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.