Cute

Two years is suiting Asher well.  Since his birthday party, he has acquired the most delectable verbal tidbit.  If something is especially pleasing to him--for instance, when I brought out the fruit salad and told him I was going to put some fruit on his plate--he now says, "Love it!"  Except, he actually says, "Wubbit!"  Quite adorable.

Asher, let's go outside and play in the yard for a while.  "Wubbit!"
It's time for a snack everybody.  "Wubbit!"

Asher's 2!

Here we are in North Carolina visiting my mom for a while (it's HOT), and cheap as I am, I fit one leg of the trip in the day before Asher turned 2, so I could save the airfare on his seat.  Sharing one seat between three of us (me+Asher+18.5week baby girl) was no picnic.  But it wasn't a long flight, so we made it :)

My mom had a few friends over for Asher's big day, had a race car cake made, and we enjoyed a lovely BBQ, present-opening, and some had a swim afterward (though the birthday boy was hurting for a nap, so he missed out on the swim :).  Asher has really been growing up lately...tons of talking (though it is so much harder to understand than Owen's speech was!  It's super-cute garbling.  I love his versions of words, even if few can catch what he's saying).  He can climb, jump and wrestle and hold his own pretty well with Owen, and he is starting to really assert himself--with me (tantrums) and with Owen ("TOP IT, OW-N!!").  He is a little jewel...charms everyone he meets, is super people-oriented and social, kind with others, often shares (if it's not with Owen), and makes sure to give me kisses and hugs.  He says, "Hi, Nunu!" about 30 times a day out of the blue while we're here.  He eats so much fruit...wow.   He now says "mine" or "A-er's" about a thousand times a day.  He likes to take a stuffed animal to bed with him every time, and lately if he's playing around at nap time and I go in, pick him up, rock him for 1 minute, then tell him it's sleep time, he lays down and goes to sleep!!!!  I hope I didn't just jinx that.  He's just a great kid, not the easiest I've ever seen, but in my personal parenting experience...easy.  We love our little Asher.

Baby birds, dough, and rope swinging

A robin has built a nest and hatched 4 babies on top of the exterior light on our front porch!  Every time we pass now, we hear cheeping and see their open beaks craning up over the edge of the nest.  They grow *incredibly* fast.  They were pretty creepy looking the first couple days after hatching.

On Saturday the chillins were getting stir-crazy, so I got out a couple of bowls, some yeast, salt, flour, oil and water, and they made us enough pizza dough for a few meals.  Might have to think of more child-labor recipes...Asher made just a wee mess...

Over the weekend, Reuel constructed a rope swing and Owen is absolutely in love with it.  I am amazed at how fearless he is; the higher the better (and it goes HIGH!).  At his age, I would have been terrified of that feeling.  In fact, some of the neighborhood kids who came by last night to try it out when they saw Owen swinging weren't even loving it!

And finally, we had erected the tent outside, but haven't found the right night yet for camping out.  The boys and I are leaving for NC for 10 days on Wednesday.  Soooo....moved the tent out of the rain and into the basement today and Owen was very stoked about spending the night there.  After hanging out for an hour on the air mattress with his books, bedtime music, nightlight and clock, I just escorted him back to his bed :}  Same story as last year!  I wonder how old kids need to be before they actually stay in the tent all night?

And the winner is...

I was savoring a couple lone hours of being the only possessor of our little news item (while grabbing a tiny nap after an exhausting day before sharing the news with the interested), but one villainous party has jumped the gun and secured the information from my naive family behind my back while I slept!  The CIA may have a new prospect for a spy!  So, I should share promptly now with the less devious.

First, after getting such wonderful sympathy yesterday from my mother-in-law about our grueling week's schedule, I will cruelly make you read through a brief rundown of today before getting to interesting part.  Cousin Laura is my hero!!  My darling hubby neglected to tell me until mere days before that he'd had a meeting come up during the ultrasound (he'd been wanting to come for the event), so I was in a pickle.  2 kids during 2 medical appointments at naptime, following a morning of VBS, were more than I could handle on my own.  Laura came with us the WHOLE DAY!!!!  What a jewel she is.  We left home at 7:30a, and didn't get back home til 4:45p.  Laura came to VBS with us and then entertained the kids nobly while I was prodded. When I went to find them after my first appointment, no one was in the lobby.  I checked the bathroom, and walked in to find Owen playing in a sink, and Asher laying full out on the floor looking under the stall where Laura was I'm sure having her first experience of going to the bathroom with a toddler around :}  Sorry, Laura!  Once we got home, Asher was asleep by 5:30 (no nap!).  Owen=movie; Mom=CRASH til Dad came home.  It was a grueling day somehow and perhaps I should change doctors.  I might be crazy to keep going to the city, I just hate to change Dr.'s when I am having a C-section.  Well, here's how the important part went.  Upon finding everyone in the bathroom:  "Mommy, mommy, is it a boy or a girl??"  Well, I can't tell you 'til I call Daddy first.  "No!  Tell me, tell me!"  [Daddy is unreachable after 2 or 3 tries]  OK, I'll tell you.  What do you think, what is your guess?  "It's a BROTHER!!!!"  Well, you really wanted a brother...but it's a sister!  You get to have a little sister!  "UUUUuuuugh! [large frustrated groan, then resigned]  Mommy, *YOU* were right and *I* was wrong!  I guess I was just wrong!  Sometimes you're just right!"   (I didn't have a prediction at all, actually, but Owen knew Reuel and I had our hope, so that's what he was referring to.  After a bit of talking about how wonderful a sister could be, and how Owen would get to teach things to TWO younger kids now, he was fully on board.  The scale was also tipped for him by realizing that our family would have the same kid distribution and ordering as Ben, Sam and Laura!)  The secondary gender question aside, the baby also appears healthy, super-active, and nothing alarming.  Wonderful!!  It's easy to take these things for granted when you've had healthy kids.  When I delivered the report to my OB, he turned the paper over a couple of times with a quizzical look on his face, and proceeded to say that he hasn't seen a completely normal report--one with no blips, questions or concerns--in quite a while, and it was almost more alarming to him than seeing a problem, because he's had so few normal reports lately!  I told him I was grateful to be the guinea pig for easy reports.  But it did bring to mind how many problems there can be, and though we would endeavor to walk down a harder road with grace, how grateful we are for a seemingly-healthy little one inside.  So there's the news!

t.i.r.e.d.

Day 2 of Kidsweek (VBS) at church and I am already whooped!  It is pretty crazy what we're doing.  Our church is RIGHT downtown, and on Sunday mornings that's no big deal.  It's a 35 minute drive straight in, and there's free parking nearby if we're on time (incentive!).  HOWEVER.  We wanted the kids to be part of the summer program at *our* church, with *their* friends and me volunteering where we are members.  While it has been a great time so far, and I'm glad we decided to do it, the transit is horrifying.  We need to be there at 9am, along with every other area commuter going to work toward the city.  The first morning, we drove to the garage, paid $23 for the privilege to park (+ the $10 for gas), medium sized walk to the building and it took ~ 1 hour and 20 minutes to get there :}  About 50 minutes home.  Down for a too-short, too-late nap by 2:20ish.  Ugh!!  Today, we drove to the furthest outlying subway station, then subwayed to the church...left at 7:40am, arrived 9:15am.  Double UGH!!!  Home and Asher napping by 2:45.  Well, it'll be an exhausting week, but the kids are handling all the travel pretty well.  Trying to drag 2 kids through the subway station without letting Asher throw himself on the third rail...well, I'm the one getting exhausted!!

suspense is building

Assuming young Fetus R. Swint is not feeling shy, it's just 1 week til the big reveal by jelly-scope on July 21.   I am convincing myself that it's a boy.  I will honestly be really surprised if it's a girl.  In fact, even though we would be really excited to find out 'Girl!', I would also be somewhat terrified.  I can't tell you how many people say, "Boys are tough in the young years when they're so energetic, but girls are so much harder overall."  Being a sometimes bratty, catty and emotion-prone daughter/sister/wife myself, I don't have to imagine what they're talking about.  If I ask myself if I'd rather rear a potential Reuel or a potential Amy...well, we all know the answer to that one.  I don't think my boys are the easiest in the world, but they do recover quickly, they don't hold grudges, and I have a pretty good grasp of what's going on inside them...most of the time.  Could I say that about a daughter??  At the same time, who doesn't want to round out the family with a little of each :)  Owen is quite against the possibility of a girl.  He says it is another boy, and we will name him Owen.  Right.  Does narcissism know no bounds??!   He will concede that if the name really can't be Owen, it should be Rocket.  He's been so consistent with this choice, that it's beginning to grow on me!  Very spunky, if I were brave enough to go that far outside the norm.

Well, the conversation is futile, isn't it!  God gives good gifts, and we are more than happy to receive what comes our way, simply grateful for the opportunity to be parents again and to witness the many little miracles that happen every day when children are afoot.  But we *are* eager to find out!!

 

p.s.  Don't ever mention to your obstetrician that you may have consulted a book entitled, "Choosing the Sex of Your Baby" by Landrum Shettles.  He (or she) might chuckle softly, and then later in the appointment reveal his or her knowledge of a study which debunked the foundational hypotheses of the book.  Then, he/she may outright laugh while offering, "Hey, don't worry though, I've got a pill you can take if you want to change the gender!"  Ha ha, very funny, smarty pants.  We'll see, we'll see.

Alaska!

We had such a fun time.  I'm so horrible about recounting vacations; too many details.  Overall analysis:  family=megafun, Alaska=stunning and breathtaking at times, but a cruise encounter leaves you feeling like you didn't get the *best* experience of the countryside (though there was all the kitsch shopping you could want for a year!), cruises=undecided (prepped food and clean towels twice a day, who can argue, but by day 6 we were a bit stir-crazy, and I like feeling more independent about traveling.  But for a family reunion, being on a boat together is close to ideal!).

We cruised Seattle to Juneau to Skagway to Ketchikan to Glacier Bay to Victoria, BC, and back to Seattle.  I didn't realize til getting home what a tiny little sliver of Alaska we visited.  Amazing to think of the vast, wild, cold, hugeness of the place.

We also had a fantabulous time visiting my Aunt, Uncle and cousins a couple hours east of Seattle, over the mountains and into the desert.  What a difference in climate in just a 2 hour drive!  They entertained the kids royally and fed us delectable fresh fruit til we were set to pop (because even though it's a desert, irrigation water from the mountains is abundant, so it's a serious fruit-growing region).  Owen the tree-climber and Asher the fruitaholic are ready for another visit.

Jetlag is real, and we're all tired.  I guess I'll inch the kids earlier as the week goes on.  Asher napped til 5 today, which was much earlier than he has been, but still means a really late bedtime tonight.  First time the kids have slept past 9am!

Here's pictures:  https://picasaweb.google.com/amyswint/20110712?authkey=Gv1sRgCMSvvZ6cvvCrHg