Figuring It Out

So it's 12:37 and Kameryn just BARELY fell asleep. It was rough tonight, she was cuddly and tired, but also just energetic enough that she couldn't find a comfy spot, and even if she did, she couldn't hold still. That turned into her being tired and frustrated, wanting to lay in her soft crib but also wanting me to hold her. And then she started crying. The "I'm so frustrated and I can't fall asleep but I'm so tired" cry. I know it, because I've been there. And the times I remember from when she was a newborn are still burned into my brain in a way that makes me doubt I'll ever mistake that cry when I hear it.

I guess I'm blogging about it for a couple reasons. The first is quite simply to be proud of the fact that even though I wanted to just break down and bring her into bed with me, I didn't. That's really good for me because I'm a total sucker, especially nights like tonight when I'm tired too and I just want to get it over with.

The second reason is because I realized something this week that I'm also glad I'm sticking to: I found out, the hard way, that I don't sleep well when Kameryn sleeps with us. I'm afraid of her falling off the bed, and the ONLY spots she's comfortable in are the ones with her heading hanging off the side off the bed. Which makes sleeping lousy, at best, since I'm worried about her.
The other problem is that she likes to sleep sideways. Instead of cuddling with my baby like I used to, I have her feet in my side. Needless to say, I wake up almost as tired as when we went to sleep.

I've decided that I need her to sleep in her crib because we both sleep better that way. When we sleep better, we have more fun during the day. It's harder, but also a no brainer when I think about it this way.

I also have gotten a lot more comfortable with being with Kameryn while she falls asleep instead of letting her cry it out. I think the safer she feels, the faster she falls asleep. Since we're almost learning the crib thing over again, I'm cutting myself some slack and I figure that she'll get back to the place where I could put her down and walk away and it was okay. It works better for me to do it calmly and not force her into it. The stress level in the house is about 40 notches lower.

And lastly, I'm okay with doing it slow, and doing what's comfortable for us and not letting how other people do it dictate how we need to do it. Kami is like me in that way, she does things at her own pace, and I'm okay with that. I like the thought of her and I working together and finding what works for us more than I like feeling like I need to follow the book.

More Pictures of South Dakota

These are a couple pictures of a lake in our campground. Jay took the first one and I took the second one.

This other picture is of the Badlands, which are a lot like Bryce Canyon. South Dakota is so flat and green and beautiful, and then you get to the Bandlands that go on for miles and miles which are rocky and full of cliffs. It's so easy to understand why the first people who had to cross them gave them their name.

Two Quick Stories

Story Number One is entitled, "Don't Do That."
I was at work the other day and a mom and her daughter came in. Mom is being seen to check her meds, she's 26 years old, pretty and has brought her daughter and son. The daughter is also being seen for a follow up on her ADD. I don't particularly like these patients because Mom always seems to get after her daughter in ways that don't seem quite fair, and she laveshes her son with love and attention she doesn't show her daughter. I check her daughter in fully, getting all her vitals an updating her meds, and then I turn to Mom. I put the pulse oximeter on her finger and walk around to put the thermometer in her ear. When I slip it in, she turns her head and playfully tries to bite me. Um, what? And then she dissolves into hysterical laughter.

Story Number Two is entitled, "You Can Quote Me on This:"
The other night Kami, Jay and I went for a walk around our block. We started walking around a church parking lot, and Kami would get brave enough that she would let go of our hands and walk by herself. She kept finding pinecones on the pavement, and she would pick them us and hand them to us. She likes doing that lately because she likes hearing us say "Thank you." I think the first time was by mistake, but Kami kicked one of the pinecones while she was walking by. She walked up to it again, and we thought she'd want to pick it up, but instead she kept kicking it. Sometimes she would miss, but she would always turn around and kick it again. So if, when she groes up, she becomes a famous soccar player and people come to interview me and ask when I knew she would be world famous, I can way, "When she was 13 months old."

Kami's Favorite Part

She's almost a pro even walking with shoes on!

Also, I wrote her 13 month love letter before we left and saved it. I published it this morning and it's before my last blog, if anyone wants to read it.

Our First Family Vacation

And just when you've almost decided to stop checking this blog because there's never anything new, I return! I can't believe how long it's been since I've blogged, I'm almost embarassed. I did go out of town for a week, but the time before and after that I have no excuse for.

So, for our first family vacation we went with my in-laws to South Dakota. We all drove in the same truck and stayed in the same trailer. I was dreading that part of it, but for the most part it wasn't so bad. The worst part was something I wasn't anticipating: Kameryn gets VERY carsick. That's a small problem when we're driving for almost two days straight both there and back. We got it all figured out, though, and overall we had a really good time.

Anytime I told anyone that I was going to South Dakota, the answer was almost always, "Why, do you have family there?" Come on, people. There was so much to see in South Dakota that we didn't even get to see it all, and we filled our days FULL of sightseeing. That would be one of my only regrets, that we didn't just spend time relaxing on our trip. However, we did get to see THIS:I've seen pictures of it before, but seeing it in person is so exciting and awe-inspiring. It almost seems surreal, there's so many rocky mountains (ha!) in South Dakota, and then you drive up to this one and seeing it is so impressive. As I've been downloading the pictures off of our camera I find that I have so many pictures of Mount Rushmore, and I think it's because I wanted to be sure I got it. Almost anytime I looked up at it I took another picture. I have all sorts of stories and more pictures about the trip, I think I'll be posting about it for awhile.

In the meantime, I found that I actually wasn't as bothered by the drive as I usually am. Since it's still early June almost everything was still green and without the mountains I'm almost amazed by how BIG the sky and clouds seem. Here are some pictures I took on the way out there, and if you want to get an accurate feel of this trip, you should know that we were listening to Johnny Cash about 60% of the time, and when we weren't actually listening to it, at least one of us was singing it, even with other music in.

Love Letter, Month 13

(I started this blog before I left, and I didn't publish it hoping to add to it, but it's been so long that I figured this will do for now.)

It might sound weird, but sometimes I have to remind myself that you're still so little. There are other times that I'm accutely aware that you're just over a year old. You have so much personality and you can communicate so well that sometimes you seem 13 months going on 7 years old. As you get older and learn more, I've found that the more work you are and the more fun you are seem to balance each other out most times, and even though you're getting to the point that you throw fits when we take things away from you or you don't get what you want, it's also fun to see you walk and hear your expanding vocabulary.Our biggest news from the last month is that YOU LEARNED TO WALK!!! You took a few steps that first day, and you've been practicing and concentrating so hard on it ever since then. Now you can walk a good distance and a good speed without falling down. You still have your feet pretty far apart, it's obvious that you're new at it, but every day you're getting better. And you LOVE to learn. You love walking with us holding your hands or your fingers, as soon as you have a couple hands reassuring you, you practically run around. It's fun to see something that seems so simple make you so proud.You're learning to say more and more and to speak fairly clearly, and sometimes I wonder what the words you've learned to say mean about us as parents. This month you've learned to yell, "BOO!" Your dad and me always run around the house with you, one of us hiding and the other jumping out to scare the other two, so I know where you got it from and that you have a lot of fun with it. The other night Aunt Chelsee was over and you would crawl around the coffee table until you could see her and shout "Boo!" She would act like it scared her, and you would laugh and crawl around the coffee table to do it again.

Your other addition is "Belly" and you can say "Button" with it, but not with the same clarity. You surprised us one night when you stuck your finger in your dad's belly button and proudly declared "Belly!" And you've done it a lot since then, wanting to lift up shirts to find belly buttons and the quickly put them back down again.

I love you, baby girl. I especially love how you make everything more fun. Yesterday we were sitting on the couch and you came over and put your head on my shoulder. It was such a simple gesture, but it meant a lot to me. I'm so proud of you, and so happy with who you are and who you're becoming.

Giving Cake to a Baby

Though I completely intended to, I never ended up posting about Kameryn's party of her birthday, and slowly I've been using the pictures we took during those times for other things. Because I'm impatient.

Her birthday party was a total success, even though when we got to Muller Park that night there was a baseball game going on, so there was no where to park. I had to come from work, and I got there a little bit early but not much, and when I got there it was Jay and his parents and Kami. And that was all. I knew other people were coming, but I couldn't help but wonder what we would do with all the food if no one else showed up.

It turned out that wasn't a problem we had. My mom came with Allison and Chelsee, Danae Gary and Isaac came, even though Gary was supposed to be working and had to switch shifts to make it, Alan and Nolana and their kids all came, even though Alan was supposed to be at a conference in Las Vegas which was a good surprise, and then my dad came and brought my Grandma Hanna, who came even though she'd had her foot operated on. And it turned out the food went well, and the problem was it started getting dark before we were done partying and taking pictures.

The part I was really excited about was Kami with her first birthday cake. We got one for her that was all her own, and I knew she wouldn't know what to do with it in terms of blowing out the candle, but I wanted her to enjoy eating it. I wasn't disappointed.

She started out a little bit dainty with it, notice the two finger pincher grasp. But as time went on, and with a little help from Jay, she started to dig in.

And before long she decided that this was too good to leave sitting on the table, and she tried to pick it up and get it as close to her mouth as possible, which led to this:

Luckilly we still had presents to open after dinner, which was enough of a distraction that Kami didn't get too upset about the cake. She got some really cool presents, including books and clothes, new stuffed animals and a handmade rocking chair from her Ertmann Grandparents, and a stitched pillow from my mom that says, "Grandma Loves Kameryn." She got spoiled, and it meant a lot to me how thoughtful everyone was with her birthday.

Her actual birthday was like Christmas morning for me, I was so excited to spend the day with her doing fun things. I was ready to party. She was a bit more casual about things:

We decided since she had so much fun at the zoo, we were going to take her to Tracy Aviary to see the birds. Chelsee wanted to come with us, and we talked Geoff into it by telling him about the "awesome bird show." The bird show turned out to be a bit of a flop, and most disappointing, Kameryn was completely UNinterested in the birds. Yeah yeah, whatever, she wanted to WALK. She wanted us to hold her hand so she could walk around, and THAT WAS ALL.

The part that ended up being the most fun for her, I think, was getting ice cream. Her own scoop of chocolate ice cream, which we let her eat herself, mess notwithstanding.

(Proof that at one point her shirt was clean.)

Every instinct Geoffrey has was telling him we should stop her, it was hard for him to watch the ice cream chaos going on right in front of us. But we let her do it all her way, and spent the time cleaning up afterwards. The main thing I learned from her birthday was that it's a good idea to keep it simple. I tend to over-do things, and this was definatly no exception. We had the most fun when I was able to sit back and let her be.

I think she'll be proud of how her first birthday turned out. I am.

The First of Many...

Kami has a set way of doing things. When she's introduced to something new, she usually studies it from many different angles, tastes it, and most recently, puts it on her head. This happens most often with food. At a Chinese restaraunt she put Won Tons on her head. While I was making Rice Krispie treats we gave her a marshmellow, which went on her head AFTER she got it nice and sticky. And this is what happened when we gave her carrots.
I have no doubt there will be more where this came from.

CREEPY

Last Saturday both Kami and Jay fell asleep in the afternoon, so I got some time to myself, which I spent looking at things on the Internet. There's a show that Jay listens to at night at work called Coast to Coast, which is basically the opposite of NPR; they talk about conspiracy theories and supernatural goings-on and such. On the website they have pictures that people have sent in of ghosts and UFOs and things, and I was getting a kick out of looking at them. So I happen upon a picture that someone has sent in from Salt Lake, and it freaked me out a little bit. It was this:

I couldn't really believe it since it was something so odd and I hadn't ever heard about it before. The next night I was out with Jay and Chelsee and Geoff, and I was telling Chelsee about it. She said she didn't completely believe that it was there because pictures are so easily manipulated, so we set out to find it. We found a site on the Internet that gave directions, thankfully, because it's in the Salt Lake Cemetery and we wouldn't have ever found it otherwise. And we drove almost directly to it, and the picture above is one that I took. It is, in fact, there.
I'm completely embarrassed by how scared I was driving into the cemetery. A bird cawed right outside my window that was rolled down, and I jumped so high it made Jay jump also. Chelsee and Geoffrey were totally making fun of me. And then, to make matters worse, I woke up in the middle of the night afterwards and was thinking about it. I was so scared I couldn't get back to sleep until I brought Kami into bed with me. She had been crying, I didn't actually go wake her up, but I'll admit I was grateful to have her with me.
I was more scared of the cemetery than I was of the gravestone; I find them so creepy that I think I might want to be cremated after I die. What I would like better is to not die at all, that's my first choice, and so being around it freaked me out.
ANYWAY, I'm posting about it because I'm wondering if anyone else has heard any stories or urban legends about this grave, or if it really is overlooked. I would imagine it would be one of the popular "ghost stories" you hear about in high school and go visit on Friday nights, but I didn't know anything about it. Anyone?

Fun at Grandma's House

Kameryn got a huge kick out of the fact that you could hit ANYWHERE and it would still make noise.

The best part of this was that Kameryn would try to dial the phone and then babble like she was talking, but her tone would go from serious to really high, as if the person on the other end was telling her something REALLY exciting. Then she threw her head back and started laughing. With any luck she won't inherit my "insessant talking on the phone while growing up" gene, but I guess we'll have to wait and see.

Happy 26, Gary!

To Gary, the former King of Coldstone who would give me and my friends ice cream when we'd ditch school and come visit you: HAPPY BIRTHDAY! It was fun conspiring with you while you were on your mission to get Danae's ring size, and I'm glad you guys are together because you're a good husband, always patient and fun, and you're a great Dad. It meant a lot to me that you got work off to come to Kami's birthday barbeque, thank you for that. You've always been someone I can count on. Call us when you decide to break out the Mah Jong!

Influential Influences

It's interesting when I think of all the ways that Jay and I have affected each other's lives. There's obviously the big things, like we have a kid together for example, but then there's also other more subtle changes we've made that we may not have if we hadn't met.

For example, before Jay met me he was convinced that he HATED Chinese food. I would suggest it for dinner and he would flat out refuse. But I kept pushing until he tried it, because honestly, how can you not like an entire GENRE of food?! Come on, there's got to be SOMETHING tolerable. (Pay close attention, Chelsee. You like rice, you like cheese, so chances are there is SOME Mexican food you like.) Now, Jay is an addict. Any time he goes to lunch by himself, he goes to Panda Express. Often even if he's had it for lunch and we're going to dinner, he will suggest Panda. My mom got him a gift card to Panda for Christmas last year, and I think he had it spend by, say, Jan. 1.
Jay also hadn't discovered his love for Pink Floyd until he met me, and now he can sing along with Roger Waters with the best of them.

Jay has influenced me in a lot of ways, one of which is him helping me with my sense of direction. I'm not proud of it, but I'm directionally challenged. A lot of times after walking into a building I've never been in before, I don't know how to find my way back out. Jay, on the other hand, is the type that if he goes somewhere once, chances are he can get back. Even if it's miles away and three years later. So, after lots of patience and a lot of laughing at my expense, I can at least say I'm a LITTLE bit better at directions. Which basically translates to I've gone from the sense of a first grader to a third. And sometimes I know which way is North.
Also, I've grown an appreciation for The Smashing Pumpkins which I don't think I would have otherwise. Thanks to Jay they've completely grown on me. Even "Bullet with Butterfly Wings."

One thing that I haven't been sold on yet is camping. His parents think I'm crazy because I don't get immediate thrill out of the thought of setting up a tent and building a fire. I can't believe anyone would look forward to sleeping on the ground and peeing in a hole. Give me a hotel or a motel ANYWHERE and I'll be more content than spending the night on the cold ground.

That said, we currently have plans to go CAMPING the first week of June. We're going to South Dakota, which is the part that makes it tolerable for me, but in the back of my mind I'm also dreading the point in time where Kameryn realizes, No, there is no crib. But that sleeping bag?! It's all yours.

I'll be very interested to see if during my marriage I warm to the idea of camping, or if it turns into something that we just can't compromise on.

No Laughing Matter

I was working late tonight, walking past a room where a patient was waiting to be seen for a cough. As I passed he started coughing, the dry, horrible cough that doesn't produce anything but won't go away, and it reminded me of a time I went to the doctor when I was little. I had gone in for a cough, and it must've been pretty bad because my family isn't the "run into the doctor after the first sniffle" type, we wait a week. Or two.

So I had gone into the doctor, and he asked me to cough for him, and I did, which of course lead to a bout of coughing that I couldn't help and couldn't stop. And afterward he looked at me and said, "Wow, that's quite a cough. You don't smoke, do you?"

I must've been 7 or so, maybe younger, but I fired back a "NO!" that really said, "HOW DARE YOU?! SMOKING IS NO LAUGHING MATTER!" And I remember thinking about it later, and hearing my mom laugh when he asked it, and I realized it was a joke, but I decided not to be embarassed because I had told him very stongly how I felt about it. Plus, I'd always had a sneaking suspicion that he asked in a joking manner, but was really being serious.

It wasn't until today when I was reminded of the whole situation that I realized how rediculous that thought was.

I don't know what it is, but sometimes jokes doctors tell just get lost on me. Jay and I took Kami in for her two week check-up, and her stats were all good except her head was a little bit small. The doctor commented on it, and Jay asked, "Well, what happens if it stays small?" To which the doctor replied, without skipping a beat, "We'll have to do head-expansion therapy." I'm sure he was expecting a laugh, but instead me and Jay sat there silent, imagining it until Jay said, "Will it hurt?" He walke out of the room and just said to himself, "Don't joke with first time parents."

Working Girl

On Monday I started working full time, with my current shift being from 11-7, and so far it's been pretty miserable, mostly because over the weekend I've developed a cold, cough and runny nose. It's pretty sad because my doctor is sick as well, even though he hides it better than I do, so patients coming in get to be taken back by an MA who's obviously sick since the corners of her nose are red from all the wiping, and then get to be treated by a doctor who's voice is just a little lower than usual.

If I were the kind of person who believed that I've MADE myself sick to teach myself something (which I'm not, I pretty much figure I work in a doctor's office and we catch things sometimes) I would say that I'm sick because what I REALLY want is to be home with Kami. She's so fun, she's getting so verbal and she's practicing walking more every day. Honestly, while I'm at work I can't wait to go home because when I walk in the door she comes and gives me the biggest, longest hug. Then she pulls back, looks at me, laughs and hugs me again. I don't think there's anything better in the world.

But hopefully the bigger paycheck might make things a little nicer.

Incredible Women

She's the best mom, and also an amazing Grandma.

I think my life is full of incredible women, people I really admire and look up to. Aside from just being proud to have you in my life, I'm grateful that you're around to be in Kami's life and that you care so much about her. I think it's impossible to fail with so many strong examples to follow.

Obviously this picture isn't of incredible women, but I couldn't resist. Isaac is the cutest baby boy ever, and Danae is such a good mom to him. Happy first Mother's Day, Danae!