Saturday on the Urban Farm

Nate had Poop Duty today:
Chicken Poop + Dog Poop + Baby Poop = The Trifecta

Guest Blogging

Deb is guest blogging today over on the lovely Heather Jane’s blog Living Senses. Come check out the Chicken post over there.

happy father’s day

Tom McCall Preserve

We’d taken Nate’s mom hiking in the Gorge before so we thought we’d go some place new.  Usually we hike into the waterfalls closer to Portland but this time we decided to venture a little further east to Tom McCall Preserve to see the wildflowers. The lupines were just gorgeous.

It was Silvie’s first time hiking and it really wore her out.  Nate had her in the Moby wrap.  By the end of the (short) hike they were plastered to each other with sweat and she was completely tuckered out.  We need to have a more substantial carrier before we attempt a longer hike with her!

Reason #2343 to Love Portland: Crystal Spring Rhododendron Garden

Whew!  The school year is finally over and I feel like I’m coming up for air!  The last four weeks have been a whirlwind that left little time for luxuries like blogging.  So we’re a little behind here in the blogland.  Bear with us while we post a few things well after they actually happened.

Nate’s mom, Mary, came to visit us in Portland in May.  We’d like to believe she actually came to see Nate and I, but you all know that the real attraction was little Miss Silvie-girl.  Mary was here my first week back to work and Nate’s first week of being a stay-at-home papa.  Whenever we have out-of-town guests we try to take them to some of our favorite places, but Mary’s been here a couple of times and we’d already shown her our usual faves: the Japanese garden, Rose Garden, Powells, waterfalls in the Gorge, etc.  We had to get a little more creative.

So we walked on down to the Crystal Springs Rhododendron Garden (say THAT three times fast), a park within walking distance of our house that we often forget exists.  The Rhody garden was developed in the 1950s d0wn by Reed College, and it is just gorgeous in the spring.  It’s a bit of a hidden garden– there is not much to see from the road, but there are paths and springs and waterfalls and ponds and bridges tucked in among hundreds of rhodies, azaleas and Japanese maples.  Lovely.

Credit for the first two photos goes to Mary Miller.

Calendar Girl, Three Months

Play Mat

Three Months

Three Months

Dear Silvie–

Three months marks the end of the “fourth trimester” according to some people.  Already you are less baby and more little girl full of curiosity and toothless grins. You are 14 pounds of squirmy these days.  You move constantly and your movements are starting to be much more purposeful in nature.  You can stick both of your hands in your mouth, sometimes simultaneously.  But you haven’t quite figured out how to to stick your thumb out and suck on it so you suck on your first two fingers.

The other week I found a play mat for you at the second hand store and scored a whole bag of toys to hang from it at a garage sale for a buck.  You like laying underneath the giant smiley sun and batting at your toys hanging down from it.  You also like to stand up and you can stay standing for quite awhile supporting your own body weight and using your papa’s hands for balance.

You’ve been home with your papa the last three weeks while I’ve been back at work.  It’s been fun to watch him work on figuring out this fatherhood thing.  I love how both of your faces light up when you grin at each other.  One more week of school for me and then I get to be at home with you for the summer.  I’m looking forward to it because I’ll get to spend more time with you AND I’ll get a little more sleep.

You are getting a little better at sleeping yourself.  We’re working on developing a bedtime routine.  Every night around 8 o’clock we give you a bath, feed you and sing you the “Jesus Loves Silvie” song.  Every night I tell you that “Mama loves Silvie and Papa loves Silvie and Grandma loves Silvie and Grandpa loves Silvie and Abraham loves Silvie and even Keegan Loves Silvie.  You are loved and chosen.”  I swaddle you up and stick you in your co-sleeper and leave the room.  Sometimes you’re out before your head even hits the mattress.  Other times you suck vigorously on your pacifier and listen to a few songs on your lullaby c.d. before you quit fighting sleep.

Just recently you’ve started sleeping from 9 p.m. to 3 a.m. without interruption.  Thank you, baby!  Then you nurse and need your diaper changed, and then you make it another stint until about 5 or 6 o’clock.  At that  time you mistakenly believe the night is over and it is now time to play.  I feed you and change you and pop you back in bed beside your papa where you coo and grin and kick while I get ready for work.  Sometimes I think he convinces you to go back to sleep for a little while longer and sometimes you convince him to get up to play with you.  That’s how you know he loves you, because he wouldn’t get out of bed for just anyone.

You are loved and chosen, Silvie.  You are loved and chosen.

Your mama

How to Amuse Yourself with an Infant, Vol. 4

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Originally uploaded by ndmiller

Pirate Baby