Craig and Sum

Staycation it is

2009-07-08T14:06:00.001-07:00

I have been blessed/cursed with the love of travel. I have always felt I was only as good as the next trip I was planning. It has been nine months since Craig’s and my last big trip – our “babymoon” to Spain. Recently, I’ve been dying for a vacation. Not just a three day weekend, but a journey that requires lots of flight time and a passport. But since our blessed addition of Tyler, I doubt this is going to happen. We get nervous taking him to a restaurant, let alone a 12 hour flight. Additionally, although I have no problem making Craig spend the night in a roach infested, $3 a night hotel (thank you Honduras), I would definitely not subject Ty to those conditions. So I guess until Tyler is old enough to pedal a bike through Tuscany, or at least old enough to stay with either of his wonderful grandmothers, I will have to be content with intercontinental road trips.
In the meantime, allow me to humor myself with some photos of travels past.

Call me biased

2009-06-28T21:45:00.000-07:00

As Tyler gets older he gets cuter and cuter. He smiles and laughs more each day and always looks like he has something important to tell us. He loves to sit in his swing which has two toys on the tray in front of it. One of them is a zebra, and everytime he is in the swing we joke that he is yelling at it. He stares intently at it and talks to it like he is mad. I don't know what the zebra did to him, but it must have been something serious.

The Adventure Continues...

2009-06-26T15:32:00.000-07:00

I got a lot of advice and information about children when I was pregnant - which, I appreciated. In all these words of wisdom, however, no one ever told me about "the blow out." I'll spare you the graphic details, but we've had some really memorable experiences in this arena. With Tyler, motion seems to bring on these events. His car seat, the swing, his bouncy seat - these are where the explosions have occured. (I won't even get into what happened while stuck in the drive through line at McDonalds.)

This week, the greatest of "blow outs" occured as we were hurrying to get ready and out the door on Monday morning. Tyler was fed and dressed, sitting in his bouncy chair as I finished getting ready for work. When I moved his blanket to pick him up, I found him sitting in a puddle of his own pooh. I screamed, and the chaotic activity began as Craig and I rushed around stripping off Ty's clothes, rinsing things out, and bathing the boy. Once he was clean, Craig handed him to me. I wrapped him in a towel and was headed to his room to put a diaper on him when I felt a really warm, wet sensation. Ty had peed all over the front of me. Needless to say, we were all a little late getting to work that day!

Derelicht my... blog?

2009-06-18T20:55:00.000-07:00

OK, it's safe to say I'm the biggest slacker in the blogosphere. Oddly enough, I had four people in one day chide me about how out of date this blog is. I have no excuse - it's sad we haven't posted in a month and a half. So here's a rundown since my "birthday" post:

Our Romanian friends, the Alecus, came to visit, which was great. Chowed on sarmale, salam, mamaliga, telemea, and a bunch of other good stuff. Gigi knows what she's doing in the kitchen.

Did we mention our trip to Zions already? Went for work and took Sum and Ty along. We tried to hike with the Bjorn, spent some time poolside and just chilled.

Summer went back to work. I think we were both a bit worried about this, not so much for Tyler's sake, but for Summer's emotional state. In spite of our concerns, she's loved being back at work, and values her time with Tyler all the more. It's made a lot easier by the nanny situation - Jess Duncan and Menissa Parker have been incredible. There's no one we'd trust more to watch the kid. Summer's mom has also come up to help out. It's funny when Leigh Ann gets in the Tyler zone, because it's like nothing else exists. She gets sucked into the baby vortex or something. Must be a grandma thing, cause my mom does the same thing.

We think we finally have the acid reflux thing figured out (cross your fingers, knock on wood, or do any other superstitious thing you can think of now). Heretofore, just to control the pained screaming, we've been having Ty guzzle Mylanta syringe by syringe. We finally talked the doc into prescribing Prevacid. At first we didn't see any difference - except that his drool turned powder red from the "dissolvable" pills. But then, three days ago, he became a completely different kid. He hardly ever cries any more, you can lay him down without him shrieking and clenching his fists in pain, and he actually sleeps now and again. Seriously, give the inventor of Prevacid the Nobel prize. Unless it stops working all of a sudden - then you can send him to my house to hold Tyler while he screams at 3 a.m.

Ty had his second doc's appointment Wednesday. He's 11.5 pounds now, 24 inches. That puts him in the 90th percentile for height, and something like the 60th for weight. They also shot him up with four different vaccines. Ty didn't cry much though, just scowled at the doc and nurse after looking shocked - "Why would you do that to me?" Glad he's healthy.

Our best friends, Chad and Jordan, suffered a tragedy. Jordan's dad died suddenly of a stroke. We feel so bad for them and hope they find peace. They did a great job at his funeral. We're thinking about you, Chad and Jordan.

I think that about covers a month of our lives. Getting pretty boring, right? Gotta do something about that...

Craig Turns Thirty

2009-05-03T21:02:00.000-07:00

I'm usurping the blog to wish Craig a happy thirtieth birthday. Craig's birthday was on April 29, and we've been celebrating all weekend.

It isn't hard to gather people together to honor Craig. He is such a fun, outgoing and wonderul person - once you meet Craig, you never forget him.

Thanks to everyone who came to our house, took us out to dinner and helped us celebrate the milestone of turning thrity!

I'm so lucky to have such a wonderful husband, and Tyler is lucky to have such a great dad. Happy Birthday Craigs!

Peeing and bath time

2009-04-30T20:17:00.000-07:00

You know what shouldn't be funny but is? Here it is:

Your kid is sitting there on the changing table, you dutifully put something like a wipe over his junk, because you know he likes to pee in the fresh air. You try to time the pulling off of the wipe and the frantic placement of the diaper so the risk of open air peeing is minimized. Despite all your precautions, he seizes the brief opportunity to pee in his own face and in yours.

Why is it funny? Your guess is as good as mine, but maybe it's because your kid is just as surprised as you. He doesn't seem to grasp the connection between the sudden liquid on his face and the relief he's feeling down there.

A less disgusting kind of funny is when you bathe your kid after the pee incident. Tyler always freaks out when he's cold and naked. He starts out with a discontented grunt, followed by a whine and a whimper. Soon, he's full on wailing. But the minute the warm bath water hits him, he's catatonic, even euphoric. I love watching his lip start to quiver when I take him out of the water, then placing him back under the stream to see him almost smile. The most difficult part is getting just modest enough to take pictures...

Tyler's many faces

2009-04-27T19:00:00.000-07:00

It seems the only muscles Tyler has control over are his face muscles. He can't even hold his head up, his arms flail around pretty much on their own, but he could teach acting classes at the community college with his facial contortions. Watching him reminds me of those fridge magnets of the emotion faces - y'know, the "Today I'm... [fill in the emotion]."

Check out these photos... You can cut along the lines and stick these on magnets for your own "Fridge emotion" display if you want.

It takes a village...

2009-04-23T21:44:00.000-07:00

Takes a village to raise a kid, right? I couldn't agree more. Our family, friends and neighbors have already done more than they could know. If you're in one of those categories, and I assume you are if you're reading this blog, THANK YOU!!! Everyone has been so generous with their time, food, thoughts and prayers. It's humbling to be the recipient of so much abject selflessness.

We really appreciate all the meals, the advice, the offers to help, mowing lawns, gifts, kind words, etc. We are surrounded by so many good people.

Aside from the obvious benefits of this generosity, it's been great to hang out with a lot of cool people. Having a kid is a good excuse to visit with people and have friends over as much as possible. We've loved all the visitors, especially when they tell us Tyler is cute. Keep on comin'! One of these days we'll get you back for everything you've done for us. (Oh, and if you visited and your photo isn't posted here, it's because we forgot to take one - all the more reason to come visit us again. Also, there's a limit to the number of photos this site lets me upload.)

Tribute to stuff that was formerly superfluous

2009-04-23T21:10:00.000-07:00

Seems like if you want to make money, you come up with a product for babies and convince parents they're scum if they don't buy it for their perfect little creations. Create a need where there is none. The key is the guilt factor - parents are derelict if they don't buy your products, and their children will suffer because of parent's selfishness. For details about this process, refer to Hallmark's creation of Valentine's Day, Mother's Day and a variety of others.

I mean, you have Boppies and Bumpies and Bjorns and wipe warmers - really? Seriously? The resounding answer is... YES! I still think Valentine's Day is a crock, but I feel the need to pay homage to the products I used to mock.

God bless the baby swing with 18 swing modes and white noise options. Praise the Boppy for its single but useful purpose. Thank heaven and earth for the dual action, variable speed and power breast pump.

Anyone out there thinking of launching an infant scalp stimulator or a virtual reality set for babies, call me for testing. I'm on board. The instant sleeperizer? Sign me up. How 'bout an umbilical stump conditioner or a cry interpreter? Get to work, inventors and marketers - not nearly enough products for kids out there.

Two sitters

2009-04-21T16:13:00.001-07:00

We already found a baby sitter - 6-year-old Sophie from next door. We're training her early. Might not be necessary, however, since we're also training Ty to put his own pacifier in.

2nd verse, same as the 1st

2009-04-21T13:48:00.000-07:00

From an hour of sleep to an hour and a half. Things are good in the K hood. It's funny Summer and I thought this week off (6 weeks off for her) would be pseudo vacation time. We imagined a lot of yard work, chilling, watching movies and such. How naive was that?! How can an 8-pound little creature be so much work?

Anyway, heading off to get some blood work done. Not gonna be happy with the lab people.

Where the tired things are

2009-04-20T15:20:00.000-07:00

Holy...

crap...

we...

are...

so...

tired...

Last night might have been the longest night of my life. I've always been a night owl, but this kid makes me look like an early-to-bed-early-to-rise dairy farmer. He started screaming at about 3 a.m. and didn't let up till about 9 or 10. Summer was pretty delusional, and we were both at wits' end. We kept telling each other that it's a good thing he's so cute or he'd be harder to put up with.

Sheer exhaustion wouldn't have been so bad, but we were so worried about him as well. At least everything always looks better in the morning, except our bloodshot eyes. The pediatrician at his first post-birth visit agreed: He's a healthy, strong little bugger.

Here's to convincing Ty that our sleep schedule is better than his. Or, more likely, here's to reluctantly accepting that his schedule is a foregone conclusion. I think he just burped in amusement that I figured that out...

Missed one

2009-04-19T21:24:00.001-07:00

One more pic

You're right and you're wrong

2009-04-19T21:03:00.000-07:00

Oh, and I'm still not too fond of diapers (no, all of you who said "they're not that big a deal" are dead wrong, and you don't "get used to them"). But all in all this really has been an amazing experience. You're all right on that part - it's all worth it and you can't explain it till you have kids yourself and all that stuff.

Day 3 (I think)

2009-04-19T15:06:00.000-07:00

Bits and pieces of a thousand conversations are coming back to me now... "birth is a miracle, but don't plan on sleeping for months... your baby's diapers won't smell the first few times you change him... make SURE to cover your kid's kickstand right when you take the diaper off..." The list goes on and on.

I'm finding that I knew exactly what I thought I knew about child rearing - nothing. But it's been far more enjoyable than I ever imagined. Add the advice I've heard over the past 10 months is accurate, and for naught. I think we're just learning things on our own as we go along.

Last night was good for me - I came home to catch a couple hours sleep. Summer tried a sleeping pill at the hospital, but Ty doesn't like formula, so the crew kept bringing him in to feast on the twin bounties. I think it was another rough night for her, but she won't admit it.

Worst part about today was Ty's circumcision, which is a supreme exercise in parental guilt. Makes you wince and hate the pediatrician. At least we got them to finally take out his hand IV. We tried to gather as many freebies as possible and then bolted from the hospital at 11 or so, and he's been perfect all day. I guess tonight will be the true test - good thing there's no work tomorrow.

Firsts

2009-04-18T10:06:00.000-07:00

This morning at 3 or so, after a whopping 24 seconds of sleep, they pulled us in the nursery for Tyler's first bath, footprints and some other stuff we can't remember very well because we were delirious. He didn't love the bath, but he basked under the tanning lamp afterwards and soaked up the rays to forget about the trauma. We had an interesting convo with the nurses about stupid baby names like Abcde (yep, real name). Hilarious thing was one of the nurses chimed in about her kid's name, which is Gator. Not nick name - it's on the birth certificate. I guess some people just need to be different, just like everyone else.

2009-04-18T08:34:00.000-07:00

Tyler Craig made his debut! We're all marveling that he came out of Summer, because he's 8 pounds, 8 ounces, 22 inches long! Summer, weighing in at a buck five pushed him out in only 4 contractions. The whole thing took less than a half hour. Pretty surreal right now.

We didn't even need to turn on the baby warmer because the HVAC on our floor is broken and it was honestly 300 degrees in there. Other funny thing was our OB forgot her glasses so she had to borrow Leigh Ann's.

Summer is truly a tough cookie. She was having contractions since about 3 a.m., and still went in to work for most the day. At 2 or so she finally decided enough was enough and went home. We took her down to the doctor's at 3, and they said she was already dilated to a 5 and her contractions were about 4 or 5 minutes apart, so they sent us right up to the hospital. We ran into the CEO and CNO of my company on the way up, which was funny.

Summer suffered through the epidural and then we watched the monitors for a couple hours. Finally, a replacement OB (Dr. Macy had gone home) came and checked things out and said he was really low and about to pop out - 30 minutes at the most. Sure enough, Dr. Macy came just in time and he popped right out at 9:48.

More about his first bath later...

Day before it all began

2009-04-16T19:02:00.000-07:00

Welcome one and all to the official blog of Craig and Summer Kartchner. Cliche though it undoubtedly is, this blog will chronicle life after our boy comes out of the chute.

Summer just had her membranes stripped today, which might be the most attractive term you'll ever see on this site. That means she'll probably go into labor within 24 hours, and no later than Saturday.

So in the waning hours of peace and quiet, let me say that I'm scared and excited, worried and intimidated. Most of all, I'm convinced I'm hours away from EVERYTHING changing. Here's to the past and the future, sleeping at night and midnight diapers, trips to Antarctica and suffering through Disneyland (ugh). Thanks for coming along...