We were looking through some pictures on the camera, when we came across a few that neither Deborah nor I remember taking. Looks like Risanna is getting an early start on photography!
Welcome, my dear, to a fascinating, maddening hobby. My your frames be free of camera straps, and your grip be steady and true. It gets better from here.
When I was a kid, I remember frequently enjoying a ride on my dad's foot. Now, my kids enjoy it, too. This is a bit ridiculous, though:
Three kids, two legs!
I can eventually trudge over to a doorway, and hang on to the jamb while I swing my legs (and their passengers!) to a little tune I made up:
Swing Fiona, back and forth!
Swing Fiona, drop her on the floorth!
Swing Fiona, to and fro!
Swing Fiona, don't let go!
Swing Fiona, up and down!
Swing Fiona, drop her on the ground!
The kids rarely make it through all three verses before they're lying on the ground, laughing their heads off.
Walk? Who needs to walk?
The annual Spring Art Fair came to town, and Deborah availed herself of the opportunity to get the girls some handmade dresses. Aren't they cute together?
I have a strange, sudden desire for watermelon....
Something sparkly...
...something bubbly...
...something unexpected:
(If you can't see it, the video is here.)I totally wasn't expecting Risanna to take her first steps right then, but she did — Paul and I were playing with her while Deborah was on the phone with Abby, and she just stood up, let go of Paul's hands, and walked over to me. We were both stunned, and called Deborah over. Paul took the video a few minutes later with his new camera.
Resolutions, introspection, political analysis, prestidigitation, predilections, prognostication, and predictions? Not really my style.
Happy New Year, everyone!
I'm blogging just like like Daddy!
Shift-option-command... rats, now I can't reach the other key I need!
(Guest blogger: Deborah)
Now that school is out for the summer, I have been going on all sorts of adventures with the kids.
The first adventure was swimming lessons. Fiona is in level 2 now, but it's Aiden's first year. We went each day, first thing in the morning for nine days. I didn't even get them dressed, but just had them get their swimsuits on each morning. Aiden has about 5 swimsuits- one that we got last year that still fits, some hand-me-downs from two other families, and this wet suit that I got at Kids' Market. I think he looks soooo cute in it. :)
One day, Aiden felt his wet suit before he put it on and said, "Is this a wet suit?"
"Yes," I replied.
"No it's not!" he laughed, "It's a DRY suit!"
Here is Fiona swimming with her teacher, and later standing on the diving board. She stood on the board, getting more and more nervous. Despite our coaxing, she finally turned and got back off again. For the rest of the day, I talked up jumping off the diving board. We talked about why she didn't jump off, and what to do when you're scared, and the correct procedure for jumping off a diving board. We acted it out with her animals. I told her I would give her ice cream if she jumped off all by herself.
The next day she got to the end of the diving board and paused. I was hopeful that she would jump, but she still didn't do it. There was only one more day of swimming left.
The last day of swimming lessons, Aiden's class went over to the diving board. (The teacher was in the water with a floating thing to catch the kids.) Little did I know that Aiden had been listening carefully to all the things I had been saying about jumping off the diving board. He was so excited. He ran right over and wanted to be the first one. He got to the end of the diving board and fearlessly jumped right off. As he proudly climbed back out of the water, I promised him ice cream, just like I had said for Fiona. Later he jumped in again, and asked if he could have two ice creams since he did it twice, but I said No, one was plenty.
Fiona's teachers put a life jacket on all of the kids that day, and that gave Fiona a boost of confidence enough to jump off by herself, so she also got to claim her ice cream. On the way home from swimming that day, we picked up Andy at work and all went to Dairy Queen together.
Oh, and here is what Risanna did at the pool — charmed all the parents!
Another victim has fallen into the the Sleepschild Radius.
You know... if we're not getting any sleep, it's not Risanna's fault.
Risanna is still adjusting to the idea that life can be This Side Up, rather than what she considers normal — but she's keeping an open mind about it, and adapting to is with good grace, for the most part.
You sure it works this way?
Warning: Those squeamish about bodies and their functions will probably want to skip this post.
I took Risanna in for her 2-month checkup this morning. All is well; she's tall (long?) for her age, healthy all around, and the doctor agreed with me in my assessment that she's probably going to keep those blue eyes, rather than have them turn some other color.
The only matter which took some extra prodding and poking was Risanna's bellybutton. Or, rather the lack of one — she has a mild hernia, and so the place where her bellybutton would normally be tucked away, she has a large, squishy, gurgly bump a bit over an inch high and about the same distance across. It's fairly common (one in three kids have it*) and it isn't dangerous, so long as we can always poke the intestine back in. (It's a bit like playing with bubble wrap, actually, it's... fun.) If it won't go back in, then we're in for emergency surgery. But these things normally take care of themselves without any intervention, usually well before the child is 5. In the meantime, we've got a pretty accurate way to measure whether she has gas or not: pop the bellybutton in, and see how long it takes to pop back out.
Weird, eh?
* ...and we have three kids. I'm also told one in four kids is Chinese, so we're probably in for a shock should we have another baby.
There are some evenings when I have absolutely nothing better to that to sit around being a heated mattress for the baby.
Come on, Daddy, you didn't really want to do the dishes, did you?
Good — yawn — night...
Surgery was set for 7:00, which meant prep was set for 5:30, which meant we had to start driving by 4:30, which meant we had to get up and throw our clothes on by 4:00. Getting up at weird hours to have a baby is good practice for when you actually get one.
This nurse was the hero of the morning when she handled Deborah's notoriously difficult veins and got her IV on the first try.
I don't know whether it's hospitals in general, or Goshen in particular, but we ran into a wide variety of nationalities during our stay. Our Anesthesiologist was Polish; the baby doctor was English, and a whole host of other nationalities drifted in and out of our days there. It was a bit like being back in L.A. — the variety and accents were wonderful. I sometimes forget how plain and white the midwest can be, and wonder what Goshen did to get so many nationalities under one roof.
Me in my moon suit, waiting for the nurse to come and let me know they're ready for me to join everyone else in the operating room. There aren't any pockets on these things, so I tucked my camera up my sleeve.
I wish I could have gone in during the prep. Deborah needed some moral support right about then, and I was doing my best when they came and whisked her away to the operating room. Fortunately, the doctor and the midwife helped comfort her while she was there.
Deborah was deprived of all kinds of things — food, water, hair pins, clothes, jewelry... but they let her keep the fuzzy socks. It was such a funny sight that I just had to capture it.
The anesthesia made her flushed and nauseous, so it was my job to keep her cool with wet cloths while Dr. Kossar added medications to her IV to combat the nausea.
It wasn't hard to peek over the drapes and see what was going on with the surgery. I've always been fascinated. But Deborah was rather scandalized at my peeking at her insides, so I didn't do it again, even though I really wanted to when the baby was being born. Deborah later reported a sensation of the baby being squeezed out of her like a tube of toothpaste, and I wish I could have confirmed or denied that impression.
The clock in the operating room was huge, and mounted about twelve feet up on the wall. Anyone in the room could see it, no matter what side of the drapes you were on. Risanna was actually born at 8:05:59. They wrote down 8:06 on the birth certificate.
Risanna was cleaned up and placed into my arms just moments after birth. They didn't quite get all the vernix off... she was a cutie anyway.
Once the sound of stapling and vacuuming was done, the drapes came down and the masks came off, and everyone was very congratulatory. They transferred Deborah back to her own hospital bed using a small conveyor belt, and we all walked out of the operating room together.
Deborah wasn't up to snuggling right away.
A few hours later, Deborah's mother arrived with Fiona and Aiden.
A great number of people have asked us what Fiona and Aiden think of the new baby. If the first meeting was any indication, Fiona thinks everything about the baby is adorable, and was loudly cooing every time Risanna did anything interesting, like blink. She proclaimed the baby very soft, "like a little chickie!" ...and I concur. Aiden, on the other hand, was just happy to see us, and ran over to show me the little car he'd gotten in his Happy Meal. Baby? Huh, OK. Hey, look at my new car!
Mere minutes after Deborah's mother left to take the kids home, my parents arrived, and spent a large portion of the rest of the day with us.
Grandma Kerr gets some snuggle time.
Grandpa Kerr gets a turn, too.
Hey, how about Mommy having a turn? Ooo, good idea.
Aren't I cute?
No, no, no, we do not want our hair washed!
OK. I'll try this sleeping thing. But just for a little bit.
One of the charming things they do at Goshen Hospital is to toast new parents with a nice, romantic dinner for two — babysitting included! One of the many little reasons we chose a hospital 55 minutes away, rather than 5.
Nighty night!
Risanna: You won't find this one in the baby name books. So we made it up. And, since we made it up, we get to say what it means. Risanna is a combination of the Spanish risa (laughter) and Anna/'ana, (grace, gracious/[he] answers) so any way you parse it (gracious laughter, He answers with laughter, etc.) ...is fine with us.
Pepper: We needed something fun to balance the seriousness and elegance of Risanna. It sounded right, fits with our tastes, and makes a good nickname. My mother asked if I wasn't asking for trouble with such a hot, fiery name. I say no. Naming your daughter "Constance" or "Chastity" is asking for it.
Lyn: Lyn is Deborah's middle name. It means "waterfall," but even Deborah didn't know that, so it wasn't really a factor. Maybe the waterfall will balance out the peppers...
When I dropped by work yesterday to show off Risanna, Marti asked about our choice in middle names.
Marti: Why Pepper?
Me: We like peppers. If you've ever eaten at our house, you figure that out pretty quickly.
Marti: I figured it was something like that. So... what if you had really liked bananas?
Me: Well... Risanna 'Nanna has a nice ring to it, doesn't it?
Risanna Pepper Lyn Kerr
Born 8:06 a.m. November 3, 2008
7 lbs, 7 oz., 19" long
Mother and baby are doing fine, and should be able to come home on Wednesday.
I'll post more pictures as soon as I'm home on a regular basis. :-)
