Sleeping Through The Night

Finally! After nearly 5 months, Will slept all night last night (8:30pm to 6:30am). Technically, Will has slept through the night before. The definition of "sleeping through the night" is sleeping 5 hours, typically midnight to 5am. Whoever came up with that definition must have been a crazy insomniac.

Will has always been a good sleeper. Right away he was sleeping for 5 or so hours at a time. There have been some nights where he wakes up every 2-3 hours, but that seems to be when we are traveling or when he is sick. Unfortunately, we travel a lot. However, we only have one trip planned for September, moving planned for October, and one trip planned for December.

What benefits does Will sleeping have besides the benefit of me sleeping? Well, we get to use the nifty alarm clock that Dan got me for my birthday a few months ago. The idea is that it starts to light up 1/2 hour before you need to wake up. It slowly gets brighter. Then it starts playing peaceful sounds from nature. We currently have it on ocean waves. It also warms up scented beads. We currently have lavender scented beads. Finally, if all of this peacefulness doesn't wake you up, a loud alarm jolts you out of your slumber.

We haven't been having much luck with the alarm. The first morning, it lit up brightly all at once, causing us to suddenly wake up. The next morning, it the ocean waves sounded more like a tsunami, waking us very quickly. This morning, since Will didn't wake us up, we were a little more deeply asleep and were awakened by the jolting alarm.

We know that we are getting older because we can't overcome the difficulties of the alarm clock technology. Now that we have a kid, it will have to be his responsibility to explain such things to us.

Hopefully Will will continue to sleep a lot at night. Now if I could just convince my body to remember how to sleep all night, we will all be well rested.

Supermodel Baby

I regret to inform you that if we have a second child, she will be terribly underphotographed. There is really no way to compete with the amount of pictures that we have of Will.

"DJ Willy Will K"

Grilling with Dad


Too Many Toys

Getting Some Shut Eye
(with exaggerated snoring action)


Happily Hanging out on the Couch
(look mom, my 6 month-old clothes fit!)


Crazed Tigers' Fan
(I think we are going to need a smaller hat)


Concerned Georgia Tech Fan
(we definately need a smaller sweatshirt)


Jumping Toy? Yea!


Incognito


Sandy Feet (at Hoffmaster)


Damp Sandy Feet (in Lake Michigan)


Hanging out at Mission Beach, CA


Staying warm on an Oregon beach


Twins?

Crazy Obsessed Parent with Camera... Signing off...

Ben! Ben! Ben!

This is the Ben Blog Post!

Normally we don't post a lot about other people in order to maintain some privacy since this is a public blog. We never post last names when we do talk about people. Another reason we don't post a lot about other people is because we don't want people to be paranoid about whether or not we are going to blog our experience of hanging out with them.

However, Ben did ask, "Are you going to blog this?" when we saw him. And it wasn't in a paranoid sort of way, but more of a "Will I be immortalized on your blog?" sort of way. So, since he is one of our loyal readers, and an interesting guy, I thought I would post about the great time we had hanging out with him. I feel that us hanging out with Ben is proof that as new parents, we can still have fun hanging out with non-parents. Our social lives are not over!

Who is this Ben?

He wears trendy glasses.
He likes our baby.
He becomes quite tan.
He knows more about wine than anyone else I know (and made us buy an expensive, but tasty bottle on Valentine's Day 2003).
He looks kind of cute wearing a baseball cap backwards.
He used to work at a horse farm (and enjoys the occasional cigar).
He designed and prepared flower arrangements for my wedding.
He has a cool girlfriend.
He is very contemplative.
Sometimes he doesn't want to be seen in public with Robin.

You don't believe these things, you say? That's ok, as you may have suspected, I have photographic evidence.

Trendy Ben

Ha Ha! I hold the baby before Robin!

Tan Ben

Notice the Skillful Opening Job on this Bottle.
He is not even distracted by the super giant purple candle.

Ben in Baseball Cap with Coffees

Horsefarm at Sunset

Beautiful Flowers!

Holly and Ben

Holly and Ben (Holly bangs moved to other side)

Contemplating his Tan-ness

Contemplating the BOB menu
(or wondering... "Does the fact that I don't have
a boat exclude me from ordering?")

I have never seen that woman before.

Over the 4th of July holiday week, Dan, Will, and I met Ben and Holly at the Frederick Meijer Gardens. We enjoyed both the cultural enrichment that comes from viewing art and the invigorating wonder that comes from browsing an outdoor sculpture garden.

We like art with Peering Holes

Will was not invigorated

But we all got to pose next to the pretty pond and waterfall

Over the years, we have seen Ben in many random situations.

• For Robin's 21st birthday, we went to a German restaurant that had deep-fried, bacon-wrapped sausage and a Swing Dance club in the basement. (Ben-roommate Matt stepped on my foot when we tried swing-dancing.)
  
• One time we drove a Prius to a Prohibition-Era speakeasy.
• You saw proof of the cigar-smoking horse farm incident of 1999.
• And who could forget gourmet Thanksgiving dinner at Peter and Ben's apartment.
  

Actually, I can't recall a very normal situation that involves Ben. Perhaps he may have joined us once or twice to BBQ in Lowell, but other than that, it is always strange. But then again, we might say the same about many of our friends. Hmmm... maybe it is us...

On Disliking Baby Formula...

The airports are being careful with flights due to a new plot discovered in Britain. One of the restrictions that has come out of this is a ban on bringing liquids onto planes. That's right, the skies will soon be filled with high-strung passengers who had to chug their venti macchiatos between security and boarding the plane.

How does this most recent protection of our air safety affect me, you might wonder? You may know that Will and I travel a lot on planes. So far, including connections, we have taken 16 flights since Will was born. In order to make Will and the others around us happy passengers, I have to feed him when we take off and land so that his ears won't hurt. Unfortunately, since he is now 27 inches long, this has proven difficult since he tries to kick the arm of the seat when I nurse him. The solution? Breast milk in a bottle. Very convenient.

Convenient... until now. Of course the ban on liquids on planes has some exceptions. Baby formula and breast milk can be brought through security. However, they must be "tested," by the person carrying them on.

Now, I believe that breastmilk is the bestfood for my baby. I have even considered having T-Shirts printed saying, "Breast is Best," a common saying at Le Leche League meetings. (What else would you wear to such a meeting?)

But the question now is... Do I want to drink the breast milk? That just seems kind of weird. I'm fine with removing my laptop from my bag, taking the baby out of the baby carrier, removing my shoes, all without dropping Will. But after going through all of this while trying to balance the baby while standing there in my socks, and then being asked to taste the bottle of breast milk? I'm a little unsure. Perhaps I should prepare some baby formula.

We travel next week.