Sadie Two Month Checkup

Whenever we drive by our pediatrician, who's office is just down the street, Jake casually says her name, "Doctor Halpin." Today, when we actually pulled into the parking lot, Jake screamed with happiness from the backseat, "DOCTOR HALPEEEEEEN!!" I'm not sure why he loves going there so much. Probably because he hasn't had a shot there in months and instead gets to play with crayons, tongue depressors and ear scopes while Sadie gets checked out.

Sadie did great at her checkup. Dr. Halpin says she's holding her head up like a baby twice her age, and tracking objects vertically, which is unusual for a baby only two months old. Dr. Halpin is great because she always comes up with some obscure talent that your child is doing better than other kids their age. We're happy about her vertical tracking, but we're mostly happy she's just healthy and smiling a lot at us. I know it's still early, but I'm predicting that she's going to love to laugh. I think Jake is more apt to want to make others laugh (class clown).

So, on to the growth stats:

Weight: 11 lbs, 10 oz (75th percentile)
Height: 24 1/2 inches (97th percentile)
Head: 15 inches (45th percentile)

After a few more checkups I'll update the Jake vs. Ryan growth chart to include Sadie's numbers. I'd include Ali's numbers, but I think they were lost in a tragic fire.

OK, we're off to Smith Mountain Lake for a few days for the Memorial Day holiday. I don't want to get too editorial here, but it is easy to forget what Memorial Day is about with all the sales on steaks and used cars. If you don't do anything else Memorial Day-related, check out this Wikipedia page that ranks wars by deaths. They don't split out the casualties by nationality, so if you scroll down to the current Iraq war, you'll see the conservative number is 214,000, which isn't often reported in the press. Our good friend Dylan is over in Iraq somewhere, and he has occasional access to the Internet, and I'm sure if he's reading this he's probably shaking his head at the inference that wars are bad. And yes I am inferring that wars are bad, but I would concede that some are less bad than others and some are probably even necessary, and if you're reading this Dylan, we will continue this debate as soon as you and your people over there get back home safely.

Two of us want to sleep; two of us do not

We had a fun time playing outside after work tonight. The neighborhood kids were out and we threw footballs and basketballs and rode bicycles and played with sidewalk chalk and bubbles. Jake helped me grill some chili lime chicken burgers from Trader Joes (not bad) and then we relaxed on the couch to check up on our good friends Woody and Buzz. Jake leaned over and put his head on my shoulder and said "I love you daddy." Sadie was snuggled up on Ali's lap. We should have known things were too good to last.

I put Jake down to bed a few minutes after his 8pm bedtime. We read stories, and he seemed fine. But 10 minutes after I turned out the light we heard him calling for us. Ali went up to check on him and I took over walking Sadie around to get her to fall asleep. Upstairs, I heard a wide-awake Jake talking up a storm while Ali explained to him that it was bedtime. Downstairs, Sadie wasn't the least bit interested in sleep either.

Ali tried to put him down again, but he started screaming as soon as she left the room. We traded places and I went up to try again with him. Normally, Jake goes right down to bed after 10 minutes of stories, and we don't hear from him until morning. So, I thought maybe if I just ran through the process again, it would work this time. Nope. We even talked about all the other kids in the neighborhood:

"Where's Danny, Jake?"
"Night-nights."
"And where's "Liney?"
"Night-nights."
"So don't you think it's time for Jake to go night-nights?"
"No! Downstairs!"

I decided to turn out the lights and put him to bed again, knowing he'd let us know what he thought about that. And he did. Twenty-five minutes of blood-curdling screaming later, he finally passed out. Of course, when your kid is screaming (especially when it doesn't happen very often), every minute feels more like an hour. Meanwhile, Sadie was still refusing sleep, which leads me to believe that they must have planned this night together when we weren't paying attention.

I think everyone besides me is finally asleep now. And that's probably where I should be too.

Goodnight.

Update

I know, I know-- it's been almost a week since my last post. If I didn't have two tiny kids, finding time to blog would be easy. But, the topics would probably be centered around food or news or.....hmm, what did we do before kids?? I think we had some interests and hobbies, but it's fuzzy now. Right before Sadie was born, we met a Mom at Cherry Hill park who had two little ones about two years apart (maybe five and three). Ali asked how she was doing and the Mom said it was really hard the first year. So far, her story checks out:

It's hard.

Fun, but hard.

I think Ali would back me up on that.

I finally uploaded some new pictures to the Flickr site (see Photo section) and more photos of the airshow (see below) will be coming shortly.

My homecoming was so nice. I got back from Orlando on Friday morning, and Ali and the kids arrived about an hour later. Jake was so happy to see me and that felt so good. We played and played and goofed around all day. Sadie was happy too, but she' such a happy baby. She's already smiled more than Jake has in his two years. But over the next few days and nights, Jake showed us his rebellious side a little bit. I think he was either upset at me for leaving for a week, or just going through "terrible two" stuff. We had a talk Saturday night before bed, after he refused to put on his PJs, and things seemed to go better after that. It's hard to tell what he understands at this age, but I told him it was ok to be upset and that I missed him too all week, and then he quietly walked over and picked up his PJs that he'd thrown across the room and asked me to put them on.

The next day we got up early and went to the Andrews Air Force Base open house. I used to go with my Dad and I couldn't wait to take Jake. He is still a little young, but he seemed impressed with all the planes and helicopters. I think he might have been most impressed with the bus ride from the parking lot to the show, but that's ok. We ate Italian and Polish sausages under the wing of a Navy transport plane as we watched some acrobatic planes do their tricks.

Later that day we had a nice visit with my folks, and played Bocce ball on the front lawn and grilled burgers for dinner. I didn't get any pictures that day, but I did get a request for some shots of the proud (paternal) grandparents, so here's one from my birthday earlier this month: