2.0 or, Happy Birthday!

Dear Miriam,

You are two years old!  At your checkup, your head measured in the 50th percentile, while the rest of you measured in the 5th percentile.  Which is why you're wearing 2T shirts even though they're big on you, because they fit over your head.  We just got a box of 2T and 3T hand-me-downs from Sofia Chapman, who is about the girly-est girl that we know.  It included a pair of pink sparkly sneakers, which you now love.  Grandma was happy to pull out any t-shirt still left in your bin that was from Corbin and hand it down to a friend of Aunt Lena's.  It did occur to me that you need one more bin than Corbin does: the dress bin.  Or I suppose I could be 2% less lazy and actually hang the dresses in your closet.

You went back to the dentist this month, too.  They took some more x-rays, but also did a general cleaning and check up with fluoride treatment, which I didn't expect.  They said everything looked good.  Your little tooth remnant hasn't moved, and the rest of your teeth are coming in normally, if slowly.  You didn't cooperate very much for the x-rays, but you were a little better during the exam.  I think the dentists like you more than they like me--they gave me grief about the fact that you haven't gained any weight since your last visit.  I think they suspect that you've got Second Child Syndrome.

Which is true, I realized, when I was putting up pictures at my new desk.  I have lots of pictures of Corbin, but none of you.  Poor, neglected, second child.  So I brought one of your framed portraits and now the whole family is represented.

I started working at LA Biomed this month, which is good for the family but made for some adjustments, of course.  We had all become used to my ability to run errands during the day and make dinner for us.  The dogs certainly were sad that their morning trips to the dog park were severely curtailed.  Your routine hasn't changed very much, you just get a little more excited when I get home in the afternoon.  The hardest part seems to be deciding how I'm going to commute every day.  In Minneapolis, I took the bus every day because I didn't want to pay for parking downtown.  There were several bus routes that I could take, and as much as I complained about it, the system actually worked pretty well.  Here, I don't have to pay for parking, and the bus system is really quite under-developed.  So I've tried taking the bus a few times and it's simply been a source of frustration.  My next tactic is to try bicycling and hope that this isn't the last blog I ever write for you because I get flattened by a semi somewhere on Carson Avenue.

It feels good to be working again.  I hope that you are able to find jobs in your life that you enjoy, that challenge you, and that teach you useful skills.  I hope you work for companies and people who value you and treat you well, and pay you well, too.  Take pride in your work and do it well, but do not allow your work to rule your life.  You are far more than a 40 hour work week.  Of course, that's assuming that you end up in a profession akin to what your father and I have.  If you end up as someone who doesn't work in an office, you'll have to find some other sources of advice about how to stay sane while earning a living.  Whichever way your career path goes, remember this: you are smart, capable and valuable.  Treat yourself accordingly, act accordingly, and expect the same from your employer.

The Thornes and Spencers from IN were meant to visit this month, but instead Grandpa Thorne ended up in the hospital with a stroke.  Fortunately, it was minor, and he's being treated with drugs instead of surgery.  This is one of the biggest drawbacks to having moved--we are so much farther away from Dad's side of the family.  It was scary to wake up to news that Grandpa was in the hospital and know that we would have to fly there if we needed to, instead of just drive down.  News always seems to come much too slowly at times like that, even though Aunt Erin was doing her best to keep us informed.  I am sorry that they weren't able to come, but hopefully they'll reschedule for a time when I can take some days off from work and we can all have fun.

We had a bit of fun for your birthday, of course.  Since our birthdays were during the week, we waited until the weekend to celebrate.  You opened some of your presents on Saturday.  Then Uncle Alex and Aunt Lena came up on Sunday and brought a most delicious cake that Aunt Lena baked.  It was just about too much chocolate to handle, but it was very, very good.  We stuck two candles in it and tried to get you to blow them out.  Corbin blew one out accidentally, and then Dad helped you do the second one.  You got two new books, a new stamp set, a new set of stencils, a fun game from Great-Aunt Delma and a cute timer for brushing your teeth.  Corbin and Dad gave you a set of dinosaurs, which are now your favorite things.  You bring them upstairs for nap time and bed time.  In the morning, I have to help you carry them all back downstairs again.  Having actual dinosaur toys has taken the pressure off of a page of dinosaur stencils that we had.  You liked to make me trace them over and over, and then draw happy faces on them.  Although, then you went into a phase where you made me draw them sticking out their tongues.  Now you just wave the dinosaur figures around and stick your own tongue out at us.  It makes me laugh every time.

Love,
Mom

At Madrona Marsh, after a rain:

Pink sparkly shoes!

Getting a push from big brother:

Birthday cake!

5.1 or, Work and Play

Dear Corbin,

It was a month of things that could have gone very wrong ending up being okay.  I always get worried for you when big transitions are happening.  I feel like you don't deal with transitions easily, which is probably not true.  It is definitely true that I don't like change, and I especially don't like change that I can't control, and I think that I put that label on you, too.  Right or wrong, I'm always trying to minimize the impacts of change on you.

One of the changes that I see in your future is starting kindergarten next fall.  I know it seems like a long time away, but when you factor in the idea of looking for and buying a house in the meantime, it's really not.  We could choose to leave you at Children's Place for another year, but they're not nearly as good as Mayflower and I feel like we should find a better option.  If we start you at another school, either private or public, then we face having to move you either during the school year or before the next year, based on what happens with finding a house.  So then staying at Children's Place looks better because it would be one less adjustment for you.  But it would also mean we keep paying tuition, which I was hoping to avoid by starting you in a good public school.  I hope that in years to come this will all look like me worrying too much, but for some reason it's hard for me to think about right now without being terribly frustrated that I just don't have a good answer yet.

In some ways, though, I don't worry about your education at all, because you're growing up in a family that likes to learn things.  You and I went over to the Nature Center at Madrona Marsh for a Star Party.  You had to patiently sit through a presentation on current events in astronomy, but then we got to go out in the parking lot and look through four telescopes that they had set up.  It was a cloudy night, which was too bad.  Three of the telescopes were focused on different features of the moon, but the fourth one was focused on Jupiter and three of its moons, which was totally awesome.

This month you had your last day of gymnastics for the winter session, two weeks off, and then the first day of gymnastics for the spring session.  Every now and then you ask if you're going to do swimming lessons again, but when I ask if you want to, you either say, "No," or, "Maybe when I'm older."  You enjoy gymnastics a lot, but it's funny to watch you in class.  Sometimes I wonder if you're paying any attention at all, but then when I ask you to practice at home, you show me all of the moves that they've done in class.  You are getting better at cartwheels and balancing.  I was impressed the day I realized that you could run backwards.  I'm glad we found these classes for you.

I went back to work this month, which we thought might be another hard transition for you.  But Grandma just wrote up a new weekly schedule for your afternoons, and you seem to be doing just fine.  You and Dad came to see my new office one day when he had the day off.  It would have been more fun if I could have showed you a lab, but I don't know any of the researchers well enough yet.  Maybe we'll be able to see one someday.  In the meantime, it feels nice to be working somewhere that I feel like I'm supporting things that are useful to humanity, and not just to one company.  I hope that you spend your career working at jobs where you feel rewarded by more than money.  Money is great, but it will not buy happiness for the man who does not know what he wants.  Have goals for your career that do not depend on your salary.

You and Dad got to go to the dentist this month.  Grandma had to take you because it was my first week at the new job.  You did a very good job with the x-rays and the cleaning and the fluoride, but apparently there was some difficulty with the prize reward.  Somehow you ended up coming home with four pink bracelets, which you declared to be beautiful treasures and hung on everyone's bedroom doors to decorate them.  You also like to make me stop in Target and look at all of the jewelry.  I always end up with a vision of you dressed up like a pirate, stuffing chunky necklaces into a treasure chest.

The month was supposed to end with the Thornes and Spencers visiting from Indiana, but Grandpa Thorne scared us all by having a mild stroke.  He is thankfully recovering very well, but we had a few bad days when we weren't sure what was happening or how they were going to treat him.  It could have been a very bad situation, and it reminded me of all of the reasons why I didn't want to move so far away from Dad's family.  Hopefully they'll be able to come out this summer instead, and hopefully we'll be able to have lots of visits in the future.

Instead, the month ended with celebrating birthdays for me and Miriam.  Dad took you shopping for our birthday presents.  You got me a couple of pairs of dangly earrings which I like very much, and you got a set of dinosaurs for Miriam which she really loves.  Uncle Alex and Aunt Lena came up to celebrate with us and brought a delicious cake that Aunt Lena made.  We put two candles in it for Miriam and you blew one out accidentally while trying to show her how to do it.  She and Dad managed to do the second one.  You always have fun showing Uncle Alex and Aunt Lena your Lego spaceship and what you've been playing on your tablet.  Dad gave me a new board game, and I'm looking forward to when you're a little older and can play with us.  Luckily, Miriam got a new game, too, which we've had fun playing a couple of times.  It was especially funny the time I got you to try and lick your elbow and then laughed when you couldn't do it.  Because that's sportsmanship!

Love,
Mom


Playing in the rain:

Visiting Madrona Marsh after the rain:

At a birthday party at Sky Zone Trampoline:

 Last gymnastics class of the Winter session:

Playing on the swings at Greenwood Park: