Sleep

So of course I jinxed it with that last post.  Clara has lost her mind with sleeping.  Or more accurately, I have due to her lack of sleeping.  Up every few hours, every night.  And since she won't take a bottle, Matt really can't help.  It's exhausting. I hesitate to say the last few nights have been better with only 2 wake ups before her 5:45 wake up time, since we all know what happened when I said she was getting into a sleep routine last time.  But my fingers are crossed.

No swaddle can contain her

Despite the tiredness, we've had a lot of fun the past few weeks (and sorry for how long it's been).  We just said goodbye to my friend Alyssa who was out here for a few days after her "cancer camp" out in Hood River.  She has been breast cancer free for a few months now (hooray!) and is an absolute amazement with her energy.  We even went on a 3.5 mile jog together!  It was so great to see her, and the kids loved spending time with her too.

See how much Clara loved spending time with Alyssa?  :)

We've had a few pretty exciting events occur outside our window.  We saw two deer ambling by our side door.  Pretty exciting for everyone, including the neighbor dog who came and chased them away!

We also witnessed the after-effects of a "big green big rig truck" dismembering part of our neighbor's tree - a huge branch got stuck between the cab and the trailer. Needless to say, this was one of the highlights of Grady's young life!  Matt and our neighbor came to the rescue with some saws, and Grady got to work on "sawing" his own branch.

Some other highlights:

Grady and Rose went on a wagon ride together.

We went to Sunday Parkways, a Portland event where they close off the streets of a neighborhood to traffic and bring in entertainment, vendors, etc.  Here are Matt, Grady, and Clara watching some music.

My favorite totem pole ever

And trying on some costumes (courtesy of PDX Kids Calendar!)

And Grady still loves to show Clara the tummy time ropes.

Grady's conversational skills continue to improve.  It's easy to forget sometimes that he is only 2. (Sometimes, like when he throws a complete fit over getting a diaper change, it is easy to remember however.)  Some sample phrases from the past few days:

• "How is your pasta and your beer Daddy?  Tasty?"
• "Oh no, horse is stuck!  Maybe cow can help.  Cow is available." 
• "Mommy went to the kitchen to scoop me up some more pasta."  
• "Want to read a book or somethin'?"

He is extremely excited to be going to the ocean for a family trip later this month.  I think I told him about it too early, because he is raring to go.  I took Clara up to bed tonight and when I came back down he said "When Clara wakes up we can go to the ocean!"  Not quite yet!

He is still singing constantly - and becoming quite the multitasker.

Despite Clara's awful sleeping, she has become a real sweetheart.  Colic seems to be officially over.  And I am back to eating all foods without any effect on her.  (Hooray for cheese and ice cream!)  And it really is hard to get upset about her sleeping when she is so flippin' cute.

She and Grady have begun interacting more and more.  Grady likes to hold out things for her to grab (although he hasn't worked out the concept that she gets to keep holding on to things he hands to her, he can't just yank them back).  He likes to show her how to roll.  He's really very sweet with her.

It's been fun seeing Clara's personality come out more as she grows out of the colic.  She is very busy, but also an observer.  She can really stare you down.  She's also going to be a talker too I think - she's already babbling away.  And giggling a lot. Her giggles are pretty amazing.

Before signing off, a quick update on Grady's kidneys.  I brought him in last week for a procedure to check his kidney functioning.  This was pretty tough - it involved sedation.  They let me be there when they gave him the anesthesia, which I was glad for, but it was also very difficult to see.  When he had this done last time he ended up with 36% on the right and made up the difference on his left.  The urologist was a little concerned that the left side (his good side) may be losing some functioning because the ureter on that side appeared to be a bit swollen at the last ultrasound.  If that's the case, we'll have his reflux surgery sooner rather than later. If it's not, it will be when he's 3.  We don't get the results until the beginning of August when we finally meet with the urologist.  Grady was a total champ.  He was a bit of a grump for the rest of the day, and woke up upset the next morning, but has been fine since.

Well, I think that's about as much as my sleep-deprived brain can do tonight. Sorry again for the delay in posts.  I really am trying!