Hiking

Hi everyone,

Last weekend we decided to get a start on the "new-decade resolution" that we made after we got "Walking Paths and Protected Areas of the Keweenaw":



















This book is cool because there are so many hiking trails in it that I didn't know existed. I grew up here, so I thought I knew of at least a good percentage of the hiking paths around here. Each trail in the book has a little narrative on the trail's history. A lot of the areas in the book have relatively recently been "protected" - bought by the Michigan Nature Association or the Nature Conservancy or some other organization like that. I guess that's why I didn't know about them. I grew up here, yeah, but then I lived away for 9 years, and many of these trails were created/protected in the early 2000s when I wasn't here. So exporing them is exciting!

I just went off on a tangent. So anyway, our resolution was to hike every trail, with Willow, by the end of the decade. We got our start last weekend by going to the Robert Thorson Brown Nature Sanctuary, near Painesdale, only about 5-10 miles south of here. It actually took us forever to find it - the sign the book said to look for was NOT there - but just when we were about to give up, we found the trailhead. Here are some photos from our excursion:















Willow in the bog-like "fen" (vocab word for you), checking out a stick.

This hike, being in a fen, is supposed to have a lot of unique flowers and plant life to look at. It's a little early in the spring though, and not much was out yet. Here's one of the few signs of life we saw. I have a thing about taking photos of mushrooms. Whenever I see one, I feel compelled to take a photo. I should go through all our photos and pull out all the random mushroom shots and put them in a separate folder labeled "shrooms". Haha.
















This is on the bank of Lake Perrault.















Willow trying to sneak in a quick bite while mom and dad are occupied with picture-taking. I think this picture is hilarious.



















Here she is having a more appropriate snack. Situations like this remind me how thankful I am that Willow learned how to breastfeed. What a pain it would've been to carry along a cooler with bottles of breastmilk on a hike. And then there would've been nowhere to warm up the milk.




















After the hike, we went to...the bar, of course! We've discovered that the KBC (Keweenaw Brewing Company, for you non-locals) is a great place to bring Willow on a Sunday afternoon. There's usually very few people there. Last Sunday it was even more dead than usual, probably due to MTU's finals week being last week - everyone was home studying. Don't judge us for bringing our baby to a bar. It's the kind of bar where people bring their kids - honest! Not on, like, a Friday night, but during the day it's not uncommon to see kids there. And it's not like we got trashed. We had one beer each. We couldn't resist taking a photo of Willow bellied up to the bar. ;)















We had such a great time that day we were sort of thinking an outdoor excursion as a family and then the KBC should become our Sunday tradition. We don't go to church, but maybe the great outdoors and good beer is our religion...?

Here are some other random shots from this weekend. I tried to get some shots of Willow's hair. She still doesn't have much. In this one you can see the little tuft on top. As far as the color, it's still sort of hard to tell. It looks to be sort of dark blonde.















Here's the back of her head. It's coming in pretty evenly. None of that old-man-hairline effect that newborns sometimes get.



















Although we cloth diaper Willow, we have mostly kept her in disposables at night because she pees through the cloth diapers. I'd been doing some research and decided to try a wool diaper cover. They're supposed to be great for keeping in leaks at night. Here's Willow modeling the one I bought. It has a regular prefold plus a Bum Genius soaker pad inside it. A little bulky! But it still didn't work. I don't know what we're doing wrong. If anyone has any suggestions, let me know. Peeing through is not convenient, not at all...especially since we currently have only one set of sheets - no spares!




















I was super excited yesterday to finally get my clothesline up and running. I think I've mentioned before how I actually enjoy laundry. Well, my favorite part is hanging the clothes out on the line. I hadn't done it once yet this spring, though the weather would've allowed it, because at the end of last summer my retractable clothesline broke. The plastic part that the line is stored in just snapped. Yesterday I went and got a new one. I got the same one I had that broke, but I had a new idea to help take some of the strain off the plastic part. We rigged up a carabiner and a rope to the tree that goes right over the line, to help hold the middle part up. It's the same concept as the y-shaped sticks some people put under their clotheslines for support. I hope it works.






















I got to do a little yardwork yesterday too, which was long overdue. Willow hung out in her exersaucer and watched.















Oh, I wanted to give the answer to the riddle from two blogs ago: what were my parents doing with the baggie of brown liquid and the duck?















Emily guessed that they were making syrup or beer, but that's not right. When they bought the land their camp is now on, it had a trailer on it. The duck was in the trailer when they bought it. It was filled with a mysterious liquid. On Easter they decided to find out what. A cork was removed and the liquid poured into a baggie, then transferred to a bottle. It turned out to be whiskey. Josh and my dad sampled it.

Here's a video to leave you with. Willow has started saying "kitty". I caught it on video, though it's not a great one, you can hear it. I'm calling kitty her first word other than mama and dada. On Christmas she said poopoo and we thought that was a word, but I think it was just a sound she tried out for awhile. She said it a lot for about a week but hasn't really said it since. She actually says kitty when the cat comes in the room, so I know she understands it as a word and not just jibberish.

Swing!

Not much time today but I had a few pictures I wanted to post.

Josh finished his compost bin, and it's the most deluxe compost bin ever. Linda said it could be a fort for Willow.


















Is this the look of someone who's about to get into trouble, or what? If she were a cartoon, she'd have little puffs of smoke behind her, and parallel lines to indicate speed!















In the past week, we've taken Willow to the neighborhood park three times. She loves the swing!!













Have a great week everyone!

Danger, Will Robinson!

"Danger, Will Robinson! Willow can climb the stairs!"

That's the note from Linda that we came home to on Tuesday. Willow can now get a knee up and get up the first stair. Josh's project this weekend (or one of them; his other project is our compost bin) is to get that baby gate up at the bottom of the stairs! Linda says that Willow hardly even wants to be held by her anymore- she just wants to crawl laps around our house with Linda following her. When we're home, we hold her a lot more often because we're always rushing around trying to get stuff done. I guess that's how it is when both parents work.

Willow has decided that she doesn't really like pureed food anymore. She prefers to feed herself. She's finally sort of starting to catch on to chewing. She's not quite ready for, say, cheerios yet, but I did take some cereal and soaked it in breastmilk until it got a little soggy. She liked that a lot. She loves those yogurt bites they make for babies. She loves regular yogurt and blueberries too. Here she is with a food she does not like very much: cauliflower.















Here are some other things that Willow likes and doesn't like right now, other than food:

likes: "The Itsy Bitsy Spider", her toy motorcycle (she can even make motorcycle sounds), walking while holding on to your hands, her pop-up dog book, any book with pop-ups, flaps to lift or other activities, taking off her socks, getting tickled.

dislikes: her vitamins, getting her face and hands wiped, the doctor's. She is scared of the pop-up cow in one of her books, and also the dragon puppet on her exersaucer.

Here are some pictures from Easter out at the camp. The Easter bunny got Willow a little easter "basket" with some gifts.















One of her gifts was a cute pair of shades. They have a strap on them so babies supposedly can't take them off. That was not effective on Willow.



















Can anyone guess what my parents are doing in this picture? If so, you win the contents of the bag:















Last weekend Josh and my dad's big project was transplanting Willow's willow tree. Josh planted it last summer when we brought Willow home. It seemed to like the spot just fine, but after doing some reading, and from what people have told us, willow trees love water so much that as they grow, their roots search out your pipes and find any tiny crack. Then they go into the crack and wreak all sorts of havok. The place where Josh planted the tree was right by our main water and sewer pipes. So we decided to transplant it out at my parents' camp, in the swamp. It'll be nice and wet there and will hopefully thrive with no pipes to damage. Here's Josh taking out the tree...



















...and here it is after being planted in its new home:




















Willow's been enjoying the nice weather. She loves to be outside and loves to play with the grass, rocks, flowers, etc. You have to watch her like a hawk though, or she will try to taste whatever it is she's playing with.


















I sent out another two coolers full of milk last week. I can't believe it - I still have over a chest freezer left. It's hard to imagine what a milk machine I was a year ago. I'd fill up a gallon zip-loc bag (and sometimes more) every day. Now, supply is much more in line with demand. I pump once in the morning before I go to work (while Willow is still asleep), and then once at work. I'm not freezing any - we use the milk I pump for Willow to eat the next day. We usually have to add a little frozen too.

Shipping the milk is quite a production. One of us has to take an hour or so off work. We have to go to this place that sells dry ice, pack up the milk, bring it to the shipping place and ship it overnight. Shipping something overnight that weighs 85 pounds is not cheap! Of course, the recipients pay for it. Before, I stressed about the fact that my milk is reaching, and some has passed, the year mark. But the guy I shipped this batch to is fine with that, and he's a doctor, so now I feel better about it. I asked him if it'd be OK to post their photo on the blog and he said OK. They are just the cutest family.















Donating milk is a great feeling. I highly recommend it to anyone who has a surplus. It's more common than you might think- I've had a few different people tell me they had too much milk after reading my last post about donating. The website I used was www.milkshare.com. When I tried to explain to my boss why I needed an hour off work to ship milk, he said "I've never heard of that before...isn't that why they make that Similac?" Ha. Some people don't get it!

Well, I better go. Blogging can suck up half a weekend afternoon if you let it!

Happy Easter

Hi everyone,

Happy Spring! It's Sunday morning and we just put Willow down for her mid-morning nap. The past few Sundays, Willow and I have had a routine where we wake up early and let Daddy sleep (he's a night owl and we go to bed early). We always seem to be sitting on the couch next to the window as the nearby Catholic church is ringing its bells and all the people are making their way to mass. We're not big Easter-celebrators (or church-goers for that matter) ourselves. We're not volunteering for Little Brothers today either - they get overrun with college students volunteering on Easter. Instead, we're heading out to my parents' camp on Big Traverse for dinner a little later.

Willow was happy to get an Easter card in the mail from auntie Jill. She appreciates any sort of cardboard or paper, and she played with this card for several minutes.















Willow is keeping us, and Linda, very busy these days. She is a baby on the move! No more setting her down and running into the other room to grab a cup of coffee or something. If you take your eye off of her for 5 seconds, she's getting into something. We've done a lot of babyproofing the last couple weekends, but we still have a little more to do. She can cruise around on furniture now too. She's rarely content to just sit in one place and play. Even at night, when she wakes up, she's immediately on her hands and knees trying to crawl across the bed. Luckily she sleeps between us so we'd notice if she crawled over us and off the bed. We are going to lower our bed this weekend so she'd have a shorter distance to fall though, just in case.















Last week Willow discovered her nostrils. And the fact that she can put her finger in them. What a fun thing to do! I wish I had a photo, but I haven't gotten one yet. It's pretty funny.















Dinner is a hectic time around here. We have been trying to feed Willow at the same time that we eat. Usually she'll take a few bites and then get restless. Then we give her a kitchen implement to play with to buy a minute or two while we're shoveling in our own food. Soon that thing ends up on the floor, so we grab another. If it's something she's played with a lot before, we might get 10 seconds to eat. If we manage to find something new for her, we may get up to a couple minutes. Eventually she ends up hollering, and hopefully one of us is finished by then and can get her out of her high chair. It's quite a scene. I honestly don't know how single parents do it. Here's Willow and our kitchen after a typical dinner:



















Last weekend was a milestone for both Willow and me. I brought her to the grocery store with me! I know most parents do this all the time and it's no big deal, but when Willow left the NICU, we were warned not to take her out to places like that where she would be exposed to germs. They said if she could just make it through her first winter without getting sick, she should be good to go. Well, I think it's late enough now that I can say this without jinxing it: it looks like Willow made it through her first winter. She never even got a cold or anything. I guess she did have a one-day runny nose way back in early winter, but it didn't seem to bother her at all. She's actually the healthiest baby I know. Must be all that mama's milk. :) By the way, she did great at the store and sat in the baby seat like a big girl.















Speaking of spring, we've had some crazy warm weather here - record highs last week. I think it got up to the mid-70s one day! The snow in our yard is completely gone already, which is very unusual for early April. I captured winter's last hurrah before it was gone:

















We also had a visit last from my friend Ashley and her daughter Vaeda last weekend. Vaeda is about 6 months old. It was kind of funny because Vaeda and Willow are about the same size, but Vaeda (like any 6-month old) is much more like an infant. She can't quite sit up on her own yet and acts so much like a baby, whereas Willow can do so many more things but is so tiny. Here's a picture of the two of them together.
















Here's a video to leave you with. It's a coversation Willow loves to have with anyone who will cooperate. To her, "da - xzxkzxkxxz" is a sentence. It makes perfect sense to her.

Crawling

I finally found some time to sit down and really write in the blog. Willow has changed a lot since the last real post. She's crawling now, and has a third tooth coming in on top. She can clap and she knows the letter O. She has stood on her own for up to 15-20 seconds. She's starting to get a little better at eating food, though still much prefers milk! She just won't eat anything that's not mush. We try to give her teething biscuits and those little yogurt bites that melt in your mouth. She's just not really into those yet. She also doesn't understand the sippy cup. I guess she's always been a little slow in matters related to eating!

When the Jenson's were watching Willow while we were in Cleveland, Janna's friend Missy gave Willow a toy that used to be her daughters'. It's a play gym Willow can stand at and do all sorts of activities. It has music and everything. Willow loves it. Missy, if you're reading this: THANKS! Here's some photos of her playing with it - check out that look of concentration!- and also a video.







We've had some crazy warm days here - 50s and even up to 60 a couple days, I think. We broke out the stroller. Willow just loves getting outside, and she will sometimes say hello to people we pass. We're so excited for spring. Willow's basically been imprisoned in our house all winter, and we can't wait to get her outside to see some new things.


















Here's a video of the new crawling skills. She's not a pro yet but is getting faster every day.

# 1 Daughter

Willow will be 13 months old tomorrow.

All week I've been saying, "I have to get to the blog!" It's been a crazy few weeks. There's been some crazy stuff going on at my job and I've been working late and even worked on Saturday. It's really not fun, but you gotta do what you gotta do.

I'm also sick as a dog right now, with a terrible cold. I hope Willow doesn't get it!

But I'm not complaining - I have some really exciting news!

No, not THAT news. Heck no. I donated a bunch of my breastmilk stash! I found a website devoted to private milk donation,and donated some to a woman in Idaho with preemie twins, and some to a two-dad couple in Maryland who just adopted their second child. I'm super excited about it. I still have a bunch more milk and will probably give it to them too.

Gotta run, it's bedtime again. Here's a couple photos for you. The first one is me.

Willow's stay with Grandma and Grandpa

Hi everyone,

It's been sooo long since we've posted, and we really don't have time to tonight either - but I'm going to do a super-quick post just so you know we're still alive. Everything's been great with us, just really busy. Josh and I went to Ohio last weekend for our friends Cam and Liz's wedding. We had a blast. Willow stayed with Josh's parents and she did really well. It was the first time she's been away from both of us since she got out of the hospital.

Willow is changing so fast. She's scooting now and pulling up and can do a few tricks. One is shown on the video below. She had a doctor's appointment today and was 15 pounds 5 ounces and 26 inches long. It's acually a little less than the last time she was weighed - but that was for her synagis and she had all her clothes on, this time she was just in her diaper. That weight is beween the 5 and 10 percentile for her corrected age, and the length is in the 25th.

I could write a lot more, but I have to cut this short because it's time to bathe our girl and put her to bed. Maybe this weekend I'll have time to do a longer post with more pictures!