How did it possibly get to be January 21? And the year 2012!? And how is Peter 5 months now!!!? I feel a little like Marty McFly when he steps out of his gullwinged chariot (why don’t they sell Subaru Foresters with gullwing doors? Seriously. Untapped market.)
Well, it IS January 21, 2012, and I haven’t posted for 2 months, and so there’s no time to waste. Much madness was made in the past 60 days, often delightful. I account for the tessaract of time in my brain by the fact that Jase and I have been trying hard to absorb and delight in the amazing moments that life has given us, and therefore the calendar time has just sort of slipped past. I loved an article by Glennon Melton in the Huffington Post on Jan 14, 2012, in which she specifies that she can’t really “carpe diem” and “enjoy every moment” of parenting because there are a lot of moments that aren’t enjoyable, and are actually quite rough. What she can do, however, is separate the chronos time (linear time—2 pm on January 21, 5 hours before Peter goes to bed) and the Kairos time (spiritual time—Peter’s delightful laugh, Jason’s lullaby coming over the baby monitor).
I’d like to think that our family is pretty good at saturating ourselves in Kairos time, which tends to occur when chronos time is going the most quickly. Hopefully this blog is the perfect mix of both, though I do know that 2 months is a long time (in either chronos or Kairos) to go without pictures. My apologies.
We ended November with a delightful visit from my brother Nick over Thanksgiving. Nick has been christened “Crazy Uncle Nick” by our second cousins, and he lived up to the name with Peter, who loved Nick right away. It takes a special uncle to make up songs to the tunes that Peter’s toys played, mimicked Peter’s faces and sounds perfectly (often surprising Peter!), and turn dorky home video into a small documentary about Peter’s captivity in the carseat, then forced march in the Baby Bjorn, and finishing with a descent into mad obsession over his toys… “Apocalypse Now” with a younger subject.
Nick left us with an incredible gift—he painted a large canvas with a wonderful fairyland scene for Peter’s room. The colors and shading are Maxfield Parrish-esque, so the painting changes from twilight to dawn, depending on the lighting. I can’t wait to see what imaginary adventures Peter will create with that as a backdrop. Nick also took one of the best family photos we’ve had so far… I think we’ll include it in our annually late annual letter.
December arrived none too soon, because then Peter could start DAYCARE! We were lucky enough to get a spot at First Baptist Daycare in Salt Lake, which is popular with many of our friends and acquaintances here. Jason dropped him off on the first day and was very sad, thought about Peter all day, and then picked him up early so that the day wouldn’t be too long or traumatic—and found Peter lying in front of the mirror, holding a 3 foot long snake stuffed animal, laughing and exhausted from his day of learning and playing. This is how it has been nearly every day—Peter loves his teachers, playmates and all the toys there, and they all love him.
The week after starting daycare, we took Peter on his first airplane to visit my brother and cousins in Los Angeles, and meet up with my parents and Aunt Robin. The flight to LA went fairly smoothly, after the 3 hour delay in Salt Lake (which wasn’t too concerning, since we figured could always run home in a pinch and get more diapers, bottles, clothes, etc). Peter was simply astounded to see so many people file by our seats during boarding—I thought he was going to give himself whiplash trying to follow them all—and then settled down and started smiling and cooing and generally charming everyone. He cried for 2.3 seconds on takeoff and 1.7 seconds during the landing (slight exaggerations, but a very short time). Our long weekend in LA was fantastically full of great food, wonderful conversations, and many Peter cuddles with my cousins Toben, Charlene and Marty Erin, Mom and Dad, Aunt Robin and my brother Nick. Peter thoroughly surprised us by settling right into his nap and bedtime routine in LA without a hitch—he even fell asleep in a few sushi restaurants! We also got to see a friend of mine I met in Guatemala, Jessica, and her boyfriend Loren-- crazy how random chance meetings can turn into friends you see on vacation!
A few short weeks later, we had the most relaxing Christmas we’ve ever had. It was so chill we actually had to remind ourselves it was Christmas morning on the actual day—we had almost forgotten. I was expecting to be on call over Christmas since I took maternity leave (and my partners all covered my call then), but I was off for 5 consecutive days! We had planned to not travel or have visitors since I thought I’d be on call, so the three of us were able to really, truly relax and find our family groove again. I sewed Peter’s Christmas stocking (at the last minute), we had our first Christmas tree, Jason had ample time to play with his new iPhone (I think we may need to rename ourselves iLaura and iJason), and we had visits with neighbors and friends. The only catch was that there was NO snow to be had—our first green Christmas in Utah.
Peter's Christmas Gift-- a rattle. Next year's gift will be a big cardboard box.
The New Year started off quietly and sweetly. Peter and I had a last lovely nursing session on New Years Eve (my milk supply had drastically fallen off since starting work), which I thought was just too symbolic to be really the last one—but the next morning there was nothing to give, and so we started a New Year in more ways than one. I started a skate skiing course at Snowbird on January 1, and reminded myself that my Nordic blood tingles with the whooshing of snow under my skis. Jase started his new class for his grant—some math, genetics, and stats thingy that requires him to remember calculus and logarithms-- other than making dinner, I am no help in this. Peter continued to grow like a weed, and had his 4 month checkup (and immunizations) where we learned he was becoming a baby supermodel—50th percentile for height and 4th percentile for weight. Our doctor isn’t too worried about it, so we’re just giving him lots of love and food, and figure he’ll fill out when he’s ready.
Peter had a tough time with his 4 month immunizations, and we had a few sleepless nights, which led to some stomach viruses, runny nose viruses, and cough viruses that just kept cycling through each one of us. Thankfully, GrandNan and Grandpa Ralph (my parents) came to visit the first weekend in January, and gave us a break. Their visit convinced me that kids really are meant to be raised in a village, and not by just 2 parents (though I do think we're doing a fine job).
GrandNan Nap
Peter has advanced so much in these few months. His list of accomplishments include rolling over (front to back much more than back to front), blowing raspberries, spitting, playing in an exersaucer, transferring rattles from hand to hand, making all sorts of amazing sounds, recognizing me and Jason, turning to his name, scootching around on his back by pushing his heels in the floor, reaching for and grabbing fun items, and generally smiling and laughing more than any other kiddo I know.
We made the leap of putting him into his own room and a larger crib for sleeping, and were all surprised to learn that everyone slept better that way! Peter has now slept through the night 3 times, and Jase and I are reveling in having our own room (yay reading with lights on!) and sleeping 8 hours at a stretch. It truly does feel like an entirely different year (even though we only had 4 months with Peter in 2011). The chronos has rushed by and we are trying to savor every moment of kairos that we encounter. Thank you for being part of both worlds of time for us.
Our Little Hipster in yet another handmade sweater (Thanks Meg!)
Welcome 2012! We are excited to meet you!
Gratuitous cute video below. A note: Peter has learned what all of our cameras look like and sound like when they are recording-- we will probably not have any more candid videos after this month.
