Drivin' the RV with Nana

The Kids

Here is a picture of the kids from last Sunday

Sara Sleeps Well

Sara is sleeping very well. In fact, she has almost from the beginning. What I mean by "sleeps well" is that she typically falls asleep about 8:30 in the evening, sleeps until 2 or 2:30 am, eats, and then goes back to sleep until 5:30 or 6 am. That's pretty good for a newborn.

Seth, as I recall, was up every two hours for about six months.

I think part of the difference is that Debbie and I were listening for every little noise that Seth made when he was sleeping. We called it re-binkying. He would fuss a little then we would crawl out of bed and pop the binky back in. With Sara we have been allowing her to go back to sleep on her own when she is not needing to be fed. That has worked fairly well for her and I think she sleeps longer at night because of it. Also, Sara is much less reliant on the binky than Seth was. In fact, most of the time she doesn't want it and spits it out almost instantly, or cries in a "get that thing out of my face" way. We're good with that.

Father's Day

It's been a good Father's Day so far. The kids are napping now. I went over to M+D's to get some day lilies and then I fixed a broken phone jack.

Debbie made spinach quiche for breakfast. It was very good. Tonight we go back over to the parents for dinner.

Family Dinner

Cresses headed off on their next cross country adventure yesterday. They set out in the RV about 9:30 am and will do a lot of touring as they work their way home.

We sat down to dinner last night, just the four of us, and it occurred to me that this was the first time we have had dinner with our little family. It was good.

Travel and whatnot

Wait.. is "whatnot" actually a word? I wrote that title without thinking much about it. I was just going to do a quick post about my trips to Raleigh and Seattle. Then I got to thinking and whatnot (there it is again) and was wondering if was actually a word. Maybe it's just filler like yada yada, or blah blah or aaaanyway (which I really think means I'm sick of talking about this, but I don't know how to stop)

We spend a lot of time stuffing our writing and conversation with things like that. It gives us structure, and filler when we think too slowly, and clues to where the conversation might go and a way to include all of the stuff we want to say without really saying it.

I also notice that I pick up crutches every now and then. Word patterns that I use, but I'm not sure why.

EXAMPLES:

"The upshot of that is..." Huh? Explain what that means
"To be completely honest...: As if I was not being completely honest before
"In general..." especially useful for highlighting something specific

I'm sure I'll think of more after I post this.

Aaanyway, leave a comment with other crutches that you know, or use, or whatnot.

Seth holding Sara for the first time

Seth holding Sara for the first time

Finally, a picture!

Here is Sara in the hospital. 1 Day old.

All Night Long

Sara was wide awake a good bit of last night. Or at least it seemed like it. She didn't really fuss much, she was just awake. For about Three hours. After Debbie fed her and held her and walked her for a long time I took over and did the same, except for the feeding part. In the end Debbie fed her again and she went to sleep about 4:30 or so.

Most of the time that I had her she was wide awake and gazing around. I can't say that she was actually looking at things because I'm not sure how far see can see, but she appeared to be watching out the living room window for a while. I did some laps around the kitchen/living room/dining room, sat on the couch, up the stairs, changed the diaper; the whole routine. Still, she stayed wide awake.

If she had been crying the whole time it would have been really hard, but because she was content to just hang out it wasn't all that bad.

One week old

Yesterday Sara was one week old. I decided to look back at what I wrote when Seth was a week old just to compare my thoughts and they are remarkably the same. I have been back to work a little longer, but this is my first day to be in Silver Spring. I couldn't work at home then like I can now.

We constantly try to compare Seth and Sara. I suppose that is because it Seth is our only frame of reference for what Sara is doing. We think we remember what Seth was like at this age, but all I really remember is how happy we were to have him. We feel the same way about Sara. I suppose they are fairly comparable as newborns. What is most remarkable is that Seth went from being really small to comparatively big overnight.

The most noticeable thing is that Seth talks, which we have kind of gotten used to, and Sara doesn't. I mean Seth really talks: Tells stories, expresses ideas, challenges us, asks questions, gives answers. Sara does not. Sara sleeps, grunts when she wants to eat, cries when she needs a new diaper, gazes around the room when she is awake. She is more and more alert every day which is interesting. You can actually see her vision getting better as she locks on to things that are farther from her.

Last evening I sat on the couch and read to Seth while holding Sara. I plan to do that a lot more.