Digital Native

Small children understand technology faster and easier than some middle-aged adults. Why? Because they are digital natives. Marc Prensky does a whole presentation on the differences between digital natives and digital immigrants, and I’ve heard him speak at a couple of conferences. A lot of my outside-of-the-home job revolves around that, as we utilize this phenomenon in education.

The other day, JT asked to “look pictures Mom’s phone please.” I’ve shown him pictures on my phone before, but I let him have the phone this time. I have seen plenty of adults struggle at the Blackberry Storm finger-flick motion… my two year old had no trouble. More reading on digital natives and digital immigrants can be found here. 🙂

Settling In

We have been slowly getting used to the fact that Jim has to work at our house. His work schedule changed this week and he had to work seven days in a row – yuck. Fortunately, I have great kids and that makes the transition a little easier. This also means I’ve been home a bunch and now have LOTS to write about. (Length alert!)

For instance, JT is starting to be funny. His vocabulary is big enough that he can say things that make us crack up laughing. Yesterday I was changing his diaper and he said, “Hey Mom, smooch my feet.” Totally seriously. He also stood at the top of the stairs (after I called him down for dinner) and said “What having dinner?” Apparently he wasn’t coming down if the answer wasn’t a good one.

One of JT’s favorite things is banana bread. He calls is “manana bread.” He asks for it all the time. He’ll even point to the bananas in the fruit bowl and say, “Mom make manana bread?” if I explain that we are all out. I love the Martha Stewart banana bread recipe and I don’t mind making it at all, so we’ve been enjoying it at breakfast or snacks.

One of his other favorite things is sour cream. It has been that way for a long time. The other night we had chicken enchiladas and he pointed out that he wanted “ice cream on my enchi-ada.” I said, “Do you mean sour cream?” And he laughed – “Oh, yeah!”

Haley only gets tummy time on the floor while JT is at nap or eating, because who knows what she would get run over with while he’s playing. Even though he’s careful and very good at steering his Harley bike around the house, it’s not worth the risk. So here she is enjoying some tummy time during lunch…

…well protected by Slider. People have asked if Slider is good with our kids since JT was born, especially because she is pretty excitable and dominant and loud. The good news is that she seems to understand her place in our home, and she is a female German Sheperd, so she likes her little pack to be safe. She is not allowed on the blanket but remains close at hand just in case. We didn’t have to remind her of that rule when Haley came along… her memory is apparently in working order.

Haley is really enjoying her binky from time to time, especially between eight and ten at night. I couldn’t help taking this picture because I have one almost exactly like it of JT!

JT is becoming quite a ham for the camera. I can tell him to pose or smile and he will – which is helpful.

He is suddenly enraptured with parking things and careful placement of objects. (Conversations include: “Mom, my sandwich right there” and “I park truck right there.”) Recently he has started pulling out everything with wheels and lining them up in different configurations on the coffee table. They are also lined up parallel to each other and right in a row. JT was destined for a Type-A personality with Jim and I for parents. Sorry, kid.

JT took a little hiatus from reading but he is back in full swing. This week his two favorite things are “read baby sister” and “ABCD book.” Poor Haley puts up with his long stories as long as she can.

Haley is working on having more awake time. Sometimes she makes it ten minutes before caving to sleep… as I type this she is snoring loudly in her swing next to me in the office.

JT suddenly announced to me a couple of weeks ago, “I draw circle.” And he did. I’m not sure who’s been working on that with him, but now he’s crazy about circles. Here he told me he was driving his train in a circle.

He really needed a hair cut, so this week we managed to work that in. I think I did an okay job. We are slowly perfecting what I have in my head. JT is very patient and lets me take half an hour to cut his hair while he sits in the bathroom and plays with the combs and squirt bottle. Afterward he was rewarded with chocolate milk and Bob the Builder before bed. 🙂

And finally (did you think this would ever end?) there are two flip clips. One is JT’s excellent jumping skills. Okay, I’m a little sarcastic there. He loves to jump but doesn’t land on his feet. He is a riot on a trampoline!

And last, a clip of Haley doing what she does best (other than eat, because that would be really awkward to post…).

Doin’ the Puyallup

We spent Jim’s last day of paternity leave (sad!) at the Puyallup Fair (fun!). JT had thought that he would see pigs at the zoo, and we didn’t, so we were hopeful that he would see them at the fair. And we did!


Getting ready to go – paused for “Hold baby sister please?”


Holding the fire hose at the fire station exhibit


Fair scone – yum!!


Riding the train with Dad


Checking out the tractors


Haley at the Fair 🙂


At the petting zoo – a rabbit…


a goat…


and a sheep.

A friend at Jim’s work let us borrow their double stroller (at least until our cool new one arrives…). It is a little bulky and huge but it worked great for a day out at the fair. It has those toddler hold-on handles in case your child wants to walk, and JT actually held on for quite awhile.

Our last treat before leaving the Fair was an elephant ear. JT looked at me with a question on his face when I told him we were going to eat an elephant ear. 🙂 I explained that it’s like hot dog, where it’s not really a dog. He enjoyed his share very much!

One Month Old!

We can’t believe our baby girl is already one month old. Her due date was yesterday! She is growing a lot. We can tell because suddenly the newborn clothes fit, and she feels heavier. I’m curious how much she weighs! Here are her one-month pictures…


My favorite


Whoops, went a little cross-eyed…


Precious Haley

JT wanted to jump in on a picture too, and this is what he did. 🙂

Binkies

So on Saturday I was trying to get a four-week picture of Haley, and she had just eaten and was all dressed and ready to go… but she wanted to suck on something. It turns out, both of our children love their binkies. Avent binkies, too – not any other kind. This is what Haley was doing before I caved:

And I sighed and said outloud, “Okay, Haley, you can have your binky.” JT heard me and popped up: “My binky too?” I laughed, “Yes, get yours too.” Then it hit me: here’s Haley’s four week picture. 🙂

The Zoo

When JT was born, we made a date with our friends the Skagens to go to the zoo. Then Jim got walking pneumonia, and we cancelled. Then JT was one, and we thought, we’ll wait until he’s a little older so he enjoys it (even though I love the zoo). For my birthday this year, we all had the day off together and we were going to go to the zoo. But it poured rain, and we cancelled. Then for JT’s birthday we scheduled a day to go to the zoo, and it was 90 degrees out – a bad day to see animals. I thought we might go to the zoo before Haley was born, but she came early.

Suffice to say, TODAY we made it! The weather was perfect for the zoo: mid-sixties, overcast. We got the second closest spot to the entrance when we arrived, because it’s Monday and school is in session. And it just got better from there! All of the animals were out. There wasn’t one exhibit where we couldn’t see something. The monkeys were swinging, the tiger was pacing, the polar bears were eating, the walrus was swimming, the sharks were feeding, the elephants were pooping… the list goes on. 🙂


We saw this tiger pace the bank and roll in the grass.


Mama tiger and two tiger cubs


Mom’s favorite – the elephants!


Haley’s view of the zoo


Watching the walrus


Porpoises swim by


Feeding time for the polar bears


JT is not as tall as a two-year-old polar bear cub 🙂

Then we ate a picnic lunch and then hit the Kids Zone.


Feeding the goats – thanks for the tip, Emrie!


A giant African millipede… JT was unimpressed.


Ready for the car ride home

JT was asleep within minutes on the car ride home. When we got home, we successfully transferred both kids to their beds for more nap and had a little nap of our own. Could it have ended any better? 🙂

Three Weeks Old

Haley is three weeks old today! She had a photo shoot on her new quilt from Sharon that just so happens to exactly match her room. Pretty girl!

It was a big week for Haley. She got her first bottle (outside of that first 24 hours in the hospital, that is) from Jim and did great. I handed him a bottle of breastmilk and went to bed… and got an extra hour or so of sleep that night. It was fabulous.

Haley has had some more awake time in the past few days (okay, here she has her eyes closed). It has been fun watching JT notice that she’s awake and want to “play” with her. Today he made her little giraffe toy give her smooches all over.

Haley also got to meet her other great-grandma and some family friends that I’ve known my whole life. And she spent some time snuggling on Grandpa Cole. 🙂


(Sharon, on the left, made the pretty quilt pictured above)

Post-Baby Shower

My awesome workout class scheduled a baby shower for me the last week of August. Little did we know that Haley would make her arrival the weekend before! So we rescheduled for this week, and it was so fun to have her attend her own baby shower. We got all dressed up at home before we left.

Everyone commented on how tiny she is… especially compared to the four other children under the age of one who were there as well.


Shira, the hostess, and Jen, holding Haley
The Italian dinner theme was beautiful and soooo yummy. Gnocchi, pesto, risotto, marsala, wine, the list goes on. And the cake and ice cream was fabulous, made by Shira’s husband no less, and Katie’s peach crisp was hot out of the oven!

Everyone else had to work off their calories the next morning, but I’m not able to go back for another few weeks, so I had a guilt-free evening! Haley loved her baby shower… thanks, ladies!

Family Time

Since Jim is off for four weeks and I’m home recovering, we’ve had lots of family time lately. We’ve heard a lot about not letting your first child feel neglected because you had a baby… I think we’re doing just fine. JT crawls up in the chair with me while I feed Haley and supervises (tonight he said, “Haley eat other side?”). Then we’re done for another two hours, and since I’m not doing any housework or cooking, I have lots of time to play. 🙂

Here JT and I are making lunch together. His job was to stack the carrots in the cups.

JT got a new puzzle from our friend Jessica as a big brother present, and he loves to make the vehicle sounds (how did she know?!).

He also got a new remote control truck when he and Jim were out doing errands the other day. I’m not sure who enjoys the new toy more…

We went to church this last Sunday as a family of four – a dream come true, seriously. Here JT is holding Haley before we get ready to go. We forgot that nursery was on summer break and so JT had to chill with us for the entire service. But our church gives out kid packs when there isn’t children’s church, so he did just fine.

After church, Jim and the kids did some snuggling on the couch. Hooray for snuggle time!

Two Week Checkup

Friday was Haley’s first doctor appointment for her two-week checkup. But first… it was a gorgeous day, and we decided to have a picnic lunch on the boat. Since neither Jim nor I can ski right now (read below if you missed that), we sat and stared at the dead calm water and sweated in the boat in the 80 degree air. Nice.


Mt Rainier view


Haley’s shady spot


JT discovers flat water is a mirror: “Oh! I see JT!”


The boat girls


“Haley, stay right here.”


Watching Jim put the boat on the lift: “JT, stay right here.”

Then off to the pediatrician’s office for our big news: Haley weighs more than six pounds! I was hoping for six pounds because that would mean that she was gaining weight well, and that we could let her sleep longer than two hours at night. Sure enough, she was six pounds, one and three-quarter ounces. And 19.5 inches long – how did she grow 1.5 inches in two weeks? Her head size is in the third percentile – ah, the irony there. She got her Hep B vaccine since we declined it at the hospital, and she screamed like we’d sawed off a limb. Jim felt pretty badly watching his baby girl suffer. 🙂

Grandpa and Grandma Keene babysat JT while we were at the doctor with Haley. When we got back, we had dinner and enjoyed some smoked salmon that Jim smoked all afternoon. JT loved it! He’s also sporting his new jersey because it was game day Friday. (Thanks, Hilary!)