H.A.H.

This post is inspired by the Alumni Association at work, which sponsors events in a series titled, "Calvin Around Town." I like to think of these photos as "Helen Around Home." Well, it works for me. And it is my blog. And it is late at night. :)



Easter morning, Helen with her peeps.Yes, there are way too many baskets there. I tried to keep it small this year - two chocolate eggs, a $3 toy, sunglasses (which they needed anyway), and a packet of seeds for each of them to plant in our garden this spring. Then, Saturday night, the neighbors (an older couple) dropped by with baskets for each of them. "Well, we were making them for our grandkids, anyway..." That candy will last a bit longer. And the toys were overflowing. Happy, spoiled children. And that was before Grandma Di came over with baskets of her own for the kids. Ahh, decadence. :) 



All the kids get sent to bed at the same time, for simplicity. But James is not always quite ready to sleep. He has developed on his own a favorite ritual. He used to ask me to "tuck him in and tell him the plans." Now, instead, he asks me to "bring Helen in to say good-night." He likes this one-on-one time that he gets after John and Maggie are asleep.

Helen seems to enjoy this visit, as well. She gets to stretch out on her own and kick, yet have a servant at her beck and call to talk to her and rub her tummy. And I get 10 minutes to myself to clean up dinner dishes, or use the bathroom. Such decadence for me, too!

Chillin' with Dad. As usual, she pretends the parent holding her doesn't exist. But she will have a ready smile for a complete stranger who walks up and smiles at her. Go figure. I guess we will just have to tell ourselves that she is very  secure in our love.  By the way, this picture is just a bit blurry because repeated attempts to use the flash were all a disaster. Jeremy must have the best/fastest/strongest eye reflexes in the world. But the stoned look does not suit him.

Long Live the Queen!

The older kids have taken to calling the baby "Queen Helen." There certainly is something regal in her demeanor. She can throw a royal tantrum, but then stop crying on a dime if she gets what she wants. Often, this is not food, but entertainment. She will fuss, then scream bloody murder, if she gets bored. James or Maggie might then pick her up and carry her around the house, just to look at things. She sits contentedly on their arm, surveying her kingdom. She wears a perfect expression of benevolent ennui. But, the contentment only lasts until her palanquin bearer stops moving. Then she gets bored again, and the royal rage continues, but with a scolding tone.

On the whole, she really is quite mild-tempered. She just doesn't suffer fools. Or lack of entertainment.

Even a queen must recognize the potential for mortal peril. 

 

 

Is it the adoration of a loyal subject, or a crushing attack by Our enemies? Her majesty knows she must never show fear, though sometimes the eyes may give away just a hint of it.

Whew! Disaster averted. It is just another loyal subject, coming to kiss Our signet. You may rise, peasant.

Ahh, they love our royal person so. They just can't bear to part from Us.

Pinewood Derby

James decided to build his Derby car for the "style" prize rather than to win the race. Is he really the son of two engineers? He thought the starting block for building the car was an obvious platform to display his affection for legos.

Nice day for ducks...and 3-year-old boys.

Our neighbor's yard, to the north, is now missing the yard.

We have had some wet weather around here this week. The seasonal lake that is otherwise known as our backyard is the largest we have ever seen it - spreading all the way up to our deck. If you are familiar with our backyard, well, this isn't it. The photo above is actually our neighbor's yard, which has never been wet before. This year, they have only lake and no yard. Perhaps a bonus outcome of all the digging they did last summer to fix their wet basement.

Oddly, we haven't yet seen the ducks that like to swim in our yard for the lake season, but John managed to enjoy it enough for all of them. Thank goodness Jeremy had the foresight to buy the kids winter boots that are all rubber so they double for rain boots. (I recommend clicking on these photos for a full-screen view. John's expressions are key to the vicarious experience,.)

This one is our backyard. 

John enjoyed the backyard, but found the front sidewalk very enticing, for some reason. Perhaps it was because he saw his big sister splashing in the puddles there the day before, on her way into the house, and he, being the neglected and abused one, was prevented from joining her. You can see the look on his face in the first photo below - he can't quite believe his good fortune that he is going to be allowed to do this. (Note that being allowed or not wouldn't actually affect whether he did it, but he does prefer to not get in trouble if he has a choice.)

Really? Can I go in here and not get a time out?

Once into the puddle, he quickly gained confidence in his position. Then, admonishments to avoid splashing his mother, her camera, or his baby sister in the front pack carrier clearly fell on stone deaf ears.

While I was glad that John could enjoy the water, I really prefer to spend my rainy days inside. Helen was glad to help me take a nap. This was how Jeremy found me within 15 minutes of his arrival home from work. Nothing, not even a rainy day, is quite like breastfeeding for inducing a really good nap.

Grandma makes the very best

Grandma Di delivered a few articles of clothing to each of the kids this weekend. She shops the Goodwill in her town, finds true treasures, washes them, and delivers them to our house ready to go. I am delighted that the kids don't seem to mind second-hand since this is definitely a preferred way to keep them covered.But beyond "not minding," I wasn't sure how they felt about the clothes, really, until today.

Maggie walked out of her bedroom pulling on a shirt and wearing a huge, satisfied grin. "What are you so happy about today?" I asked her.

"This shirt still has the smell of clean laundry from Grandma Di's house! Ahh!"

So apparently, it isn't just Grandma's cooking that wins, hands down. Now, I have lost the laundry contest, too. These are contests I am happy to lose. I am glad the kids and their grandma appreciate each other so much.

Playing pass the baby

I wanted to show baby Helen with some of her "peeps." The Jewett clan visited on 2/25/11, when Helen was 3 weeks old.





Helen with Helen



Helen with Great-Uncle Jim. "Hey, wow, she's not crying!"



Helen with Great-Aunt Nancy





Helen with Great-Aunt Sue





Uncle Jeff

Okay, I am a bit behind in my blog posts. These pictures are from the beginning of March, when Helen was just 4 weeks old.We got word from Jeff that he would be blowing through the USA for job interviews. When he determined that he would get a few hours of leisure in South Bend, IN, we (Jeremy, Dad, kids and I) drove down to visit. The kids were very excited to see Uncle Jeff, as you can see from the "pile on" photos. The fact that we were in the Notre Dame bookstore didn't deter any of them at all.

Not sure, but maybe with the stress of a new baby I haven't been adequately supervising John's daily sock changing routines.

Here we all are, except Jeremy who was the photographer. Helen is 4 weeks old.

Helen did not seem highly engaged with this process. But she put up with a very long walk around U. N. D. in a snowstorm.

Family photos

We have a few family photots so I thought I would post them.

First, one of just the kids...


3/31/11

Next, the whole family. We had to get a family photo to submit for the church's new photo directory. Maybe not the best photo of any of us, but I am actually impressed that with just a camera on a self-timer, and shooting 2 adults and 4 kids, we got something respectable in only four shots.

Helen's milestones at 9 weeks old

8 weeks old

Well, she definitely looks like a baby now (not a newborn). She is sleeping much less, and getting to be interactive. We are starting to see a bit of her personality.

She seems reasonably easy-going, but more sober than giddy. A grin tends to be hard fought and won. She will typically give a nice smile to almost anyone when they first greet her and smile at her (assuming that she is well-fed and content at the time). After that first smile, though, all bets are off. No wasted giggling. I remember the other kids being much more likely to smile at this age, but then again, maybe my memory is off. And she isn't crabby, so I am not complaining.

She coos just a bit. I realized last week when I was home alone with her for one of the first times when I wasn't trying to either nap or frantically get something done for work that I don't talk to her as much as I did with the other kids. That is kind of sad, but a reality. When I am with Helen, I am likely to be working on the computer, or talking to John, or helping James with homework or Maggie with piano practice. So Helen hears plently of words, but they just aren't as much to her. I have vowed to try to improve that a bit.



Some quiet time with Mom. James took this picture, where Helen is almost 8 weeks old. 

 She can pretty reliably roll over from her front to back. If she is laid down on her stomach with her arms up front by her head, she will push her head and chest up to look around, then flip over and roll to her back. I don't think the roll is intentional, since she then generally proceeds to: 1) look startled  2) kick like a turtle on its back, 3) cry with an angry sound. I guess she will need to learn how to roll back the other way, soon.

She is very easy at night. Somewhere between 9 and 11 PM, she gets fussy and wants to sleep. If I am not yet ready to go to bed, Jeremy lies her on her tummy on a quilt on the floor next to us, where we can watch her. She sleeps very happily that way. (Flip her over on her back and she will be awake almost instantly - spitting up, gagging, flailing arms and legs. Apparently she, like all our other kids, never got the memo from the AAP about sleeping on her back.) Otherwise, she will sometimes sleep tucked up in her carseat, but this is less reliable. Then, when I go to bed, I take her with me and we nurse to sleep. She sleeps quite well for as long as I will stay in bed with her, sometimes as much as 8 or 9 hours. Of course, she eats once or twice during that time, but she is pretty independent now so only have to wake up to help her get started. I can't complain. (She is even polite enough to rarely poop during the night, so I don't get up to change diapers much anymore.)

9 weeks old and sleeping like a baby (in her carseat, in this instance). She doesn't really suck her thumb, as this picture might appear, but only occasionally sucks her fists a bit.

Spring Break in Grand Blanc

Yes, John does appear ready to sprint out of the photo. In fact, that is exactly what he did, a split-second later.

Thursday, we drove over to Grand Blanc to visit Grandma and Aunt Sue. Jeremy was working but the kids were on Spring Break, and with my research paper finally submitted, I was able to actually take my maternity leave time this week with the kids. It was a nice day - starting to warm up a bit - so the kids spent a long time outside helping Sue clean up the flower beds for spring planting.

During the quiet, Helen (age 93) and Helen (age 2 months) spent some quality time together. They had some friendly competition to see who was sleepier. Although in all honesty, I think I won. At one point, I laid baby Helen on the floor on a blanket, and napped in a chair, right next to her. Apparently she fussed (cried?) enough that Grandma got upset and called Sue inside to attend to her. (Sue carries a baby monitor so Grandma can call if she needs anything; in this case it was actually used for the baby. :)  Sue obligingly changed the baby's diaper and walked her around, and I slept on through like a champion. So much for that mother's sixth sense that would always wake me even before the baby got to a full fuss. (Unless maybe Grandma jumped the gun and called for help unnecessarily early. Since I was asleep, I will never know.)

No longer a newborn

Today marked a new milestone for Helen - the day she declared herself too big to be carted along to "just anywhere." She gave a hint of it yesterday, when I had to take her out of the church service for the first time. We were visiting at Glen and Diana's church, and the preacher was a bit more raucous than ours - or so I excused her at the time. She wouldn't sit quietly in the pew, but let me stand in the back as long as I kept pacing with her so she could see new things. Back there, the enthusiasm from the pulpit only made her startle, rather than cry.

Today, the older kids stayed with Grandma and Grandpa, so after a quiet day at home with Helen, I decided to try to pop in for my engineering department meeting (something I haven't been able to do this semester). She arrived asleep, but that didn't last long. She passed gas noisily, then fussed a bit, then ate noisily, then pooped noisily. I stepped out to change her diaper, but soon after our return to the meeting, she finally just plain fussed and I had to leave. As soon as I was out of the room, she was perfectly quiet and content. She had just wanted me to pace about with her and show her the sights. And so it begins. Not a newborn anymore, and mommy had better remember that!