Birthplace, No. 4

Number 4:

THE BIRDS

I remember when we first moved to Chapel Hill from Albuquerque (where nothing is alive it seems) and I was amazed by the birds in the morning. They are sooooo loud! I did get used to it and I love them now, more than ever, especially because they are my companions in the morning when I'm up at the crack of dawn with my very own Early Bird Bear. I actually wrote about it in my second post on this here blog! I don't have any good pictures of the birds but I put the camera on the porch yesterday morning at precisely 5:58 am and let it record for 30 minutes. I took many 5 sec snippets from the entire video and sloppily stitched them together for a short minute and a half video. It's a pretty dull  and not well positioned (it was pitch black when I first put it out there!) but you can listen to the millions of birds chirping between 6-6:30 am. These days I hear the first bird chirp around 5:50 thereabouts. Who knows what the Idaho birds will sing to us - I am looking forward to hearing them sing but I will miss the cacophony of the Chapel Hill Bird Choir in my backyard. Have a listen (and a watch): 

birds from erin kawamata on Vimeo.


And here is a cute picture of him in the front yard...look at those locks!

I thought I would, for our Bear cub, write a post a week documenting something that I associate with his birthplace, Chapel Hill. You can see the first two here, here and here.

Egg Hunt Numero Tres!

Last but not least: 

Egg Hunt Number 3, 2014

Abby and Carter hid eggs for the Bear to find in the backyard. Auntie Sue called me before we came up and asked me what I wanted them to be filled with. I think I said 2 to 3 M&Ms in some and rocks and marbles in others (really) and then Mike and I thought that he would really love to find nori (seaweed) or broccoli in there too. He got carrot filled and M&M filled easter eggs. First off, here he is hunting...listen for when he says, "oh!", when he spies an egg. So cute. His hands to his shoulders means, "Where are more eggs?" or "I don't know where they are, do you know?"

egg hunt 3 from erin kawamata on Vimeo.

 

When he started opening them up he came upon the yummy carrots and he actually munched on them...

And then he came upon the M&Ms and whenever he would come upon a carrot after that he would immediately close the egg back up or offer the carrot to someone else and then look for an egg with M&Ms in it.

Looking for chocolate.

Here he is with the adored egg hiders/cousins (They did such a great job hiding the eggs...not too hard not too easy...just right.):

Cardancing

Not only do you get to hear me sing in this video you also get to watch some of Stan B's car dancing and his jibberjabber. I am happy that I got a fairly good video of this as I was only guessing on the aim of my camera. (We were on our way up to MD for the weekend.)
cardancing from erin kawamata on Vimeo.

Happy Coxsackie Virus!

This is the Coxsackie Virus...much prettier in microscopic form. Image from: the CDC

The Bear got a mystery illness while we visited Auntie Sue and family in Maryland for Easter. He seemed a little bit low energy on Saturday but I figured it was from our long drive up there. Then on Sunday (Easter) he felt feverish and I noticed a VERY red rash in the diaper region. My first thought was that it was from the hot chocolate that we had earlier that morning - I was thinking it was an allergic reaction to whole milk. On Monday he still felt hot and his rash was worse...he started getting pimple-like blisters on top of his very red rash. Usually with a yeast infection rash using a little bit of clotrimazole ointment will clear it up quickly - this wasn't working. When we headed home on Tuesday he napped twice in the car(he was pooped) but he didn't feel hot anymore which was a good sign. We got home around 2:30 in the afternoon so I called the pediatrician and they had an opening at 4pm (thank goodness) and when she saw the rash she immediately looked for spots on his hands and feet  and in his mouth. He had faint pink spots on both his hands and feet and he had 2 blisters at the back of his throat...Hand/Foot/Mouth disease a.k.a. Coxsackie Virus, which is just a virus and it sounds terrible. (It is different than Foot and Mouth (or Hoof and Mouth) Disease which occurs in sheep and cattle.) All we can do is give him ibuprofen or acetaminophen and since it is on his crotch a barrier ointment like Desitin. The first few days (when he had the fever) he would kick and scream when I would change his diaper - so he was in obvious pain and discomfort but now he doesn't kick and scream. Although his rash is an ugly ugly rash I don't think he's as miserable as he was when he had the fever.

You can get this virus from unwashed hands or feces (yay!) and it mainly effects children under the age of 5. Adults don't really get it, if they do it is often asymptomatic but contagious! It can live in saliva and poop for up to 3 weeks. Yikes!

Luckily the Bear seems to be on the mend. His rash looks better today, still ugly, but better. I won't be posting pictures of his rash but if you go to Google images and type in Coxsackie, you're in for a real treat (not really).

Considering he had a slight fever and a terrible rash and perhaps other symptoms he was quite the trooper while we were in Maryland. We even went to DC for a day.

Here I am changing his diaper in front of the Washington Monument. FREEDOM!!!!

He and Auntie Sue waving at the fountain at the World War II Memorial

Reflecting at the Reflecting Pool

Trying to hop the chain at the Lincoln Memorial in order to climb on Abe's lap for a quick nap time story.

I got my Coxsackie Virus info at kidshealth.org

Second Egg Hunt

You can see the Easter eggs scattered about the grass.

The Bear has now had 3 total egg hunts and he's not even two years old! HA! The first one was the Community Egg Hunt that I posted about here. That one was exciting because I didn't know what to expect...would he have fun? Would he know what was going on? He only collected two eggs, but he seemed to have fun.

Here is Roxanne with Tav, Stanley and Zak - his birthing class pals.

This Egg Hunt was organized by my friend Lauren from my birthing class. There were 6 toddlers total. We all met on the Saturday before Easter at the local park in Carrboro. It was 9 am and rainy and cold. We all brought eggs to scatter.

More eggs!

I still didn't quite know what to expect but Stanley knew what was happening this time (more so than the first time). He filled his basked to the tip-top! He even started opening the eggs and stopped mid-hunt when he found one with chocolate and took his time nibbling on it in the rain (more like sprinkles).

You can kind of see his overflowing basket in the picture above. He had fun. Most of the eggs were filled with non-candy items.

Stan and Tav

It was fun to watch the boys (especially Stan, Tavner and Zak!) run around collecting eggs.

Wearing bunny ears and eating cake.

I will post video of his 3rd Egg Hunt (eventually) that Auntie Sue and the cousins put on. That one was more challenging but a complete joy to watch him look for the eggs. ADORABLE.

Birthplace, No. 3

I thought I would, for our Bear cub, write a post a week documenting something that I associate with his birthplace, Chapel Hill. You can see the first two here and here. 

Number three:

OUR NEIGHBORHOOD

Here he is sitting in our neighbor Kevin's planters. He started walking up onto people's stoops so instead of chasing him up there and yelling at him to come down I say, "If you're going to go up there you better knock on their door and say hello." I was sort of kidding, saying it loud enough for the neighbors to possibly hear...but he knocks. Now he goes up the stoops and knocks on doors. No one has answered yet. I'll let you know when someone does. (I should teach him how to say "Trick or Treat?!")

Here he is in our neighbors Nina and Andy's driveway. He loves their yard. For some reason, on this day, he got down into child's pose and put his face to the rocks. I have no idea why. Below he is crossing the same neighbor's bridge at the back of their property. He loves this bridge.

We love our neighbors and our neighborhood. LOVE. We love the creek at the end of the road. We love that our street has a grassy median down the center which makes playing in the street feel safer. We love that the neighbors beside us and across from us know us and we have a good relationship with each of them. We borrow and lend butter, we play with their kids or dogs, we go over and visit and watch or play. We will really miss it. We love that we know neighbors further down the street or on a different street entirely; it is a great walking neighborhood so we meet a lot of people and dogs walking by. 

Remember this video that I posted over a year ago? It's one of my favorites:

around the block from erin kawamata on Vimeo.

Mimic

(I published yesterday's post kinda late...if you missed it go back and check it out!)

One day Mike was walking with his hands behind his back while the Bear was playing out front. Then Mike noticed that the Bear started meandering in the yard and looking up at Mike with his hands behind his back...just like his Pa. I haven't gotten it on video but there he is mimicking his Papa. So cute. I think this is about the age when we have to start watching what flies out of our mouths...

Buckethead

I bought this bucket for him because he likes to tote stuff around and sit in it. Lately he has been putting it on his head and walking around and jumping. Jumping is also a new thing that he has been practicing. He doesn't get a lot of air but he sure does try on a daily basis.


jumping buckethead from erin kawamata on Vimeo.

Roll It Up

Eating dinner and helping spoon rice and gyoza onto sheets of nori:


roll it up from erin kawamata on Vimeo.

Have a nice weekend! We are doing an egg hunt on Saturday morning with some of the birthing class boys plus more! Should be fun/funny. I will definitely post pictures and maybe a video! Me and the boy are heading to MD for a long weekend to kiss those loveable Wilsons! Can't wait!

Trucks

Last Sunday the Bear did not take a nap, unless you count the three minutes that he slept in the car on the way to the grocery store. I didn't even realize that he fell asleep until I opened the back door to get him out of the car. He was zonked out. I backed into the parking space, so he was able to see the road from where he sat. When his eyes slowly opened he said in a half-slumber, "Truh!!!" It was very funny.

Stan B really loves trucks. We never purposefully introduced him to trucks or cars. I've even been reminded that I said, while pregnant, "I don't want my kid to wear a flippin' truck shirt." I think he still doesn't have a truck shirt but he might have pajamas with trucks on them. He was drawn to them from the get go. I read one article about it here, which is interesting. He will sit on anything (his little picnic table, my leg) and say, "Beep, beep!" We can be in the front yard and hear a siren or a big truck and he will stop in his tracks and say, "Truh!" The kid likes trucks and there's nothing we can do about it.

Here he is driving a truck on Auntie C:

auntie c from erin kawamata on Vimeo.

Birthplace, No. 2

I thought I would, for our Bear cub, write a post a week documenting something that I associate with his birthplace, Chapel Hill. You can see No. 1 here.


Number two:
MAPLE VIEW ICE CREAM

More specifically we will miss sitting on the porch, eating ice cream at Maple View Ice Cream:

Here we are with Grandpa and Grandma sitting on the porch at the Maple View Ice Cream Shop.

And here he is eating ice cream this Spring:

Hall Ball!

In the last several weeks of what seemed like neverending winter Mike and the Bear came up with a new game...or indoor activity. HALL BALL! The Bear is on one end and Mike or I are on the other end and we toss or kick the ball back and forth and watch it knock into all the obstacles (!!!) in the hallway. That's all. No rules or regulations - it's just a good way to get out some Bear energy while not freezing our tootsies off in the freezing rain.

hall ball from erin kawamata on Vimeo.

Why We Don't Cut It

Just look at those curls! Those curls! Yes that's a really silly reason not to cut his hair. We are attached to it more than he is, I'm sure. We hear that once you cut his curls they won't ever come back (unless they have really naturally curly hair, which he doesn't, I'm sure.) Maybe when we cut his hair we can encase his ringlets in resin (I'm afraid that just keeping them as is that they will eventually go straight, but who knows.) At least I have these pictures.

If we cut it we will probably do it around his second birthday which is coming up in July. Yesterday I felt like it was bothersome to him more than ever; he kept pushing it out of his face. I'm tempted to cut it sooner than July. We'll see. It's also harder to take care of. He gets knots in the back which he doesn't enjoy having brushed out. He also doesn't really dig getting his hair washed.

He often gets mistaken for a girl because of his long hair. I usually don't correct people unless they also ask what her name is. I will definitely document and write about the big cut if/when we do it.

Dump Truck Love

I bought this little dump truck at the Kid's Exchange in Raleigh for a couple of bucks. Best 2 dollars I've ever spent:

dump truck from erin kawamata on Vimeo.

At Marbles Museum

In Raleigh there is a children's museum called Marbles...it is F-U-N! There is this area with all these green balls and buckets to collect them in. You can take your bucket up a set of stairs dump them in a container which then vaccuums the balls out and up and then down this wire track that hangs from the ceiling. The balls wind up inside a giant pink pig hanging from the ceiling and when a certain amount of balls get in the pig then it's belly door swings open and dumps all the balls on the floor (in the pic above). It's rad.

They have a water play section where there are these two huge bowls of water with water toys. My favorite part was the big waterproof apron that the kids wear to protect themselves from getting wet.

There is also an automobile section: fire engine, ambulance, bus, boat, sportscar.

There are so many other parts of the museum that I'm failing to mention (SO MANY). Here he is playing "ice" hockey in the sports section of the museum:


hockey from erin kawamata on Vimeo.

Birthplace, No. 1

Collecting petals in his truck.

Mike got a job in Idaho. We are very excited. We'll be closer to our parents (2.5 hours from his parents and about 14.5 hours from mine!) But it is bittersweet. We will be leaving this place that we've called home for the last, almost 7 years.

Last week I came home from work and the weather was perfect. I sat on one of our outside chairs while Stan B played in the yard. Our neighbor across the street came out and sat on his front stoop and started playing the guitar while his son played in the yard and his wife was reading in the hammock. I looked up at the sky through the loblolly pines and the great pin oak in our yard and was able to watch the birds flying from tree to tree. Tears came to my eyes. I thought about our wonderful neighbors and our great neighborhood. I thought about how we would miss exploring the creek and smelling the flowers in our neighbors' yards. I thought about how we were legally married here and how our sweet Bear was born here; this is his birthplace. Will he remember it? Does he love it now? Does he know we are moving? So I thought I would, for our Bear cub, write a post a week documenting something that I associate with his birthplace, Chapel Hill.

Number one:
Spring

I have no clue what type of tree this is. The bark is almost silvery and the branches look like fountains of water spraying out the palest pink flowers from the top of the tree. It's quite a sight.

This is a red bud tree. This is in our front yard. There are tons of these trees along our street.

I've never lived in a place with such spring colors. I will try and capture the subtle colors of green, red, orange and yellow in the budding trees. I'm waiting for the exact time. When I capture it I will share it on the blog.

Another red bud.

Tulip magnolia.

Petal dump.

dump truck flowers from erin kawamata on Vimeo.

Conquering Sleep

The chubster at only a few weeks old.

Boy, we sure have struggled with the sleep thing. I complained about it at work one day and my co-worker, John, father of 3, said, "Look at it this way, it's just 5 years of your life." I responded, "FIVE YEARS?!" hahaha. A little over 3 more to go, I guess.

So, Stan Bear's best sleeping through the night stint happened about a year ago...it was May 2013. I don't remember how long...maybe a couple of months of him going to bed at 7pm and waking up at 5:30 or 6am. Then we traveled west for a couple of weeks and the time difference threw us off as well as the new sleeping accommodations. And when we got back home I was so tired myself that I got lazy and would nurse him back to sleep in the middle of the night and BOOM, our sleep training went out the door. 

14 weeks old

Almost one year later I was thinking that I am really used to getting up twice a night and I'm not that tired. HA! I was getting used to it...but that doesn't mean that it was easy or fun. We also took his pacifier away a little more than a month ago...that actually went well, it wasn't any sort of struggle. There was one time where he saw a stray paci and he cried a little but then once I moved it from view he was able to move on. Because he didn't use it much as a sleep aid taking it away didn't really affect his sleep. Anyways, I decided to try again and practice what I learned from Dr. Ferber's book but be more relaxed about it. These are the changes I made last week:

NIGHT LIGHT
I moved it to a different outlet that is behind a bookshelf. Because of this it doesn't project light up on the ceiling, the light just stays near the bottom of the bookshelf, so it is darker in the room.

NIGHT WAKINGS

If he woke up anytime before 1:30am (I have no idea why I chose that time) I wouldn't nurse him. Instead I would go in there lie him back down and say something like, "Time to go to sleep. I know you can figure out how to do it on your own. I'll be in the other room. Good night." Usually he'd fall back asleep in 5 minutes or less after that. The worst night was when I went back in 3 times within the hour. He eventually stopped waking up at that time and started waking up closer to 4/4:30am. I then started the same thing, any wakings before 5 am I wouldn't nurse him, I'd just lie him back down. That hour was more rough for some reason. 

BEDTIME ROUTINE

I changed his bedtime routine. Usually he would take a bath, read books, then we would go in his room with the lights out and I would nurse him in the rocking chair and sing him lullabies. I would put him in his crib and he'd usually be half asleep. Now, he bathes, I nurse him on the couch, in the living room with the lights on. I will still sing him lullabies. The difference is that when he is done nursing he will usually want to read books. So we read books. Then we say goodnight to Papa and then I take him in his room and he is still awake. I put him in his crib and some nights he will be talking away but eventually fall asleep and most nights he will roll onto his belly and quickly fall asleep.

With these three changes in the last week he has been going to bed between 7:30/8pm and waking up anywhere between 5/7:15am. It's amazing. Last Thursday morning I woke up before him for the first time ever. It was bizarre, but I think I can get used to this.

39 weeks

First Egg Hunt

The outfield had little eggs and candy strewn about.

Our Town threw a community egg hunt in one of the parks last Saturday. They have an egg hunt for ages 2-4, one for ages 5-7 and another for ages 8-10. We did the 2-4 group even though the Bear is only 21 months. (They didn't check birth certificates :) )

Greeting late arrivals with his plumber's crack.

They started it late because apparently there were parking issues so there were a lot of late arrivals. We played it cool and hung out in the infield. In the meantime, Stan B filled his basket up with dirt and dandelions:

Attaboy!

The egg hunt finally started and I pushed him through the wall of parents watching and Stan B took off. (The rules were that parents couldn't join their kids out there otherwise chaos would ensue...but of course parents went out there, because parents don't listen {no wonder kids don't listen to their parents...they are just following by example! Ha!}) I stood back and watched him go:

egg hunt from erin kawamata on Vimeo.

I eventually walked out there once he discovered I wasn't with him. He didn't cry, he just stood still and looked around for me. When I got to him he had two eggs in his basket! Hooray!

I'm not sure he was impressed. I think he liked the dirt better.

Sizing up his eggs.

Before & After, Bear Style

 BEFORE:

We started out our walk in the wagon.  He looks so gloomy and tired. By the end he was like, "Get me outta this thing!"

AFTER:

Happy as a clam.

Fun and Funny

Here are some fun videos that I either shared on fbook or via email with some of you. They are both brief and fun.

The first is of the Bear watching a video of my friend Shawnee's daughter being tickled by her Dad. Stan B got a kick out of it:

laughing from erin kawamata on Vimeo.

The second is of Stan B standing on the moving wagon:
belly stroll from erin kawamata on Vimeo.

Yard Work

  

I took my garden fence down when I thought we were going to move. But, we didn't move and Mike always mowed around the patch because there was a raised bed and rocks and plant pots and such. Now that we are relocating I thought this would be the perfect time to clean up the patch since everything is dead and easy to pull up. So out came the rakes and even the shovel. I was hoping to come upon a snake, turtle or frog (as I have seen all three in the garden. Alas, no. We did see earthworms, a spider and a centipede of some sort. Stan B took to the rake and shovel quite well. He really enjoyed it. I got him this mini rake at Lowes: 

 

Here is some live gardening action:
dirt from erin kawamata on Vimeo.

Farm: Live Action

Smelling a flower with such care.

I've compiled some live action of the second visit to the farm. First, chickens; second, cow sounds; third, bathtime. I like how Tavner is holding Stanley's foot in the tub. So cute.

farm II from erin kawamata on Vimeo.