Baby Brycen

Do you ever feel like everyone in the world is having babies?  I wonder what our generation will look like at 78 when we are checking facebook for new obituaries? Hahah, but really with the baby thing.  I have been part of this growing community of mommies and daddies and now I am so excited that my brother Ben and his wife Bonnie have joined our ranks.

This is their first baby.  I vividly remember those long days but short months of having your first baby.  The nights where you couldn't believe that child could be waking up already and the early morning cuddles as as you child nursed (or had a bottle) quietly.  It is life changing to say the least.  I am so excited for them to be experiencing this!

Brycen Brannan Parker

born July 22, 2012 at 1:15am

6lbs, 2 ounces

19 1/2 inches

We went down to visit them in the hospital the day Brycen was born and the kids had fun in the waiting room.

Ben and Brycen

The new parents

Baby Brycen

 A couple weeks after Brycen was born (he is a month old now) we went down to Chattanooga to visit the new family.  Ben and Bonnie are doing really well and are adjusting to parenthood like the rest of us, with sleep-filled eyes and no stinkin clue what you are doing.

 Isla was very interested in what her little tiny cousin was crying about.  Funny how a new baby can make your tiny little 9 month old look big.

I love looking at the faces of parents with a newborn.  Ben and Bonnie are much the same.  There is so much emotion going on in there, happy, sad, tired, overwhelmed.  The biggest thing I see is joy. Plain ole joy, joy for the life they just helped bring into this world, joy for the little person they are getting to know, joy at how their spouse is becoming a parent.  There is truly nothing like these first few months.  There are a lot of mysteries but one thing that is true is that these months will pass too quickly and you will not miss not sleeping but you will miss the tiny tiny miracle you hold in your hands.

I am so excited because I will have another new nephew in September when Steve's sister and her husband have their third baby!

Isla is 9 months old!!

Or at least the was when I started writing this.  Let's pretend like she still is for a few minutes.  At least until later this week when I post that she is actually 10 months old.

The strangest thing keeps happening around our house, our children are growing up before our very eyes!  My sweet little tiny baby is over nine months old!  Do you know what that means?  It means I better get crafting for her first birthday party!  Isla is definitely spunky.  I can see that she is going to be a little mess and we will love every minute of it!  That being said, she is a great baby and is very easy going, as long as I am holding her.

 Isla,

• You are a little crab.  Your little fingers are good at pinching. I think you kind of think it's funny.
• You are getting a little bit pickier (more picky?) about the foods you will eat.  When it comes to baby food you are not so keen on the green ones.  Uhoh.
• You are our little explorer, you are always crawling around everywhere and finding things to put in your mouth.  Before you try to eat them, you usually turn them over a few times and try to figure out what said object does.  The general consensus is that it goes in your mouth.  Word on the street is that you even tried this with a dead bug.
• You still love the water but the water running into your eyes during bath time is not your friend anymore.  I hope you two can get used to each other.
• You haven't quite gotten the courage to "cruise" around furniture yet, which means no busted lips or heads.
• You are still a tiny thing, you weight 15.6 pounds and are in the 7th percentile for weight.  You are still wearing 3-6 month clothes.  You are in the 25th percentile in height.
• I catch you and your brother in the back seat doing things like making fart noises and laughing hysterically at each other.  Your brother loves to make you laugh and you love watching him.
• Cian calls you beautiful and it might be the sweetest thing ever.
• You get mad when we take a toy away from you.  I mean you pitch a little baby fit complete with tears and a bit of screaming.  Once you get the toy back you are completely fine and the water works are turned off.  How do kids do that?

Isla Month One-Eight

Isla, I am lucky that God chose me to be your mommy!

Love,
Mommy

Relay Rutherford

A few months ago (yes, in May) I ran in the first Relay Rutherford.  It was a relay stretching across the 55 miles of Rutherford County (where we live).  The relay was to bring awareness for Type 1 diabetes and was put on by the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation and our local Fleet Feet store.  You could have a team of ten or an ultra team of five.  My friends and I, being the crazy runners we are, naturally singed up to have a team of five.

At the last minute a couple of our runners were injured so we had to find two people the week of the race.  My old dance friend Katie from college totally pulled through as did a new runner friend Drew!  Those two paired with Shaws, Devon and I were a great team.  We had so. much.fun!

The race started in Eagleville and ran to Stonecrest in Smyrna. We were equipped with a slap bracelet that you passed on as you ran and we hit checkpoints with snacks (little debbies) and water where you switched runners.  The run was like a mini Ragnar and we ran on anything from country roads to city places.

I ran a total of 12 miles, but this was probably the hardest 12 miles I have ever run. It seems like it would be easy to run three legs, broken up into 4ish miles each but that is not the case!  When my legs cooled off they didn't really want to warm up again.

Our team, called the winers, ended up 7th overall (out of 34) and 2nd in our division, coed ultra.  We had a time of 7:13. (That is seven hours.)  The best team, who we dubbed the shorty shorts, ran it in 5:23.  They were professional elite runners who all had amazing legs and amazingly short shorts. (Did I mention they were all guys?)  The really cool thing about them is that each of the runners had Type 1 diabetes.  They really were great runners, I could tell as they flew by me and I was left breathing heavy and watching them get smaller in the distance.

Cheering us in at the finish

Our team running it in with Katie

At the end of the race there was a cookout with a DJ and a bouncy house!  I was so excited when Steve and the kids came up to meet me at the end. I didn't think they were going to be able to make it and Steve surprised me!  It was so fun to hand out with my family after running all.stinkin.day. 

Swim Lessons

When I was a kid I loved to swim.  I mean loved to dive in, and to feel the water rushing past me as it welcomed me into it's cool abyss.  I loved to dive off the diving board, play categories and swim all day long. I know I puled the five more minutes stuff on my parents.

My child does not share this love.  I have known this since the first time I dunked his seven month old self in the pool and he came up screaming.  Heck, have known it since the first bath when he screamed like he was being chased by Freddy.  We wanted him to take some swim lessons so he could learn how to swim and possibly conquer some of his fear of the water.

The first day was nothing short of terrifying for him.  (And yes, these swim lessons were two months ago, lay off me.)  The first thing they did was practice jumping off the side of the pool to us.  Cian kept asking me to get closer to the edge, let me tell you I could not have been closer to this edge if I had been standing beside him.  The "jump"he had to make was merely a step into my arms.  The teachers, Miss Allie and Miss Kelsey, then asked the kids to float on their backs against us while we held their shoulders.  He was really stable but Cian didn't believe this.  He started shaking and yelling, "somebody help me, somebody help me."  I guess he didn't feel safe with dear ole mum. 

Through the span of the week he would go back and forth between wanting the teachers to help him do things and wanting me.  I think he wanted to see which one of us would be a sucker and just hold him in the water.  The kids jumped from the side, floated on their backs (with help), held onto a noodle and kicked and pulled with their arms, blew bubbles, swam for toys, caught a ball in the water (while being held by us) "dove" or reached for rings and put their faces in the water. 

The face in the water was the kicker.  You would have thought I asked Cian to run on up to Mordor when we asked him to put his face in the water.  After much whining, crying, snotting and just down right refusal he finally did it and he was proud!

One day Steve came with us and was our cameraman.  Despite my urging him to get out of the chair and walk closer he didn't want to appear like a creeper. 

This was the fight just to get into the pool

Happy face because it is over

Was it traumatizing, probably.  Will we do it again, heck yes.