Wakeful sleep

Now that we've successfully muddled through three full weeks since bringing Jonathan home from the hospital, I'm starting to feel deeply entrenched in that "dazed and confused" stage that accompanies chronic sleep deprivation. As I mentioned previously, Jonathan is a pretty good sport about going to sleep after his middle-of-the-night feeding sessions, but he still gets up to eat every 3-4 hours. It takes an hour to feed him, more or less, so at most I'm sleeping three hours at a time, and I usually total about six hours of sleep. This is most distressing for a sleep lover like myself who is biologically programmed to need nine hours.

Once I finish feeding Jonathan, Jeremy gets up to burp him and rock him to sleep. Jeremy prefers that I wake him on the half hour so he has a better chance of seeing an entire show on late-night PBS. We recently started getting PBS's digital over-the-air programming, which means we have five PBS channels from which to choose. I tease Jeremy because Jonathan is usually burped and asleep within 10 or 15 minutes, but Jeremy usually doesn't come back to bed for at least a full half hour. Yesterday at around 5:00 a.m. I asked Jeremy if Jonathan had been difficult to get to sleep after his 2:00 a.m. feeding, since it took Jeremy longer than usual to come back to bed. He said that Jonathan was asleep relatively quickly, but that PBS had been airing a segment of the "Garden Story" series, which, as a student of urban environments, scratched Jeremy right where he itched. When I laughed at him for sacrificing sleep for PBS, he just reiterated the keen watchability of "Garden Story" and said, "Rach, I had to be there."

Making houses

About a week before Jonathan was born, I was bustling around in the kitchen doing the dishes, and I could hear Clara playing in her room. She kept saying "Making houses, making houses" in kind of a sing-song voice, so eventually I grew curious enough to see what she was doing. And what she was doing, as you can see, was making houses. I was truly impressed with her creative genius. We had no idea she could even stack her blocks that well, let alone create such an array of miniature marvels.

Adventures in babywearing, take 1

Give the people what they want

A vocal contingent of our worldwide readership has been demanding more pictures of our precious (and precocious) offspring. I have always tried not to make this only a "baby blog," but sometimes that's an impossible dream. Plus, I can't have any regrets about showing off my kids!


Jonathan was one week old yesterday, an event we celebrated by giving him a much appreciated sponge bath. He is (knock on wood) a delightful newborn, which makes everything in life seem all the more rosy. He does not, at least at this point, suffer from the day-night confusion that so plagued Clara (and her parents). Most of his wakeful time occurs during the day, so at night he wakes up just to eat then goes back to bed. I love him!


Clara is adjusting well enough to her new role as big sister. She gets really excited when she sees "Jon-than" and always wants to "hold it." And she likes to rip the hat off his head and softly stroke his hair (if only we could get the hat removal to be a little more gentle). We have obviously told her a time or two that it's important to be soft with Jonathan, because even when she's running toward him at full tilt she always reassuringly tells us, "Care-la soft! Care-la soft!" Indeed.


For anyone wondering how we've managed to help Clara adjust to having a baby brother in such a swift and healthy manner, we are happy to share our secret to success: treats. This girl has had more bits of sweeties and ice cream in the last week than she's probably had in the last year. Don't worry, though: we'll be weaning her from her sugary bounty soon enough.


As for me and Jeremy, we are somehow surviving--nay, thriving--on greatly reduced sleep and more than twice the amount of parenting than we had a week ago (how is it that when you double your progeny you more than double your workload? Talk about a paradox).


And of course very little of our sanity would be preserved without the able help of my mom, who has done more than her share of story reading, diaper changing, and meal fixing. Cheers all around!

Two Peas

My sister Megan pointed out what I thought was a great comparison between Clara and Jonathan. Here they are on going-home-from-the hospital day. Clara was 18 days old and weighed an even 5 pounds, and Jonathan was two days old and weighed 6 pounds, 10 ounces. What a difference nearly two pounds makes! And seriously, how cute are these kids?!

Jonathan Samuel

When I went in to the hospital for an extra non-stress test on Saturday, I had no idea that we'd have our baby just a few hours later. Nevertheless, our sweet Jonathan Samuel was born on Saturday, September 6 at 1:20. He weighed in at 6 pounds, 15 ounces and is 20 inches long. And despite being born four days earlier than we had planned, this was by far the least dramatic childbirth experience we've ever had! The surgery went very well, and we all came home from the hospital yesterday afternoon, just hours after my mom arrived from Utah.

Here I am not long after getting the big news that we'd be having Jonathan in about an hour! Note the look of relief on my face. (The last couple of weeks have been anxiety inducing.)

Jeremy prepped and ready for the OR.

My first time holding Jonathan.

Clara holding "Baby Jon-than" for the first time.

What more is there to say? We are happy to be home together and enjoying our beautiful, healthy baby.

Huntin' C-zn

So we live about a quarter of a mile from the Coeur d'Alene National forest (as you can see from our front yard), and just north of our neighborhood is a winding road that goes for about two miles into a canyon before ending at the heads of several trails. This morning at about 6:00, Jeremy was running up said canyon road, enjoying the crisp morning and keeping his eyes out for the sundry wildlife he typically encounters on his excursions into the weeelderness.
Then something happened that I can guarantee does not happen in every state in our fair nation.

As he was running up the road, he heard a truck bearing down on him. Just as he was getting slightly nervous and thinking the truck should probably slow down before it killed him, it pulled up next to him and stopped. Inside were two 20-something young hunters in full camoflauge. The one nearest to Jeremy rolled down his window, so Jeremy stopped.

"Excuse me," the hunter politely inquired. "Have you happened to see a deer run through here with an arrow in its side?"

"Uh, no," was Jeremy's eloquent reply.

"Oh. Okay. Thanks."

And off they drove.

Thus begins the north Idaho bowhunt. Jeremy is thinking of investing in an orange running shirt.