Spring Travel, pt 1: Taryn's Bridal Showers in Seattle

This spring turned out to be a big travel month for us. In mid-April we drove to Seattle to attend two bridal showers for Taryn, Corinne's cousin. The first shower started mid-day on Saturday, and since Corinne was co-hosting the event we wanted to make sure that we arrived in plenty of time. Ordinarily we would have driven up Friday night, particularly with the increased uncertainty that Anders introduces, but several factors conspired against us in that regard:

1. From Seattle we would be flying directly to NJ to visit my family, so everything we needed for that trip had to be packed and taken with us when we left for Seattle.
   
2. We've both been working longer hours recently, trying to make a deadline in June. This week was no exception, so there was quite a bit less time at home in which to pack. (This will probably end up as a recurring theme in posts over the next couple months, though hopefully only that long).

As a result, we finished packing late Friday night, awoke early Saturday morning and hit the road by about 8:00am. We arrived just in time.

The hosts and bride to be!

Not content to settle for the "ordinary" shower games, Corinne managed to come up with some pretty creative game ideas for the linen themed shower.

Dinner Party. Each attendee was given a set of cutouts representing all of the pieces of a formal place setting: several plates, several glasses, and more than a half dozen pieces of flatware. Each person had to place the items on a place mat in the correct location, with the winner having the most correct. It is a lot harder than it sounds... (This game also contributed to our late departure as we were still cutting out flatware on Friday night.)

Napkin Folding Contest. Each participant was given a cloth napkin and had to fold. The winner was whoever the bride-to-be judged to have the nicest or most creative napkin.

Folding a Fitted Sheet. Each participant folds a fitted sheet, with the winner being the person who is judged to have the most precise and neat end result.

"Stains" Word Scramble. Similar to the game Boggle, she created a square grid of letters as the "board". Hidden within that board were a set of common linen stains whose names could be formed by following contiguous letters.

Anders also had a chance to spend some time with Petra, daughter of Dan and Heidi-Lyn, who is approximately his age. Of course he made a good impression.

They actually played next to each other on the blanket for quite some time before Petra decided it was time to end the date. On Sunday we went to another shower for Taryn where a few more games were played, delicious food was eaten, and Anders spent long periods sleeping in his carseat in the corner of the room.  He is such an easy traveler these days!

Other than the two showers, the rest of our short time in Seattle was devoted to celebrating Uncle Pete's birthday and hanging out with Anders.

But before too long it was time to continue our journey... on to New Jersey!

- Mike, Corinne, and Anders Rocket

Rocket's Favorite Toys

A little older and a little wiser now, Anders definitely has developed a preference for certain toys.

Rattles
The Bergers gave Anders a German (of course!) wooden rattle. I love the colors and the simplicity. The shape makes it easy to hold and therefore was Anders's first toy. He still loves it especially now that he can shake it vigorously and make noise.

On the noise front, he also loves the hand-me-down rattle from his cousins Katya & Nadija and the extra set of bells from Taryn's wedding.

Ghost Dog
When Anders was born, Aunt Joie gave him a toy that is a silky soft blanket with a stuffed dog head in the middle. When Anders started fingering his burp cloths, I pulled out the dog blanket for him. He absolutely LOVES it now. He likes to chew on the nose and the corners, but the tail is definitely his favorite part. Our co-worker Rat has termed this toy "Ghost Dog".

Finger Puppets
The Schulers gave Anders a set of 5 finger puppets (frog, cat, duck, cow, and pig). He finds them all quite tasty and can spend quite a bit of time sampling them all. It turns out Max loves these too and tries to steal them so we make an effort to put them away. (Babies and cats like many of the same toys.) The frog is currently missing.... Hmmmmm.

There's one more toy with which Anders spends quite a bit of time playing, but that will wait for another post.

- Corinne, Mike, and Anders Rocket

Name The Baby Contest Winners

Remember that "Name The Baby" contest that we held last year? Well, now that Anders is about ready to go off to college, we figured that it was about time to announce the winners.

Here's an interesting fact: the initial contest for a girl's name lasted about 3 weeks and generated 51 submissions; the followup lightening round for a boy's name lasted only a few days but generated 116 submissions. I guess short deadlines really do work (but don't you dare tell my boss.)

MOST LIKELY TO BE USED
The winners of this category ended up being a bit of a gimme, since two people suggested the name that we actually used. (Though for the record, we were fond of the name Anders even before the contest.)

Winner:	Anders by Tara Wike and Simon Hales
Honorable Mention:	Ilvedson Daly by Jeff Kette We love the sound of this name, but as someone wisely said, "Why would you name him something no one can pronounce?" Then, of course, we named him On-ders.
Honorable Mention:	Ildved Daly by Joie Nordstrom Ilvedson used to have an extra "d" that was dropped. (But see previous entry.)
Honorable Mention:	Rowan Kendric by Drew Daly Means "Royal Ruler of the Tree with Red Berries"

MOST CREATIVE - FIRST NAME
This was a tough category to judge; many of the submissions that we got were pretty creative. In the end we managed to find a winner, but make sure to check out some of the more notable suggestions under "Other Names Of Note" below.

Winner:	Ansel Reuben by Michael Allen. Ansel is from the Freakonomics1 list of 20 boy names that best signify high-education parents. (People with the names on this list tend to be successful because they had successful parents.) Reuben means "See, a Son" which is certainly appropriate.
Honorable Mention:	Forest River Daly by Tara Stewart, certainly a Trout Lake appropriate name.

MOST CREATIVE - LAST NAME
All of the last names submitted were either Daly, Ilvedson, or some combination of the two. These were our favorites.

Winner:	Ilvedalyson by Marnier Harker and Jaime Mack
Honorable Mention:	Devilson by Beverly Sommer

OTHER NAMES OF NOTE

Parker Isaac Ilvedson (PII as in 3.14159) by Kelly Kays

Ian Peter Daly (the old I.P. Daly joke) by Simon Hales

Peter Ian Daly by Simon Hales who said, "I hear he has good control." (As in PID Controller.)

Huckleberry aka "Huck" by Damon McMillan, Trout Lake appropriate.

Iontas by Taryn Nordstrom, means surprise in Gaelic.

Isaac by George Krevsky, means "to laugh" as in "man plans, and God laughs". (Isaac was also suggested by Lilly who must be preparing to have a boy herself; she submitted 27 different boys names!)

Leif Ilvedson by Lina Smith who didn't realize that Corinne already has a brother by that name.

Soren by Anna Stewart and Tara Wike. Soren is a perfectly good Scandinavian name ruined by Corinne's high school guidance counselor. When Corinne told her that she was applying to MIT, her only comment was "Well, Erik Sorenson didn't get in."

Veronica Ilvedson-Daly by Anthony Coulter. This name (from the girl list) itself is fairly straightforward, but you can't really appreciate it until you've read Anthony's five paragraph treatise.

Thanks to everyone who participated! It was fun to read all of the crazy name combinations that people came up with along with their meaning or creator's intent.

- Corinne, Mike, and Anders Isaac Huckleberry Reuben Soren Ildved Veronica Rocket Ilvedson Daly

¹ Freakonomics is a fascinating read. We highly recommend it.

Easter Basket(s)

We didn't make any particular plans for Easter this year. And since Anders is a bit young for an Easter egg hunt, we stuck to the more sedate tradition of the Easter basket, though with a twist.

The "basket" that Corinne got for Anders was filled with cloth fruits: banana, watermelon, pear, and grapes. These are to go with the vegetables that he already had: beans, carrot, mushroom and tomato. We figure it's never too early to start your kids eating fruits and vegetables!

Debbie, Darrell and Zak also gave Anders a basket for Easter complete with a card from Zak. In the middle of the basket was a Thunder egg that they picked up somewhere in Eastern Oregon. It is a geode-like rock formed by volcanic activity. I guess Corinne must not have been in the room when Debbie described it, because it was several days before she picked it up and realized that it wasn't chocolate.

It seems that Anders didn't quite know what to make of the "Easter grass" in the basket; he was very interested in it but would make a horrible face each time he picked some up.

Next year he'll probably be old enough for an egg hunt (with some help, no doubt.)

- Mike, Corinne, and Anders Rocket

XC Skiing Princess Loop

Upon arriving in the Gorge, we decided to learn a new winter sport each year. Winter 2006 was snowboarding; Winter 2007 was snowshoeing; Winter 2008 was snow sculpture¹. This winter the sport of choice is cross country skiing. (We are going to run out of sports that I'm willing to do but I figure there is still downhill skiing and telemark. With the addition of Anders, we will probably have to relax our schedule a bit anyway.)

In January, we went to Portland and outfitted ourselves with XC gear, partly courtesy of Christmas funds from Mike's grandfather. In just so happened that on that particular day the store was short staffed. A couple of employees had skipped work in favor of playing in the snow. We waited for about an hour with Anders in arms before we were helped. It actually didn't bother us; since we had a baby with us on our trip into the city, we didn't have any grand ambitions for the day anyway. We ended up with a sizable discount for being the "most patient customers" ever. A few more trips like this and this baby may pay for itself! (Okay, maybe not.)

Now it is April and we had yet to use our new gear. Our friends Kris & Amy were also eager to give XC skiing a try so we headed up to Mt. Adams. (Mike was under the weather and stayed home w/ Anders.) We found the super easy trail Princess Loop and had a good time falling.

Mt. Adams is always a big draw for snowmobilers in winter, and this day was no exception. At this particular Sno-Park, one truck stood out above the rest. Enormous, with hydraulic lifts and automatic tire chains. Wonder how much it costs?

- Corinne, Mike, and Anders Rocket

¹Doesn't really count. We just fell off the plan.

Walk in the Woods

Anders has been blessed with hand knit sweaters from Aunt Doris, his grandmother Lee, and our friend Davy. Our neighbor Bonnie also knitted Anders a sweater so we walked over through the woods one afternoon so Anders could model her creation. (The hat and blanket were knit by his grandmother.)

- Corinne, Mike and Anders Rocket

Rolling Over

I set Anders down on his back to play while I gathered things together to go to town. Just a couple of minutes later I came back to this:

He had been working on rolling over for a while but this was the first time where I felt he had no assistance. Here is a photo of an earlier attempt and an impressed mother.

- Corinne, Mike, and Anders Rocket

Anders in Cloth Diapers

We've been using cloth diapers on Anders since he was a month or two old, but haven't mentioned them here yet. We knew from the start that we wanted to do something that wouldn't fill up the landfills, but the idea of using washable, reusable cloth diapers was both attractive (to our green side) and off-putting (to our clean side). When he was first born, we had enough new things to worry about, so disposables were the choice for the first month or so. Once he got a little older and we got used to having him around, we finally had time and at least a little energy to do the research and find diapers that would work for him. We didn't have any friends using cloth so we had no veterans to rely on.

There are so many more options out there now than the stereotypical "Chinese pre-fold" that most people think of. Corinne did get a tip on several places online that would send a sampler of a number of different styles and manufacturers so that you can try them all on your baby before buying in quantity. We tried quite a few different styles: cotton, fleece and hemp material, one-size-fits-all versus specific sizes, velcro fasteners versus snaps (no safety pins!), etc. So many options!

A friend did recommend gdiapers which are a nice disposable/cloth compromise. They are adorable cloth covers with disposable yet compostable/flushable inserts. We even found hemp cloth liners to replace the disposable liners. However, we had a lot of leaks with these. My theory is that they work better with girls than boys.

We ended up choosing diapers called Thirsties Fab-Fitted that fit him well and came in all sorts of cool colors.

These are worn with an additional outer cover as a moisture barrier, so you don't actually see the colors once they are on (the covers are white). But that didn't stop us from at least pretending during his photoshoot:

It took us a while to find a cover that fit Anders well. Most had too much material around the waist such that we couldn't get the waist tight enough without pinching off his legs. We found the cloth diaper shop Babyworks in Portland and stopped in for advice. They were very helpful and let us try a bunch of covers on Anders. The cover that fit him well was the Niji. Since it is made in Japan, we like to call it the Ninja cover.

We have almost three days worth of cloth diapers now, which means that we're cleaning them about every other day. It's not nearly as disgusting as it sounds; in fact, we just put the dirty ones directly into an airtight container until laundry time. Then two cycles in the wash (cold with no soap, followed by hot with diaper-friendly soap) gets them completely clean. That might change once he starts on solid food, but for now it's easy.

We've found that we much prefer doing laundry over hauling bags of diapers to the trash. We've even gone to cloth wipes. Other benefits are that the cloth fit much better than the disposables and as a result the blowout rate is much lower.

He still gets a disposable at night, though. Since he's sleeping straight through for about 9 hours each night, none of the cloth diapers seem to hold enough moisture for that period of time. One a day is sure a lot better than nine!

- Mike, Corinne, and Anders Rocket

Zak Goes On Vacation

Our daycare provider Debbie went on a week's vacation recently. This was the first time that we had to figure out an alternative daycare plan, but thankfully we were able to come up with several options. Thanks, Doreen!

The funny part is the scheming that went on beforehand. Zak was pretty excited about the trip. But for some reason he never mentioned it at all when we would be there to drop off or pick up Anders. And when Corinne told Zak to "Have fun on your trip" the day before they left, he was shocked. "How did you know?" he asked.

As it turns out, Zak was planning to take Anders with him on vacation, all without our knowing. But of course when we found out about his trip, his plan was thwarted. After Corinne left that day, Debbie (Zak's mom) got "in trouble" for telling us about their vacation.

If Anders ever turns up missing, we'll check Zak's room first.

- Mike, Corinne, and Anders Rocket

Laughing at Everything

One of the greatest milestones so far is when Anders started to laugh! It's pretty interesting to see what he finds funny, too. I guess when the whole world is new to you, lots of "ordinary" things seem funny.

Vroooomm Sbusch
Apparently some sounds are just naturally funny. In this instance I made up some sounds to go with his inability to sit upright. I love that later on he starts laughing even before I get to the "funny" part.

Watch this video on YouTube
or in the original blog post

Blowing on a Mobile
We put Anders down on the bed recently under an electric mobile that we got from a friend. I decided to blow on one of the hanging figures to add some lateral motion, and I unintentionally blew air at Anders as well. Hilarity ensued. Halfway through he seems to be trying to mimic me.

Watch this video on YouTube
or in the original blog post

We have learned to try to have the camera on hand before introducing any new toy or putting him in a new scenario. You just never know when he's going to find a perfectly ordinary situation absolutely hilarious.

- Mike, Corinne, and Anders Rocket

6 Month Percentiles

Anders turned 6 months old in March! At his 6 month well baby checkup, the doctor took his measurements and plotted him on the growth charts; his percentiles are all across the board.

Height:
27 1/2 inches
(90th Percentile)

Weight:
16 lbs 10.8 oz
(50th Percentile)

Head Circumference:
16.5 inches
(15th Percentile)

Most everyone agrees that Anders looks most like Corinne. A couple of years ago, Corinne discovered that she has a small head when she had to special order an x-small snowboarding helmet. No wonder hats always fall in her eyes. Anyway, maybe Anders will have a small head (but high brain density) like his Mom, rather than a huge head like his dad.

To celebrate his one-half-year mark, Anders may have gone a little overboard...

- Mike, Corinne, and Anders Rocket

Mike's Birthday

Mom, Aunt Patsy, and Mark & Carol all decided to make a trip down to the Gorge while Aunt Patsy was out west visiting. So for the weekend of Mike's birthday we had a full house.

The weekend consisted mainly of playing with Anders. Carol & Mark brought him a new cow toy for his activity gym. Aunt Patsy brought him a story and shirt from the Seattle aquarium. And Mom brought him a new set of swaddling blankets that she had made as he had outgrown his first set. (We are doing a modified swaddle these days - arms out.)

One of the projects for the weekend was making Taryn's veil for her upcoming wedding. Mom (super-seamstress) had offered to do that and now she had help from Aunt Patsy (uber-seamstress). Carol is about the same height as Taryn so she ended up being the model.

We did actually celebrate Mike's birthday as well. He received gifts of cheese, wine and kitchen gear - perfect! And Aunt Patsy made him a delicious banana cake with cream cheese frosting.

Happy Birthday Mike!

- Corinne, Mike, and Anders Rocket

Two Handsome Guys

Like father, like son. Need we say more?

- Corinne, Mike, and Anders Rocket

Bowling for BBBS

Insitu recently participated in a benefit for the local Big Brothers / Big Sisters organization in the Gorge. The company formed a total of 5 teams, including two from software on which Corinne and I played. Since the lane times for our two teams coincided, Anders of course came along with us. He became the official "mascot" of both teams, and even received his own T-shirt onesie.

Pledges were not performance-based; individuals were asked to pledge a fixed amount to a given team, rather than an amount per pin. This was definitely to the benefit of BBBS. At least on our teams, any score that broke 100 was considered good. ;) Through corporate and individual sponsorships from a variety of local businesses, the event raised over $40,000!

- Mike, Corinne, and Anders Rocket

A New Hunting Strategy

Warning: Graphic Content

And now, for something completely different... Now that the snow is melting, the afternoons are warming, and the sun is shining, Max is spending more time outdoors and has resumed hunting.

Last year, he would bring us the fruits of his labor in the whole. We would tell him what a good hunter he was, give him extra attention, and then promptly throw his gift into the woods.

Well, Max has wised up and has a new hunting strategy for 2009. His first catch of the year (that we're aware of) was consumed in its entirety on the front step. There was just a blood spot left behind to let us know he had caught what we assume was a mouse. Today he decided to make the evidence of his good deeds a little more obvious. I sure hope the other half was consumed and wasn't left as a gift for us to find later.

- Corinne, Mike, Anders Rocket, Max, and half-a-mouse

Trains, Babies, and Family in Seattle

We recently made a quick trip to Seattle, both to visit family and return some borrowed items. Since Corinne is still working a three-day week (Monday-Wednesday), she was able to drive up to Seattle with Rocket on Thursday. The family got a few extra days of Anders time.

Anders and Chloe, Mark and Carol's Westie, were pretty curious about each other. Thankfully Anders's grip wasn't quite developed enough to get a strong hold on any of that hair.

Watch this video on YouTube
or in the original blog post

I stayed home to work the remaining few days and would take Amtrak from Vancouver to Seattle on Friday night to join them. I was hoping that I would get to sleep in on Friday morning - with no baby to wake me - but of course I ended up having a restless night without the rest of my family with me.

I left work a little early on Friday in order to catch the 6:30pm train. Along the way I stopped at IKEA in Portland to pick up some pieces to an office desk that I had been trying to get for several months. As anyone knows, it is difficult to get in and out of IKEA in a timely manner. On this particular occasion, however, I was prepared: I knew the specific aisle and rack on which my items would reside in the warehouse section; I went in the Exit and hopped the gate across a checkout aisle; and then proceeded directly to the self-service checkout. I was in and out literally in 10 minutes! After all, I had a train to catch.

What I didn't account for, though, was rush hour traffic. (Our rural area doesn't have traffic!) When Corinne called me on the cellphone about 5 minutes before the scheduled departure, I hadn't yet arrived at the train station. I managed to pull into the station parking lot just as the train was rolling in - but I still had to pick up my ticket! I grabbed my bags from the trunk, managed to lock the car, literally ran at top speed to the station, grabbed my ticket, and jumped on the train seconds before it started moving. I don't think I could have cut it any closer - and I don't intend to try. ;) Thankfully I had several hours on the train to unwind after all of that excitement.

One of the motivations for the trip was to return some borrowed baby gear. Our friends Malinda and Jean loaned us some much needed gear when we were unexpectedly in Seattle with a newborn back in September. Since Malinda was due in March with their second, we had a definite deadline for returning their bassinet and car seat. We ordered dinner from the same Chinese restaurant that we had the night before Anders was born, hoping to "induce" the same result in Malinda that it did in Corinne (no luck). Before we left, we put Anders down for one last nap in the bassinet.

The other motivation was to visit with family, including Corinne's Aunt Patsy who was on a month-long visit from Ohio. We met up with her daughter (and Corinne's cousin) Andrea for brunch on Sunday. Anders is in his "fancy" outfit, since it probably won't fit him for that much longer!

- Mike, Corinne, and Anders Rocket

Rocket Doubles His Weight

We weigh Anders once a week. Sometime in the first week of March he passed 15 lbs 6 oz - double his birth weight! Our baby book says that babies typically double their birth weight by 4 or 5 months. Rocket doubled his at 5 1/2 months which is a little late but that seems to be the trend with his milestones, probably due to being born early.

Regardless of milestones, he is healthy, happy, and thriving which is what is most important.

- Corinne, Mike, and Anders Rocket

Vaccinations Aren't Fun

Rocket has been pretty easy on us. He wasn't colicky, hasn't gotten sick, sleeps through the night, and is easy-going pretty much all the time. Even his cries are mild.

After a recent vaccination visit that changed, and we got our first small taste of what parenting could be like.

Our first few vaccinations went fine; he didn't mind the needle stick and mostly slept afterward. He would get his shot shortly before lunch on Wednesday and be back to daycare by early afternoon. This time, though, we got a call from Debbie shortly before 5:00pm, our normal pickup time. Anders had been crying inconsolably for the last 45 minutes! We knew something must be wrong, since he has never cried for more than a few minutes before. We left work quickly, stopping for some infant Tylenol along the way. By the time we got there he had calmed down somewhat but was clearly still uncomfortable. The instructions on the Tylenol said to "ask your pediatrician" for dosage instructions for someone his size and age, so it was a few minutes on the phone with the nurse before we were able to administer. A short time later he had calmed down, and it wasn't too long until he fell asleep, no doubt tired from both the vaccination itself and his extended reaction.

As we found out later, many doctors (and mothers) recommend pre-dosing your child with Tylenol before a vaccination, to lessen the possibility of this situation. I wish we had known that beforehand! The following day he was perfectly fine.

(Okay, so that photo was not taken during his vaccine reaction and was mostly included for laughs. The distortion was caused by a wide-angle lens.)

- Mike, Corinne, and Anders Rocket

Farm Fresh Eggs

When was the last time you bought a carton of eggs that looked like this?

And no, it's not for Easter. These eggs are all natural - no dyes involved. We buy all of our eggs from our neighbor Pat who has a few hundred hens of various varieties. She makes a point to populate each carton with a mixture of colors and sizes, although we suspect that this particular carton - with its perfect chromatic organization - was a result of her daughter Abby's presence.

If you haven't had fresh-from-the-farm eggs recently, you'll be amazed at how different they are from what you buy in the store. The yolks in particular stand up so high and are bright orange.

For the past few years I have become "the egg man" at the office, as the local distributor of farm eggs when Pat's hens are at their highest production levels. It supports a local farmer and it's really fun to see and hear the reactions from someone after they experience a real egg for the first time!

- Mike, Corinne, and Anders Rocket

Anders Photo Shoot

One of the items that has been on our to-do list for a few months now is to have some professional photos taken of Anders. Being the small community that it is, every so often I run into the local photographer we hired for the Massman family reunion a few years back, Michael Peterson. One such encounter finally motivated us to schedule an appointment with him in his studio.

Anders has always been interested in cameras; when you point one at him he will invariably look directly at it. I figure he must be into electronic gadgets. ;) Combine that with his generally happy disposition and we were hoping for a good session.

We wanted to get a few family photos but spend the majority of the time capturing Rocket. After all, he's changing so quickly that who knows what he'll look like in a few months?

We're really happy with the results. We got lots of great shots of Anders; below is a sampling. The first shot is even going to be featured in a showing of Michael's work at a local restaurant.

- Mike, Corinne, and Anders "Fabio" Rocket