Time flies

We are still trying to settle into a routine here, but finding it difficult. My schedule isn't the same week to week. Some rotations have Matt working all the time and others have him working just most of the time. We've also taken many trips back and forth to Portland which leaves all of us a little disoriented.

Erin is enjoying preschool. It started off only 2 days a week in a very small class (3 kids!), but I convinced them to let Erin into the 4 year olds class too. She's now going Monday and Wednesday to the "big kids class" and Tuesday and Thursday to the "Max and Henry class." It seems to be working out well and she's getting more and more engaged. We're still looking for another preschool for next year, but I think this will work fine for the rest of the year.

Erin is showing a lot of interest lately in language. They started learning some Spanish words at school and she loves it. We're looking for a Spanish class to start her with and looking at the possibility of getting her into a Spanish immersion preschool for next year. As it is, Erin has been prompting us to use "Gracias" and "de nada" instead of our usual polite words and now uses "por favor" instead of please most of the time, but still working on the syntax and mostly says "por farvor for the milk please mom."

Erin's gymnastics class has been a dud. She's not into it and I'm not too impressed with it either. We've been a few times, but missed a few classes while we were out of town. I give us a 50-50 chance making it back again. Oh well.

She is big into imaginary play and takes her animals on trips to Australia and Minneapolis. She also likes playing house with bunny and instructs me on how to hold bunny so I'm gentle. Grandma Jan and Grandpa Dean got her a water table, but we filled it with rice instead and she's spent hours making quite the rice mess in the basement with it. I think we'll be spending a lot of rainy days down there playing. Erin continues to love books and wants to be read to whenever someone will agree to it. In Portland she's discovered a few of my old favorites: Oliver Pig, the Frances books and Frog and Toad. She also plays "Gallopy the pony" as she gallops around. Too funny.

Erin is also expertimenting with fashion lately. She'd make Jules proud...



Nora is also doing great. She's 5.5 months old now and boy has time flown. Part of me is shocked that she'll be 6 months old soon and part of me has trouble remembering how life really was before she was born.

She is still a happy baby as long as she's fed and well rested. She loves to flash drooly smiles and likes to laughs out loud. She's ticklish if you can get through the chub to her ribs and her goal in life is to get everything in her mouth. She's still drools a ton and everything around he is always damp with a mixture of drool and spit up. We do a lot of laundry.



Nora's sleep is a mixed bag. She falls asleep on her own, but often cries. I've tried to do more soothing to get rid of the crying, but she just gets more agitated the harder I try, so I guess we're stuck with the crying. She has a nice routine of 2 naps and on a good day takes a 2 hour nap in the morning and afternoon. She is like Erin and needs a lot of sleep and is down to sleep by 6-6:30 at night. She is still up 2-3 times at night, but loves to get up 4-5 times nightly when we're in Portland. I think that she'd settle into a better nighttime routine, but we keep taking trips to Portland just when thinks are getting better again. When we were in for her 4 month check up, our pediatrician advocated for putting her through "baby sleep boot camp," but I keep finding excuses to put it off. We'll get there eventually.



Speaking of Nora's 4 month appointment, I don't think that I ever posted her stats: she was 15lbs 9oz and 26 inches long. She had her appointment about 3 weeks earlier than Erin had hers, but Erin was just about the same size. Since that appointment, Nora has gotten really chunky and I'm sure that she's chubbier than Erin ever was. She just really likes to eat and she's so happy when I feed her.


Nora's latest tricks include sitting on her own and scooting around a bit. She also rolls all the time and I can't ever keep her on a blanket on the floor. She's never where i put her down in the crib and I'm afraid that she'll be crawling before too long. She continues to be very vocal and loves to coo and "talk" to us. Considering how much Erin talks now after not talking much at this age, I'm afraid that we may never have silence again in our house. As you can see, I gave her banana last week which was a huge hit, but I haven't really gotten started on solids yet.



Nora and Erin are still good buddies and love to spend time together. Nothing entertains Nora better than watching Erin dance and play and Erin still loves to get Nora to smile and laugh. I hope things stay this nice when Nora is more mobile and more into toy stealing.



We did some late preparation for Halloween today. I kept meaning to take the girls to the pumpkin patch, but somehow ran out of time, so we got pumpkins at the grocery store this year. Matt and Erin decorated some small gourds with glue and glitter to make "glitter pumpkins" which are a huge hit (thanks Jan). They also carved pumpkins tonight and we'll roast the seeds tomorrow. We are supposed to go trick or treating tomorrow with a few other families that we've met through the UW IM residency program. It's been great to start connecting with some other parents in medicine with young kids and our social life is beginning to pick up a little, even if it's just with kid activities. Erin is dressing up as a princess (I have mixed feelings about this, but she couldn't dissuaded) and Nora will be a monkey/mouse/bear (none of us can decide what it's actually supposed to be.

Work is going ok for me. I'm finding it tough to switch back and forth between work and home and also finding it difficult to invest as much energy into work as I should. In theory I do enjoy work, but find that it's difficult to really engage and get excited about it. There's just so much happening that needs my attention, work seems to be taking a backseat. Hopefully thinks settle down soon and work gets a little easier.

We've finally made some progress in finding some non-me, non-grandparent, childcare and that should help me have some time to put into work and into exercise. We got a recommendation from another fellow who loved this nanny. She's working on a degree in early childhood education and is a native Spanish speaker. Given Erin's recent interest in Spanish, we're hoping that they can do a lot more learning together. I'm thrilled about knowing someone that we can count on to help out for things that come up.



Like I mentioned, we've spent a lot of time down in Portland recently. I'm trying to get down as often as is reasonable to see Dad. He hasn't had a crisis for a month now, but is struggling with eating, drinking and has lost a ton of weight. He is in hospice now which has been a great addition to his care. It's hard to believe that this is where we are now and I feel the constant stress worrying about when the next crisis will hit or when the end will come.

The other sad event for our family was rehoming Duncan. He's had a really rough time with the move out here and the transition to being an only dog. He's been anxious, easily overwhelmed and upset by Erin, but we'd managed to keep things relatively peaceful. Unfortunately 2 weeks ago, Erin snuck up on Duncan as he was sleeping in the sun and tried to wrap him up in a blanket and he bit her in the face. She is fine, but we realized that he is truely miserable and not thriving with the kids. Luckily we were able to find a friend of the family who had been looking for a little dog for a while and it seems like a great match. We left Duncan down in Portland last week with Rebecca. As much as I enjoyed griping about Duncan, I miss him terribly and the house doesn't feel right without him. I just can't believe that he's gone from our family and that we have no dogs now. It just doesn't feel right.



On those sad notes, enjoy a few more pictures...

Sleepless in Seattle

We've been in Seattle for nearly 4 months now. I wish I could say the transition has been easy, but we're all feeling the stress lately. I've been putting in long hours at the hospital. The kids are going to bed between 6:30 (Nora) and 7:30 (Erin), so Fran has been doing the great majority of the child care and keeps our household running. She's settling in to her job as well-- 24 hour shifts and all. We've certainly enjoyed extended visits from Grandma and Grandpa Prekker as well as Grandma Beth.


Our house and neighborhood have been a pleasant surprise. We live within walking distance of the Woodland Park Zoo. Erin has identified her favorite animal (elephant), historical zoo attraction (carousel), and zoo treat (hot chocolate). Here she is climbing on a giant spider web, or maybe she's more of a turtle?



I've been lucky to be able to commute by bike to all 3 hospitals we go to. Shortest ride is 4 miles one way, longest is 10 miles. I stopped and gawked at this huge rainbow the other day. I like being close to so much water-- the pic above is taken from a bike trail on the north end of Lake Union.


Following an excellent tip from some Seattle friends, the Prekker family drove north of Seattle about 1.5 hours for our annual apple orchard adventure last weekend. This farm and orchard is in the Skagit Valley-- really beautiful and great weather too. This was Nora's first post-partum chance to go apple picking. I've since learned that Washington leads the U.S. in many types of agriculture, including the most apples, raspberries, hops, and sweet cherries produced.





Erin got to work right away and ended up picking a whole bag of apples herself (eating a few along the way!). We went on a hayride (bit hit) and made it 10 steps inside a "haunted house" before reaching the first corpse and deciding to turn around (not a big hit).

It was a wonderful day, rivaled only by the awesomeness of Fran's homemade apple pie later that weekend.

A good week

We've had a good week. Somehow I don't have any pictures of Erin this week, but Nora's cuteness makes up for it.

My first shift was pretty uneventful. I was on edge the whole time, but things went relatively smoothly and it helped that I had a low census with only 3 inpatients and 8 babies. I didn't take any new admissions and no big issues came up. I struggled with figuring out the system and am wildly inefficient, but made it through. The hard part was after wards; after feeling so triumphant about making it through the shift, I realized that this is just the start of an endless number of shifts because this is actually my job. Silly to think that this would come as a surprise, but it sort of did.


Jan and Dean are here helping out with the kids. Jan painted Erin's room this week and did a fantastic job. We moved all the stuff back in today and I'll take some pictures to post tomorrow. I picked out a yellow for the walls and it's way brighter than I was hoping for, but still a huge improvement over the dirty pink that we covered. Now I just need to work on the curtains, but it turns out that I didn't buy quite enough fabric for the job, so I'll have to pick up some more tomorrow.


Erin is having a blast with Jan and Dean visiting. She's been working on her monkey bar skills and also finally figured out how to put on the brakes on the little bike she's been riding. It doesn't sound like a big accomplishment, but it took a lot of practice. Erin started her preschool last week and so far seems to like it. The problem is that there are only a handful of kids in the class and they may close it because of the low enrollment. The upside of that is that they may roll her class into the 4-5 year old class and make it a 4 day a week program. I think that'd be ideal for Erin to be with the older class and hopefully keep her busier and more stimulated that I can at home.

Erin slept in our room while Jan was working on the painting and that was funny (ok, not funny at the time). I've always known that Erin wakes up in the night, but didn't realize that she wakes up every night at about 3:00am and is often awake for almost an hour. She is very content to talk or sing to herself or look at books, but it's hard to ignore when it's happening next to your bed every night. I also think this will make it difficult to get the girls into the same room together unless Nora turns into a really sound sleeper.


Matt continues to work a lot on this rotation. He also just informed me last night that for some reason this rotation is 5 weeks, not 4! Ugh. It seems like it may be getting slightly better as he gets more efficient and he has made it home for dinner a few more times lately. Overall, though, he is still working a ton, but continues to impress those he works with.

Nora is doing pretty well. She's now impossible to soothe at bedtime, but luckily she calms down on her own quickly after I put her down. She usually rolls onto her tummy, "complains" for a few minutes and then is out. She's gotten herself into a pretty good morning and afternoon nap schedule, but seems to still be a little short on sleep and is pretty fussy and ready for sleep around dinner time. Tonight she went down at 6:30. I remember Erin going through a period of really early bedtimes, but it's still tough to think about her going down for good that early. Maybe it'll feel better when it's darker earlier, but it's put a damper on our trips to the park after dinner. Nora is still up ~3 times every night, but now goes back down really easily for the most part.



Nora is still regularly rolling from her back to her tummy, loves to play in the exersaucer and is laughing out loud more regularly. She sometimes manages to get her knees underneath her when she's on her tummy, so I think that we're probably going to be baby-proofing the house before too long for a new crawler. I'm still trying to get her to practice sitting up, but she just wants to stand all the time.



Nora has her 4 month well check next week, so we'll see what her stats are, but she certainly seems chunkier than Erin was at this age.

I've got another shift on Sunday, so I'm hoping for another quiet day/night. It's still such a shock to the system to have a "normal" home life for days at a time and then just spent 24 hours at the hospital. Maybe nothing about this is normal...

So it begins...

I'm heading to the hospital tomorrow for my first official shift... all on my own. I'm terrified, but know that I've got to do this at some point. I just wish that I could put it off a little longer! I've been into work several times for meetings and orientations, but it's hard to imagine being away from the kids for 24 hours. I went back to work when Erin was only 12 weeks, but somehow this feels a little different. Luckily for us, Jan and Dean are out here staying with us, so Erin and Nora are in good hands.

Wish me luck!

And the updates on the kids:

Nora is doing better with sleeping. She's still rolling over, but it's more deliberate and not so constant. She does roll herself onto her tummy when she sleeps, but I've just let her go since I can't really stop her. It's harder for me to get her to fall asleep before I leave the room, but she's getting way better at falling asleep on her own. Now we're down to a few minutes of protesting if at all. She's still up 2-3 times at night, but is moving her bedtime earlier and earlier. She's now ready for bed by about 7:00. She's still happy and is starting to laugh out loud more often. She is also getting better at grabbing toys and getting them in her mouth. She's still a drool monster and everything I own is stained by spit up.

Erin is having a great time with Grandma and Grandpa here. She's almost able to do the monkey bars on her own now and Grandpa is working with her on using the brakes on her bike. All in all, she's having a great time with so many adults around to play with her.

Erin remains curious about everything and loves to ask questions. She loves to ask what words mean and then use them on her own. Over dinner last night she was trying to convince me that it was a dessert night, so she told me "I had a good dinner, I have a great appitude!" So now it's become a favorite around the house, the ideal combination of good appetite and attitude. She also misheard us talk about Harry Potter and starting calling him "Harry Powder." She got one of the books and flipped through it pretending to read it, but all she said was "Harry Powder, Harry Powder, Harry Powder." Funny stuff.

Well, gotta get to bed. Not sure if there are any new photos on the computer yet, so pictures next time.

Poor baby

Nora, Erin and I are down in Portland this weekend since Matt is working all weekend and this is my last chance to be down here before I start work next week.

Weather is great down here and we're having a great time... all of us except poor Nora. She is learned how to roll from her back to her tummy and now she can't seem to help from doing it. Even when she's exhausted in bed and ready to sleep, she can't seem to turn it off and she keeps trying to roll over. Unfortunately she's not entirely proficient and seems to get her arm stuck under her regularly and actually doesn't want to be on her tummy.

Since she's been able to roll over, even in a swaddle, I got rid of the arm down swaddle a few days ago. So now she's got her crazy arms waving around and then trying to roll over! Where last week, I could just lay her down wide awake and sit with her while she sucked on the nuk for a few minutes and then walk away, now it's not so simple. Needless to say, her sleep isn't so good this week and there's been plenty of fussing and crying.

Fortunately, even with the sleep and rolling issues, her happy temperament shines through and I'm sure that she'll settle down again soon.

A few more

Here are a few more, mostly from my phone while we were in Portland.


Erin loves the monkey bars, but mostly just to hang on and then drop down.


Erin watering Gramma Beth's plants.

Naked water play.

Sleeping in the front pack.


Baby in the front carrier... yes, she's wearing some no pants.


Erin and Nora playing.
Mama and Nora at the zoo. Looks bad, but she was so comfortable like this she fell asleep.


Erin watching the raptor show at the zoo.


Erin sitting on the lion at the zoo.

Erin playing dinosaur at Gramma Beth's. She was dinosaur Bobo and Nora was dinosaur Lesper.

Erin at the wadding pool at Green Lake.


Nora trying to roll.



Erin at the fountains at Ballard Commons.


Happy summer girl.

The pictures

Somehow we haven't managed to take all that many pictures recently, but here are a few:


Erin loves to play with Nora in her bouncy seat and Nora loves to give Erin her biggest smiles.

Nora is getting great at tummy time and has rolled from her tummy to back many times. Yesterday she rolled from her front to back a few times!

Nora is a drool monster. She is always wet from chin to navel. The diaper burp rag is a constant companion to mop her up.
Serious baby.
This is more like what we usually see. She's a very happy, smiley baby.

Erin playing with her "puppy."

Our dining room.
Our playroom.
Our kitchen.
Our living room.

Pictures of upstairs are coming, but somehow it's always a mess up there with a sleeping baby to tiptoe around.