I'm gonna soak up the son

No, the title does not contain a typo. It's a pun on Sheryl Crow's song "I'm Gonna Soak Up the Sun". Get it?? :-) As little Bun's arrival nears, I've been feeling the need to soak up as much "mommy and Reed" time as I can. As much as I'm looking forward to the addition to our family, I can't help but feel a twinge of sadness that I will no longer be able to devote myself completely to Reed. So, I'm doing my best to make the most out of this time!!

A week or so ago, I was getting dressed for the day, and Reed asked to nurse. Actually, he may have just been commenting on the fact that he saw mommy's "nursies", but when I asked him if he wanted to nurse, he said yes. So we sat down together, but he immediately squirmed away. But, he returned promptly with two stuffed animals. I asked if he wanted me to nurse the animals and he said yes. Figuring it would be good to let him see me nurse somebody (or I suppose something) else, I proceeded to pretend to nurse the animals. Plus, I thought it was really sweet that he wanted me to nurse his animals. But then he amazed me by bringing me my boppy (nursing pillow) to nurse with!! I was astounded that he remembered that the boppy was for nursing. It's been a long time since Reed nursed consistently and an even longer time since we regularly used the boppy to nurse! Anyway, the fact that he wanted me to nurse his stuffed animals gave me a little hope that this transition won't be as hard on him as I think it will.

And, for your viewing enjoyment, I'm including a couple of pictures from our trip to the Puyallup Fair. Reed's favorite thing was seeing the cows. In fact, we had to make a bee-line for the cow barn when we got there since Reed had been talking about cows for nearly the entire car ride! And of course, always fond of birbies, Reed liked the seeing the chicks.

Lake Chelan

Well, I've been waiting to post about our recent visit to Lake Chelan because I've got a really great video of Reed to post from the week before we went to Chelan. However, I have tried unsuccessfully for several nights to post the video and I'm tired of waiting to post these pics. I'm sure eventually we'll get the video up, but you're just going to have to deal with things not being chronological (I'm sure in reality this bothers absolutely nobody but me!).

We headed over to Lake Chelan the week following Labor Day. It was just Gerry's uncle and cousin and of course, the three of us. Most of the cabins around us were empty and there were very few boats on the water. It made for a very relaxing few days.

We decided to hike up to the top of Stormy Mountain, one of the taller of the local peaks. I believe the summit was about 7000 ft, and we started from about 5500 ft. The hike was less than two miles long (one way) and you gain all the elevation in the first part of the hike, so it made for some steep going. I told myself that I would get as far as I could, and wouldn't push to make to make the top, but I comfortably made it all the way up! I was pretty impressed with myself, and so were Gerry and his family. Reed LOVED the hike. Gerry and I felt bad that we hadn't gotten him out for more hikes this summer. He chattered the whole way up, pointing out the birbies he saw. On the way down, he took a nap in the backpack :-)

Reed made some new friends at the cabin. A teddy we brought from home that he was starting to get attached to became one of the best toys there, and a hippo that usually holds the bathroom door open was his other cabin favorite. Reed was very cute with both of them, feeding them, putting them down for naps in his playpen, making sure they got binkies and that momma covered them up with blankies. The feeding of his toys has continued at home. Teddy bear and one particular ball seem to have especially voracious appetites!!

Reed was brave enough to actually get in the lake this year! He didn't seem to mind the cold of the water, though he did gasp some when I got him deep enough to submerge his chest! I think this picture gives you a good idea how big I am!

Finally, another video!

It's been a while, so we grabbed the camera tonight and filmed a couple minutes of Reed, encouraging him to show us his vocabulary. We'll just let him to the narration...

-Gerry

First haircut

Well, I don't know what came over me today, but while I sat by Reed who was having a snack, running my fingers through his baby mullet, I decided we should go get his hair cut. Actually, I think it had something to do with him being called a girl numerous times last week. Usually that doesn't bother me much, but for some reason, the frequency of him being called a girl last week, got under my skin a little. I'd been hesitant to have his hair cut because he's still got his newborn hair. I just couldn't bring myself to let that get cut off! I'm still kind of surprised with myself. Gerry had taken the day off today, so all three of us went along for the momentous occasion! Reed did really well, except he absolutely didn't want to have a cape around him (you can tell in this picture). As a result, he got pretty hairy, but there are worse things!

Part way finished with cutting his hair. I thought this was just a funny picture!

And the finished product. He looks like such a big boy now!!!

Birbies!

Here's the post the got preempted by the last post: Reed's new favorite word and animal is "birbies"... or as you might call them, birdies. Or perhaps you're not the parent of a toddler, in which case, you'd probably call them birds (you probably sleep under blankets, not blankies too! :-) ) Anyway, whenever Reed sees a bird, he exclaims over and over, "Birbies, birbies, birbies!" We even have a book which guest stars some birds at the end. Whenever Gerry gets to the part of the story with the birds, it becomes difficult to hear him over Reed talking excitedly about the birbies. Birbies is also the only word that I can consistently get Reed to say on the phone, such is his love for birbies. We took the family to a picnic hosted by one of Gerry's coworkers who happens to keeps chickens. Reed spent a good part of the evening by the chicken coop, just watching the chickens; he didn't even care when one pecked his finger. I think when it comes right down to it, Reed just loves animals. Takes after his momma that way!!

This pic has nothing to do with birbies, but it's another one from our recent photography session with Kathryn, and as I went through the pictures with my parents last night, I remembered how much I love it!

Try this on for size

I was planning on blogging about something else entirely tonight (which I will post eventually), as I was looking through our pictures tonight, I noticed a great theme in our pictures from the last week or two, and I couldn't resist posting them all together!

Reed has hit the age where trying on mommy and daddy's clothes is really fun. I hadn't realized how often he was doing this, till I looked through our pictures.

Here he is walking a mile in mommy's shoes.

Gerry found these sunglasses in the street and Reed loves them! He always gets the biggest grin when he puts them on!

Daddy's hat still doesn't fit, but he likes to check every once in a while.

In other news, I had my 30 week prenatal checkup this afternoon. Baby bun is growing just fine and is already head down which I'm really pleased to hear!! I thought that I was feeling that familiar "head squishing my bladder" feeling and was hopeful that she was already in position. They generally won't deliver breach babies at the birth center where I plan to deliver, so hearing that she was already vertex, really made my day!

Grandpa!

Well, don't get used to the frequent updating I've been doing lately, but lately our life has been full of wonderful moments that I've wanted to share!

We got to have Gerry's dad stay with us a few days this week. It was due to the sudden cancellation of an Alaskan fishing trip, so while we wished it had been under better circumstances, we were thrilled to have him with us for a few days.

Reed happened to be at daycare when Steve arrived. When I went to pick Reed up, I avoided saying that we were going to see Grandpa because I was afraid it would confuse him (my dad only lives 40 minutes away so Reed gets to see that Grandpa much more often that Steve who lives on the other side of the country!) Those of you who've met Reed know that he is not quick to warm up to people, so I was prepared for him to be a little unsure about Grandpa Steve since they haven't seen each for six months. Boy did Reed surprise me! Grandpa and Gerry were waiting on the front sidewalk for us when we got home. I put Reed down and he walked straight past Daddy and asked Grandpa to pick him up!!!! Gerry and I could only imagine that Reed remembered Grandpa from when we visitied in January.

Gerry and Steve took advantage of their time together by working on putting in more of our bamboo flooring (and of course, Reed helped). They made a LOT of progress in our front room which was especially challenging because they had to level out the floor before they could lay down the bamboo. It looks fantastic!!

As requested

A couple of close ups of my belly henna. This is right after I had it done, before I'd removed the mud.

And this is a couple of days after removing the mud, when the stain was darkest. I was really pleased with how dark the stain was. Henna stains darkest on thick skin (like your palms and soles of your feet) so I wasn't sure how dark my belly would get!

Okay... I get it now

We had professional portraits taken of our family a couple of weeks ago. The pictures turned out fabulous, and were a good deal less expensive than the ones we had done a year ago at the fancy portrait studio. I happened to meet our photographer, Kathryn, through La Leche League. I felt really good being able to support a momma who I knew shared many of my parenting philosophies.

People are always telling Gerry and I how much Reed looks like Gerry. Reed and I were even at the grocery store once without Gerry and the checker said, "Wow, he must really look like his daddy!", this was without even seeing Gerry! Now for a long time, I could see that Reed and Gerry shared some features, but I actually think his facial structure is more similar to mine than Gerry's. So everytime somebody would say this, I'd try to say something gracious, but I was always thinking "Really? You don't see any resemblance between Reed and I?" But when we got our professionl pictures back, and I saw this picture, I finally got it! For some reason, I can really see in this picture how much Reed and Gerry really do look alike!!

This picture illustrates a fun new quirk of Reed's. He wants to hold my hand almost all the time. While we were at String Summit, he took to holding my hand while Gerry pushed him in the stroller. On our way home from Summit, he wanted to hold my hand while he sat in the car seat. There have even been times when I've been carrying him, and he insisted on holding my free hand! :-) I'm sure this won't last long, but it melts my heart!!

We got so many good pictures from our portrait session that I'm having a hard time deciding which ones to post. I love this one of Reed and Gerry! The best part about these pictures is that unlike the fancy portrait studio, we got a cd with high resolution copies of all the pictures! Yeah, much better than having to go back to the studio to pay for a reprint if we ever want one!

NW String Summit

Last weekend we made our annual trek down to North Plains, OR for the NW String Summit. This was Reed's second time at Summit (or third if you count the time he went when he was still in my belly!) and just as last year, he amazed us with how well he did!

I don't think there was a thing about the whole experience that he didn't love! He loved camping, he loved all the other kids camping near us, especially Robbie, Dave and Sarah's son who was camped right next to us, he loved exploring the campground and going for walks, but most of all, he LOVED the music. The whole weekend, he kept signing for music. Right from the start, he wanted more music. Thursday, we happened to catch part of a sound check, and when the band stopped playing, Reed said "uh-oh" and signed for music. And he definitely preferred seeing the music live to hearing it on the radio, or the music they would play over the speakers during the set breaks. Gerry and I joked that he was definitely OUR son!!!

I got a henna tattoo on my belly to show off while we were at Summit. I loved it so much that I can't wait to have henna done on my belly again! I think pregnancy is SO beautiful!!

Some cute stories

We haven't had too much new going on, but I wanted to share a couple of cute stories (one that I've been meaning to share for a while!)

A month or so ago, Reed was asking for something from on top of his dresser where all of his stuffed animals live. Not knowing which animal he wanted, I got down his sea otter puppet and started making the otter talk to Reed. Otter has been a long time favorite of Reed's (one of his first ever smiles was directed at otter). I made otter say various things, and eventually made otter say "I love you" to Reed. Reed's response was immediate! He reached out and gave his otter a great big hug! It was so cute! Reed usually reserves hugs for close family and the kitty, so to see him so affectionate toward his stuffed animal was a rare sight!

And the more recent story. A few nights ago, we were outside playing with Reed in the front yard. It was another hot day so I was letting him play with the hose again. We have a pair of rain barrels in our front yard and Reed really likes to help us fill a bucket with water from the barrels, then help us carry it to water some newly planted lavender. Well, after playing with the hose for a while, Reed went over and got the watering bucket, put a little water in, and marched right over and dumped it out on the lavender. He repeated the process more times than I can even count! It's so fun to see how much he wants to help with things!

Baby bun and I are doing well. I'm almost to the six month mark in this pregnancy! I can't believe how fast the time has gone!!! She's much more active than Reed was, to the point of being a little obnoxious sometimes. One of my midwives said that there's probably more room for baby this time since Reed got everything stretched out. The one upside to her activity level so far is that she doesn't seem to be particularly active when I'm trying to go to sleep (this is when a lot of babies wake up and start kicking). I'm feeling pretty big already and while I think that pregnancy is beautiful, I'm a little concerned for how big I'm going to get!!

Hot fun in the summertime

I hope all of you managed to stay cool over this past hot weekend. Gerry and I were singing the praises of having central air (something we never would have installed, but which was already installed when we bought the house) because Reed wound up having a pretty high fever on Saturday. Sunday he had no fever, but was definitely still out of sorts. We took him outside in the evening, and playing with the hose made him a much happier camper! You can see here he figured out how to get a drink from the hose. For some reason I loved doing that when I was a kid... it always tasted better I thought.

Why not let him run through the sprinkler you ask? Well, that's a good question. Earlier in the week, I had decided to take Reed outside and let him run through the sprinkler for the first time. We bought a sprinkler a week or two ago in anticipation of warm weather and we've had it out in the yard where Reed has thought it was a great toy (you can see it in the pictures). So, I hook up the sprinkler to the hose and turn my back on Reed to turn on the water. In classic slap-stick fashion, Reed picks up the sprinkler (remember, he thinks it's his toy) and looks right at it. At the same time, I turn up the water much higher than I intend to, and Reed gets sprayed right in the face! I suddenly had a sobbing little boy on my hands.

I felt pretty bad, but it was a little funny at the same time. However, Reed failed to see the humor in the situation and feels he has learned all he needs to know about sprinklers, and they are not for him! I'm thinking by the end of summer, he'll come around on the sprinkler issue, but for the time being, I seem to have ruined one of the great joys in a child's summer!

Happy Father's Day

Gerry and I decided that in honor of Father's Day, we'd pack up and head over to his family's cabin on Lake Chelan. It was wonderful to get away from the grey "June-uary" we've been having here. The weather at the lake was perfect (low eighties) and there weren't a lot of other people there which was a nice contrast to big holiday weekends when all you hear is the roar of motor boats. Reed especially enjoyed throwing rocks in the lake with Daddy. He liked it so much in fact, that he kept signing for water, which confused Gerry and I because that usually means he's thirsty. He finally started signing for water and jacket (he had to wear his life jacket by the water) to let us understand he wanted to go to the lake!

Reed's signing came in handy again when we went out for a boat ride. Out of the blue, Reed started signing for shoes. This is usually how he tells us that he wants to put on his shoes to go outside. Reed was already wearing shoes AND outside so we were momentarily stumped, until I actually looked at Reed's feet and noticed one if his shoes was off. We looked around on the floor of the boat, but then I thought, I should look behind us and see if there is a little green shoe floating on the water. Sure enough, somehow his shoe went overboard! Thank goodness for signing and for bright green floating crocs!!

And an exciting moment happened for baby Bun too. I've been feeling her kick lots lately and have been putting my own hand on my belly to see if the kicks are strong enough for other people to feel. Sure enough, I could feel them with my hand. I had this confirmed while I was reading Friday and she kicked so hard I saw my shirt move. So last night, as we were going to bed, Bun started getting active so Gerry put his hand on my belly. Not a minute later, she delivered a good strong kick right where is hand was. Gerry got to feel her for the first time!!

Sixth generation Washingtonian

Reed and I have been getting a little stir crazy with this rainy grey weather. Last week, I'd had enough of staying inside so we got on our coats, and I put Reed's new galoshes on him, and out we went. I wasn't too sure this would work because the last time I tried to have him wear the galoshes, he cried and refused to walk anywhere, but he seems to have warmed up to them now.

And just like the true, sixth generation Washingtonian that he is, he was even willing to mow the lawn in the rain. He even looks excited about it!

Avast ye matie!

Reed got ahold of a marker and styled himself a pirate mustache and goatee... or at least that's what I thought he looked like! I thought it was appropriate that he happened to be wearing his Mariners hoodie.

Reed is definitely a people watcher. I imagine that this is a fairly typical and important behavior for kids this age, but it can make for a long dinner when we go out! Reed spends most of his time at restaurants turned around in his high chair watching other people. We were at the park a few days ago, and after watching a 4ish year old for a a long time, Reed suddenly came over, grabbed my hand, and led me to the slide. I'd tried to get him to play on the slide in the past, but he wasn't interested. After seeing somebody else do it though, he decided it looked like fun. It was neat to realize he'd been learning while watching the other boy.

More movies

I had my 20 week ultrasound yesterday. What a change from our ultrasound a few weeks ago! I actually looked forward to it instead of dreading what they might find. My midwives let you purchase a CD and/or DVD of your ultrasound, so we bought both! I sure wish I could have done that when I was pregnant with Reed! Oh well... Gerry edited down the 6.5 minute movie to a few minutes last night. If you have the audio on, you can hear Bun's heartbeat at the beginning, then there's some music afterword (it wouldn't have been my song choice, but I wasn't about to ask Gerry to change it after he did all the work to edit the video down!)



And just to keep things balanced, here's some video of Reed. Our friends Dave and Sarah, reported that their son LOVES balloons, so we tried getting Reed a balloon last fall, but he was fairly unimpressed. However, we got him a balloon for Mother's Day and, well, just watch the video and you'll see how he felt about it this time!

Getting bigger

Both baby Bun, and therefore, myself, are getting bigger!

These are my two favorite pictures from our previous ultrasound. One of the nice things about having a really extensive ultrasound is that they use the 3D ultrasound technology for some things. I love how in this picture, you can tell that baby Bun's nose looks just like Reed's!!!

One of the markers they look for with Down syndrome is the length of a baby's nose bone so we got to spend quite a while looking at Bun's profile.

Here's me about a month ago...

And here's me today. Not as big a difference between now and a month ago as I had expected to see, but I'm definitely past the pregnant or fat stage! I had my first stranger ask when I was due this weekend.

Speaking of this weekend, Gerry, Reed and I all headed out to Brinnon for ShrimpFest again this year. Reed was fantastic!!! We had three separate people comment on how good he was. Gerry and I are so lucky to have Reed! We kept reminding ourselves this weekend that there's a good possibility that Bun will be very different, but it's hard not to expect a girl version of Reed.

All's well that end's well?

There has been a long silence on this blog, but I'm happy to break that silence today. The reason for the silence stems from some prenatal screening tests I had done a few weeks ago (which I now thoroughly regret). The test came back positive for Downs syndrome. I knew there was about a 90% chance that the test was wrong, but it was still terrifying and awful. I didn't want to scare other people with this news, which is why I haven't updated this blog in a while. We had to wait almost two weeks to have an extensive ultrasound which resulted in discovering that Bun had an even higher risk for Downs so we ultimately opted for an amniocentesis, the results of which, we received today (after waiting another week). The good news is, baby Bun is perfectly fine. The moral of the story?? Do NOT undergo prenatal screening tests! I thought that if there were any problems with the baby, I'd want to know before I gave birth, but I was wrong. If I knew early in the pregnancy, I'd just worry the whole time!! It was bad enough having to worry for the 3ish weeks that this dragged on. So anyway, please forgive the lack of updates. I promise I'll get back on schedule now!

You might be thinking, "Gee Cammy, if they did an extensive ultrasound, were they able to tell you baby Bun's gender??" And the answer to that is yes!

*Spoiler Alert* Read no further if you do not want to know baby Bun's gender. In fact, stop reading this blog altogether as I will not be able to avoid using the appropriate pronouns now that I know.

All right, so hopefuly we've weeded out those who don't want to know and now, I can tell the rest of you that I can stop torturing my brain trying to think up boy names (of which I haven't been able to think of one) because baby Bun is a girl. Yep, just what I was hoping for! Though the whole ordeal with the Down syndrome scare has put a bit of a damper on things. Actually, I shouldn't say it put a damper on things, it just put things in perspective, all I really want is a healthy baby!!!!

I'll post some pictures of Bun next time I blog, but for now, enjoy a picture of Reed. I needed to get some stuff done on the computer, and the only thing that kept him quiet and out of my hair, was to let him pull all the paper out of our paper shredder. He was quite pleased with this game! He's giving his "say cheese" smile... a little forced, but still cute!

Want more...

...butterflies. This afternoon found Reed and I, once again, playing in the yard. I spotted the first butterfly of the year and I pointed it out to Reed. Once he saw it, a smile quickly spread across his face. The butterfly left, but then came back in a few minutes so I pointed it out to Reed again. This time when the butterfly left, he started signing for "want" and "more". He loved the butterfly so much he was telling me as best he could that he wanted it to come back! It was just about the cutest thing ever. No pictures of the butterfly moment, but I do have a picture of this rare frog that was recently spotted in Port Orchard.

What the hail?!

There was snow on the ground when I woke up this morning. #$*%!! Then just a little bit ago we got some hail, followed by a mix of rain and snow. Really?? C'mon Mother Nature, it's April! Can we please have spring now??? (By the way, don't look for any snow in the picture, I took it a few days ago, but I thought the expression on Reed's face was appropriate!)

In non-weather related news, Gerry with some help from my Dad, and of course Reed, is making great progress on our new floor. It is absolutely beautiful!

And on Saturday we went to Ecofest in Kingston and froze our behinds off, but still had fun. And of couse, in honor of Earth Day, did a little tree hugging.