Funny Stuff

So Reed has figured out a few new things this week. He clapped a few times yesterday, and discovered that it's pretty funny to hit your knee... I guess you could say it's a real "Knee Slapper"!

Mother's little helper

Good thing I'm wearing my camouflage jammies so mommy can't see me sitting in this drawer!

Really? I can have this frosting for breakfast?!

A busy week!

We have had quite the week! It started with the snow and rain last weekend, then on Monday, I witnessed Reed take his first two deliberate, balanced steps (as I'd mentioned before, he'd taken a few lunging steps before but they definitely didn't have this level of control). I thought maybe he'd forget about the walking trick for a few more weeks, but he's continued to take a couple of steps every day or so. It may still be a little while before he's walking all over, but he's moving in the right direction.

Then we had Reed's 12 month checkup. He gained almost half a pound over the last month, which should make our dietician relax a little (we see her this week). While Reed was getting his vaccinations, I notices a little white spot on the roof of his mouth. I felt it, and sure enough, it was one of his pre-molars. When I got home, I discovered he had a pre-molar erupting on each side. Then a day or two later, one of his eye teeth broke through.

Reed has also figured out how to make truck noises when he plays with his dump truck which is really cute. Especially since they are more of a high pitched growl than a truck noise. He's also figured out that if he hands us a book, we will sit down and read it to him. It's fun to watch him sort through his box of books, find a favorite, and bring it over. Very sweet!

And Sunday, we headed out and got a Christmas tree. We were a little hesitant about getting one because we figured it would be a fair amount of work to keep Reed away from it, but what the heck, we'll only have it for a few weeks.

This one? I don't know...

The top of this one is a little straggly Daddy.

Here it is! This is our tree.

RAIN!!!

I thought some of you may have heard about the state of emergency that has been declared for Kitsap Couty and I just wanted to say that we're just fine here. Despite the fact that we've basically had a hurricane here, Gerry is still going to barbeque chicken tonight!! :-) He wasn't feeling so well this morning and stayed home, which turned out to be fortunate as stretch of Hwy 3 got shut down which would have made for a long drive home for him. We decided to drive around town and see what we could see. Here are some of the more dramatic scenes.

The water in Sinclair Inlet was really high! This was taken an hour after high tide. Thank goodness there was no wind or the swell probably could have caused a lot of damage to docks like the Annapolis dock here. You can also see (kind of) in this picture how brown the water was from all the eroded dirt in the stormwater runoff.

Lots of flooding near houses. I'm glad I don't live here!

And standing water in any low area. This is actually taken from the foundation area of a piece of land that's for sale. Gerry and I have toyed with the idea of buying it. It's good to know that the foundation would be on dry land, even in a catastrophic rain event. Still, I don't know how well I'd sleep with the water creeping into my back yard. Incidentally, the tree covered hill in the distance is where we live.

The water here is pouring out of one yard, across the road, and into another yard. This is taken from the shared driveway of the previous property.

Reed had a good time riding around in his new "cow-moo-flage" car seat. "Check out my new tooth!"

SNOW!!!

It was still snowing here this morning so I got Reed all bundled up to go experience the snow. He got to see it and touch it last year, but he was so young, he didn't really react to it. Even though we got dressed and ate breakfast as fast as we could, it had still turned to slushy rain by the time we actually got outside. Sigh... he'll get faster at eating breakfast when he gets older, otherwise how will we have time to make a giant snowball/snowman (so there's still snow when Reed get home from school) before the school bus comes. Anyway, I took these four pictures (the first four ever with my new digital camera Gerry gave me for my birthday). I thought they were a funny series, so I'm posting them all.

Hmmm... I don't know about this Mommy.


Are you sure this is supposed to be fun?


You know what, actually, this is pretty cool!!


Okay, please pick me up now, I'm done.

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Gerry, Reed and I headed over the river and through the woods (okay, over the Narrows bridge and through Tacoma) to Grandma and Grandpa's house for Thanksgiving. Gerry and I have hosted for the past few years. I didn't realize quite how much work I was anticipating with hosting again, until my mom offered to host and a wave of relief washed over me. Thanks mom!!

We had a marvelous dinner, and Reed even got to have some mashed potatoes with butter as dairy is his new food for the week. Speaking of Reed and eating, he is finally back to enjoying one of life's simple pleasures, eating, which is nice. He stopped letting us feed him when he decided that all we gave him was food that tasted like metal (a result of briefly putting gross formula into his food to try to boost the calorie and protein content; one of our dietician's "brilliant" ideas). Anyway, it took him a few weeks to figure out that we weren't trying to poison him anymore. That and the addition of his new favorite food, saltine crackers.

And a few milestones, Reed has sprouted a top tooth and is standing, unsupported more and more often and for longer periods of time. He now stands for several seconds or as I discovered yesterday, long enough for me to take 4 digital pictures. He has also taken a few lunging steps on two occasions. I haven't seen him accomplish this yet, but I know I will soon!

Beef up the baby???

One of our friends, Luke, left a very good comment on my previous blog entry and I thought it warranted a little more explanation, partly because it may have left some of you scratching your head, and partly because it is an important issue.

I mentioned that Reed's doctors are concerned about his weight gain. But as Luke quite accurately pointed out, the growth charts that the doctors are using are inaccurate for breastfed babies. Most doctors in the US use growth charts that were produced by the CDC and were created from a sample of both breastfed and formula fed babies. This is an unfair comparison for breastfed babies as they don't tend to be as heavy as their formula fed counterparts. Breastfed babies eat exactly as much as they want, and mom is never concerned about baby taking the last ounce, because that's what he normally drinks. There is widespread belief that formula feeding may actually be a contributing factor in the increasing rate of obesity in the US. We are teaching our children from a very young age to ignore their fullness and continue eating becasue there is still food. (Feel free to add more here Luke!)

So, where does Reed fall on the CDC growth curve? He's somewhere below the third percentile. He misses being in the third percentile by little less than a pound (and falls short of the 50th percentile by about 5 pounds). The World Health Organization has created growth charts for babies that are exclusively breastfed (with solids after 6 months). On this growth chart, Reed is in the third percentile. So, is Reed underweight?

After our appointment with Reed's gastroenterologist and dietician, I was really worried about his weight and concerned about some recommendations the dietician had made that I felt were fairly drastic. To get a little perspective, I scheduled an appointment with our pediatrician. He had noticed Reed's weight gain dropping off, but chalked it up to his genetics (Reed will probably never be a huge fellow) and with that in mind, I hadn't been concerned about his weight (until I met with the specialists). This also made me more willing to trust that he would not want Reed to get fat, just so he fit the growth curve.

As I had hoped, our pediatrician offered some comforting information. First off, he compared Reed's weight gain with his growth in inches and the growth of his head. Of these three, only Reed's weight has been drastically dropping through the percentiles. He said that when they see this, it usually means that the baby just isn't getting enough calories. Considering the very limited diet that has been available to Reed, I would not be surprised if this was the case!

The second thing our pediatrician said was that, in the medical profession, they are trained to look for problems in anybody who falls outside the first two standard deviations (above the 97th percentile or below the 3rd). My response to this was, "somebody has to fall outside the first two standard deviations!" and he thoroughly agreed. He noted again, that Reed may always be small, but that it would certainly be worth weighing him again in a month, just to make sure he was gaining at an appropriate rate. (Have I mentioned that I love our pediatrician?)

So, I'll pose the question again; is Reed underweight? My thought is that he might be, considering the ultra-low protein (virtually no protein aside from breastmilk) low fat diet he's been on. As we are able to introduce him to higher calorie foods (that most babies would have been eating for months now) I'll be interested to see if he starts gaining more weight. But should any of us lose any sleep if he stays small? I don't think so!

And now, just because it would hardly be a blog post without them, some pictures!

Happy birthday and good news

Well, Reed's birthday was yesterday and we had a great time. We had my family and a few friends over to dote on Reed. I thought he might be overwhelmed by all the people, but he seemed to take it all in stride. He received lots of wonderful presents. This egg rattle seemed to be the biggest hit last night though (thanks Uncle Brian!!). The activity center here was a close second, although I think Gerry and I may have played with it more than Reed has so far... but he'll catch up!

It seems a little strange to me to have finally reached this stage. During all the stress of Reed's hospital stay after being born, I kept thinking about how, in a year, the nightmare of his time in the neonatal intensive care unit would seem like a distant memory. And now that I'm here, a year away from it, the memories are not as distant as I had thought they would become, but they are also less painful. I'm mainly left with the positive feelings from his stay, the love and help of my family, the wonderful staff at TG and the incredible feeling of being a brand new mother to the most amazing baby in the world.

Today, we made our way back down to Tacoma General (which was an odd coincidence, as it was a year ago today, that Gerry and I made our way down to TG to join Reed). This time, we were there to revisit Reed's gastroenterologist. The good news is that the doctor does not think that Reed is suffering from allergic colitis (apparently this is not a condition they see in older babies). Hooray!! This means he can start eating more new foods (although we still need to introduce them slowly just to be on the safe side). They are still concerned about his weight, so we're going to do our best to beef our little guy up. Thanks to all of you who thought good thoughts for us!

Sometimes, in all the concern about Reed's health, I lose track of the fact that the bottom line is that he's happy. Should you need evidence of his happiness, just watch the video below!

Surprise!

After months of planning, Courtney and I pulled a big surprise for Cammy, just a few weeks shy of her 30th Birthday (when she'll be so old, we won't want to scare her heart anymore). I "Ran to the Store", but in reality picked Courtney up down at the Ferry and brought her home. Cammy didn't even know she was going to be home for a few weeks. I think she was a bit surprised.


Courtney has spent the last year in Ireland, and left just before Reed was born, so this was his first change to meet his Auntie Courtney.

















I think he likes her! Reed has been moving around quite a bit lately. He's pulling himself up on anything he can, and is becoming a master of fooling gravity. He loves to walk around when we hold his hands, and is standing unsupported for a few seconds at a time.

What a difference a year makes -or- Halloween sneak peak

The picture of me was taken a year ago today, and the picture of Reed is from, you guessed it, today! I beleive this is the last picture we have of me pregnant (not counting the pictures of me in labor in the hospital). Exactly two weeks later, Reed was born!! I can't believe it's been almost a year already. I'll try to post another picture of him in his Halloween costume (it is ridiculously cute!) I was having a hard time getting him to pose today so this was the best I got.

The good, the bad and the beautiful

Hopefully it goes without saying, but the beautiful I'm refering to in the title on this post, is of course, Reed. We took advantage of the beautiful weather we had these last two days to get out in the yard and play a bit. I didn't get pictures of it, but his favorite activity was playing in the beauty bark we've got on the flower beds. We would carefully pick up a piece of bark, put it in my waiting palm. I'd then close my fingers over it, open my hand again and he'd pick it back up, examine it, and we'd start all over again. He's so fascinated right now by hiding objects and then retrieving them. It's amazing to me how much of his world he seems to understand now. I watched, astonished, a few days ago, as he tried to plug in the lanyard from a stop watch, into an outlet (which was safely covered of course). It wasn't even an outlet we use often, but he knows what outlets are for... cords!

There are two good things to report! First is that Reed slept through the night last night for the first time ever, and not in by the definition in most baby books which is 5-6 hours of continuous sleep (I slept more than that most nights in college for Pete's sake!) but in the, goes to bed at 7:30 and doesn't make a peep until 6:00 sense of the word. Okay, so 6 am is a pretty early wakeup call, but it's easier to handle when you haven't been up every two hours all night long!!

The other good news is that Reed gained 8+ ounces last month and grew an inch. We saw a dietican a month ago (for reasons I'll explain in a moment) and she was concerned about Reed's growth so these gains are very good news indeed. He's still a tiny guy, not yet 18lbs and just starting to wear some of his 9-12 month clothes, but he's gaining.

And the bad... The reason we started seeing the dietician a month ago, is that Reed's allergic colitis seems to be flaring up again. I'm back on the elimination diet (no dairy, soy, eggs, peanuts, treenuts, fish or shellfish) which is no fun, but not the end of the world either. We're really not sure what is causing the allergic reaction, and in a last ditch effort to remove the offending protein from his diet, the dietician is taking him off oatmeal. Needless to say, Reed will not be having birthday cake this year. I already kind of knew that, and was going to give him birthday oatmeal because it's his favorite food, but now, he can't even have that.

We go and see Reeds gastroenterologist the day after his birthday (Nov. 12) and there's a possibility that he'll have to get a colonoscopy if things haven't gotten better, and also a possibility that I'll have to wean him, neither of which are welcome prospects. I'm especially worried about the prospect of having to wean. I'm definitely not ready to wean, and I don't think Reed is either. Sure, sometimes he's a little squirmy about the whole affair, especially when we're out and about. But there are other times when he crawls into my lap, and puts his head on my chest, looking up at me periodically, until I get the hint, he wants to nurse. So, I'm melancholy and worried tonight. Keep us in your hearts these next weeks and we'll keep our thoughts positive. We've endured worse than this and come out just fine!!!

Climb every mountain

Or at least one... Today, Gerry, Reed and I hiked to the top of Mt. Townsend in the Olympics. As far as we could tell from the weather forecast (and I know all of you know how "reliable" those are around here) today was going to be one of the last nice fall days for a while. We'd been itching to get out for a hike, and we figured we'd better seize the opportunity before we're confronted with rainy weekend after rainy weekend.

Neither Gerry nor I (nor Reed for that matter), had climbed Mt. Townsend but it was a real treat! It was sooo good to get out. The weather was beautiful and the air had the wonderful sweet smell of fall. We could tell that there had already been some good frosty nights as many of the meadow plants were looking a little worse for wear, but in the sub-alpine, there were still bright red leaves on the huckleberries and the vanillas leaf and thimble berries were all gold. In the woods, vine maples added their gold color to the green.

We got views of Seattle, Rainier, Baker and once we reached the top, the rest of the Olympics. It was foggy this morning and there seemed to be a haze hanging over most of the Puget Sound basin which obscured our view a bit, even after we'd climbed above it.

Reed seemed to enjoy himself! He spent a good amount of the time just taking in the scenery, but also like to reach out for the trees when we were in the woods, so we took many little stops so he could touch the trees, rhododendrons, etc. I'm so proud of my little tree hugger!!

We're going to have to figure out a way to lighten our load a little bit the next time we do this. I carried all of our food, water, extra clothes, diapers, etc. and the backpack I was carrying was a bit on the heavy side (I even hesitate to say just how heavy it was lest I seem like a crazy over-packer). The end result is that I'm whooped now! Doesn't help that we're working on cutting down Reed's night wakings by not getting him out of his crib when he cries at night (we still go to him, but try to comfort him in other ways). Hopefully it will pay off, but for right now, it means that all three of us are getting a bit less sleep!

Happy Anniversary!

Gerry and I celebrated our fourth year of marriage, by getting a new dishwasher! A friend of mine told me, you know you're at a new phase of life when you're excited about getting a new dishwasher! :-) So true, and I feel a bit non-romantic about it, but we really are excited about it!

Reed tried to give Gerry and bit of help installing the dishwasher. He was most impressed with Daddy's shiny metal toys.

Soon Arlo got into the mix. Reed LOVES Arlo, and as you can see, Gerry soon had his hands full preventing Reed from loving Arlo to death.

It's up to you, New York, Newww Yoooooork!

Okay, for this post, we're traveling back in time a bit, but I just got these pictures from my mom and I didn't want to post about our trip to New York till I had the pictures.

In early September, my mom and dad, Reed and I, all headed out to New York (state not city) to visit my mom's side of the family. (I gave Gerry the option of coming with us, or taking the time to go backpacking and he seized the opportunity to get out into the woods.) I hadn't been to visit them since I was 2, and the only members of the family I remember are the few who have made visits to Washington, so my visit was LONG overdue! It's always been a bit strange to me to know that I've got cousins whom I've never met.

Once again, I was a little worried about all the plane travel, and once again, Reed proved himself to be an excellent traveler. I thought about bringing a few new toys to keep him entertained but didn't wind up doing so, but that wound up being fine as we were seated directly across the aisle from a 17 month old boy who was WAY more entertaining than any toy could be (time to find Reed a playgroup!)

We stayed in a small town called Hyde Park, which is in upstate New York. The town is conveniently located near the homes of my NY relatives and is also the home of FDR. The purpose of our trip was to visit family so, we made that our first priority!

This is my cousin Laurie with Reed on our first full day in Hyde Park. If you look at Reed's eyes, you can see just how exhausted he was. He did a great job traveling, but it took him the better part of the week to adjust to the 3 hour time change. He pulls his ears when he's tired, and he was pulling he's ears so much and with such force, I started to worry that he might be suffering some ear trouble in the aftermath of the flight. Thankfully it was just because he was tired.

This is the rest of Reed's generation on my Mom's side of the family. I'm out of place here as these are all of my cousin's kids. Can you tell I'm the youngest of my generation by a good 10+ years?!

As I said, we made it a priority to visit family, but we got out and visited some sites too. This pictures was taken on a day when we visited FDR's presidential library and museum. I know the picture is a bit boring, but it tells a good story. When we got there, the helicopter pictured, was circling over the grounds. We had no idea what it was there for, but my mom snapped this picture. Later, I saw a rather official looking fellow and asked him what the helicopter was about. He replied "Well, it's 9/11 isn't it? Heightened security...". With a bit of forehead smacking and "oh, of course!" from my family and I, we went on with our day.

It wasn't till later, when we were visiting the Vanderbilt mansion, that we discovered the real reason the helicopter was there. We overheard a couple saying that they had run into Donald Rumsfeld at the FDR museum on the same day we had been there! It was then that we realized that the helicopter wasn't for heightened security, it was for Rumsfeld, and the official looking fellow I had asked about it was (I'm almost positive) a secret service agent. I told Gerry, it was just as well that we didn't run into Rumsfeld as I was pretty sure that the secret service wouldn't have taken kindly to me shouting obscenities at Rumsfeld to which, Gerry assured me, that he would have flown out to New York to bail me out of jail. :-)

The weather turned from summer to fall while we were there. When we arrived the days were warm and humid (though not unbearably so). About halfway through our trip, the weather turned cool and rainy. It rained on us here, the day we visited the Vanderbilt mansion, and of course, us Washingtonians were the only ones there without an umbrella. Grandpa improvised here to keep Reed dry.

We did manage to make it to the big city for a little while. We took the train down and arrived at 11 in the morning and had to take the 4:40 afternoon train home to ensure Reed got to bed at a reasonable hour, so this was really a whirlwind trip! Here we are, right after we arrived, with the Empire State building behind us.

We decided that our first priority was to see Central Park. As a bunch of outdoorsy people, this stop had a lot of appeal for all of us. The bonus was that my mom had never been able to go through central park while growing up in New York because it was too dangerous being a favorite haunt of violent gangs at the time.

The other stop we made was the Empire State building which was a great choice as it allowed us to get a good view of the city. We had great visibility because of the recent rain and could see a long way, which apparently is a bit of a rare occurence. This was about as happy as Reed ever got while we were at the Empire State building (which if you click on the picture to see it full size, is not very happy). I know he was tired, and he may have been a bit hungry too, but I also suspect he may have been afraid of our lofty altitude as he stopped screaming and crying when we got back down to the ground.

We're back from the city at this point, and while this picture may look lovely and benign, this was probably the most dangerous place we ever visited. The area that we were visiting has one of the highest rates of Lyme disease in the country and we are standing in prime tick habitat here. Most of my family there have had at least one bout with the disease and in fact, one of my cousins was bit at the very park we're standing in and in the midst of her battle with Lyme, she told us there were times that she prayed she would not wake up. Scary stuff. New York state far exceeded my expectations for scenic beauty, but it was strange to not feel comfortable in the woods for fear of being bit by a tick carrying Lyme. I'll take Washington anyday thank you very much!

The other thing that is telling about this picture, is who is holding Reed. Reed got REALLY attached to my dad while we're away. Now certainly a part of this is that my dad is really good with kids (I call him the Pied Piper of our neighborhood because all the kids are drawn to him). But I think the other part is that Reed recognized that a very significant man was missing from his life and latched on to the closest one he could find.

Reed and I were in New York for 10 days, and Gerry left two days before we departed which left our family divided for just short of two weeks, which felt like an eternity. I really enjoyed the trip and absolutely fell in love with all my family there and I can't wait to return. I'll just have to talk Gerry into coming with me next time!!

We did it at a trot!

Gerry here, I figured it was my turn to update the blog!

Last Friday we took Reed to the Puyallup Fair... or as Cammy would say THE fair! We had a great time visiting all the animals, but Reed especially enjoyed this cow that we met.

















Then Saturday we went on an adventure up to Bellingham for my friend Eric Hamerski's wedding. I've known Eric since middle school, when we played trombone together in the band, and it was really great to see him, and many other folks who I've known since high school. Suprisingly, traffic was light getting up there (seem's like Everett is always a mess anymore), so we even had time to stop by and have lunch with Nick, Sara, Claire, and Adam. It was great seeing so many friends, If only we could always get to Bellingham in less than 3 hours! Sadly, Everett was a mess coming home again, and by the time we got on the ferry, were were quite happy!

Back to Horning's

Two weeks after we got home from Denver found us driving down to North Plains Oregon again to visit Horning's Hideout. This time, we were going to Northwest String Summit featuring the Yonder Mountain String Band.

Gerry and I eased the cost of the trip by volunteering at the event which meant that we got the cost of our tickets reimbursed. Here, Reed and I are working the VIP gate... okay, maybe neither of us are really working...
String Summit is a much more laid back affair than when String Cheese plays at Horning's, so here, we are, laying back!!

In the mile high city

Reed's first airplane ride was down took us down to Denver. Gerry and I wanted to see String Cheese Incident play their final shows at Red Rocks and so it meant a trip for the whole family!


Gerry and I felt more than a little trepidation at taking Reed on a plane, but he was perfect. It probably helped that at the time, we thought he had allergies so were giving him Benadryl so he slept almost the whole way (turns out he doesn't have allergies, thank goodness).
We didn't spend much time in Denver (we arrived on a Friday and left again on Monday) but we did manage to make a trip to Rocky Mountain National Park. Sadly, this was the only time that day we got out of the car! This is NOT the way that we would normally like to visit a park, but Reed fell asleep in the car right after this was taken, and we didn't want to wake him. Turns out that was for the best too because he needed the sleep, he came down with some kind of bug that evening that would send his temperature up well over 103 degrees! Gerry and I were extremely thankful that my parents had come along to watch Reed so that we could leave him at the hotel and not have to worry about taking a sick baby to a concert, or alternatively, missing that last String Cheese show.

Reed's first fort

Gerry's Grandma got a lady bug tent for Reed. Here he is enjoying himself inside.
Here he's asking for the password to get inside!

Long time no post

Okay, sorry it's been so long since I put anything up here! Our busy schedule and the release of the last Harry Potter book are to blame. I promise I'll make it up tonight!

We had these portraits taken when Reed was just over 6 months old (can you believe he's already 9 and a half months old?!). We wanted to hurry and get pictures taken before he sprouted teeth so that his wonderful gummy smiles would be immortalized. I don't regret having the pictures taken when we did, but we needn't have worried about him sprouting teeth. He's just now got his first pearly white!