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things we are thankful for this holiday weekend

Chris — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 05:17:47 +0000

Family and safe travels to see them over the past two weekends
Children’s Tylenol
Kleenex
Naps during the day, because we all know who isn’t sleeping through the night anymore
Food – too much and too rich and oh so good
Bulb syringe to suck boogers out of a baby’s nose
Having a baby to barter for free room and board (Grandparents are suckers for this one)
Other travelers who don’t mind when the baby poops on a plane
Other travelers who do mind when the baby poops on a plane (I don’t like it either, but I deal with it)
Football, because it entertains Brooklynn just about as well as her dad when it is on TV

10 things i think i’ve learned

Chris — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 05:15:14 +0000

The first rule of having a well-behaved baby is that you don’t talk about having a well-behaved baby. She will hear you and decide that well-behaved is not all it’s cracked up to be.
Babies will spit up on you just after you put on clothes to go out in, regardless of how long ago they last ate. You can either change or wipe off the spit up and carry on with your day. It’s amazing how quickly you adjust to doing the latter.
As much as you value your sleep, a full night of it can be optional for months (or years?) on end. You will survive. Flourish? No, that’s crazy talk. But survive? Yes. Survival is possible.
Mirrors are one of the most intriguing inventions ever. Now, how do we get to the people who live on the other side?
Babies know when a camera is pointed on them and that cute behavior or adorable face they were just making? They will stop. But don’t worry. They will start it again as soon as the camera is put down.
When you come up with a perfect schedule for a morning, and evening, an entire day, whatever the case may be – it will not work out like you planned it. Babies are about the closest thing to omnipotent and physic that I have ever seen in human form. And they are manipulative as well.
An object’s properties of harmful and incredibly interesting are directly proportional. Also, the best way to investigate interesting (and potentially harmful) objects is to insert them into ones own mouth as fast as possible.
Mothers can never buy too many shoes for their daughters, even if those daughters have more shoes than their fathers and aren’t even walking yet.
Even people who weigh less than 20 pounds can feel like a sack of bricks after a little while of wanting to be held. The white hot burning pain of debilitating shoulder cramps is not an acceptable reason to set down said people.
Any behavior described in this list (i.e. typical, anticipate, planned for, expected, or anything else that might be “routine”) is subject to change without notice.

smarter than a 6th grader

Chris — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 04:31:37 +0000

When I was in school, I was good at math. I’d dare say (at the risk of coming off a little egotistical) I was really good at math.

How things change…

Smarter Than a 6th Grader from Chris&Rhiannon on Vimeo.

8 * 6 = 48, not 64. That only took me about 7 seconds, or over 10% of my allotted time. In my defense, the students only have to get a 70% to pass, so I was being held to a higher standard. Something about Rhiannon remembering how I think I’m good at this sort of stuff or something…

tale of the tape

Chris — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 03:22:48 +0000

It’s hard to believe that we’ve already had Brooklynn for six weeks. She’s grown up a lot in that time, enough that I look back at some of the early pictures of her and wonder who that tiny frail thing is.

During pregnancy, comparing the size of the fetus to produce to get an idea of size is a common practice, but it seems like that stops once the baby is born. I suppose this is mostly because you can actually see and hold a baby, but they come in all different sizes. Birth weight for Brooklynn is four weeks for some kids, and we won’t even go into the size of her cousin Jacoby.

Just to give you an idea of how she’s doing, Brooklynn is bigger than a pineapple…

…but not as long as a peacock feather.

She is (as of this evening) 23 inches and 11 pounds, 3 ounces. I’m still using my home brew baby scale which is much more accurate than any real baby scale less than $100. My second option would be to take her to the grocery store and put her in one of the produce scales for fruit and veggies. Maybe the people at the deli counter would help me out with some of their scales.

For now, I’ll stick to my kitchen scale – mixing bowl – cookie sheet combo.