Good Times...

These days, Eric spends lots of time in the summer heat working in the yard, organizing the garage (thanks, hon!) and baby and I trek to the YMCA to swim constantly.
Hal is an amazing water bug- LOVES to swim, loves jumping off the side of the pool into my arms, and kicks like a frog. The backyard pool just doesn't cut it anymore. This boy needs lots of sunscreen!


A bad photo- but action shot in his ikea tunnel- best idea ever! He goes in it to hide, takes his toys sometimes, runs to escape diaper changes.

Father's Day in the front yard.

Hal climbed into his wagon by himself! The wagon is awesome, but also a curse. Whenever he sees it, he holds onto the sides and fusses until he can go for a ride, so I have to hide the wagon fairly often in closets or the garage.

Owls

I do not have much to post- the last two weeks are just busy and I'm working both weekends, so its hard to have free time to take pictures.
I'm working on uploading a video of Hal- we'll see if it works!
At any rate, we have an owl family living in our tree. Two parent owls. (Dad is below)


And owlets- three, one of which is below with the lighter feathery markings and smaller earhorns. They are awesome. They sleep all day in the heat and then wake up when I annoy them or its dusk to go hunt. In my second-grade enthusiasm, I've found owl pellets and taken them apart and have discovered they eat roaches, june bugs and maybe a small bird or two.
Eric thinks this is disgusting. Baby has not learned anything about nature unless it involves a "doggie" licking his face. Nevertheless, I am considering owl as a theme for his birthday party.

I give up! I cannot get a video to upload. I put one on facebook and will email the other to interested grandparents.

Vacation!!

We heard last week that Jackie, Eric's grandad Dick's wife, died in her sleep while in rehabilitation after some health problems during the last few months.
She has always been so kind to me, and was a sweet sweet lady who loved Grandpa Dick and her animals and grandchildren. Grandpa Dick is twice a widower and a wonderful man and we are thinking of him and praying for Jackie's family.
I don't have a good way to transition to vacation pictures from the sad news about Jackie- I hope I do not seem too callous.

May 16 I turned 10 months! I am so handsome. I now fit in an outfit cousin Wendi sent. Huzzah!

We had a week of vacation and decided we would combine time with Louisa and Will- the Willzabeast- in Phoenix with Ruidoso trip. So we flew to Phoenix, had quality cocktails and good times in the pool at the Biltmore with Louisa and Will.
Truly, baby's first time in the pool was mindblowing- he was SOOO happy. I wished I'd had the camera or another set of hands to film him at that time. I always try uploading video to the blog, but it craps out everytime, so I have to put them on facebook.
At the Biltmore hotel restaurant- Frank and Albert's- for happy hour:


Croquet. Naturally.

Hiking at the Phoenix Mountains Preserve:


Somebody fell asleep.

In the pool!


Since Lou and Will's flight was delayed (by an entire day) we stayed an extra night in AZ and did awesome things like eat pizza and pancakes, watch the Mavs and hang out with the amazing couple.
Then we departed for a long drive to Ruidoso. We split the drive into two days (poor babykins watched sesame street dvds over and over on our portable player)- taking a northern route, mostly Hwy 60. And we stopped at a camp of cabins near Eagar, AZ. The road down to the cabins:

Our cabin was very nice with a small kitchen and two bedrooms.

The drive was beautiful. The tiny ranching towns in southwestern NM and souteastern AZ were very remote and the transition from desert to mountain to prarie back to mountain was dramatic.
At last we arrived in Ruidoso!

It was too dry to hike in the National Forest- they had a ban on all entry and our favorite hikes were barred (you couldn't even drive a car to the entrance!) so we trekked a bit behind the cabin (also national forest, but nobody could stop us), and out to a state park area.

Somebody LOVES his daddy!!

Hal put a $2 bet on a filly at the races:

Thank you to the Attebury's and Watkins' for house and cabin use!

We had a great time. (except the way home. don't ask. I feel like barfing just thinking about yesterday).

Marmie's Birthday! And Mother's Day

The last few weeks have provided fewer opportunities for picture taking and we were pretty busy so I haven't blogged, but I have a few from Marmie's (grandma Margaret) birthday.

Technically it was May 8th and her birthday is the 9th, but it was also Mother's Day and my poor mom always suffers through combined celebrations. Dad made a FABULOUS layer cake with raspberry and buttercream.

Thank goodness for my mom. She watches Hal everyday while I work and he loves her so much. The older I get, the more I ask her advice and opinion and value her input highly. I feel as though there is a database in my brain entirely for questions I need to ask my mom at all times from the practical to philosophical.
Why is my baby always only in a diaper?





For Mothers Day, Hal bought me a cover with a light for my Kindle (which is the other reason I am not as frequent blogging as I should be!) and a foam play mat for himself for the kitchen. Eric facilitated a lovely breakfast and on Saturday we hiked at the Cedar Ridge Reserve- very nice albeit a good 25 min drive.

Its funny- I don't think of myself as a "Mother" - "mother"s are people who provide guidance, discpline, wisdom (whether seen that way or not) and usually some amount of mild mental pathology. OK, I might give Hal some anxieties or whatever, but I'm more "clingy monkey mommy" not a "mother," as we don't really discuss life or have learning moments or yell because someone touched the stove or made a decision to eat dog food.

Mostly he just clings to me rather frequently and sometimes he prefers me to everyone else (except Georgie always), so I feel like just a clingy monkey mommy. If we need to have cake and gifts to recognize the fact that my infant clings to me and I move him about all the time and cut up pieces of sausage for him, then I'm all for it!

Things Hal is doing:
-LOVING LOVING "outside"- knows the word and looks out the door everytime you say it
-LOVING LOVING reading reading reading
-Loving his drumsticks - taking one everywhere
-Sleeping on his side and rolling to his belly, practicing crawling in bed (but in no way actually crawling yet. argh)
-Eating when I turn around and stop watching/cajoling him in his high chair
-LOVES Ikea meatballs, mango, giant pieces of bread

I am so lucky to be his monkey mommy!

Easter and Palm Sunday

Happy Easter!
The last few weekends were crazy fun. Last weekend we traveled to Houston to visit Roberto and Lluvia Soler and their sons R.J. and Sebastian. In typical Chafen fashion, the camera was left at home, and Roberto took several pictures for which I need to harrass him.
But they were wonderful hosts and we saw the Katy sights as well as Buc-ees which did not disappoint. Vanilla Diet Coke! Jerky! Hal could not savor Buc-ees gastronomic delights but weathered the long drive well and we discovered playing DVDs on our portable DVD player was the way to go- rear facing, of course, with me holding the screen so he can see it.
This weekend we were so fortunate to have offers of delicious food and good Easter fun. Saturday we went to Babe's in Carrollton for fried chicken with the Beasleys and Shavers and babies Campbell and Ward, both born within a few weeks of Hal! I'd been pestering everyone for months to go to Babe's and they humored me and it was delicious.
Today, for Easter, we trekked to services (waking baby from his nap for the third time in a row ) :) and then Aunt Jan and Uncle Jim very kindly invited us to join the Wilson clan- 8 adults, 7 kids total!- for Easter lunch with ham (my fav) and all manner of delightful foods. We meagerly brought some greens and a pretty fussy baby after a short morning nap and runny nose/maybe a little fever. We made a mess with the baby and, yet again, I forgot my camera.
Argh!
The Wilsons were so hospitable, the egg hunt very fun to watch with cute little ones, and we ran out early when Hal was clearly asking for another nap. I had to perform magic tricks to keep him awake in the car on the way back (so we could have a proper nap in his bed). He'd open one eye and look at me like "Yeah, lady, you keep dancing and waving that cowbell. I'm gonna siesta through any racket you can muster."
This evening, after fulfilled nap, we went to meet the Harrisons with Morgan and Spencer and Cathie and Katie Walsh - in town from Memphis - for drinks at the Belmont and dinner at Smoke.
Both places are great- food excellent and drinks and view at the Belmont comfortable and very un-Dallas like (not always a good thing, but when a 'view' is involved, being un-Dallas is essential) Katie relayed real life Tennessee prosecutor stories which sound made up half the time- they are nutty and involve crazy quotable characters. All real! Morgan told us about her new job, and Edna, Richard and Spencer were so kind to entertain Mr. Long Day Fussy Pants McGoo, helping feed and dance for him. I finally remembered my camera after berating myself for forgetting it all day but did not get the most quality pictures:





SOOOOOO TIRED!!!

Julie's visit

OK, I can't seem to get the video to load, but wanted to go ahead and get this post rolling! We had a fabulous week with Grandma Julie who traveled here to see baby Hal (and us, I guess) but mostly her grandbaby! Things we did: attend Eggstravaganza at the Cooper Aerobics Center - really just to see the petting zoo and check it out, went to Fernando's, Sonny Bryan's, Torchy's Tacos and Zoe's Kitchen to eat.

We also had Cathie Walsh (on her birthday!) and my mom over for dinner (my mother brought all the delicious food and Cathie brought the wine- the way to dine!) Julie was very kind and generous and seeing our decrepit vacuum from the Nixon era (at least), bought us a new Oreck which is awesome. She also bought Hal some books, brought him a John Deere outfit and lots of socks (very needed), a drum, a bookshelf for his crazy book collection, and bubbles.

So, basically, it felt like Christmas.

Wednesday night, Julie put Hal to bed allowing us to escape to dinner at Bolsa and feel sort of hip and young. Eric, charming and impressionable husband that he is, took the heavy hints that I wanted to get a Kindle for mother's day from Hal and bought me one early. I read Tina Fey's memoir and trying to get through a parenting book a colleague had recommended I recommend to patients. In additional acquisitions, we planted a Japanese Maple tree in the front yard. Yes, if you know our area of Dallas, its super trendy, but looks so lovely and hides a bald spot on the brick front of the house. (yes, the house was embarrassed).

We are wading through oak pollen. You know that amazing tree in our backyard? Well, its sweating/pooping/vomiting oak pollen all over us, into our house, etc... The dog is covered 90% of the time and now looks green; the pollen can be found inside the DVD player. Not kidding.

We are sad to see Julie go and my parents will be leaving for Malawi for 2.5 weeks on wednesday. I am so excited for them!!! But we will miss them too. Hal and Consuelo are going to be best friends for a few weeks as I will be working half days 5 days a week. All these pictures are from the same day- look at all we did!

My new drum!

I am wearing swim trunks- they just blend in. Dad is silly.

More sickness... and freewheeling weekends

After Hal got over the awesome 5-6 day fever event a few weeks ago, he had RSV. (respiratory synctial virus). It was fairly clear from the gobs coming from his nose and eyes that RSV was not going to be a party and I got to experience firsthand what parents of patients had complained about for a few years to me. We had sleepless nights and tooek turns counting his respiratory rate as he was wheezing and a bit noisy sounding, but all was well and Hal recovered nicely. A couple with a 5 week old we admitted for RSV bronchiolitis asked me how he was when I went to examine him in the hospital and, sadly, I got to admit that the 8 month old was doing much better while their 5 week old was in the hospital, on oxygen, etc.etc... Its tough being born in the winter! I warn patients that the cough may last up to 6 weeks (or, truthfully, more if they had a rough course) and shore nuff, baby is coughing a bit still. But smiley and happy and saying "mama" and "dada" and having a great time. Eric has become ambitious about landscaping and is hanging in the backyard, in the rain, marking his gravel walkway. When we're not working on weekends, they are so marvelous!! Friday night, we hosted the Gails (David who went to high school with me and his wife Sara and their baby Jacob) and the pregnant Slades (Katy and Jared who went to Harvard with us and Katy went to Hockaday with Sara). It was a great evening outside, a summery meal- and we rushed to get those babies to bed! Sara took a great video of Hal and Jacob on the piano, but I need to ask permission to post. In the meantime, a video I already put on Facebook, but these are slow days...