Firsts

I hate starting every blog with a statement of how I can't believe how fast time is going by and how long it has been since my last post. But geez. Is it really almost July already? I'm not sure how to even start catching up on every little detail. Wait, maybe that is a good thing - you probably don't want to hear every little detail, so I'll try for the highlights.

The only reason I am able to finally sit down and update this blog is that we are finally on a vacation. I am sitting in my brother and Tory's cozy (albeit slightly warm....although I can't complain, I have the swamp cooler pointed straight at me) apartment in Boulder, CO. I've been trying to get out here for years to visit these guys and we finally just picked a weekend and made the trip.

Camden, 7 1/2 months old now if you can believe it, did very, very well on the trip today. The rest of the day after getting here was more challenging, but he was a champ through all the transport. From the moment we roused him from bed at 3:40 AM to when we walked into their apartment he was mostly smiles, interrupted with a few catnaps and a few grumpy whimpers. Then he was placed on the floor and surrounded by his aunt and uncle and started screaming. No offense guys - his routine has been severely interrupted and he hadn't had a decent nap all day and then was placed in another new and strange place in front of your goofy faces? Who could blame him. Seriously, though, he became comfortable with the place quickly and started playing and gave them some good smiles. The rest of the afternoon was on and off grumpy and a lot of protest for a nap and his first war wound at the park (picture to follow) and finally he is down for the night (we hope). Meanwhile Carl and Tory are fixing us dinner and we are vegging on the couch enjoying some down time.

So last time I wrote, Camden was only 4 months old, and I think our major milestone was that he had rolled over. Well, he is now crawling with focus, he has 1 1/2 teeth, says ma-ma, ba-ba, ptthththththt, aaaahhhhh! pulls himself to standing on short objects (like the dog), feeds himself cheerios, raises his arms over his head when he wants to be picked up, claps his hands (and any other two objects together) and unfortunately has really learned who mom and dad are and will cry sometimes when separated. It all seems to have happened so fast - he spent about a month rocking back and forth on all fours, then suddenly one evening (about three weeks ago) right before bedtime he did this:

Shortly afterwards the first tooth came and things have been snowballing from there. Currently he seems to want to abandon the crawl, and move on to a mixture of bear crawl and regular crawl as he seems to think he wants to walk soon or something. Gracie is his absolute favorite target - his fastest crawl is when he spots her and decides he wants her, then he climbs all over her, grabbing fistfuls of her hair. Bless her heart, she is so tolerant, but the strength of his little fists can really hurt (trust me, I know as he also likes to play with my hair), and I can see her patience waning at times and spend the better part of my day trying to keep the two separated.

His other recent fascination is making noise - he loves to bang things together, slap his hand repeatedly on skin, the floor, a table, and pick up hard objects and throw them down on the tile floor to hear the noise....and repeat. He is eating well - his repertoire is increasing rapidly. He loves mango now, but the first couple goes of it he wasn't so sure:

The thing that isn't going so well, is his sleeping schedule. Naps are erratic in length - he will go from napping for 20 minutes twice a day one day to three 90 minute naps the next. And nights....well, we have regressed slightly on our success with sleeping through the night. He has not learned how to put himself back to sleep as he comes in and out of his sleep cycles and now that he is so mobile, as soon as he wakes up he sits up in his crib, hangs his head, flaps his arms and lets out a pitiful, mournful cry until rescued and rocked, cooed, and patted back to sleep. On a good night, this only happens at 2:00 AM, and again at 5:00 AM which is when he is ready for food. On a bad night this happens at 12:00, 2:00, 4:00 and again at 6:00 - with one feeding somewhere in there. We are starting to get exhausted and exasperated with the situation especially when I hear about other 7 month olds sleeping 12 hours straight. When we get back from CO, we might have to give the cry-it-out a try. I tried one night to let him cry - my goal was 10 minutes, but I only made it to 7 after hearing his head bang against the crib one too many times.

So, major events since the last time I posted......first up, back in March I made a trip up to Gig Harbor to help out my mom after her surgery. To liven things up, my brothers made a surprise visit out to lend some support and for an impromptu family gathering. It was hilarious to see my parent's expression when they walked in the door. It was a pretty low key visit, so not much to write about, but my brothers hadn't seen Camden since November, so they had a good time getting to play with a slightly more interactive baby.

Teaching him the finer points of physics or programming.....that's about how I look when the conversation turns that direction when they are all together:


One of the many ways they entertained themselves with the baby:


A look at how exciting things got around the living room:


Shortly after, we took Camden on his first camping trip. We headed out to a place called Fall Creek which is nice because it is so close. Before going, we upgraded to a larger, car-camping size tent. We didn't think we'd be the type to get such a tent, but we wanted extra room to put all the baby stuff - the size tent we actually came away with is borderline obnoxious. The other part that was obnoxious was how ridiculously full our Explorer was. Why for one night of camping does the entire car plus a roof rack have to be full? Does having a baby change things that much? We'll try to do better next time.

We were a little early on the camping, as all the campgrounds were still closed for winter. We weren't deterred though, and found a nice rustic "campsite" off the road that suited us just fine. It had a nice clearing for the tent, an established fire pit and was right on a creek. We didn't do much except lounge around camp, but it was a good first outing for the year. Camden did great. And although it got quite cold at night, he seemed to enjoy himself aplenty.

Happy Campers:


Not a bad napping spot:


Corrine and the kids joined us - Trinity celebrated her 9th birthday on this weekend!


A cold night.


He loves gazing at the river.


The next outing was a one night stay at Belknap hotsprings, where Keith's parents were kind enough to rent a cabin for the night. It was a lovely stay, and although Camden is too young to go in the hot springs we got lots of rejuvenating soak time.

Lots of babies! Merv and Carolyn and their foster girls joined us as well.


Camden at this stage liked grabbing for tree branches and checking out all the different species.


Back at home, Keith, always on the prowl for projects around the house so he can "get something done" while I'm at work, spied a tree in the neighbors yard that just had to come down or our garden would perish. He received immediate permission from the neighbor to take it down. Now this is not a small tree. It is a very tall Evergreen that can't just be chopped down - someone's house would surely take a hit. In order to get it down, it needed to be topped first. So he started right off taking down limbs until he couldn't get any higher. Then in casual conversation with his friend, Pat, who has ten of everything, he was discussing the tree, and Keith was musing how he was thinking about buying some climbing spurs so he could top it, but man they are a little expensive. Good ol Pat just happens to have a pair. Great. Now my husband, father of my child, is set on climbing a 100 foot tree with spikes and then handle a chain saw while suspended by a leather belt. I tried to get him to hire it out, but he would have none of it.

As usual he pulled it off. My folks were in town while this was going on, so with my dad's help, they got it down safely and everyone's roofs in the near vicinity came away unscathed.

A little practice before hand. Mind you, my dad has a little more sense then Keith and this is about as far up as he got.


Keith on the other hand.....


Next up.....are you still with me? This is long I know, but I'm almost done. I think. At least halfway. Feel free to log off and come back later.

I had the opportunity to join Jenn and a bunch of lovely ladies at Jenn's beach house to celebrate another baby on the way and just some time with women (and babies). We try to all get together for brunch at least once a month, and this time we gathered out at the coast for a couple of days of as much R & R as you can get with all the kiddos. It was a lovely time as usual. Everyone's time there was staggered, but the weather was great and we had a nice walk in the woods and lots of nice walks on the beach as well as great conversation, company and food of course!

Jenn entertaining the kids.


Cadie's baby is on the way! Little Ian should be showing up in September sometime.


Beautiful ladies on a beautiful beach.


Camden's first opportunity to play with sand. Of course it goes straight to his mouth. Yummy.


I love this picture. Two little people - one interested in her food the other wondering how in the world that big girl can get that food into her mouth all by herself.


We've been saying since before we had a kid that we wouldn't stop hiking and backpacking just because we have a baby. We want to get him on as many outdoor adventures as possible. So, holding true to our word we set out earlier this month on our first backpacking trip with the little guy. As we do every year, we went a little too high up a little too early in the season and after getting loaded up with our heavy, heavy packs we only got a quarter of a mile in and hit snow and completely lost the trail. So, back to the car, and back down the road but we decided to drive back a different way. Big mistake. There was some snow on this part of the road and even though it was what appeared to be a small patch, it packed a powerful blow.


An hour later after lots of digging on Keith's part we were back on our way to lower elevations. Not to be denied a hiking trip, we found a trail along Hills Creek Reservoir that followed a creek and we hit the trail by 3:00, baby on my back with his and my clothes, Keith with everything else on his back and Wiley The Pug and Gracie in tow. About a mile in we passed a lovely campsite, but surely there would be more and as there would be plenty of daylight and it felt like we had only just begun walking we decided to push on. 5:00 arrived and there was not a campsite to be seen, my shoulders where screaming (by the way, when we got home, we weighed our packs and they each weighed just over 40 pounds), I was tired, the dogs were tired, Camden had had enough of being strapped in, so I said enough, let's just go back to the first campsite. Keith said, fine, you stay here, I'll just run up the trail a little ways to make sure there isn't a site around the next corner - keep the dogs, let Camden out and I'll be back in 10 minutes. Fine. It made the dogs very nervous to be left behind from the guy in front, and I turned my head once away from Wiley and poof, he was gone. As tired as that little guy was, he was not going to be left behind and chased on after Keith.

No luck on finding a site, so we trucked it on back to the original site and I fed the hungry baby while Keith set up camp. Things went fine, and we enjoyed some time around the fire. Both dogs were happy to be done walking, but Wiley, being a mostly indoor dog wanted nothing more than to curl up on his couch at home, and was very reluctant to let himself fall asleep lest he miss the bus home.


Trouble started again as we all went to bed. Camden was put to bed earlier on a pad made up of our clothes. Keith insisted on sleeping outside as he was sure there wouldn't be room in the tent for two adults a baby and a pug. So he curled up on the rainfly and I was left to tend to the "children". Wiley is a good camper....eventually. His first night in a tent is usually a stressful one and this was no exception. He won't let himself relax. He sits up and stairs at you. Walks to the corner and stares outside. Circles nervously. I finally got him snuggled up by me and we all were asleep. For about 20 minutes, after which Camden started screaming bloody murder for a good half hour, not to be consoled by anything. After milk, teething drops, and some Tylenol, he finally went back down. Then Wiley started acting strange and before I knew it he was puking. On my pants. The only pair I brought. Meanwhile as I am hinting that an extra set of hands in here would sure be nice, Keith is outside thinking he is giving the ultimate sacrifice by sleeping outside (even though earlier it was phrased something like, "I'll sleep outside. I like to sleep outside. As a kid we always used to sleep outside with no tent."

Heading out on the second attempt.


Baby and trees.


Breakfast at camp. Note the absence of Wiley. He did not get out of the tent (or my sleeping bag) until it was time to break the tent down.


All told it was a good trip. A good first run anyway. We didn't dally in the morning as we were all pretty tired and were ready to be back home, so we packed up and were ready to set off, but someone needed to have a nap first...


Our last outing before this Colorado trip was a car-camping trip with Jenn and John to Olallie Campground one of our favorite campgrounds on the McKenzie River. It was a perfect weekend. The weather was mild and sunny, the camp empty (as it was a Sunday night) and the food and company superb (notice how I always comment on the food...). We spent our time visiting, playing with babies and did one nice walk along the McKenzie River to Koosah and Sahalie Falls. Besides some broken sleep the kids did great and besides some more lack of sleep the parents did OK as well.

Lots of time together in the pak n play.


Blue water.


The camp dining table for the kids. Notice how Wiley has learned to strategically place himself below the high chairs.


Finger puppets are a hit.


Happy campers. It looks like Bea and Camden are looking at each other...communicating in their baby way.


Our little man trying to figure out what to do with his feet.


Finally, what else, but some more baby pictures....

First bites (at about 4 1/2 months).


Crinkly face.


Five Months old.


One cool dude.


Avocado is delicious.


Loved his first swing ride.


Grandpa on dog duty.


A strangely funny ball.


Six months old.


Must get the lawn mowed.


Seven Months Old.


Chasing balloons.


He loves the Cheerios and can scoop them up now with amazing speed and skill despite the fact he hasn't learned the pincer grasp yet.