Spring Break 2015 Pictures

It would seem that some new pictures are long overdue. Back in April, we made the Kentucky/South Carolina circuit once again, this time during Nathan's spring break. The first stop was in Louisville for Easter and a few days after, then off to Anderson for the remainder of the week. We made it to St. Paul's for Easter service and celebrated Nathan's 7th birthday with friends at All About Kids. Lily got her first haircut, went on her first Easter egg hunt, and had a close encounter with an orangutan at the Louisville Zoo. Down in South Carolina, the warm weather gave the kids lots of time to play outside and the boys got to go to the Clemson Orange and White football game. It was another fun trip, and Lily definitely liked showing off to the people she met.

I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream For--Food, a Change, or Just the Heck of It

Based on the stories I heard, I gather that I picked a splendid day to go to work. In spite of her best intentions to go to the grocery store and continue writing thank you notes, Cat was sidetracked by several contiguous bouts of screaming and crying. She attempted a trek to Children's Place and Whole Foods with her friend Liz and Liz's son Wesley, but was forced to abort the mission after Nathan commenced his screaming fit in the first store and was unconsoled by an unplanned feeding in the store's changing room. By the time I arrived home, Nathan was well beyond tired and had reached the point of frustration with his inability to settle down. After much plying with food and various attempts at pacification, he finally crashed at 8:30 and is now sleeping soundly. We're hoping for a repeat of some of the recent evenings, when he has stretched his sleeping periods to five to seven hours at a time. Things are beginning to look up in the sleep department.

As a side effect of the restful nighttime sleep that he is finally getting, Nathan is now awake more often during the day, for better or worse. While this sometimes means that Cat is not able to accomplish everything she sets out to, it also means that he is more alert and active when we are up and about. We have taken advantage of this situation in recent days with a few long walks around the neighborhood and a brief photoshoot in front of the flowerbed. Much to his mother's enjoyment, Nathan took in the sunny afternoon on Saturday and posed for a few pictures in his new Pooh shirt and plaid pants.

Our increasing mobility has led us to consider travel plans with Nathan in the coming months. While a road trip to see family would certainly do him good, the thought of packing and traveling with Nathan and his raft of accoutrements is daunting, to say the least. Not only would he require the standard set of clothes and toiletries that Cat and I would need, he would also need a car seat, stroller, crib/Pack n' Play, bottles, feeding equipment, toys, diapers, diaper bags, etc, etc, etc. Fortunately, since we would be traveling to Kentucky by way of West Virginia and South Carolina by way of southern Virginia and North Carolina, the Beverly Hillbillies-esque vehicle that I imagine would not be entirely inappropriate for the surroundings. I'm curious to see how all of this equipment--not to mention the ever-growing infant--will impact our fuel economy. Not that the cost would make me consider flying; that thought just fills me with abject terror. The horror.

Football and Clear Skies

Nathan unexpectedly reached another significant milestone today, seeing his first football game of the season. Sure, it was:

a. A cream-puff game with no quarterback tackles
b. A scrimmage between two squads from the same school
c. Florida (ack)

But it was still football! After making some noises that we interpreted as, "poo on Tim Tebow," he's now wrapped up like a burrito for an afternoon nap. Incidentally, Cat is also down for the count, since she has been doing a great job taking care of the midnight feeding and changing in preparation for my return to work next week.

For the past two days, Nathan has been staying awake longer after having been fed and changed. He has been more alert recently, taking in his surroundings and even appearing to respond to a song or a bit of exercise on the floor with Dad. Part of this may be due to a certain amount of sensory deprivation now that Grandpa and Nana F. (the name of choice, for now at least) have left. We'll see how he performs once Meemaw and Peepaw B. arrive on Sunday.

Yesterday's 80-degree weather presented an excellent opportunity to take the bike out of hibernation for a short ride down to the post office to mail out my tax returns. I had suspected this beforehand, but the ride, brief as it was, confirmed my suspicion that my "sympathy pregnancy" of the past nine months has been most unkind to my body. Considering the pregnant man that has been in the news recently, I had better get my butt on the bike more often to work off this belly with a few laps around the Millenium Trail. In fact, I think it's time for one now.

Cherry Blossom Map

I finally found the cherry blossom map (PDF) that I was looking for the other day when I wrote about the Cherry Blossom Festival. If you're ever in town during the Festival, this guide makes for a fun scavenger hunt. I walked about ten miles around the tidal basin and Potomac Park last year looking for the different varieties of cherry trees marked on the map. The National Park Service is worried that some of the older trees, including some of the rare varieties from Japan's original donation in 1912, might not live much longer, so come see them while you can! In spite of the gusty winds we had yesterday and today, it looks like the tourists should have a pretty good show this year. Some of the kids at the kite festival might have been blown off into Virginia, though, but that's the breaks.

Crocuses

We seem to have more crocuses in the front bed this year, as though they may have multiplied over the summer last year. I also can't recall seeing crocuses spread like weeds in Louisville the way they do here. We have neighbors whose entire lawns are sprinkled with crocuses that have spread haphazardly all over the place. They sure look nice, though, even when our maple promiscuously drops its seeds on every square foot of ground. Happy Spring!

Nursery Furniture

The changing table arrived over the weekend and Cat couldn't be happier. Now she has a place to store the mounds of infant clothes and diapers that had been piling up in and around the closet. We have enough infant clothes by now to dress Nathan in a different outfit every day until he outgrows them and enough washcloths to use a new one for each bath. This boy will want for nothing during his first year!

We were supposed to receive the crib at the same time, but the delivery men unboxed it and found a broken spindle, so they opted to take it back and order us a new unit. Hopefully, Nathan won't grow too quickly, or he'll outgrow the bassinet before the replacement crib arrives.

We saw some sunshine today after a few days of cloudy skies and our crocuses (croci, as I call them) opened up to take it in. We have hyacinths and daffodils popping up in the front and clematis sprouting leaves and buds in the back. There's an ongoing debate in our household about the pronunciation of this plant name--CLEM-a-tis (her) or clem-A-tis (me). Comments welcome on this issue. There has been no major cherry blossom activity in our neighborhood aside from one large weeping cherry tree, but the ones downtown should start to open up in a few days. The Cherry Blossom Festival starts on Saturday, but I suspect we'll miss it this year. It should be fun next year with a one-year-old, though!