Spring Time Fun

I'm too tired to write eloquently but don't want to get behind on blogging so bear with me.

A couple weeks ago we had the pleasure of meeting up with Michael's childhood best friend Joe, his wife Jenny and their children Sophia and baby Benjamin. This was special for everyone as Joe's assignments and deployments have kept him out of state for the past 15 years and they just moved back to the Puget Sound a couple weeks ago.

We met on a sunny Sunday afternoon at a Mariner's game (they won!) and then went to West Seattle to enjoy fish 'n' chips from Spuds, eaten on a picnic bench on Alki beach. Jenny and I enjoyed watching the grown boys with Harrison and Sophia on the beach, it was a lovely afternoon.

Earlier the same morning, Harrison had some interesting wardrobe choices. I'll let the photos speak but do notice the progression as he adds clothing and accessories.

Snips and snails and puppy-dog tails

It's official, we are having a baby boy! 

Perhaps you say, but Raina, I am not a trained sonogram tech, are we sure this is a boy? Is there any room for error? to which I say to you, nay, this little boy gave us the money shot, the image above is like if you took him and sat him on a copy machine... we are looking from his bottom up and you can't miss the boy parts. I even figured it out a few seconds before she told us the baby is a boy.

Michael, concerned and sweet partner that he is, immediately stroked my hand and comforted (perhaps consoled) me knowing I had hoped for a girl. I do try to keep this blog honest so I will admit I had hoped for a girl but as soon as the initial disappointment passed I embraced the fact that I will remain the only female in a house full of boys... and they will all have to be extra nice to me. Surely they will have some compassion for dear old mom, right?!

Harrison came with us to the appointment and was very interested in the process. He was mesmerized by the gel they spread on my belly and thought the "camera" was funny since it didn't look like any he had ever seen before. Since the images are fairly abstract he really had no idea what he was looking for so within a minute he was sitting in a chair watching a movie on the iPad. We did show him a couple printed images and he correctly pointed out an eye on one, but on another almost identical profile image he pointed to the "eye" on a spot near the back of the head.

As for his reaction to the news on having another little boy, it seems to come across as just another fact to him. He knows we are having a little boy, but that is all he will tell you. He did ask us to name the baby "Peter Pan" which we, um, "put on the list."

Here are some more images to wrap your head around (if you need help they are labeled near the upper left of the image):

Easter 2012

Brace yourself, it was a long weekend! I'll try to keep to the pertinent details.

The Thursday prior to Easter we introduced Harrison to egg dying which he took to enthusiastically. You will notice two large water spots on dad's shirt, that's because a couple of eggs jumped out of the little dipper into the dye before they should have.

But the real Easter planning started in 2011 when my neighbor and I took the kids to the city's Easter egg hunt; we had to go through two rounds of hunts and practically cheat so our kids could get a couple of eggs each and we decided that we could throw our own egg hunt at our park.

Fast forward to two weeks ago and I hadn't done anything when my neighbor called and we said she wanted to do it. We did some quick math and planned on 20 neighborhood kids and I went to the dollar store and bought 300 plastic eggs while she printed out fliers and bought the candy. As we started talking to others on the street, we found out the family closest to the park owned a "small" bouncy house and using Michael's plethora of extension cords we were able to set it up for the big day.

To top it off, another neighbor rented a bunny suit and a rumor went around the block that Michael had volunteered to wear it. Although he didn't really want to do it, Michael donned the suit, causing joy in half the kids and fear in the rest.

Harrison was very excited to see the bunny and was one of the first to give him a hug. He came running back to me and watched as the bunny waved and hugged other kids. After a minute or so, Harrison said that the bunny was "just a man" and he understood that it was a "bunny costume." A few seconds later, a parent made the comment, "why is the Easter bunny wearing shoes" which Harrison overheard and promptly inspected the shoes. A few more seconds later Harrison says, "it's my daddy, it's my daddy!" I shushed him and admitted that it was his daddy (he had noticed sometime before that Michael had gone missing from the party) and begged him to keep the secret.

He thought this was kind of funny but after another minute he actually got a bit scared and began to shake his head and stammered out words saying he didn't want daddy to "come to his home" in that bunny costume. This was a real concern and I had to promise it wouldn't come home and explain to him that dad borrowed it from his friend's mommy. This seemed to pacify him.

For the egg hunt, we divided the park into two sections with easy to find eggs for the little ones and slightly more difficult to find eggs for the older kids. Evidently I underestimated their savvy because the big kids had the park cleared in maybe two minutes.

Harrison awoke us Easter Sunday early in the morning and we went downstairs to a basket from mom and dad, a basket from the Easter bunny and a package from Po Po, Grand Hart and Aunt Chyna. He was so excited for everything he received he was bouncing up and down like a bunny. Even though I tried not to make it Christmas II, it was close enough in his mind.

After church, we let Harrison play at the adjoining playground which was a great way to get out all his wiggles. To his credit, he made it through a solid hour of church making this the first time we haven't had to take him out in the foyer, we were very proud of him. I wish we had gotten a family photo though, we all looked lovely.

The weekend had been mostly sunny and warm(!) so we drove the scenic route through Kirkland and stopped at Carrilon Point. You can't tell from this photo, but the Olympic Mountains were visible and gorgeous. 

Later in the afternoon we went to Grandmama and Zaidy's house for dinner. We brought Harrison's peddle-less bike to show off his awesome skills (I keep meaning to post video...). Dad bought his a new bike with peddles, but he is a bit resistant to learning to peddle so Zaidy pulled his bike out and showed Harrison what fun it is to peddle and ride together with family.

After dinner, Harrison had his own special egg hunt in the living room. He found that grandmama had filled eggs with Disney trading pins (to add to his collection) as well as playdough filled eggs. He also got his third Easter basket of the day which Zaidy filled with a plethora of fund toys including foam airplanes that you shoot with rubber bands.

You may have also noticed the basket Harrison was using to collect eggs, it is the same basket he sat in for his very first Easter picture when he was three months old. What a big boy we have! 

17 Weeks

Everyone says that with your second kid you take fewer photos and celebrate fewer milestones, you're just too busy. If my blog is any indication this is probably true for us. You won't see many posed belly shots taken every few weeks and I probably won't have much to say unless it is something big, for example next week we have our ultrasound that will hopefully tell us if we are having a boy or a girl, check back I will eventually blog about it!

I am 17.5 weeks today and feeling pretty good, aside from the aforementioned insomnia here and there. The first thing I noticed about this pregnancy is that my belly immediately springs forth whenever I eat, making me look more pregnant than I actually am. I had come to peace with this but about 10 days go the belly sprang forth but hasn't recoiled since! What I figured out is my uterus/baby is occupying the lower half of my abdomen and thereby forcing my tummy fat upward creating a rounded bump. The good news is I haven't gained much weight (yet!) so I hope that things will even out eventually. Here is a picture of Harrison from Easter in which you can see a side view of my belly:

At about 15 weeks I realized that I could feel the baby moving around, which was a little weird since I was closer to 22 weeks when I could first feel Harrison kicking. Most of the time I interpret the motions as the baby doing somersaults or turning over "in bed." It is uncomfortable only when the baby seems to push "away" from me which puts pressure right at my waist line of my pants.

We are having family photos taken in a couple weeks and Harrison came to the mall with me to let me look for clothes (15 minutes tops and only with a bribe of playing in the mall afterwards, he's a tough negotiator). This is not his first time in the maternity section with me, but it is the first time he let me take a picture of him with the pillow tummy you can try on. Yes, I know I look rockin' with socks on but the photo is cuter if you kind of compare him to me in the background... drawback of any dress is it makes me look even bigger!

Speaking of shopping with him, I was shopping for jeans a couple weeks ago and Harrison was browsing the adjoining baby section. He picked up a shirt and said, "this is cute mama, I want to get this for my baby." So sweet. I explained to him that we will wait to buy any clothes until we know if we are having a baby boy or a baby girl. I continued shopping for a few more minutes and then noticed he was stuffing that same shirt under our stroller. When I told him he couldn't do that he told me again he wanted it for his baby. When I bent down to remove the shirt from the stroller I found the entire stack of shirts in multiple sizes stuffed under there! He had been putting them in there one by one while I wasn't looking.

Tractor Ride

Last Sunday, we visited Great Papa at Grandmama's house as he is recovering from some serious health issues. We all took a short walk to a neighbor's home to visit their three lamas and on the way we met neighbor Mr. Creek doing work on his property. Harrison noticed some stray golf balls nestled in with the landscaping rocks and asked if he could have one (evidently Mr. Creek likes to hit golf balls in his yard). We chatted with him for awhile and then went on to meet Daniel Boone (that's the name of one of the lamas).

Shortly thereafter, we hard a large engine roar to life and Zaidy said that Mr. Creek just started up his tractor and that he used to give Uncle Stephen and Aunt Rae Ann rides when they were kids. Sure enough he rolls up the drive  and offers Harrison a ride! It is evident that there is not room for mom or dad to ride on this thing and that he will have to sit alone with Mr. Creek which we could tell made him hesitant. Dad popped him up anyway and we walked next to them as Mr. Creek let Harrison "drive" down the street. Eventually they got ahead of us but were getting ready to turn around so I hung back. In those few moments Harrison quickly realized we were not near and before the tractor turned we could hear Harrison crying over the sound of the engine.

The crying stopped once he saw me waving happily at him but it was obvious he was no longer having a good time. Dad got him down and asked him if he had fun, to which he replied by nodding his head yes. Dad asked if he wan't to do it again and the answer was a quiet "no" followed by a hug to hold on for dear life. We thanked Mr. Creek and assured him that in revisionist history, Harrison will likely only remember having a lot of fun driving that tractor.

Nap Time

The irony of the post title is that is suggests sleep, however we are not getting too much of it around here. First of all, at this moment I am writing at 4:48am but I have essentially been awake since 1am with my bi-weekly round of really bad insomnia (much worse than my normal waking up 3 times a night). While there is nothing on tv, it does provide me with time to shop on line and blog in peace and quiet.

As for Harrison, he has starting to show signs he is ready to drop his one midday nap. Most notably is his insistence that he does not want to go to sleep. We prefer to turn a blind eye to this queue and tell him he has to sleep anyway because we haven't met a parent yet that actually encourages their child to stop napping. An hour or two of peace really keeps everyone sane around here.

Last Thursday however, Harrison refused to go to sleep. This wasn't the first time and in the past he agreed to some quiet time in his bedroom and actually did a pretty good job minding this rule for a three year old. On this day however he walked downstairs after 10 minutes in bed to find me and said (in a super saccharine voice, smiling), "I waked up, mom!" He did not accept the premise of my statement when I told him he never fell asleep, instead he told me he wanted to watch a movie with me. I sent him back up stairs. He came down every 5 minutes thereafter getting grumpier when I sent him back up.

Finally, I consented to go upstairs into my bedroom with my laptop thinking my presence on the same floor would appease him. No such luck. He came in every 5 minutes until I was pretty much yelling at him. 50 minutes from his first visit downstairs, I finally relented that this so called "quiet time" was over and we continued our day.

He was a sweet boy the rest of the afternoon until about 6pm. He began to drive me nuts while I made dinner and when dad got home and started playing, Harrison ended up in time out for hitting dad and not apologizing. Clearly a melt down was in the works. He pretty much refused to eat dinner, whined, kept getting out of his seat... in short we were ready to kill him. Instead we got him to bed a good hour early and he fell asleep hard.

I've been warning dad for a few weeks now that non-napping was in the works, and Michael has really been against the idea. I tried to tell him that it really isn't a choice, you can't force kids to nap. I can wean him off it so he sleeps more at night and then can make it through the day without a melt down. That said this was mostly talk on my part, it is only once or maybe twice a week he doesn't want to nap so I continue to put him down each afternoon and cross my fingers.

This happened again on Sunday while dad was home, so he got to witness the melee first hand. As we sat downstairs, Harrison kept leaving his room, stomping his feet on the floor, crying at the top of his lungs. He changed tactics and used every sure fire trick in the book like, "I need to go potty" and "I have a tummy ache" and incredibly "I had a bad dream" - all of which are usually get-out-of-jail-free cards to have a parent give him some love. At the end of the day, we put him to bed early and instead of falling hard asleep, he came out of his room twice (he had never done this before at bedtime) and was awake until pretty much his normal bed time. We were then "rewarded" with a 6am rise time from him, 90 minutes earlier than usual.

Yesterday however we *might* have turned a corner. I put him down around 2:15pm and then I put myself down for a nap. I woke up about 3pm to hear Harrison in the hallway. I asked him, nicely, to come see me and he didn't answer. I persisted and five minutes later he reluctantly came into my room. He told me he hadn't slept and that he wanted to go downstairs. I was actually stunned that he had been quiet in his room for 45 minutes (I even had the monitor on and did not hear him) but on principal I had him crawl into bed with me and rest for a few minutes. After a few minutes I realized he was breathing heavy and when I looked over, sure enough he had fallen asleep in my bed. Unlike other kids, he never sleeps in our bed (he usually starts poking us in the face to wake us up).

I know that was more info that anyone wants to hear about sleep patterns however it is a big deal (to the parents) around here and needed to be preserved via blog. Luckily a non-nap day hasn't yet collided with a Raina-had-insomnia day... oh, heaven help us if it does! As dad remarked, we will have a baby soon and lack of sleep with be the norm. I am already whimpering at the thought...

Harrison Said...

Last week, we were waiting for dad to come home from work. Dinner was made and I was tired and wanted to do something calm, so we pulled out some Easter themed window clings we had bought earlier in the day and proceeded to put them on the sliding glass doors in the kitchen. I peeled the tricky devils off the sheets and Harrison was responsible for placement.

We were enjoying ourselves with this relatively quiet activity when he suddenly turned to me, smiled and said, "You're a great mama" and then leaned in to give me a long hug as we sat criss-cross-applesauce on the kitchen floor.

A few weeks ago, we were watching "Sleeping Beauty" and talking about it when I said that I liked princess Aurora because she sings well and is pretty. I then asked Harrison if he thought she is pretty and he replied yes and them immediately said that he thinks I am pretty too.

Evidently, last night while Michael put him to bed Harrison told him that his mommy is pretty and that daddy is "handsome and nice"!

Atop the Space Needle 3/11/2012

My son is so sweet and while he means what he says, I have to thank his father for giving him the vocabulary to say what he feels. Michael is always saying things like, "Harrison, you have a great mama" or "Harrison, our mom is so pretty."  It's never to early for propaganda!

Denver

Shortly after Harrison's birthday, we enjoyed a long weekend with our good friends the Webers at their home in the suburbs of Denver, Colorado. Harrison made best buddies with Hudson (one year older) and Harper (one year younger) and even six weeks later he asks when he will see them again. Every day the kids played and played and played, wearing themselves out while the parents generally relaxed. The days were sunny and extra bright with quite a bit of snow on the ground from a previous storm, making for some fun sledding at a park across the street from their home.

Justin and Ali also drove us up into the mountains to take the boys tubing. The area was down the road from a ski resort and had nice, groomed hills free of trees and a magic carpet to ride up the hill. Unfortunately it was far enough away from the waiting/viewing area that my little camera didn't take any worthwhile photos but it looked like fun and I wished I wasn't pregnant so I could enjoy it too. Poor Harrison felt that the first run down was a little too steep and fast and even though dad was holding onto him tightly he didn't really have fun. Dad convinced him to make a second run and while it was less scary, Harrison called it quits and Hudson followed suit. So the little boys played in the snow next to the moms while the "big boys" made a few more runs.

As if their house wasn't already a lot of fun, Ali and the kids made Harrison a super awesome belated birthday cake! Ali is really talented, we were so lucky to enjoy one of her cakes, it tastes even better than it looks!

We also visited the Butterfly Pavilion which indeed had lots of butterflies flitting about, as well as other insects and a play area that included a mini zip line for kids. Harrison LOVED the zip line and if there hadn't been a line of kids he would have done it more than three times.

Hudson holding a tarantula

Harrison sticking his tongue out at some butterflies near the tip of the branch

I made the silly mistake of turning the camera around during filming but it's only a few seconds if you crick your neck to the side. Take note of Harrison's awesome dismount:

Harrison's Progress Report

Our little guy recently visited his doctor for his three year old check up. I was stunned when I realized he hadn't had a sick child visit in seven months, actually it was probably last spring. In fact, part of the reason we decided I would quit my job to stay home was in part due to the constant string of illnesses he suffered picked up from day care.

Dr. Anderson said he looks great, although we discovered that he has "trigger finger" in both of his thumbs. Evidently this means that his tendons are too tight, so when he gives you a thumbs up his thumbs don't straighten all they way but instead continue to bend forward a bit. It does not seem to cause him any pain. We are going to see a pediatric hand specialist on Thursday, hopefully with some sleeping splints they will stretch out although surgery is recommended in extreme cases. Here are Harrison's stats:

Height: 37&7/8 inches (60th percentile)
Weight: 33.5 lbs (70th percentile)

He usually measures on the taller side but this was the first visit where he was measured standing up as opposed to lying down and the nurse said all the kids appear to "shrink" a bit standing up. I am surprised his weight is 70th percentile, his shorts would just fall around his ankles all summer and I have to get jeans and ratchet the adjustable waist band fairly tight.

He is getting better at eating a variety of foods, although vegetables are still his nemesis and I still give him veggie and fruit purees in fun to squeeze pouches. We push him a little during meal times and tell him he pretty much must try one of everything on his plate and after pushing food around and eating all the stuff he likes first, he will begrudgingly try it. The cool part is that he will usually admit to liking the previously despised foods and continue to eat. Recently he learned how to properly give the thumbs up and thumbs down signs so he will turn to me, often on his own, and say, "mommy, you made a good dinner" and flash me the thumbs up sign. In fact I don't think he has ever given me the thumbs down. Also he loves to help me make dinner (it's just to bad it takes twice as long, makes twice the mess and causes me twice the frustration) and tries to be helpful (this often includes eating the chicken I'm shredding, dipping his fingers into sauces to lick his fingers and sneaking any cheese I am working with).

Harrison is speaking well and picking up a lot of colloquial phrases from us. This morning he told dad to come downstairs by yelling, "come on, dude!" out of nowhere; we don't really use "dude" all that often but he has good "listening ears." Recently I started to ask him, "do you have your listening ears on?" when he clearly isn't paying attention to me and he will stop what he's doing, look at me and cup his hands over his ears kind of like he is putting on headphones and then nod his head... yes, mom he is listening.

That said, he spends a lot of time not listening to me. He has adopted the "ignore and keep on keepin' on" tactic of dealing with us and generally will not acknowledge our requests until we raise our voices and/or threaten him with a time out if appropriate. It. drives. me. batty.

His imagination continues to flourish. I mentioned previously that he pretends to be puppy from "101 Dalmatians" but it goes much further than that. Daily, he tells me he is someone from a movie and then asks or tells me who I am, who daddy is and who Winston is. Some days he also assigns friends roles as well. This is more than a mere game to him , he takes it very seriously to the extent that he will refuse to hold a conversation with you if you do not address him properly. For example:

Me: Harrison, please pick up your toys.
     HJ: No, I'm Peter Pan.
Me: Peter Pan, mommy really needs you to pick up your toys.
     HJ: No, your name is Wendy.
Me: Peter Pan, please pick up your toys or Winston will eat them!
     HJ: Winsty is Nana, Wendy... when is Mr. Darling (dad) coming home?

Many parents dread the stage when kids ask "why" in response to anything you say to them. For me, Harrison constantly asks "what does that mean?" even though he knows exactly what something means. Also lately, in the car he will ask me "where are we going" when he knows full well exactly where we are going after I have answered that question twice already. This has led me to start teasing him. For example, we may be going to Red Robin (his favorite restaurant on earth) and he will ask "where are we going" so I tell him "we're going to the zoo/airport/driving to grandpa's house" to which he will reply, "nooo, Red Robin mom!" If I play dumb and keep up the charade he will eventually say, "stop teasing me mom!"

Harrison has a map of the U.S. in his room as well as on a place mat and he can point out where people live as well as places he has visited. Basically this includes Seattle, Las Vegas, San Francisco, Denver, Anaheim (Disneyland), Florida (Disney World) and Alabama. Why Alabama you ask? Because currently his favorite song on the radio is, "Sweet Home Alabama"! It came on three times in a a few days and I told him to listen to this cool song about a place called Alabama and since then he asks for it daily and I had to impose a three song play limit. He will tell me to "Turn it UP mom!" especially if we are in the car. He will also tell me "mom, don't sing. DANCE!" Can't blame him for knowing what's good for him, no one wants to hear me sing!

Regarding his "formal education" he has made some big moves. This month Harrison was moved into the 3 year old class at The Little Gym which means there are no more parents playing with them during class, instead we sit and watch behind large windows. The first two classes he ran over to the window a lot to say hi and he looked a little sad during parts of the second class, but by class three he was enjoying himself throughout the 60 minute duration and his instructor assures me he is right on track and learning the more rigid format by watching and doing. I'm really proud of him.

Last week he had his first swimming class with the 3 year olds without mommy in the pool. That said, mommy spent 25 minutes of the 30 minute class crouched directly next to him to encourage and keep him calm. He seemed a bit freaked out but by the end he was starting to have fun and understand how class works now. It just happened we got the same instructor from last session so he recognized her and was willing to let her hold him and swim, which he didn't really like doing last session.

Another big step is Harrison is now officially registered for preschool in the fall, two full days a week (about 6 hours a day) at a lovely nearby facility. Since school will start about the same time baby arrives, we thought it best to get him used to school rather than shipping him out the minute baby arrives; in June he will attend their summer program two days a week for 3 hours in the morning. Harrison toured the school with me and absolutely cannot wait to start. I told him he has to wait until summer and to show his understanding he says, "I'm not bigger, yet."

Most importantly he is a kind, loving friend and son and shows it throughout the day. At Little Gym he will look over at me through the window, smile and flash the "I Love You" sign with his hand; coincidentally he just mastered holding his fingers correctly and is so happy about it he gives us the ILY sign through out the day.

He is coming close to dropping his midday nap and the other day he refused to take a nap but I really needed one. He agreed to have quiet time in his room but then immediately needed to use the potty. I told him to go by himself and he ran into my room a few minutes later saying he did it all himself, even washed his hands and just needed me to help put his pants back on. The really sweet thing was he smiled and said, "thank you mommy, you rest now, I am going to have quiet time." Melts your heart, especially when you're exhausted.

When we go to a friend's house, before we go in I ask him, "Harrison, are you going to be a good friend today? Will you be nice and remember to share?" and he always promises he will be and he has been following through every time. My friend Irene watched him with her 16 month old while I was at the doctor the other day and when I came to pick him up she said, "Harrison makes having two kids seem easy!" which was honestly the biggest compliment to him that I could ask for. When our kid is a good kid when we are away, that makes me so happy and proud of him.

Harrison, you are so much fun and we love watching you grow up and experiencing all the fun things you do and say. You will always be our big little boy in our hearts!

Baby Fein: Due Sept 14, 2012

I recently visited my doctor and had an ultrasound to measure the size of the baby as well as get a more accurate due date. For some reason I am amazed that all babies should grow at the same rate, so much so that they can get an accurate due date (although as Michael pointed out, cells must divide at a predictable rate!). Based on the lovely pictures below, baby number two is due September 14th (two days after daddy's birthday). 

My mom recently asked me if we had a fun name for the baby. Some of you may recall that we referred to baby number one as "Barry" until Harrison's actual birth. So far we have no fun name although Harrison has recently been referring to the little one as "Rolley", the namesake being the little pudgy puppy in "101 Dalmatians" who constantly whines he is hungry (Harrison calls himself "Lucky" or "Patches" depending on the day while I am "mommy dog - Perdie" and daddy is "daddy dog - Pongo"). In any case, Rolley is starting to grow on me... yes, I know, bad pun. 

Starting my second trimester in a couple of days and feeling pretty good. The nausea is pretty much gone and last week I evidently got an early nesting kick. Michael and Harrison left the house for 90 minutes and came home to find I had switched most things in the the two spare bedrooms, mattresses and box springs in the hallway awaiting dad to help move them. 

As part of my master plan to rearrange the two spare bedrooms and the office downstairs (just to accommodate one baby), I ordered a couple new desks and we put one together last weekend in the empty dining room.  This afternoon I really wanted it moved into the office so using some good old Raina ingenuity I managed to pivot and slide the 80 pound behemoth into the office without injuring myself. Don't worry mom I didn't over do it; and you will be happy to know that with my new desk in the office I can much more easily scan things, making the ultrasound photos you see here before you possible relatively quickly. 

Speaking of scanning, I am working on a project to digitize old photos starting with my dad's old photo albums. I found a company that will do it all for me and with an awesome online deal it is relatively cheap and will save me a lot of time... it took me about 6 hours just to take all the photos out of the old sticky albums! In any case, there were a couple photo booth type photos that are tiny and I was worried they would get overlooked next to 3x5's so I scanned them myself, just in case. So here is a picture of cute baby Raina (with mom and dad rocking the super sweet 1979 style!). I must have loved the flash. 

Harrison's BIG birthday surprise

After Harrison's birthday party at The Little Gym, the family came back to our home for an "after party". We had a taco bar  and a more grown up style birthday cake to celebrate. Alas I didn't take any pictures but we do have this video that sums up the party:

You may be asking, but Raina, why did you wait so long to post this?  Since I print this blog annually and use it as a sort of record of our family history, I try to keep events in order as closely as possibly. Despite my protruding "muffin top" tummy in the video (surely the camera adds 30 pounds, right?) I was only about 8 weeks pregnant and we are just now comfortable letting friends know that we are expecting baby number two.

Almost the entire immediate family was in attendance, the only people missing were Po Po, Grand Hart, Aunt Chyna, Uncle Stephan, Aunt Audrey and Oma. Winnie and Chyna skyped in just after the announcement and we showed them the T-shirt via web cam and it was funny to get the same delayed reaction each time. 

Harrison did not know prior to his birthday that we were pregnant but I'm no fool, I started priming that pump several weeks earlier for fear that if we were to spring a question on him at his birthday like "are you excited to have a baby?" he would almost certainly say "no, I don't want a baby." Through some short talks about friends and their siblings as well as relating to movies when appropriate he was aware of the conversation once he opened that fateful gift.

This brings me to the baby elephant comment in the video. We were watching "Dumbo" one day at the point where the stork drops Dumbo off in the train car with his mama when I asked Harrison, "When we get a baby, should we get a baby elephant" and he emphatically and immediately replied "No! Elephants don't have hands. That's silly." Love his logic, thanks to his reasoning skills I don't have to birth an elephant.

I have since been very careful phrasing questions to him so that I don't imply that he gets a choice in the matter. For instance, Michael said "do you want a baby brother or a baby sister" and I immediately shushed him because Harrison doesn't get a say so why pose the question to him?

Harrison does like to pretend to be characters from movies and he assigns us roles as well (even our dog) and one day last week we were some of the 101 Dalmatians. Curious I asked, "Harrison, if you are the baby dog Patches, then who should our baby be?" to which he replied "Rolly." This is the chubby puppy that says that he is hungry all the time. Not sure if he connected that with the fact that this baby does make me hungry constantly but it was funny none the less. That said, it will not be on my short list of possible names.

Everyone we have told asks the same questions so here are the answers in anticipation of your thoughts:

(1) The baby is due around September 19th.
(2) We would be happy with a boy or a girl, although a girl would be great so we would have one of each.
(3) Yes we are very excited, as is Harrison.
(4) Winston probably knows although we haven't exactly broken the news to him yet.
(5) This pregnancy has been a little tougher than the first; Harrison was a piece of cake (ok I probably ate more than one piece of cake) but this baby gave me serious nausea for about 10 days from the minute I woke up until 9pm but luckily that has tapered off. As expected, I am tired but the funny thing was that once I realized I was pregnant in early January, I started to panic at the thought of sewing all the super hero capes and masks for the party because I knew I would be dead tired soon. Of course, the tiredness started a little earlier than I anticipated so I mostly had to skip taking naps and forced myself to stay up late and sew to get the work done. It was worth it though; it's bad enough we upstaged his shindig with a baby announcement, the least I could do was make the rest as awesome as humanely possible.

Harrison's 3rd Birthday

As previously posted, Harrison was geared up for a Superhero birthday party for the six weeks leading up to his big day and couldn't wait for the party at The Little Gym. Whenever we asked him if he was excited he would reply, "I want ALL my family to come and ALL my friends too." In mid January, coincidentally on the same day, Grandpa Dale and Uncle Jon Jon both said they would like to come stay the weekend to celebrate with Harrison which got all of us so excited to have so much family celebrate with us.

The  metaphorical icing on the cake was cousin Argenta came and got to play all weekend and she and Harrison were like peas in a pod. After we picked them up from the airport we went to little Italian restaurant for dinner where the kids were given balloons. After eating, they held hands and held their balloons in their outside hands and then slowly walked around the near empty restaurant grinning and giggling, Harrison eventually putting his arm around her shoulder. I turned to by brother and said "that is crazy cute" to which he replied, "Yeah. I don't think we were ever that cute. You were too bossy." I had no choice but to agree, I probably was really bossy.

On Saturday morning, we woke up Harrison and took the kids in their pj's to the local gourmet donut shop (Harrison's favorite thing to do - specifically in his jammies) and returned home to enjoy breakfast. Harrison had a piece of at least three different types, mostly the frosting. Hey, it's his birthday.

Later that morning we decided to burn off some energy at the local children's museum before nap time and the party...

Building a "Movie Theater"

Finally, we made our way to the gym and were surprised to find that Auntie Rae Rae and her boyfriend Brandon had driven up from college at Western Oregon, hooray! Harrison donned his superhero cape and mask and eagerly awaited the arrival of his friends (he kept looking out the glass door and asking, "where's my friends? Where's my friends?!") Friends and family arrived, the kids got their capes and the fun began.

The instructors had some fun ideas to make the play activities correspond with the theme. For example, they told them to run as fast as they can, just like Dash from "The Incredibles." Some dads also took to "flying" the littler ones around the gym as well.

A wedge mat was placed upright and the kids took turns knocking down "the wall" just like Super Man or Mr. Incredible...

The inflatable tumble track was a huge hit, the kids really were flying through the air! Even Grandmama and Rae Rae gave it a try!

After an hour we enjoyed pizza in the party room as well as a cupcake-cake (cupcakes frosted with a ton of icing to make it look like a cake). I was impressed at what the local supermarket could do (although there may have been a little too much food coloring in the icing, you be the judge): 

After food Harrison got to open his gifts which included legos, race cars, games and craft supplies, all of which he has happily played with every day since! Many thanks to our friends and family that made his day so special, Harrison had so much fun!

Up next: Harrison's 3rd Birthday, Part II (the after party)