Daddy Comes Home

We were all so relieved and delighted when Chris came home after an almost two week trip to Saudi Arabia. He came home right in time for Jamisen to wake up from his nap. Jamisen, being 2 years old, doesn't know how to express anger very well so he threw his binky at his Daddy to say "Here's my most precious possession. I love you so much. But I'm also angry. So I'm throwing it. So, take that!" Within an hour, Jamisen was back to preferring Daddy over Mommy and he and Jamisen spent the afternoon bonding and reconnecting.

  

 Before Daddy came home, we kept Jamisen busy, busy, busy! From throwing rocks in ponds, to many parks (seriously, almost every park in Bellingham) to riding his faux-bike in the ferry terminal. This weekend, Jamisen learned how to swing with Grandpa Faiola's help:

  

We fed our beautiful (pooping) seagulls moldy bread. I had to convince Jamisen not to eat the moldy bread.

  

He went down the slide a gajillion times and was soooo proud of himself;

  

But the real highlight of the weekend was meeting Eva. Eva is an older woman at 3 years old. And boy, did he put the moves on her!

  

Despite going up on the stairs and going down the slide a gajillion times on his own, when Eva showed up, he said "Hold my hand," and the proceeded to hold her hand every single time they went up the stairs and down the slide. It was his first 3 word sentence (and really, the only other sentence he's ever said is "Help me" so I feel like we could easily say "Hold my hand" was his first sentence. Since it makes for a better story at his wedding, we'll make it so. Viola A bit of Jamisen Renoud lore born ... right before your eyes. You saw it here first, folks!).

  

 This little homecoming present for Chris made me laugh so much. A bird came by and totally drive-by shat, on a vertical window! How is that even possible?! Chris took it well and cleaned up the vertical window poo present with a sense of humor that he should not have had given his long, long flights. What can I say? Best. Husband. Ever.

  

Besides missing Chris dreadfully, I did keep busy while he was gone, hosting dinners and girlfriends. My favorite meal I made was French Onion Soup from scratch. I'm rather proud of it so here's a photo of the finished product (it did taste as good as it looks)  

And, this photo is just here because I like the way I looked in it. But, I'll make up some significance for you: Bramble Berry is doing a soap swap where 100 different soapers send 12 bars of soap each. Then, we mix and match all the soaps so the soapers all get 12 different soaps back. It's sort of like a way cooler chain letter like you used to do in 5th grade. While I technically don't open or sort the boxes, this one did happen to make it into my office so we grabbed a quick shot of it. Since it's one of the few shots you'll see of me without a double chin (past 8 months pregnant people, 8 months!), feast up.

  

Speaking of Baby Girl Renoud, she is doing great. We had our first of many, many fetal stress tests and checks last week (the first of roughly seven more 2 hour appointments) and this week, we start weekly ultrasounds for fluid monitoring and to check Baby Girl's size. She is a mover and a shaker. She loves to toss and turn, especially in the early morning hours and late at night when I'm trying to fall or stay asleep. The traditional pregnancy acid reflux has come upon me and I'm mostly sleeping upright now. For this, and many other reasons, we can't wait to meet our little girl in 6 weeks.

Mission Double Bob, Complete!

When our nanny (the lovely McKenna), texted that she was at the REI Garage sale and there was a double Bob stroller (cue: amazing, glorious, heavenly music) for $150 off, Jamisen and I activated our superpowers quickly. Normally, it takes a good 30 minutes to get out of the house. We pick the shoes Jamisen wants to wear. We pick the hat. We pick the sweatshirt. We get distracted multiple times on the way to the elevator. We cajole. We plead. We finally pick up our little distractable tyke and boom, 29 minutes after we started leaving the house, we finally get to the garage. Which starts another 7 minutes of distraction.

 
When I heard about the awesome Bob stroller plus Patagonia jacket in Jamisen's size, boom! I woke Jamisen up from his nap, took advantage of his confusion and tirednesss, and stuffed him in the car, and was out the door in 9 minutes flat, complete with fully stocked diaper bag. We spaved (spaved = spending to save) over $200. It was glorious! Double stroller!

We then headed to a delightful park where Jamisen wanted to climb the monkey bars and meh, I didn't say 'No' and perhaps may have helped him. This resulted in some blood but not a lot of tears. Today, I helped him learn how to put the food processor together. That also resulted in some blood but no tears. What can I say? The kid is destined to be an adventurous structural engineer. He loves, loves, loves to try new things, sort and put things together; he has all the makings of an amazing architect, bridge builder or moon colonizer.

 
Despite being more pregnant than should be legal, I remain extremely competitive with my NikeFuel buddies, barely staying ahead of them. I do a lot of waddling, and prego-lates (pregnant pilates) to get my points and also still lead the dance parties at Bramble Berry every day.

 
As Baby Girl's arrival draws closer, Jamisen has loved to hear more about his time as a little baby. I "read" his fabric picture book almost daily to him, telling him about when he was a little baby, his behavior, how he didn't have any hair, couldn't hold up his neck, couldn't eat solid food and all the other fun that is baby related. I'm hoping this helps him have some patience and his compassion for Baby Girl Renoud when she arrives in May.

We had a wonderful time with friend Sasha for a great play date. The boys played well together, letting me and Sasha's Mommy, Heather, to make a delicious kale + penne pasta dinner for us all and have some bonding time. It was such a great realization that our boys are old enough to be somewhat self-contained. I predict many more play dates in the future.

Happy Easter

 

Happy Easter Weekend! We have had so much fun spending so some quality time in the sunshine and blue skies (spring has arrived here in the Pacific Northwest!) and we can’t wait for the summer. This morning, we had a wonderful Easter brunch with Uncle Erik and Aunt Cheriss where we made delicious Easter Pancakes. We also introduced Jamisen to a new book – Peepsqueak by Leslie Ann Clark. He loves it!

We also took a little Easter walk and Uncle Erik proved that he is going to be an amazing Father when he takes that plunge. It was so fun to spend time with family - and we loved the extra effort of the Easter Pancakes. Thanks Uncle Erik and Auntie Cheriss!

No, No, No

Jamisen, our little bugaboo, is hilarious! He really is starting to talk a lot and make his opinions known. This morning for example, he only wanted seaweed for breakfast (alrighty then). This was his rain outfit the other day (because leather does go with everything, even footie jammies).

He loves to eat snacks (goldfish crackers, string cheese, and bread) and is less excited about actually eating real dinner or food with substance.

Chris has figured out that the best way, currently, to get our little bugaboo to eat anything healthy is this:

Chris *pretends* he is cooking something for himself. He sits down at a low area so Jamisen could surreptitiously steal some food, if he wanted to. And lo and behold, like a little thief in the night, Jamisen will run over (okay, more like a loud thief in the night) and loudly declare, "MINE!" and start eating "Daddy's" food.

He has eaten two very generous servings of the incredibly adult flavor profile cauliflower garlic pesto pasta (after Daddy said to me, very loudly, "He won't like it!") in the last 24 hours with this. We have a delicious chard and white bean pot pie for him to devour for dinner tonight so will try to pull this psychological trick later tonight too.

Still obsessed with washers and driers ... and, of course, tractors! He is all boy, despite us not promoting any gender roles at home.

 
Other favorite activities include play dough (yeah!), feeding the birds on the weekends, throwing rocks, reading, reading and reading.

Hammer Willpower

People, we have hit Terrible Twos. (Not that you can tell by the photos below. They are all happy photos but this is because we don't take sad, mad photos. We are too busy laughing during those instances.)

 

 Today, Jamisen threw his toy hammer. His Grandma (Faiola) asked him to pick it up. He refused. So, she walked over, picked him up and brought him to the hammer. She asked him to pick it up.

 

He picked it up.

 

And promptly threw it again.

 Yeah, that's pickin' it up alright.

So Grandma put him in time out. After his 1 minute time out was done, Grandma came over to the time out playpen and said, "Are you ready to pick up your hammer now?" Little bugger not only turned his back on Grandma, but walked to the middle and back of the playpen. She couldn't pick him up if she wanted to!

Of course, all the adults busted a gut laughing; we could not hold it in. We all had to turn our heads so he couldn't see us laughing.

 

According to my Dad, Jamisen takes after his Mama. Lord help us all. 

 

PS - This fun photo was taken at dear friend, Erin Baker's, birthday. The other baby is Sasha, our friend Heather and Sylvie's little boy. He is just 6 months younger than our Jamisen.

Preschool Hunting

 

In addition to house hunting, we're making plans for when Baby Girl joins us. Right now, we're thinking that Jamisen will go to preschool 4 or 5 days per week for 3 hours. The pre-school he's in is lovely but a little structured for his free spirit ways. So, we toured some very creative, very activity-driven preschools that will keep Jamisen moving, active and in a more free flowing environment.

  

He loved them both (that's him and Jason, one of the teachers, making giant bubbles). He didn't want to leave for his naptime.
 
One of the preschools had a bean playing area where the kids could sit in beans (dried lentils and black beans) and sort, play and generally have a tactile experience to remember.

  

We're going to have him start at 'Little Darlings' in November for 2 days per week and keep him in Hillcrest, the more structured school, 2 days per week. When he's old enough (3 years), there are a lot more options that open up (Montessori if we want, Loving Spaces, Waldorf and other school options) and we can re-evaluate again. It's all about finding the best school for Jamisen that fits him and his personality - and that will probably change as he grows (and changes).

Fevers, Shoes & Trips

Our little bugaboo got sick last week. He had a fever over 102 for three days. It was so sad to see him suffering. He just wanted to hang out, lay around and be in his Daddy's arms all day long. It was tough on the entire family. He vomited once but I'm not sure if it's because he was sick or if it's because he was crying so hard that he vomited. Little Dude was mad at me for not giving him his way (I think he wanted to play in the water and generally make a mess) so the crying was pretty intense. And then the vomiting happened. 

 

Of course, because this is the way the universe works, I was scheduled to give a talk on social media at ThinkSpace in Seattle. I knew that between Daddy and loving nanny McKenna that Jamisen would be in good hands but it was still difficult to be away from my little guy while he was sick.

  

 He got better on the 4th day with no more fever and the skip in his step back. It is so nice to have our little guy back. We missed our happy little tyke. He is back in such a big way that he managed to scare a possible new baby sitter terribly tonight. He was a total terror (screaming inside and running all over the place) while we were trying to interview. So, I gave him a time out and he proceeded to scream through his time out. It was not our finest moment as parents. Time will tell if she was scared off or not.

I am getting fairly large and the only thing that fits now is shoes - so I purchased new shoes this week. I love 'em! And, they fit, even while 7 months pregnant!