Oh Yeah, I Have a Blog

Whew, it's been awhile. We've been off cavorting in Wisconsin, visiting Nana and Gong-Gong for the past week and a half. Now that we're back and the laundry is done, I figured I could settle in to do some blog writing. The only problem is that pesky "real" work keeps getting in the way. So it goes. I figure I'll make up for lost time with this post and just ramble on about a mishmash of stuff that has happened over the past few weeks.

First things first, Bry had his 18-month well checkup just before we left for Wisconsin. He measured in at 32.5 inches (60th percentile) and 25.5 pounds (50th percentile). I've lost track of his head measurements at this point, but I think it was in the 60th percentile too. I feel OK about not documenting this one piece of trivia about Bry's life, because unlike everything else on this blog, I can't imagine that knowing his head size at 18 months is really going to help him out down the line. Information like this, however, is quite useful.

Bry had a blast in Wisconsin, once he acclimated to his new digs. Gong-Gong apparently spent about 6 hours creating blackout shades for Uncle Tim's room (where Bry slept) out of a bed sheet and garbage bags the day before we arrived. They were quite effective. At night, I couldn't see three inches in front of my face. And surprise of all surprises, Bry continued to sleep through the night while we were there, though he managed to wake up between 5:00 and 5:30 most mornings. Although Bry's naps got all out of whack while we were there, he mostly did OK with sleep, which makes me want to (very cautiously) say that we seem to have rounded a corner regarding Bry's sleep. He gets it, for the most part. Finally. After only a year and a half of waiting for him to figure out the very simple equation that many 6-month old babies have mastered: more sleep = less cranky + more fun + better rested, more pleasant mama and daddy.

But enough about sleep. We pretty much had wall-to-wall fun while visiting the grandparents. A trip to the zoo, a visit to the children's museum, playing in the sandbox, swinging, running through the sprinkler, and hours upon hours watering the flowers with Gong-Gong and cooking with Nana rounded out our time in Wisconsin. Steve and Gong-Gong refurbished a play kitchen that my mother's father had built for her when she was little, and that I played with as a child as well. After verifying that it was lead paint free, Bry went to town stacking all kinds of things in the cupboards and cooking up a storm on what technically was the counter. But that's what an imagination is for, right?

The highlights of the zoo visit included petting Omar the camel, feeding the goats (the quintessential childhood zoo experience), watching the penguins and seals, and pointing out every single sprinkler on the zoo grounds. I gotta hand it to the kid - he is dedicated to the pursuit of noticing water in any form (rivers, lakes, sprinklers, puddles) and insisting that he go IN! IN! The disappointment that follows our usual response, for example, "Um, no Bry, you can't go in the seal tank" is monumental.

Along the lines of all things liquid, Bry also finally figured out how to use a straw for the first time in the cheese state.* Random, I know. But significant in that following his discovery of differential pressures, Bry has become crazy about straws. This is nice, in that he can just drink from our water cups if we don't have a sippy cup for him. This is also disastrous, in that he always wants to drink from our cups at such a rate as to inevitably lead to coughing, sputtering, and spilling of water everywhere. Also, less water for us. Amusingly, Bry believes that there are only two beverage options: water and milk, since these are the only two that he has ever had. (I tried juice twice. The response was an emphatic no.) So he identifies soda as water and beer as water and so on. We have yet to disavow him of this notion because it prevents the unsightly scene that is sure to follow when he discovers that we have something (e.g., soda, beer) that he can't have. For some reason, one night when we were having dinner, Bry locked in on the fact that Aunt Dana was drinking from a red cup and Uncle Ryan had "green water" (Mountain Dew). In the days following that dinner, he continued to identify any red cups as belonging to Aunt Dana and all Mountain Dew as belonging to Uncle Ryan. I think Uncle Ryan got the better deal out of that exchange.

So anyhoo, that's about all I remember about our trip. I think any remaining memories were wiped out by the torturous drive home during which Bry napped for one hour and then pestered us to get OUT! OUT! for the remaining 4-5 hours. Good times.

*I don't care what anyone says, California is not the cheese state.