Sleep! While the grass is growing...

How could I have forgotten Good Reason #7 in my previous post?

7. Sleep. Still not getting enough of it.

When Soren hit the 19-month mark one month ago, he started sleeping all night long (with no wake-ups that require parental assistance between his bedtime and a reasonable morning hour, such as 6 a.m.) -- now, before you start cheering, read on -- about every third night. We're not there yet! Two nights ago he was inexplicably wide awake for 2-1/2 hours in the dead middle of the night, 1:30-4 a.m. Jeff and I took shifts.

Anyway, I've vowed to get to bed earlier whenever possible, and that means starting my bedtime routine shortly after I've led Soren through his. And that's been getting later and later (with the Daylight Savings Time shift and now the daylight lingering longer), until now he doesn't fall asleep until between 8 and 9 p.m. Farewell to evenings to myself and taking time for blogging. But then, like tonight, I'll give myself permission to "stay up." The house is silent, just me and my humming computer and a cup of chamomile tea. Aaaah. (Yawn.)

I'll sign off with an update on the new crop of backyard grass. To the photo of bare dirt in the last post that was taken March 21, I add these shot today, April 29. The grass seed was sown just about a month ago.
Jeff and Soren used our push-mower to give the tallest blades a quick mow this evening. It's looking great!

P.S. Blogger tells me this is post #101 since I started this blog less than two years ago. Incredibly, that averages out to about one post a week, so I guess I'm meeting my weekly blogging goal after all!

6 good reasons why I haven't been blogging

Mom is all tied up with something she calls "real life."

I keep meaning to blog, really -- and write myself a well-intentioned reminder in my DayPlanner at least twice a week -- but real life has been taking up all my spare time. Starting with...

1. The flu. I got it Monday and thankfully breezed through it in 12 hours, thanks to my super-mom immune system and Jeff taking the day off to spend with Soren so I could sleep for five hours straight in the middle of the day (minus the time spent puking). This is the first time I've been really sick -- nonfunctional sick -- since Soren was born, so I almost enjoyed the bedrest. (The last time I threw up, I was in labor.)

Soren is currently under the weather -- thankfully,
Nannie & Papaw are here to nurse him (and me!).

But just as I recovered, Soren started throwing up -- this was Monday night and he still is unable to keep down even liquids. Poor little guy -- he's exhausted and limp. Please send good thoughts his way for his speedy recovery!

2. Taxes. We do our own accounting and paperwork (Jeff takes some masochistic pleasure in this), and that includes my small business books and reckoning. My inputs and outputs are fairly minimal, so I tot up my expenses just once a year. I try to do this in advance of April 15, but this year the filing date snuck up on us.

I'd rather share a picture of Soren dressing up than me doing Quickbooks.

We had a babysitter watch Soren for two hours last Sunday so we could get all the forms in order, and just as we thought we were done and Jeff was planning to check the math tomorrow morning (April 14!), we realized we likely qualify for the "making work pay" credit and should fill out Schedule M and recalculate. Hmmm, is it worth $800? We think probably so.

3. A successful consulting gig. Successful in that my client raised $550,000 in three months and met a March 31 fundraising deadline that unlocked $1.1 million in challenge grants. Whew!

This has been a big time commitment for me, but I was pleased to play a part in closing out the Northwest Maritime Center's $12.8 M capital campaign. I was hired in January to strategize and coordinate a local publicity campaign for the final 10 weeks of fundraising. We did an ad campaign and half a dozen press releases. It was a nail-biter, right down to the final weeks, but the community came through.

Board members celebrate!

This was an especially meaningful win for me because I devoted four years of my working life (2002-05) as an employee of the Maritime Center, handling grantwriting and communications back when the brownfield property was being cleaned up and the existing dock rebuilt. When asked to help in these final weeks of the campaign, I had to say "yes" -- because if I said "no" and the challenge grants slipped away (think of how long it could take to raise $1.1 M from other sources in today's economy!), those four years of my life would have felt slightly less productive.

As it is, our town is now home to a truly amazing maritime center with great potential to grow and showcase our maritime heritage. And it's one of Soren's favorite destinations, since he can throw rocks on the beach, watch shipwrights at work in the boatshop, and run a loop that includes stairs, a long second-story deck, an elevator, then out to the end of the dock!

Here are two articles reporting the good news on April 1:
Peninsula Daily News
Three Sheets NW

4. Visits by the grandparents. Including the Eastern Washington pair, whom we hadn't seen since Thanksgiving. Jim and Gloria made the trek over the mountains in mid-March and we were very glad to see them. They were the first official guests in The Nest, and pronounced it a cozy retreat, although Gloria's keen ears still heard Soren crying one night. Soren has been saying Jim's name for a while, but he learned to say "Glor-a" while they were here.

Sharing a book with Grandpa Jim.

Grandma Gloria helping with a haircut.

Soren has also renamed "Grannie Annie" plain "Nannie" -- apparently that is a lot easier to say. His other grandparents, Papaw and Nannie, stopped by on their way home from their road trip to California at the end of March and now they are back on emergency call, helping to nurse Soren. Auntie Jill also came for a four-day visit in late March and the three of us made a day trip to Vashon to visit Grandpa Gerry. Gotta keep in touch with the relatives!

An appropriate bridge picture:
Soren helping Auntie Jill prep our pea patch.

5. Yard work. The backyard is slowly evolving, and now that the earth-moving around The Nest is finally at an end and spring is upon us, we decided to sow some grass seed. We want to a good-sized patch of lawn next to the concrete patio, but the soil there needed a lot of work. Many long hours in March were devoted (mostly by Jeff, but yours truly had to then be responsible for Soren) to breaking up an impermeable layer of clay with a mattock tool, hand-picking hundreds of small, round rocks (the legacy of glacial till), and raking it all smooth again. Gloria helped a lot the weekend she and Jim were visiting. After a nice dry spell, which was good for working the soil, regular rains came the evening after we sowed the grass-clover mix. It's sprouting beautifully now! (Notice also the new yellow gate that Jeff built.)

Jeff prepping our backyard lawn -- a lot of hard work!

6. Saturday morning garage saling. OK, OK, so it's only been taking up one morning a weekend, but I've been scoring some great stuff. Let's see...for Soren: a Radio Flyer red wagon, a pull-toy wooden locomotive, oilcloth for making him a water-play smock, loads of books, more Disney animated classics for our VHS collection, a plastic rocking horse for our backyard play-area, and a luggage cart from a free box that he likes to push around like -- well, like a push-toy.

Soren's homemade oilcloth waterproof smock for sink play.
OK, he doesn't really like to wear it. But it works!

For me: a breadbox for the kitchen that hides unruly clutter, a shapely wooden chair already painted yellow for The Nest, an in-the-box desk lamp also for The Nest, an electric citrus juicer (I've long wanted one of these -- bought a bag of oranges today to try it out on!), and a barely-been-worn blue Speedo swimsuit that fits me tolerably well. And more.

Looking ahead...the calendar is not so full, so I will try not to ignore my notes-to-self to blog more frequently. I really miss being in touch this way. Know that, dear reader!

In memoriam to my Omi

She plugged in the waffle iron at the breakfast table so she didn't have to keep running into the kitchen (why don't I ever remember to do that?). She grew the biggest, most beautifully scented roses I have ever had the pleasure of burying my nose in. She never failed to have a treasure set aside for me and my sisters each time we visited, a "little something" that she had found while volunteering to sort donated goods at Vashon's famous Granny's Attic thrift shop. She always had a book in German that she was reading, and reverted to speaking in the language of her youth as Alzheimer's overtook her. When she continued to recognize me but not Jeff, she was always delighted to discover this tall, handsome, funny man was my husband.

She was my "Omi" (a German term of endearment for "Grandma"), and she passed away Thursday, March 18, at the age of 91.

Her death was not unexpected, and she died peacefully in her sleep, in the house she'd lived in for decades, lovingly caretaken by my grandpa -- who refused to consider any other living arrangement. His devotion is inspiring to me.

Although the last time we spent together was right before New Year's, at our Garrison family reunion in Port Townsend, I'm grateful she got to know Soren (pictured above at his first Christmas, in 2008). He was a lucky boy to be born with three great-grandparents...now, two.

I hadn't really cried until just now. It feels good and right. Her time with us was at an end.

I love you, Karin, my Omi, and we'll miss you.

Soren's first kayak paddle

Saturday, Feb. 20, was the day we decided the weather, Soren's attention span, and our energy levels aligned well enough to try Soren in one of our kayaks. So we loaded our two singles onto our car and drove the half-mile down to the boat launch at the new Northwest Maritime Center. (Note the cool faded-letter signage, echoing the faded painted advertisements that are common on brick buildings in the historic downtown.)
Jeff thought he would try paddling with Soren seated between his legs in the cockpit. They made a good start off the beach, and Soren was of course intrigued by the new experience, but in retrospect, his lifejacket was too tight and uncomfortable.
And he wanted to help paddle -- or at least to have his own paddle!
Jeff didn't take Soren too far offshore (and in fact, I never got into my boat, just took photos from shore). After about 15 minutes, Soren got really wiggly and attempted to stand up, at which point Jeff headed straight for the beach. Session over.
If we could zoom in on this photo, we'd see Grannie and Papaw watching our paddle attempt with binoculars from the passing ferry. They'd stopped by to see us an hour before, on their way home to Anacortes. They said they could see us!

That afternoon, Jeff set his kayak on the ground in our backyard and we dug out the next-largest lifejacket we had, and he and Soren had a practice paddle in a less watery environment. Next time we'll try borrowing a friend's double and the adult sitting with Soren won't have to paddle. But here's to more fun on the water in 2010!

Soren's a year and a half!

Here he comes, crawling through the tunnel of toddlerhood! Isn't he getting so big?
Our little boy is an astounding 18 months old now -- his half birthday was Feb. 27 -- and it's just a delight to witness him developing as an individual and a person who delights in making other people happy.

He is such a ham. For example, we attended an open house at a church in our neighborhood yesterday and I sat him down to eat a snack at a table next to a very elderly man. He wore hearing aids, and it took a few back-and-forths before he understood our names. He seemed fairly reticent. But I jumped up to get some drinks and when I came back, Soren and Carl were grinning and winking and giggling at each other. Soren was full of energy that day and couldn't sit still. Every few minutes he would jump off of his chair, run out the door, run pell-mell down the hallway (making everyone laugh along the way), run back, belly up onto his chair, and grin at Carl all over again. After a half-hour of this good fun, one of Carl's friends came up to us and said we'd made the old man's day.

When we went to say goodbye to Carl, I shook his hand and then Soren very seriously offered his hand to be shook. When he felt the old man's large and wrinkled hand close around his, he paused and got even more serious. Then Soren lifted up his other hand and rested it outside Carl's and they just stood there like that for a moment, his two little hands clasped around the big one. It brought a tear to my eye.

And it reminds me that Soren's physician commented on his excellent eye contact at his 18-mo. well-child exam. Yes, those soulful blue eyes can just bore right into you. He weighs 26.1 pounds now, and both his height and weight are right at the 50th percentile.

Here are a few more pictures from Feb. 27 of Soren's visit with his age-mate Tayla (11 days older). They have very similar physical abilities and really enjoy push-toys -- provided they aren't fighting each other for the same toy!


And here are the two munchkins cozied up reading with Mama Shannon. What great friends!

Work-At-Home-Moms group featured "above the fold"

I'm quoted in a front-page, above-the-fold article in today's Peninsula Daily News about my participation in a Work-At-Home-Moms group that started up in January.

Life coach (and my good friend) Heather Flanagan leads the group, but in the article she kindly gives me credit for the idea of starting it. The way I remember it, over the course of our Friday morning stroller walks around town last summer, we jointly conceived of a forum of other work-at-home moms--we wanted to find them all and drag them out of their home offices!--where we could share challenges and advice and build camaraderie.

I like to say that being a work-at-home mom puts you in a halfway place: you're not a stay-at-home mom because you're always sneaking away to the computer during naptimes instead of taking a nap yourself or tidying up the house, and you just don't get to take your babe to the beach as much as you'd like, or attend every library storytime; and you're not a working mom who lines up day-long childcare and leaves the house to go earn a living. You're a bit of both, and really only other work-at-home moms understand that.

In just a few weeks, the group has helped me get focused on my long-term business goals--something I'd set aside for the first year and a half of having Soren in my life. And Heather has coached me through raising my fees as well, which means I'm working less (and more efficiently) and earning more (and striving to give my clients more value).

Ah, it's an ongoing process of adjustment, but I wouldn't go back to being an employee for anything!

Read the article here.

Closing the door

Well, we can close the door on one project around here: The Nest and attached two-car garage passed its final inspection with the city building department this week. Hooray!

Sort of apropos, here's Soren playing in a kitchen cabinet at the family reunion rental house at Fort Worden in December. (Honestly, none of our kitchen cabinets are that uncluttered!)




Spoken language is arriving in dribs and drabs. Soren's newest phrase is a very cute and clear "Uh-oh!" He continues to sign a whole bunch, with a recent addition being the word "dirty" (waggling fingers under chin). I find this useful for pointing out dirty dishes (NOT to be unloaded from the dishwasher), dirty shoes (NOT to be worn into the house), and dirty trash (no, that cigarette butt on the ground is NOT to be touched).

OK, this anecdote is rambling along, but the other day Soren stepped in duck poop at our neighbor's house and I used the sign "dirty" as well as the same sign for "poop" that we use for his potty training. This made a big impression on him. Now when I sign "dirty," he worriedly signs "poop?" I can't explain how he signs a question, but he does. No, the dirty dishes are not poopy!

To all of you in houses where potty talk is not a daily occurrence, count your blessings.