor park" for the afternoon.  I'd seen it advertised with bounce houses (our favorite) and had been interested in going for a while, so we finally bit the bullet and hopped in the car.  As promised, there were five separate bounce houses along with a McD's-like climbing playhouse, and it was toddler heaven. 

Unless I was missing something major, I have no idea how this place stays in business.  Tuesday was a two-for-one day ($8 admission), and there were maybe 15 kids there total.  Though the bounces houses are clearly big enough for a bigger kids crowd, it appears to cater to the net-yet-in-schoolers, open only Monday-Friday 10-4.  One thing I have come to appreciate in staying home with Lucy is the ability to bring her somewhere on a Tuesday afternoon and not have her fight for space with all the big kids.  But back to the business - where do they make their money?  Busy vacation weeks?  The cafe that sells hot dogs and pizza?  They were open for us to enjoy so I guess it really doesn't matter, but it did make me think about opening a similar business in Ames which is severely lacking in childhood fun sites.

The first bounce house Lucy tried was the giant slide.  From the floor, it looks kind of intimidating, but that didn't slow her down at all.  Every trip was the same progression: climb, slide, jump with joy at the end.
 
 
Bounce master Lu here.  This is the kid that week after week amazes the other parents at gymnastics with her trampoline ability.  She bounces high and hard.
The playground also had a ball room with specific instructions to not remove any of the purple balls.  Carrying both of these not-purple balls here made it near impossible for Lucy to do anything but stand at the bottom of the bounce house slide and wait for a friend to share a ball with.  There was certainly no way she was putting one of those down.
We were there for almost three hours, and the pictures I took don't really reflect the amount of time Lucy spent in the stationary play structure at the end.  The bounce houses only really lasted her about an hour, and after lunchtime most of the kids migrated away from the bouncing.  (Hmmm, maybe kids really do know it's bad to eat junky food and then bounce around like crazy.)  The pictures also don't reflect the family with two four-year-old boys that kept on doing things like hitting Lucy in the back of the head with a ball and lifting up the end of a bench to try and dump me off it.  It's kids and moms like that who have made me realize I'm not a particularly tolerant person when it comes to the behavior of other people's children.  Thankfully, at two, Lucy still has few enough social conventions to allow anything like that to spoil her fun.

Finish off with the best shot I was able to get of the two biggest bounce structures and a video of Lucy up and down one of the slides.  A truly spectacular experience.

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Uncle Ryan's Visit

A few weeks ago we had a visit from Uncle Ryan, who had traveled to Kansas City and took the bus north to Iowa for a couple of days.  It was really nice to have him here, and great timing because the futon I had bought arrived just a couple of days before Uncle Ryan.  When he was in the planning stages of the trip, I told Ryan that a couple of days would probably be enough to spend here with us and our boring days but I wasn't ready for him to leave when he did. 
Neither was Lucy, who readily accepted Uncle Ryan as the fifth member of our family, even going so far as to make up a song just for him: (to the tune of Frere Jacques) Uncle Ryan, Uncle Ryan, on a roll, next to me.  This is actually a modified version of a song that her training potty sings when she pees on it - Uncle Ryan replaced "toilet paper" - a great honor.

Uncle Ryan was a great sport, participating in such fan favorites as swinging for hours.  He even perfected the under-swing-push, a remarkable technique that went back to Maine with him. 

And toys galore.  Though not matchbox, Uncle Ryan plays a mean farm ... or ... I think that Lucy and Uncle Ryan are really engaged in some parallel play here.  I guess I know who's getting the Little People building blocks for his 29th birthday this year!
Thanks for coming, Ryan.  You're welcome again any time!