Back for the new year

Yesterday Andrea, Emmett and I returned from our Oregon vacation (the reason for the two week lapse in posts---I tried on my phone once but it was too much trouble). It was a very nice trip with Emmett getting to spend time with the majority of his nearest relations. We landed in Portland two weeks ago tomorrow on one of the last flights to land at PDX before they canceled a huge number of flights due to the quickly accumulating snow in the greater portland area. We spent just over a week at Andrea's sister's house with her fam (husband and son), Andrea's parents, and my brother. Most of the time we were in the house as the snow got up to the 15"-ish level and Portland's few snow plows played catchup until the rain and 50 degree weather came the following Saturday to quickly do what the snow plows couldn't.

Andrea and I were pretty paranoid about the whole sleeping situation before we left on the trip---Andrea even posted a request for suggestions we composed to her mothers' email group to solicit recommendations. We were worried as we had been around kids around Emmett's age who really struggle when required to sleep in new locales; especially in the same room as their parents. In the end we lost considerably more sleep worrying about the situation than we did while on vacation. I can only think of two nights during our whole 10-plus-day trip where Emmett woke during the night crying, and those two times he was able to settle himself without any intervention from us. The only thing that we made sure to do (and that was recommended in the responses to the email we composed) was to position the crib in a manner that he couldn't wake and see us. We ran into no troubles the whole time.

Emmett was on his best behavior the whole time at his aunt's house. I think he only cried two times the whole time he was there, however he picked up a new, very high pitched scream which, unfortunately, was not a one-time thing. I took a video of him doing it tonight at dinner which shows a wonderful crescendo. Charming.


We spent a lot of time playing pinochle while we were at Andrea's sister's, and the picture at left shows my brother tutoring a young Emmett on the finer points of double-deck. Cards were not Emmett's only field of study on the trip, though, as he also reached a couple of other milestones on the trip. The first, shown in the video below, is the wave. Yes, I know that everyone has seen a person wave before, but I like the stoic facial expression juxtaposed with his mother's excitement at his success. The second is he is picking up clapping after a tutoring session with his great-grandma. The third is that he improved actual crawling (vs. worming along the ground). Exciting times.


I wanted to throw in the picture to the left as it kills me. A little explanation: Tyler (Emmett's cousin, pictured at left) and Emmett each got a musical toy for Christmas and this picture has each playing with their respective new toys. The thing that I find funny, though, is that they look like very young electronic musicians---especially with Tyler gripping his microphone and emmett hunched over his synth. Yep, funny only to a father.


Though it wasn't a Christmas present, the gift I was most excited for for Emmett was the new helmet we got him so he can start riding the bike with me (I just won a bike seat on eBay this evening, so we will be ready to roll next week). He is actually really good with the helmet and doesn't complain about it being on around the house. Oh, and the picture also brings up another milestone: Emmett has eaten a couple of full bananas right out of the peel without having them broken up for him.

The second part of the trip was spent on the Oregon coast (Lincoln City). My mom and grandma drove up and the five of us rented a house overlooking the ocean for four nights (this is where the clapping tutorial took place). The weather cooperated nicely as we were predicted to have four days of rain but ended up having nearly dry days the entire time we were there. The visit there was very nice, too, except that Emmett was a little grumpy as he had another 102+ fever. It is strange as he showed no other sign of illness either time that he had a little fever (except the grumpiness). Perhaps it is teething, but the fever seems high for that. Who knows? The fever is gone now, though.

Again, Emmett slept well on this portion of the trip (even with his fever). The time at the beach was relaxing at Emmett seemed to enjoy walking on the beach in the carrier just as much as he does anywhere else.

This is getting way too long, but the other thing I might mention is the actual traveling. Emmett was great on the flight to portland falling asleep in Andrea's lap early in on the flight. It was funny as Andrea and I were both watching him as he awoke and he had his groggy face on, then he looked up, saw both of us staring down on him and got excited, acting like having us there when he woke up was the best surprise in the world. On the way back he was a little grumpier (fever?) but slept on Andrea once again. The most exciting part for me was that I took him to the Portland airport bathroom to change him, found that his diaper was still dry, walked him over to the urinal, and he peed in the airport urinal. I think people thought I was pretty crazy, but no one commented.