Fall Festivities

Last week I was able to accompany Harper on a fall field trip to a local farm market. I was happy to go, but I also felt like I HAD to go because the woman there was so rude to me when I called to research the allergy safety of the trip. (That was one of the things that had me feeling so frustrated a couple of weeks ago.) How could a peanut allergy be dangerous at a farm market? This particular trip posed two difficulties. 1) The trip included cookies provided for the children. When I called I was told they were not safe for children with any kind of nut allergy. So no cookie for Harper, we'd bring our own treat from home, but all the other kids in her class would be eating the unsafe cookies. 2) There were animals at the farm market and it is not unheard of for peanut products to be used as filler in animal feed. (BTW peanut shells can also be present in things like top soil and fertilizer.) I hadn't been to this specific place before and called to ask questions about what the animals are fed. The woman I spoke with told me she couldn't possibly be expected to know. She did say the children weren't supposed to touch the animals, but she couldn't help it if they didn't follow the rules. Lovely.

ANYWAY. . . despite several potential pitfalls, the field trip ended up being perfectly safe and delightful for Harper. She especially loved riding the bus to and from the farm market. (I followed in my car.) It was her first bus ride.


Other than the bus, the hay ride was the big hit of the trip. Unfortunately for me I am allergic to the hay. It was a l-o-n-g ride and every time one of the kids moved (three-, four-, and five-year-olds on hayrides don't sit very still!) all this hay-dust was kicked into the air. The children were thrilled, and I would have been too, had I not been acutely aware of the passages connecting my throat, ears, and nose before the ride had ended. Today was the first day I felt even remotely normal - I don't see many hay rides in our family's future.

Was it worth it for this smile?


Of course!


We had been to a different pumpkin patch last week as a family, but a racoon or some other animal took Michael's gourd off our front porch. Harper decided her pumpkin from the field trip could be for Michael. She's a good big sister.


Matt and Harper enjoyed the annual gutting and carving of the pumpkins, while I happily stood aside to provide photographic support.


Michael, for his part, thinks he'll wait until next year to get revved up about Halloween.

Thank Yous and a Meme

I wanted to take a moment to thank everyone who left such supportive comments or emailed or called to check in after one of last week's posts. I know there are a lot of people out there who don't understand the whole blogging thing but I have found a powerful sense of community through this blog of mine and I am extraordinarily grateful for that. I still plan to write about some of the frustration I was feeling, but not tonight.

Astarte recently tagged me for a six things meme. . . I've done this a couple of times before and I'm too lazy right now to go back and look to see what I've written in the past. Hopefully most of these aren't repeats:

1. I hate to eat ice cream once it gets melty. I have developed a habit of eating ice cream really quickly because once it liquefies it grosses me out a bit.

2. Frosted Rice Krispies are my favorite cereal. Did you even know there was such a thing? They are very difficult to find. I have to go out of my way to get them around here, so I don't eat them very often - which probably isn't a bad thing.

3. When I was in fourth or fifth grade I slept over at a friend's house and we tried to get her dog to ride down the stairs in a sleeping bag. The dog was not thrilled.

4. One summer in high school I went bungee jumping with my dad on a family vacation in the Wisconsin Dells.

5. When I was a freshman in high school I was the "Freshman Princess" on the court for our winter formal. How I ended up on that court has always been something of a mystery to me. I wasn't ostracized or anything like that in high school, but I never considered myself one of the "popular kids." In fact there were many "popular kids" I probably avoided talking to because I assumed they were too cool to be interested in talking to me. Now I wonder how many of them thought I was just stuck-up. . . I'm glad high school is over.

6. I was a secondary education major for the first few semesters of college. My children's literature class helped me realize I really wanted to be an elementary education major. I think that switch was one of the better decisions I've ever made.

7. When we were young my sister and I took baton twirling lessons at our neighborhood park. We twirled our batons in a couple of parades. I was not a gifted baton twirler, but I can still do the handful of tricks I learned. Baton twirling tricks used to come in handy for impressing children I babysat. (One of these days I'll have to track down a baton and impress Harper.)

The children wish to remind you that October is Fire Safety Month. Make sure your smoke detectors are working!

Midwest Mom, now with more public service announcements.

Linky Love

A fellow blogger has given me an award! To be fair, I should mention that she gave it back in September and it has taken me this long to finally pass on the love. Thank you to Pam, from Life with our Lads, for the shout-out.

Now I get to give this award to seven other bloggers. Here are some that I've been enjoying for a while:

Moments of Sanity

MO Mommy

Swistle

Back to Me

Semi-desperate Housewife

The Muddled Sage

Learning to Love Life in a Tiny Town

The mission for the winners, should they choose to accept, is as follows:

1. Put the logo on your blog
2. Add a link to the person who has awarded you
3. Nominate at least 7 other blogs
4. Add links to those blogs on yours and
5. Leave a message for your nominees on their blogs.

Autumn Day

The first fall-ish feeling day in these parts and even I couldn't resist going on an outing. Fridays are not school days and are therefore a little flexible. After Michael's mid-morning bottle, I loaded the kids up for a quick trip to the arboretum. I was hoping there would be some pretty leaves already and that I might get a chance to take a few photos.

We parked the car and immediately stumbled upon this flower/pumpkin/bales of hay set up that all but had a sign on it saying, "Take your children's pictures here!"

One good thing about the age difference between Michael and Harper is that she is old enough to help hold him for photo shoots. Too bad I didn't get video, then you'd hear Harper saying, "Mom, you better get over here before I drop him!"


I am absolutely shocked that I got not one, but three pictures in which both of them are smiling. I have new hope for holiday photos.


Is it just me, or does Michael look enormous in these pictures? Harper's lap could barely contain him, he's becoming such a little chub!


The above picture was the last one I took of the two of them. As soon as I put the camera away I picked up Michael to put him in the stroller and he spit up all over my coat - so much that I had to take it off and put it in a plastic bag so it wouldn't get all over everything else. Fortunately I don't go anywhere without a few extra bags!


Michael was not at all phased by the spitting-up (possibly because it landed all over ME and not all over HIM) and proceeded to fall asleep in his stroller while Harper and I explored.


Harper spent a lot of time "climbing trees" but I think it looks more like she's practicing for senior pictures.



Little miss independent could hardly be bothered to walk next to the stroller. She enjoyed the adventure of taking different paths than I was on - which was fine with me as long as I could see her. I'm just glad she wasn't begging me for a ride!

At A Loss

Does anyone else find it the most difficult to write when you really have a lot to say? I don't put a lot of pressure on myself here, on this blog, because I feel like most of the people who read are genuinely interested in what our family is doing, or in looking at cute photos of the kids, and don't necessarily keep coming back expecting post after post of stellar writing. I'm sure it is painfully obvious that I often just hop onto the computer and jot down a few thoughts/stories about our days and then move along. I don't attempt to make each post well-crafted or masterful writing. So when I have something to say that feels more important to me, when I feel like it matters which words I choose and how I use them, I often find myself stuck.

In the last two days a couple of incidents have really worked up my inner turmoil about handling Harper's peanut allergy. It is something I want to write about, but it feels so big to me right now, I don't even know where to begin.



So I'm not going to write about that tonight. Instead I offer this anecdote from our Sunday morning breakfast:

Nearly every Sunday we go with Matt's parents to the same place for breakfast. This past Sunday we were sitting in our booth, chatting and devouring a feast of breakfast goodies, when Harper looked over and noticed a gentleman with a bandanna covering his head and tattoos up and down his arms. She leaned over to Ann and said, "Nana, I think there's a pirate here!"*


*Or something along those lines, I was too busy laughing/crying to cement her exact words in my memory.

What Will I Do With These Kids?

Earlier this afternoon we noticed that Michael had developed a nasty looking rash on/under his chin. Because of our history with Harper any skin disturbance immediately has me thinking allergies with a sick feeling in my stomach. He has always been a bit of a spitty baby and he's also been super droolish lately. Perhaps his skin is just irritated from all that moisture? We can only hope. The dog did get away with licking at his chin earlier today (usually we manage to keep the dog away from Michael's head!), but I'm not convinced it was the dog. If Michael was allergic to the dog, then wouldn't it also bother him when his hands and feet were licked?



He's not feverish, or extra fussy, or touching his chin, or having trouble sleeping, so I am trying not to worry too much. Our current strategy for the mystery chin rash is to keep an eye on it and maybe call the nurse tomorrow afternoon, especially if there's not appreciative improvement or if things look worse. In the mean time, if any of you recognize that rash as something we should be more immediately concerned with - don't be afraid to speak up!

Then there's Harper. . .

She had a lovely day including a trip to the park with Matt and many hours of dress up. At one point I noticed that the combination of her pink high heels and her rapidly-growing-too-small summer shorts had her looking a little, well, skanky. She, of course, thought the shoes made her look rather glamorous and clomped around in them most of the afternoon.




One of her Christmas or birthdy presents this year is going to be a pair of sparkly dress up flats! Seriously. She has already learned the dangers of the poorly constructed high heeled shoe and I am half holding my breath, waiting for her to break herself each time she wears those plastic things. I guess she's learning early that style and comfort don't always go hand in hand.


Harper was angry about this last picture because it didn't show off her shoes!

Genetics?

Alright, I'm still not totally convinced that my children look that much alike but I do see some resemblance when I look at the following photos:





The top is Michael at an adjusted age close to five months, and the bottom is Harper at five months. I guess it isn't a stretch to see that they are brother and sister.

In the beginning it was difficult to compare the two, because Michael's start to life was so vastly different from Harper's. Now I feel like I'm starting to notice ways in which Michael is different. For example, Harper has always been something of a drama queen. When she got upset as a baby, calming her down was not easy. Michael seems to get upset quickly, but he seems more easy distracted than Harper was as a baby. When he was so sick the last couple of weeks it upset his sleep some, but with very few exceptions he was as happy-go-lucky as usual, even with an ear infection. I'm pretty sure if Harper had had an ear infection at that age, we'd still be hearing about it now!

In the last few weeks Michael has really started noticing and interacting with toys/objects more. One thing he does that completely cracks me up is getting a hold of something and then just waving his arm up and down so that the toy/blanket/object slams repeatedly into the ground, first near his waist, then above his head. It's impressive. He also does this with a toy that is attached to his crib rail. It's a little dog with a bone rattle hanging from one of its paws. He grabs the bone and then starts flailing his arm back and forth, making the entire dog slide and the plastic link holding it to his crib makes all kinds of noise. This is what he does as he's getting ready to fall asleep. I know that Harper never did anything quite like it, I don't think it's something I could have forgotten.

As the next few months pass, Michael will reach the age Harper was when I started this blog. I'll be interested to see how my experiences with him compare to the experiences I recorded of Harper at similar ages.

Six Plus One

Somehow I failed to give much of a six month update for Michael. Probably because I spent a few days mentally knocking my head against a wall, wondering how this baby of mine could possibly be half a year old. . . and now, in a heartbeat, another month has gone by. Sheesh!

His six month stats were:

Height: 24 1/2 inches - still not on the darn chart

Weight: 13.6 lbs. - also missing the chart, just barely

Head circumference: 42.5 cm. - 25%, apparently, like Harper, Michael has a huge head!

Michael at six months:



Michael today, at seven months old:



Michael showing his displeasure with the attempted photo session:



We went back to the doctor today to get his six month shots. The obstacles to getting them sooner included illness and massive power outages.

Michael after wearing himself out crying over his shots:


Does he look like a chubby baby to you yet? Because, let me tell you, the boy has been doing some serious growing this month. The two bottles a day that had been mandated by our pediatrician were really messing with my milk supply and pumping was not going well, so we are down to only nursing first thing in the morning and Michael is taking bottles of formula the rest of the day. The special formula we have to give him is higher in calories than regular infant formula and having it four or five times a day seems to be having the desired baby-bulking effect. He's like a baby Tom Hanks, eating Snickers and Doritos to pack it on for his latest movie role.

Winners!

Harper now rides in a booster seat.

Michael rolled over from his back to his front (finally!).*

I am suddenly feeling a little like pressing the pause button on all the growing that is going on over here. I officially file the petition to freeze time and enjoy my children at their current ages for a little bit longer.

*****

Hillary and Ryan (though I'm guessing the prize will really go to Hillary!) won the Dar CD and Wondertime subscription from the latest pay it forward contest. Congratulations! Hillary is a friend in "real life" and I've known her since we were camp counselors, working together to fend off hairy jumping spiders in the Wisconsin wilderness. Hilliary will soon be holding a bouncing baby boy in her arms!

Heather won the second Wondertime subscription. I have never met Heather, but we have some mutual bloggy friends and have become connected in this big, bloggy web. (Heather, I'll need your info for the subscription!) Heather is Mommy to two darling boys and I know she likes to read, so I'm sure she'll enjoy Wondertime as much as I do.

*Just this morning I was talking to Erin about how it felt like it was taking Michael forever to get to this skill, guess he showed me!

Survival

Well the short story is that I survived my week of subbing. I actually really enjoyed the teaching part of the week, but it was a difficult week for being away from family.

I think Harper has been a little thrown by the sudden change this week and has not necessarily been on her best behavior. Michael, who had been sick since BEFORE the power outage, just got worse and worse. He's been to the doctor twice this week, once with Matt and once with my mom, and has been diagnosed with both an ear infection and croup. Poor baby! You can imagine that he has had some trouble sleeping and has not been in the most stellar of moods. While I knew Michael was in excellent hands this week, I worried (am still worried) about the fact that he's had a cold for over three weeks and I worried that I was leaving my mom in a really impossible situation.

I tripped in the parking lot at school and twisted my knee, which is now swollen and a bit painful, especially on stairs or when getting out of the car. I feel like an old lady!

Our cable company couldn't reach an agreement with our local NBC station and is currently not providing an NBC station. Isn't that. . . weird? There was some sort of dispute over money (of course) and neither side was willing to back down.

When Monday rolls around I think I'll actually miss the third graders a little bit, but we're due to settle back into a routine in these parts, that's for sure.

Back in the summer I received a fun pay it forward package from Paige and I forgot to post this picture when I announced the newest contest, so here it is:

She sent a CD, journal, necklace, fun scrap booking-type items, a bear (which Harper quickly adopted!), and a little set of fun nail polishes and lip glosses. It was such a fun package to open!
And I am finally paying it forward, don't forget to enter!

Thank you to everyone who sent prayers/good wishes for my friend. She is on the other side of her procedure, feeling tired but the painfulness has significantly subsided. I know she'll be glad to get back to her class on Monday. I am just honored I was able to play a small part in the chain of what will hopefully be a cure for a very sick woman.

A Request and A Contest

Okay, first things first, I promised you a pay-it-forward contest on Friday and it's now Monday. Maybe Monday is the new Friday?

(I hope not.)

We'll call this a "Kelsey's Favorite Things" pay-it-forward. The winner will get a subscription to Wondertime Magazine and a copy of Dar Williams' brand new CD, Promised Land. And maybe a couple of other goodies as well. I may also pick a second winner for a Wondertime subscription.

To enter, leave a comment on this post by midnight, New York City time, on October 6th. That gives you a week. If you don't know what to write, tell me either the first band/performer you remember being really crazy about OR the first celebrity you wrote a letter to.

*****

And now the request. . . I'm substitute teaching all this week for a friend of mine - I'm a third grade teacher for the week! My mom is here to help with the kids and Matt's parents are also filling in some gaps here and there. It is one thing to work one or two days a month and another thing to work five days a week. (I bow to all you moms who work full time outside the home!) We'll see if I survive!

The reason I'm doing this is that my friend is going through the process of donating bone marrow this week. She is donating to a complete stranger, a match discovered through the national registry. I won't go into the entire process, but she is currently experiencing some very difficult ("painful as h*ll" were her words) side effects and generally having a very hard time. I think she is making an incredible sacrifice with the hope of saving another person's life and it is amazing to me. I feel like she hasn't received a lot of support for her decision -- many people have just told her they think she's crazy. So I'm asking for all the prayers, positive energy, good karma, etc. you can offer for both my friend and the woman she is donating for. She doesn't know I'm making this request, but I'm certain she'll feel the power of your kind thoughts.

We're Home!

Hello world, we're back! Our power actually came on late Monday night. We spent one more day at Mike and Ann's, allowing the refrigerator/freezer to cool and give us some time to grocery shop. You can tell others have been doing the same thing (restocking) because the store was out of weird things, like butter.

Michael slept horribly almost the entire time we were out of the house. On a "good" night he'd wake up between 4 and 5 a.m., for the day. This from a baby who had pretty reliably been sleeping until at least 6 for months. The child must love his own room because I woke up at 6:30 this morning, having not heard a peep from him all night. I went into his room, hoping he was ALIVE in there, and he was just stirring. Let's hope this is the beginning of a new trend.


I haven't posted much this month, before the power outage both kids had terrible colds which, frankly, were no fun for anyone. There had been kind of a general funk in the air around here. I've been a little spacey and preoccupied, and have had a difficult time concentrating on any one computer task for very long. Many things are knocking around in my head, but I haven't been able to make myself write about them.

In the last three weeks Michael laughed for the first time, tried rice cereal, and had his six-month doctor visit.

Harper has been cracking us up with her knowledge of the presidential election. When we see lawn signs she always asks me which person the sign is for. She knows the names of the major party candidates and will point them out on television. She is working on the vice presidential candidates' names. She wants to know them, but can't always remember. Recently Nana and Dziatku bought a presidential place mat to keep at their house. She used it while we were staying there is now learning the past presidents. The other afternoon she asked us how Obama or McCain would get onto the placemat. Guess we'll have to buy her an updated version in '09.

She really, REALLY wants to know who I'm going to vote for, but I won't tell her. I've been telling her how important it is to vote, but that voting is a private thing and you don't have to tell anyone who you choose if you don't want to. This is driving her crazy.

She, by the way, would vote for Obama. She said she likes his hair better.

*****

Random aside: If you happen to know me on facebook, would you please tell it that I am the author of my blog! I think you can do that through my profile page.

*****

Tonight I am thrilled to be going to see Dar Williams in concert. I'm driving all the way to Kentucky (not actually that far) for the concert. Dar has been a most favorite artist of mine for a very long time. She doesn't play in this neck of the woods very often and I'm practically giddy with excitment. Tomorrow (or Saturday) there will be a new pay it forward contest which will likely include something Dar related - lucky you!

The Lights Are Still Out

So, anyone who has spoken to me in the last week knows this is official, I am incapable of talking about anything other than this massively ridiculous power outage. We had the equivalent of a category one hurricane here in Ohio, thank you Ike, and to say that we're having trouble dealing with the resulting damage would be an understatement. As I mentioned earlier, we are so fortunate to be staying with Matt's parents. I can't imagine living in our house which hasn't had power in a week, despite the fact that tens of thousands of people in this area are doing just that. Mike and Ann are being gracious, wonderful hosts, but I think we'd all agree this has gone on long enough. In our area, at least, the water situation has been resolved, thank goodness.

So how about some pictures?

A huge tree limb down in a yard across the street:

A large limb dangling from a tree at the edge of our yard:

Michael (miraculously in his seat and not screaming) and Harper, chillin' in the yard:

Matt, standing on the spot where we had a huge, rotting tree taken down several weeks ago, please note the proximity to the patio and house. There's no question that Hurrican Ike would have toppled it. We are so darn lucky it was no longer there:

Harper next to the pile of debris from our yard, it extends almost to the stop sign:

Harper and debris from another angle, we talked to the men who came in that white truck, a crew from New Jersey:

The family that picks up sticks together, stays together?

Harper taking a break, apparently picking up sticks is hard work:

We did some clean up today, this after Matt and his dad spent several hours earlier this week dragging all the big stuff out of the yard. Literally anywhere I stood in the yard I could lean over and pick up two handfuls of sticks. Enough tinder and kindling for hundreds of campfires! Earlier this week I actually heard a radio host joke that the firewood salesmen in our area were pretty much out of luck.

One of our neighbors talked to someone from the power company today and was told that it may be well into this week before we have power. Crazy.

For Jess and Torsten

Tonight I am part of a big bloggy bridal surprise thing happening across the country. A big internet toast, if you will.

I am posting tonight to wish Jess and Torsten all good things as they grow closer to their wedding day.

I wish them a beautiful ceremony and a fabulous party and that it only gets better from there.

"Love one another and you will be happy. It's a simple and as difficult as that."

-Michael Leunig

Temporarily Connected

Matt and I drove up to Detroit on Saturday, had a fun movie-going, hotel-staying weekend which concluded in an awesome Green Bay Packer win over the Detroit Lions.

Then we found out that our children and Matt's parents were dealing with power outages due to hurricane force winds in Ohio. Our power company is calling it the worst disaster they've ever dealt with. There hasn't been power at our house since 1 p.m. Sunday. We may not have it back for several more days and we're on restricted water use. If the power is not restored soon we may lose the ability to use our water as well.

Matt is sleeping at the house with Rebound. The kids and are I staying with Matt's parents since their power was restored early this morning. We are so grateful for a good meal and lights this evening!

I am borrowing Ann's laptop to post this. We may be out of touch for the next several days. They say it will take two months before crews are able to clean up all the debris. Our neighbor had an uprooted tree go clear through his roof. We seem to have some exterior damage to our chimney, which doesn't appear to be an immediate danger of any sort. I hope it won't be too long before things are back to normal. My heart goes out to those who are suffering through so much worse along the gulf coast.

Burning Down the House

Allow me a moment to educate you on the dangers of combining breast and bottle feeding.

Michael had his six month visit today at the pediatrician. Among other things we discussed how I needed to move on from the "slow flow" nipples we're using for the two bottles a day he is required to have. When Michael was first born and learning to eat he had all kinds of choking problems. We don't really have those issues any more, but I've still been reluctant to switch to the faster flowing nipples. Anyway we stopped and bought some on the way home from the doctor's office.

So we got home and Michael had fallen asleep in his car seat. I brought him in, left him in his seat, and put the new nipples in a pot with some water to boil them for five minutes as you are supposed to do to sterilize them. Normally when I do this I stand in the kitchen until the water boils and then set the timer on the microwave for five minutes. For some reason today, I failed to set the timer. Then Michael woke up, screaming to be fed, and it was during a point in the day when he usually nurses. So I took him into the living room to feed him, totally forgetting about the stove. Do you see where this is going?

Harper and Michael and I were in the living room when, several minutes (fifteen maybe?) later, I heard a funny noise in the kitchen and sent Harper to see what Rebound was doing. She walked out of the living room and then walked right back in and said, "I think something is not good, there's stuff coming out of the pot!" I thought she meant the water was boiling over, so I got out of the chair where I'd been nursing Michael and walked with him into the kitchen. Into the kitchen where I saw a pot full of FLAMING NIPPLE REMAINS! (Oh my, Google's gonna have a field day with that sentence.)

It's amazing how many clear thoughts you can have in a very short amount of time. Fortunately I tend not to get upset/panic until a dangerous/scary situation has already been dealt with. As I looked at the flaming pot I remember thinking I had to put Michael down before I could pick it up, thinking that I had to remove it from the heat, thinking that the fire extinguisher in the garage was a little too far away, and thinking that it was grease fires that you weren't supposed to throw water on. . . I am pretty sure I managed to tell Harper that things would be fine, while refraining from swearing, and sliding Michael into the exersaucer. Then I turned the burner off as I moved the pot toward the back of the stove, realized that wasn't going to stop the already burning fire (duh!) and picked the pot up, put it in the sink and ran water over it until the flames went out completely.

Michael was drooling cluelessly in the exersaucer, Harper's eyes were wide with fear, and I found myself wondering, as the kitchen filled with smoke, why the heck our smoke detector wasn't going off. When I broil pork chops it goes off every time, but for an actual fire, nothing? I think we may be replacing that soon.

There was a huge and surprising amount of smoke created when I put out the fire. I turned on the fan and opened the door to try to clear out the house. I wasn't sure what to do after that and called my mom to see if she thought any further action was necessary. She didn't think so and Matt walked in as I was talking to her, asking what happened, and Harper started telling him there was a fire so I pretty much hung up on my mom to go explain to Matt. Oops. Sorry Mom!

After an hour or so the smoke had cleared, the ruined nipples and pot had been thrown away, and the ashes had been cleaned out of the sink. Not that I hadn't respected what a fire could do before today, but I was pretty stunned by the smoke and smell and mess created by this one, relatively minor, fire.

Thank God the fire was contained to that one pot. I can't recall ever having an experience like this before and I'll tell you even a small fire is a scary one. My stomach is still knotting up a bit just thinking about it.

So today's lessons are:

1) Don't leave stuff unattended on the stove. (Although I'm pretty sure I'm the only one in the universe to have lapsed on that safety rule.)

2) Don't forget to set your timers.

3) It might be a good idea to keep a fire extinguisher somewhere in the kitchen.

4) Check smoke detectors more regularly.

5) Always set the baby down before handling a pot of flamming nipple remains. (I did remember to do that, but feel like it bears repeating.)

Thank you and good night.

Indulge Me

I know I already posted a series of photos showing how Michael has grown, but I was playing with layouts in our photo-editing program and now I want to post these too. I'm aware that it is sort of a no-brainer that the child has grown/changed significantly in six months, but when I think of where we were six months and a few days ago, I'm still in awe of him.



There were so many ways my pregnancy/his birth could have gone even more wrong than they went. I look at him today, and, even though his current state slightly feverish and blowing huge snot bubbles (thanks to preschool germ-carrier Harper), I just feel so darn lucky.

Six Months in Photos

This is Where There'd Be Theme Music

Harper and I had a contentious sort of afternoon. At one point I just put my head down in my hands for a moment to do some deep breathing. Then I felt a little hand patting my shoulder and rubbing my back. "It's okay Mom," I heard her say, "When things go wrong you just make them right again."

It was very sweet, but I also felt a little like I was living a moment from a sappy TV sitcom.