All posts by RB

Alison

6 months

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Half a year already! My how our lives have changed. This first six months certainly went a lot different than the first six months with Reed. All we can say is… she’s certainly a girl.

Ali has added more laughing to her smile this past month. When her mood allows it, she will smile at us from across the room and sometimes get herself worked up enough to giggle. At these times she seems to laugh at everything. I think she got a little of that from her mother. She is a joy to be around. Her teachers have even commented to us how good she normally is.

She is eating an assortment of solid foods now and is not as picky as she used to be. In fact she will dive into the spoon with her mouth wide-open for *almost* everything we have tried.  She is eating bananas, cereal, peas, carrots, sweet potatoes and applesauce. 

She is wearing size 2 diapers and 6 month clothes (and growing out of them quickly).  At her 6 month checkup she was 50% in both height and weight…just like Reed.

She is finally sleeping like a champ and cross our fingers she has been very healthy all summer.  Let’s hope she keeps this up!

As for sitting up, she is still a little wobbly and shouldn’t be unattended, or at least un-padded. And when left to roll around on the floor, you’d better watch your feet… she’s even started to push with her legs when she’s on her tummy. Watch out! We might have a crawler in the next month’s update.

Other Babies

Cole Jordan Kohnen

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I met Ryan in college, but truthfully we never got to know each other until years later. He met Lacey and then I introduced Julie when she came around, and the four of us just hit it off. We have a rarity in couple relationships, where all 4 individuals get along great with the other 3.

Now Ryan and Lacey are celebrating their first child, and we couldn’t be happier. Sharing the experience of our own kids with them while they were preparing for their own, has really strengthened our relationship. Now that Cole is here, we are anxious to get to know him and watch him grow with our own kids.

Cole came in at 7lbs 5oz and 20 inches long. Lacey and the baby were doing great when we got to visit them, and your couldn’t wipe the smile off Ryan’s face.

-RB

Family, Holidays, Videos

Fourth of July

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No trip to the lake this year, but who needs the lake when there is a perfectly good swimming pool just down the road?

We took it easy this year and decided to hang out at Duke and Ya-ya’s new house with the pool in the back yard. It is certainly easier than packing for the weekend at the lake, and with two little ones, it’s really the most logical choice.

Last year, we couldn’t keep Reed out of the water. He was fearless…literally. This year, he has developed a good, healthy fear of the water, but he swung 180 degrees the other way and would not go near it. That is, until Reed spent an afternoon at the pool with Miss Kate Pike.

You see, Kate has been taking swimming lessons and she knew how to jump into the pool to her dad. Reed saw this and refused to be upstaged by a girl, so he wanted to get his swim trunks on and jump into the pool to dad as well. Ever since that weekend, Reed has been just as fearless as he was last year… pushing his boundaries in the water. First he was falling into my arms from the side of the pool, then he began jumping at me, so I moved back. Most recently, he has added a running start to his jumps and getting several feet out into the water.

Ali likes her time in the pool as well. She is usually grinning from ear-to-ear while Mommy holds her. She will kick a little, but she really just likes to be a part of the action.

Reed

Boy Big Bed

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That’s right… you read the headline right. We converted Reed’s crib to a daybed by taking the side off. We call it his big-boy bed, but he jumbles the words and trips over his tongue a little when he talks about his “boy big bed”.

We took a chance on making the conversion, really just on a whim. Reed rarely threw his leg over the rail of his crib, and never made any serious attempts to climb out. We just felt he was ready for it and he is already such a great sleeper that it didn’t feel TOO risky. After all, we had just got Ali to start sleeping through the night so why not change it up a little bit?

I knew going into this that he was going to fall out of his bed. I think everyone in my family (including my dad) has memories of falling out of the bed and waking up on the ground. Apparently we are a bunch of floppers, and Reed is no different. Hardly ever did he wake up in the same side of the crib that we laid him down in. So, for Reed’s first night in his new bed, I expected to deal with a few falls… I just was uneasy at how he would take it. Sure enough, his first fall was around 2 hours after we put him down… and he slept right through it! The other 2 that night, however, woke him up and he cried when he realized what had happen. He took it like a champ and climbed back into bed and let us tuck him back in.

He has slept better every night since his first. We have even had a least one no-fall night in the first week. We put some floor pillows down to cushion his falls, and he talks about his falls like a badge-of-honor (like a little boy should). The excitement he had the first morning when he woke up and talked about his “boy big bed”, validated the chance we took. Our boy really is getting big.

RB

Family, Holidays, Travel, Videos

Memorial Day Weekend

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We spent the weekend in Leakey, Texas with 2 other families that have kids. In a cozy 3 bed/2 bath hill country house, we set in for a 3-day weekend with 6 adults and 5 kids under 3yrs old. This may as well have been traveling daycare.

We had what you would expect from a weekend with kids involved: some sleepless nights, toddler meltdowns and scheduling events around nap time. However, we did have a great place on the river to relax and get wet, as well as plenty of good food to cook and grill.

Below: Reed and Kate set out to find some deer that were all over the property. At first, Kate calls the deer on the phone, and then she and Reed set out. Among the notable finds: deer poop.

Alison, Events, Videos

Alison’s Baptism

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When we got the notice that our Pastor, Rev. Ryan Barnett, was going to transfer to another church at the beginning of the summer, we jumped on the schedule to baptize Alison before he left. You see, Ryan has been a meaningful friend and Pastor to us, and we didn’t want to let him slip away without doing us the honor of baptizing Ali. Ryan also knows the Alison that our daughter was named for, so it was symbolic for us to have Ryan bring our Alison into the church where we first met her namesake.

The other meaningful element was to have Papa Roy (Rev. Roy Wold) assist in the baptism, just like he did with Reed. It means so much to have him as part of the family, that we want him to be a part of all these events as long as he is around. He is about 96 now and we are blessed every year that he is still with us.

The ceremony went well. Julie had Ali dressed in long white gown that she had purchased months ago. We hope to keep it and pass it on to future girls in the family. Reed behaved himself pretty well through the service and even gave the crowd some laughs when he patted Ali’s head gently and when he kept trying the put the lip gloss on me that he insisted on holding.

Check out the pics and video below.

-RB

Reed

Faceplant

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I had just come home from work and picking up the two kids. In fact we were still unloading in the driveway when my co-worker, Jason, and his wife pulled up to the house. You see, they were on their way over to my neighbor’s house to look at their new litter of Golden Retriever puppies. They had a camera in hand and were ready to snap some shots of cute puppies.

We were chatting in the front yard before they headed over, and for some reason Reed decided to take off across the front yard, right in front of them. Jason had his camera out and pointed it at Reed, just as Reed took a forward tumble and rolled up onto his face, and over on his side. Jason snapped a single shot in the middle of the action and the result is what you see here… an instant classic.

We are going to laugh at this photo for years to come!

RB

Alison, Randy, Reed

Everybody do The Daycare Shuffle

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I have to admit, the most stressful parts of my day are the pick-up and drop-off at daycare. I have the shortest commute, so Daddy’s truck has been deemed the Kid Taxi. That used to not be as big of a deal when it was just Reed and I would be in-and-out in 2 minutes or less. When Reed started walking on his own with my guidance, we added a bit more time for his short legs, but it was still no sweat.

Now that Alison has started daycare, she alone has created 3 times the cargo necessary to be transported in and out of the house on a daily basis. Alison in her carrier plus her daycare bag is enough, but add a wandering, headstrong toddler to the mix and you have chaos in a bottle.

Reed’s latest favorite phrase is, “all by self”. It is mostly used when getting into and out of my truck. He likes to climb up the running board and into the cab, and then down the big steps to the ground. As you can imagine, his insistence on doing this can add to Daddy’s frustration when time is not on our side.

There are 2 rules for Ali’s classroom that cause a bit of frustration everyday:
1) You either have to have shoe covers on, or take off your shoes completely. Given that there are never any shoe covers available, I have to unlace and bend down to take my shoes off every time. They don’t even have a bench or chair for parents to do this, so I am always bending over in the middle of the hallway (with parents and kids walking nearby), or propping myself against the wall. Either way, it is a huge inconvenience for those of us that are not wearing slip-ons or flip-flops. I have watched one other working mom wear house slippers, and I’m seriously considering the alternative.
2) Siblings cannot enter the infant classroom. I get this one, I really do, but it causes a logistics catch-22. Logic says that Ali is the last one I drop off, and the first one I pick up. However, these rules don’t account for the following: Trying to usher a toddler to his classroom with 2 arm loads of gear, and taking the infant carrier to the toddler room for pick up where she will be mauled by other toddlers while trying to round up the sibling.

I’m hoping that this is as hard as it is going to get, and it will be better soon as the kids get older in the near future. If any of you older parents have different opinions, you can hold them to yourself and allow me to live in ignorance, with hope that the light at the end of the tunnel is getting bigger.

RB

Alison, Julie, Randy, Reed

Emergency Room

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We’ve had quite the excitement in our house over the last month, and not the good kind. Both kids have been sick and we have taken 2 separate trips to the emergency room. When it rains, it pours.

Reed:
A few weeks ago, I was building the race track for Reed’s 2nd Birthday party. I used some particle board that I had leftover from another project. One evening I was working in the garage with Reed out there with me, along with Julie. As I was picking up the large piece of particle board to position it on the saw horses, I didn’t see Reed behind me to my left. The board swung up and the corner caught him in the corner of his right eye, next to the bridge of his nose. He dropped to the ground holding his face as Julie and I both were realizing what had just happened.

There was no significant blood, but his eyelid and area around his eye were certainly swelling. Julie called her mother for an assessment and she came right over… emergency room it is.

The waiting room of Methodist Children’s hospital was PACKED. It was the height of flu season and RSV. Fortunately for us, Reed’s case was escalated pretty quick because of his age and it was his eye. Once we finally got to a doctor, we had to hold Reed down for an iodine test. Sure enough, he had a scratch across his eye, but not alarming.

We had to treat Reed’s eye with drops for the next few days (which he hated), but by the time his birthday came, he was looking much better.

About a week after his birthday, Reed came down with a HORRIBLE stomach bug. He had spent the day with Duke and then had a pasta dinner with Ya-Ya, so nothing unusual. At about 1am, he cried out from his room after throwing up all over his crib. Julie cleaned him up and put him back down. He has done this once before and it was a one-and-done case. Two hours later he woke up again after another spell. Then thirty minutes later, a third time.

I gave him a bath this time to both settle him down (throwing up scared him) and clean him up. He didn’t feel hot, but he certainly had that pitiful look of helplessness that he usually has when he is sick. (Julie says it is the only time he will sit still and cuddle.) At this point we realized that this wasn’t going away, and we would just be changing sheets in his crib until we ran out if we kept trying to put him down. So, I stayed up with Reed and we watched Cars and Charlie Brown.

The short version of the LONG day that ensued was that Reed could not keep anything down (not even water) for about 15 hours. We had to slow-feed him a tablespoon of water every 10 minutes after he had not thrown up for two hours. He hated the idea of one tiny sip of water after we started to give it to him, and proceeded to call out for more water as a dehydrated traveler in the Sahara Desert. It was really hard that he could not understand us holding back the one thing we offer him freely on a regular basis. The entire day felt like a sick day for the family since we never once stepped foot outside and the line between night and day was so blurry.

It turned out to be viral, and it ran it’s course through fever eventually. Julie kept him home that Monday… unfortunately in the same proximity as 2 month old Alison.

Alison:
Whatever Reed had the week before, we are pretty sure that Ali got some of the residual effects. We tried fervently to wash our hands as we dealt with Reed and then had to tend to Ali. Unfortunately the close proximity to such sickness we are pretty sure gave Alison her first significant fever and a trip to… you guessed it… the emergency room.

We were fortunate in this situation that Julie’s mother was already over at the house for a visit. She was just about to say goodbye after Julie changed Ali’s diaper. They thought she felt a little hot, so during the diaper change, they checked her temp. Julie said she checked it 3 times… 101! For her age it means a trip to the hospital to rule out things like meningitis. Since Julie’s mom was already at the house, she was kind enough to stay with Reed, who we had already put down to bed for the night.

Once again to Methodist Children’s, and once again we jumped to the top of the waiting list because of the urgency and implications and her age. In fact Julie never sat down in the waiting room. She was already admitted by the time I parked the car and walked in. They gave Ali a dose of Tylenol after taking her temp and they moved us to a room in the ER.

We settled in for what was going to be a long night. In order to test for stuff like meningitis and other reasons for high fever on an infant, they have to run all sorts of tests. Urine sample, blood sample, chest x-rays… you name it. What ensued was the hardest time I have ever had as a parent, to date. The details of the story actually make me angry when I think about them again, so I will not dwell too much on them.

It was becoming apparent to me that before they started these tests we had created quite a buzz in the halls by having a 2 month old there in the ER to undergo all these tests. As our nurses we prepping for the procedures, there were a number of nurses and doctors that stuck their head into our room to catch a glimpse of our daughter, and offer assistance if there wasn’t already enough help. We were certainly a much more interesting case than the middle school kid next door that had violent puking spells every 20 minutes (or so it sounded like).

The urine sample was first. One of the nurses assigned to us was actually a shadow of the other. She came from the adult ER, and was getting her round in pediatrics. They were going to do a catheter on Ali to get the urine sample. I had prepared myself for the crying and discomfort that Ali would have while they were doing the procedure, but I was not prepared for the length of time it would take and the fact that the shadow could not correctly do the procedure. In the midst of my daughter’s pain and agony, these nurses were having a “teaching moment”. Finally the rookie stepped aside and the other nurse finished. It felt like a lifetime to hear Ali cry like that. Julie was tearing up, as was I. We heard Ali make sounds that we had never heard before. My fingers were digging into my arms as I had them crossed and bound as tight as I could. I couldn’t watch and I couldn’t walk away.

That was only the beginning, the blood test was next. Between 4 different nurses they had to stick Ali 6 different times to attempt to draw blood and give her an IV. They even sent the “A” team of nurses to draw blood from her tiny veins. Julie lost it when she heard that one had “blown a vein” during an attempt. They eventually just stuck her foot as they do for the PKU to draw blood and passed on the IV.

The chest x-ray was certainly the easiest. We just had to hold her still on the table. We did pass by the same room that Reed had been in for the iodine test on his eye just a few week before. They also did a nasal flush that really cleaned out the junk that Ali had been coughing on for quite a while.

We left the hospital at about 2am. Ali slept through the rest of the night, and I am sure it was pure exhaustion, as well as the nasal flush that helped her breathe easier.

We thought we had an early introduction to doctors with Reed when he needed stitches. He was eighteen months old when that happened. Ali beat her older brother by 16 months.

RB

Alison

2 months

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Alison has established herself as the new female of the family. She is certainly more cuddly than Reed EVER was, but with that she is certainly more needy. She likes to be held more often than not, and will go from zero-to-meltdown if she is not getting what she wants. She will not stand dirty diapers as long as Reed would/will, and that is understandably more girlish.

She HAS slept through the night, but it did not become a pattern. In fact nothing about Ali’s schedule has become a pattern. It’s always a guessing game at how she will sleep at night based on how she slept during the day. We would try and keep her awake until we were going to bed in hopes that she would sleep longer into the night, but rarely did that work out. She could be falling asleep in our arms, and then take a full hour in her swing to settle down.

As for feeding, she SUCKS at bottles. Every minute of feeding equals at least one spit-up or dribble down the chin. Most of the time she gets frustrated before she gets full. Because of this, Julie has been Ali’s one and only source of feeding. This has been pretty hard on Julie, especially at the 3am feeding that I USED to do with Reed… not so much with Ali.

The stats:
Length – 22.75″
Weight – 11.31 lbs
Head circumference – 15.25″