Sadie & Jake

Here's Sadie sitting on a red chair looking maybe a little worried. Why is she looking worried? Scroll down....

The Late Night Sadie Show

Sadie is fighting sleep tonight. She's sitting in front of me, in her little baby lounger, looking at me with wide-open eyes. I took her for a walk after Jake went to sleep, to give Ali a break. She was quiet in her stroller, but wide awake. We'd go for long dark stretches between street lights, where I could barely see her face and kept hoping she'd nod off. But every time the street light shone on her face again, there were those big open eyes staring back at me. For a while she even had her neck craned up as if she were trying to get a better look at her surroundings. Don't worry little Sadie, you won't miss anything if you go to sleep.....

Back Home

We got in around five o'clock tonight and it's good to be home again. Even when you go someplace like the Grand Canyon or Venice or even the neighborhood ice cream shop, it's still good to get back home. We had a great time at the lake feeding the fish, going to the Strawberry Festival, kayaking, swimming and doing a little relaxing, too.

We use one of those baby monitors at the lake because with everything that's going on, it can be hard to hear when Jake wakes up from his nap in the downstairs bedroom. We don't need one at home, so it's interesting to listen in on him when he's just woken up, before he yells out for one of us. At home we can usually hear him talking and playing by himself for 10 or 15 minutes before he's ready to get up, but we can't make out what he's saying. Yesterday, after a good 3 hour nap, we finally heard some tossing and turning on the monitor. Then, we heard the following:

"Ha......Ha.........Ha" (spoken slowly, and sleepily)

"Funny"

"Jake Funny"

Yes, Jake, there's no need to worry. You are funny. "Big Funny," as you would say. You crack us right up.

Enjoying the View

County Fair

Funnel cake

Carousel
Ferris Wheel

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.