What's New?

Mama has gone back into "real writing" mode, aka, trying to get some work done so maybe she can graduate one of these days. Ergo, blog posting has been light. Also, Bry hasn't done anything exciting for at least the past week. Nada.

I could write about him sorting three kinds of blocks into three different bins, or the fact that he pitches in with clean-up before his bath. But that's not very exciting.

I could write about the way he signs "outside" whenever he sees a picture of a bird or how he can point to different objects in picture books when you ask, "Where's the car, Bry?" or "Where's the fish, Bry?" or "Where are the bananas, Bry?" But that's not very exciting.

Maybe I could write about Steve teaching Bry to take turns (or so he says) by having Bry send his spider and Bry Bry Jr. (Bry's doll) down the slide. But that's not very exciting.

Perhaps a discussion of Bry's newest developmental feat - tantrums - is warranted. But at the moment, I'm not so interested in documenting the beastiness that Bry sometimes displays when frustrated or angry. And I wouldn't put it in the category of exciting.

I guess I could write about the fact that Bry's been up three times a night for the past few nights (thanks, new teeth!). But that's definitely not exciting.

I know, I know, raising a child isn't just about the exciting stuff. But I'd be lying if I denied that Steve and I talk about most of the above in a very excited manner (tantrums and teeth excepted). Because we're parents and that's our job. It's a good job. Long hours, though.

The Trap

Steve here. Let's be honest- when it comes to posting blog entries, my dear wife has left me in the dust. What can I say? She takes awesome pictures and is a phenomenal writer. I just can't compete. Well, unbeknownst to all of you readers out there who have secretly (and not so secretly) been calling me a slacker, I have carved out my own little niche in the blogger market: It's a video of Bryson's first year.

Now I know what you're thinking. We've all been there, right? You get a dinner invitation from some friends and halfway through the second course, you realize that the invitation was a trap. The guy (it's always the male, isn't it?) says, "Hey! You gotta see our video from ______." Next thing you know you're stuck in a chair watching an hour and a half of shaky, nausea-inducing, first person footage of someone walking down some nondescript street, which happens to be completely devoid of anything even remotely interesting. Well, my goal was NOT to produce that kind of video. So I've been sifting through all the hours and hours of footage we have, trying to put together something people would actually enjoy watching. So, if you've read this far, consider yourself trapped. "You gotta see my video!" Watch Bryson grow up in under 4 minutes. I hope you enjoy it.

Are You Sure about That?

Me: Maybe we should feed Bry some lentils. (Can you just feel the excitement that courses through all of our dialogue?)

Steve: ...

Steve: Huh?

Me: Let's get some lentils for Bry.

Steve: Oh. I thought you said Mentos. And I was just keeping quiet, because, well, you're always right.

Me: Darn straight.

Family Portrait

Steve here. For a long time now, Sandy has wanted to get a family portrait taken. The cheapskate in me has managed to hold her off, though, arguing that there's no need to pay someone for professional prints when we already have so many great pictures. Well, as you can see below, this weekend we finally settled on a compromise.

What, Exactly Counts as Child Labor?

How to make Saturday morning cleaning more enjoyable:

Enlist the help of a toddler with a toddler-sized Swiffer.

Bry loved pushing around the Swiffer. And he did not want to part with it.

In fact, he cleaned not only the hard wood floors, but also had a go at the carpets.

Next up: teaching Bry how to do the laundry, since it's mostly his anyways.

Verbal Virtuoso

Bry has been steadily adding to his vocabulary over the past month or so. His language takes a bit of parental interpretation, however. It took us a while to figure out that Bry was trying to communicate with us, rather than babbling to himself, per usual. The following is a list of Bry's complete current vocabulary with translations (next to come: a complete list of my current vocabulary - what, no one wants to read that?):

• mama: hopefully self-evident
• dada: also self-evident
• kkkeeee: kitty
• babal: ball
• babal: bottle
• babal: bubble (you see how this gets a little confusing at times)
• dow: down
• uh-OH!: you guessed it, uh-oh

Steve is still working on getting him to say transcendentalism.

How Much Sleep Talk Is Too Much Sleep Talk?

So, is anybody sick of hearing about sleep yet? I know that after a solid year of worrying about how long Bryson has napped, how long he sleeps at night, how many times he gets up at night and for how long, and whether teething or illness or growth spurts or the phase of the moon might be affecting his sleep, I've had just about enough sleep chatter to last me a lifetime. I'm thinking about switching things around and talking about my sleep instead. Like, at what point in my life will I again get to sleep for 8 uninterrupted hours? If your answer is never, you are not allowed to comment.

Anyways, for what it's worth, Bry managed to sleep from 6:15 last night to 6:15 this morning. More accurately, he was able to put himself back to sleep during that time frame, since he actually woke up like 4 times. This is good. But I can't keep my brain from analyzing this and wondering what was the magic combination of events that allowed this sleep-a-thon to occur. Was it the fact that he took a 25-minute nap yesterday morning and a 10-minute nap (I kid you not) yesterday afternoon? Was it because we took him to the zoo and Steve put him on the super duper toddler wear down program consisting of a lot of chasing and tackling? Was the temperature in his room just right? Was he conked out because he seems to be getting ANOTHER cold? (Which, P.S. When do toddlers actually develop immune systems?) Who knows. In the end, my bet is on the short naps because Bry was about ready to fall asleep at dinner last night and although I've read accounts of kids falling asleep in high chairs in baby books, this does not happen at our house. Admittedly the short naps were our fault. Despite our best efforts at planning the zoo trip around nap time, Bry fell asleep in the car both to and from the zoo and snapped awake the moment I tried to oh-so-carefully unbuckle him from his car seat.

Here's where the debate really surfaces. Is a full night's sleep really worth the toddler threat level: orange that comes with what amounts to no naps during the day? Yesterday afternoon and evening were not so pretty in terms of avoiding melty meltdowns around things like not serving dinner fast enough and why are you going into the bathroom, you're supposed to be staying here with meeee! In all fairness, it wasn't that bad, but it's also hard to get much done when naps are nonexistent. Especially things like taking a nap myself.

I guess in the end (imagine cheesy TV voiceover tone here), the parenting lesson that I've been spending the last year learning applies here too. That is, we have no control over this, and any control we might believe we have is illusory. Sure, we can set up conditions to help Bry sleep as well as possible, but he's going to sleep or not sleep and we'll deal with whatever comes up. But I'm still gonna be crossing my fingers and chanting a good luck mantra for good sleep. Because even in the absence of control, there's always hope, right?

I'll Take It

Well, last night wasn't exactly a repeat of the glorious 12-hour stretch of sleep that Bry accomplished two nights ago. But he did manage to sleep from 7:30 pm to just past 6 am. And once again, our alarm woke us up just before Bry started chirping in the next room. I'm blaming Steve for the 10 minutes of lost sleep, since he was the one who set the alarm. Again. I suppose he might argue that we would have overslept had Bry pulled off another miraculous 6:45 am wake-up time. What he doesn't remember is that my internal alarm clock seems to be permanently set to 4:00 am, and then 4:30 am, 5:00 am, etc., even if Bry is still sleeping. Not fair. Steve must also forget that I poke him promptly at 6:00 am, and every 5-10 minutes thereafter until he finally rolls out of bed. Why do I get to poke him and force him out of bed first? Because I've been up and nursing since 4:30 am, or just up, thinking, "Why does Steve breathe so loudly?" That's why.

Holding Our Collective Breath

So. I'm almost chicken enough to avoid posting this, lest Bry decide to never do it again. But the excitement is too hard to contain, so here goes:

Bry slept for 12 HOURS STRAIGHT in his crib last night. This is unprecedented, unheard of, etc. Granted, he woke Steve and I up for a few minutes around 4 am when he woke up fussing. But, he wasn't indignant, as he usually is at that hour (I feel you on that one, Bry). And then he managed to go back to sleep on his own, which has happened on some rare occasions in the past, but never when he wakes up after 2 am.

This morning, the alarm that Steve sets every evening (for which I've secretly made fun of him because since when have we needed an alarm?) actually woke us up before Bry did. This was stunning for the first few moments, and then delightful, and then two heartbeats later, frightening. Surely it would take some horrible accident for Bry to still be quiet at 6 am. However, it wasn't frightening enough to rouse either Steve or I from bed, where we stayed for another wonderful, guilty 30 minutes before the dawning realization of how late we were going to be started to strike.

Bry woke up several minutes after we started rustling about the house. I went into the nursery to find him standing at the side of his crib, per usual, but looking a bit bewildered, as if he was thinking, "What are those rays of light coming in through my windows? This can't be right. It's usually much darker when I'm starting my day."

Let's keep up the trend, okay Bry?

Babies for Hillary*

This afternoon was kind of dragging when I discovered an email announcing that Hillary Clinton was going to visit Augsburg College today for a pre-Super Tuesday rally. Since we missed out on tickets for Barack Obama's visit yesterday, we decided we might as well go check out his opposition. The doors opened at 2:00 for the rally, which was scheduled for 4:00. We arrived around 3:00 to find a line snaking around the block. Steve worked some magic (i.e., played the baby card) with one of the event staff near the front of the line and we got to sneak in ahead of a bunch of people who apparently didn't look quite as cold as Bry must have.

The event was held in the gym at Augsburg, and there was a respectable crowd assembled by the time we arrived. The bleachers were full of people who had been waiting since 9 am, so we stood amongst the crowd on the gym floor. At first, Bry was pretty overwhelmed by the sheer number of people. He clung tightly to Steve, but he started to warm up after we showed him the band and danced along to some of the tunes. A reporter from the Pioneer Press took down our names and asked us why we brought Bry along. Steve and I looked at each other blankly, each trying to come up with a more quotable response than, "There was nothing better to do this afternoon." I muttered something trite about wanting Bry to be a part of history in the making and we said that we're Hillary supporters, though Steve is actually a Barack backer and I'm on the fence, but leaning towards Barack.

By 3:45 the speeches started. Bry was starting to get antsy by this point, but he clapped when other people were cheering and had a blast holding up his very own Hillary sign. At several points he clapped his hand over his ear, signing "Loud!"

I like universal health care.

Unfortunately, Hillary didn't arrive until almost 5:00, cutting into Bry's dinner time. We had held him off by feeding him cheerios, peas, and carrots one at a time for almost an hour, but he was out of milk and starting to get hot, thirsty, bored, and squirmy. We stuck around for about 10 minutes of Hillary's speech before ducking out to beat the crowd and the traffic. All in all it was a good outing, if only to indoctrinate Bry into the correct political party early on (hmm, should have told the reporter that). Don't forget Bry, there's a reason we dress you in blue, not pink (which is a shade of red)!

Is she here yet?

See, she's right there, in front of the flag.
No, really.
(Oops, we forgot the real camera.)

*Alternate title: The Post that Threatened to Give Grandpa John a Heart Attack