A good one

I woke up with the early birds this morning. I was a bit cold, and suddenly an extra blanket was being laid over top of me. I swear he reads my mind.

He's such a good one.

Every night Tim picks his clothes out and puts them in the living room so as to disturb me as little as possible, just in case Maelyn sleeps past 6:30am. She generally doesn't, but he's ready to let me sleep just in any case.

Today it seemed especially sweet. Maelyn was talking in her crib, and I lay awake under an extra blanket and appreciated him as he quietly got ready. When I got up I melted when I saw this on the counter:











He remembered I was running a Sumas errand today and he had my passport and Maelyn's birth certificate set out for me. He knows me so well. (I have, indeed, ended up at the border without...)

If Maelyn had a Uniform

This would be it.

camping

I wasn't sure if it would fly, this business of our annual camping trip plus Maelyn. I'd been tortured on a vacation once before with her. When we arrived at the site, perfectly timed just before her first nap I felt optimistic that it would go smoothly. We hurried the tent up and put her into her playpen (which we'd practiced sleeping in the week earlier). She screamed. Her lungs out. Hysterically. Despite obvious exhaustion, she was clearly communicating...this is not my room (or any of the rooms that I've agreed to sleep in). I got her up, and napless we headed for the beach. The night she did a similar thing, but eventually drifted off. I was discouraged, and not hopeful that I'd remain at the site for the duration of the booking...

That night was fine, and by the next day she had (almost) given the tent the stamp of approval. By the last day she was happy in the tent - in fact, her fussiest was when we were packing the tent back up!

Besides the first day, Maelyns biggest impact on the trip was our early mornings and thus -- earlier bedtimes. While we previously might have lazed in bed till 8 or 11 we were up with the crack of dawn and exhausted by 10pm. If it cramped our co-campers style (Chris and Shereen), they were very gracious about it.

Shereen and Maelyn


We want Maelyn to learn young that the best vacations include reading a book on the beach.



WATER BABY! This child loves the water at any temperature.

Leah and Maelyn playing her favorite "rocks in the cup" game.

Chris doubted that it would happen, but snuggles occurred between these two. Further proof:






Camping lesson #1: maintain sleep schedule as best as possible. Camping lesson #2: Bring the Jolly Jumper. Maelyn's portable highchair annoyingly didn't fit on the picnic table so she jumped through basically every meal.

I was going to label this post as "annual camping trip edition 5" or something like that but when I thought about it, I realized that Tim and Chris and I have been camping every summer since before we were married. So, since the summer of 2000. Which means we've been camping together 9 years running. That's some faithfulness. Cheers Chris! Here's to 9 more!

Do I smell?

When does a baby learn when something smells good vs bad? Apparently today. Maelyn made the most incredible stink face this morning when I got close to give ooey gooey morning love. I laughed and wondered if we'd turned a corner, so I blew on her face just to check.

Sure enough. She definitely responded to her mommy's bad morning breath. Poor thing. At least she doesn't appear to have inherited my anosmia (very weak sense of smell). I constantly worry that I have B.O. since I can't smell a bloody thing. Maybe soon my daughter will be able to help answer my "do I smell?" probes. Her answer was quite clear this morning!

Drowning

I swear my baby is going to drown herself. I can't keep her face out of the water! A few days ago she dipped her face in past her nose (leaning straight over forward) and before I could grab her she had breathed in a chest full of H2O. Next bath, she leaned so far over her whole body flipped so she was lying face down in the tub -- being that I was right there (my hands were on her whileshe was on the way over) I grabbed her right out. She was hysterical on both occasions and calmed down only when I put her back into the tub to play. She loves the water and gets so excited about it she's pretty sure a lung full is a good idea. The more the merrier right? She even goes straight into the shower already. I gotta get this girl swimming lessons or she'll kill herself. How early can a kid learn to hold their breath?