otono

So this video is funny because normally we are showing her pictures of herself on the camera, so when she approaches the camera, saying baby, she means please show me pictures of myself.  She does the same thing anytime she sees an iphone because of auntie KT at thanksgiving.

this was a good picture two seconds earlier

where's waldo?

Words

I've been meaning to do this for a while too, but I just finished reading an alphabet book with sienna and the lesson was struck home.  What does sienna say?  mostly single words, though she'll also string "please" with words or say certain phrases: "thank you" "I love you." (said that for the first time..awesome!!!).  she also said "I want water" today, which was the first I had heard that. she also baby signs, please, milk, book, hi, bye, up, thank you, all done, food.  but to the best of my abilities, here are the words that she says:
dada, mama, apple, boat, water, cat (meow), dog (woofwoof, bowwow), dance, egg, ball (easily her favorite word), baby, shoes, socks, feet, leg, hair, head, eye, ear, nose, mouth, cheek, teeth, toothbrush, brush, wash, push, pull, lips, toes, bracelet, filibuster, blankie,train (hoohoo) bug, bee (buzz), kiss, face, moon, star, cow (moo), elephant (pfffffth), bird, horse, hand, rock, rice, ice, milk, book, duck (quackquack), cockadoodledoo, hat, coat, shirt, buckle, bib, cheese, boot, pee (pssss), poopoo, bike, hi (with arm wave), byebye (with hand wave), up, kick, down, shhh, spaceship, all done, food, yogurt, sit, seat, bubble, walk, sssssss (when she sees a snake), fish, bear (roar), off, on, house, chalk, box, bag, backpack, yes (head nod), no (head shake), back, trash, go, pancake, car, hot, help.  she also repeats a lot of words, but I haven't heard her say them independently.
laura would emphasize that 90% of the words out of her mouth are book and ball (though "no" is quickly joining the list), and that a random stranger would probably only recognize 30% (bear sounds a lot like bird, cat is sometimes tak, and I want water was ah wah wawah with the appropriate syllable emphasis to call it good in my book, and is still better than what most americans can do).

that's all for now.

Time Blast

I'm on winter break from medical school, so time to relax and reflect, or as laura calls it, time to start pulling my weight (laura would like to clarify that this is a peter joke, and not a reflection of how she actually views our relationship.  It is, instead, a more accurate description of my guilt for not helping to clean and cook more during the semester).
Back in september, laura and sienna went to maine.  Given that you have to pay for a plane ticket for kids older than 2, we knew we had to get in as much travelling as possible before that mark. I'd say we've done a pretty good job thus far: since she was born, we've gone (from bozeman) to denver, to montrose, to montrose, to kauai, to seattle, to montrose, to maine, to seattle, to montrose. we've also driven to jackson holes, to city of rocks, to madison/chicago, and countless times to boulder mt.  This is not including daddy's travels to reno, new england, portland or.  In conclusion, we travel way too much. it's exhausting.  sienna thinks so too. last night, when we got back from montrose christmas travels, she slept for 15 hrs straight, without any wake ups.  !!!  ...  luckily, on this past trip, she actually did great.  was pretty playful and flexible, and unbelievably slept on the last leg of the trip in mama's arms (hasn't done that in about a year, under any circumstances.  compare to our seattle trip where she kept starting to nod off, then waking up, shaking it off, and proceeding to scream until the next time she nods off.  two hours of screaming baby in an airplane sucks).  We have come to learn that sienna has my sleeping abilities, ie not sleep unless fully horizontal, at a 45 degree angle on my belly with a cuddle pillow under my shoulder.  vs laura, who falls asleep anytime anywhere, and alway has.  this makes for some uninteresting car/plane rides, and by uninteresting I mean awful.  given that she doesn't travel well, I can't believe we've travelled as much as we have.  I guess it's just part of who we are at this point.
anyway, I'm off topic...Maine.  they had a great trip, seeing all the wonderful old friends of yore. and enjoying some tai qi on vinalhaven. not bad. 

here's the maine gang, and I have to say that it makes me sad that
sienna won't grow up with this fine bunch of kids.  It's funny that
kids are just like adults: some are nice, and some are jerks.  These
kids aren't jerks, and make excellent playmates.  here in bozeman,
there are a few families with really nice kids who you'd want sienna
to play with, and then there are some that aren't nice, and as a parent
you have mixed feelings about them playing together. I feel like
people usually only talk about this in the context of teenage friends,
but it's just as apparent at this age.  Luckily, I think sienna tends
to gravitate towards nice kids naturally without our urging, and knows
to generally stay away from jerks because, well, they're jerks.  Anyway,
above is: Jude, Lucy, Abel, Isaac, Hazel (w teresa), avery, sienna. Since
this picture was taken, Micah has joined the ranks.  When we left maine,
there was only lucy and isaac.  turns out things change quickly.

On the ferry boat to vinalhaven.

Back when it was warm, and she sported the
emma watson post-hermione haircut.

Squeek in between barfing sessions.  because of the
winding roads in maine, she got car sick and puked
a number of times.  Sorry bree for your car!!!

carrying on a strong BOC tradition of having your
kids run around the schwartz and draw on nautical charts.

w da woodruffs (minus seamus), w maeve, lucretia, us, daere, michael, and finnegan.
If you look real close, you can see bree and laura still on the wall
above lucretia's r shoulder, and me in a raft after swimming the 3 sisters rapid on the
kennebec while training some younger guides.

Dinner at the woodruffs, with john and marielynn and maya and sean too

w breezy on a breezy night

did I mention it was breezy. This was near
where the yurt was, where you could really
hear the ocean winds blowing off the water.
before we were in the yurt, our tents blew away
twice, with all our belongings scattered
across the field/woods.  sienna loves the wind.

so people around here don't know anything about maine.  most people consider it "out east," the same way people out there consider montana "out west."  when you talk to the locals in either place, they talk about their hidden treasure that no one understands and are trying to exploit/ruin (more so in montana, probably because mainers all ready experienced what montanans are now feeling, though it was 150 years ago).  Invariably, I get asked, "what's maine like?"  and "what's bowdoin?" Like montana, it's hard for me to answer the question without confronting stereotypes and elucidating my qualifications.  And in the end, I feel like I always get it wrong.  but no matter how wrong I get it, I still have my own romanticized imagery of the place, and the many smiling faces that accompany it.  In the end, what do we really know of a place other than the personal experiences we've chosen to highlight?  Laura and Sienna's trip summarize my take on maine fairly well:

Humble cedar shingled homes atop compact white granite

Tranquil expanses of water set within a quiet moment

The homes take after the trees: humble, understated, and intimate

an emphasis on what's important

look at all those mugs...and so accessible

A place to gather.

Anyway, that's it.  I'll post some videos next time. by the way, everything above is copyrighted and I'll expect a call from the maine department of tourism promptly.

We're back!

Good news: Sienna has given up the charade, and decided to go back on air.  In retribution for me "going to medical school," she decided to "forego the blog." I told her that she was being rash, but she didn't listen, and then I told her to reassess her priorities, and she said I didn't know anything, and then I said, well, nothing, cuz I had to go to class. 

That bemused look is, "Why are you dressing me
in my halloween costume in December?"

"Cheeeezzz"

"Good lord I love cheese"

She likes to push more than ride, sometimes.
She did this for nearly a mile around greenlake.

zA Post that Starts with Z



Squeek took this one and wanted me to share it with you all

 So much has happened of late that it's hard to keep track of it all.  Let's see.  First of all, squeek has graduated from the Livingworst School of Dog Training.  She was about the right age, so we enrolled her over the summer so that she could learn some of the basic tasks of living and thriving.  First, they taught her how to sit, which she did magnificently.  Likewise, the instructor commented that she had a particular aptitude for shaking hands and rolling over.  When we questioned her as to Squeek's chances in the AKC circuit, she informed us that though she had the demeanor required, she was the ugliest bulldog that she had ever seen (maybe I should back up here.  see, apparently you can't enroll babies in puppy school.  We knew that it was the right time, but in our research we couldn't find anything appropriate for sienna's age.  Everything revolved around singing, and clapping, and stuff like that.  These skills seemed a bit infantile, and Bozone seems to be too rugged to offer anything more advanced.  So Laura had the great idea of teaching her some tricks.  Thus, puppy school).  While our hopes were dashed for the circuit, we were not surprised.  In fact, Sienna scored a flat D- in the areas of housetraining, and respecting the command "STAY!"  Likewise, she repeatedly nearly choked to death trying to gum her "reward," the dog biscuits.  Frankly, I think the instructor, "Karen," had it out for the squeek (squeek had more hair than her).



How embarassing is it when your daughter's mustache
is better than yours?

 What else?  Colblaylor came to visit from NJ, which was both splendid and ephemeral.  As proof of this, I can vouch that not a single "moment" was captured in which Sienna and Saylor played/SiennachaseSayloraroundwhileheplayedwithKira.  they seem rather well, and we're very touched that they could join us for some Montana fun (shooting stuff).
Laura began watching Kira after school, which was hectic at first though has since calmed down.  Kira rode her bike, and then Sienna tried to climb up it to get on to ride. she didn't make it, but she's not too far off. 
Last weekend, Sarah from interlochen swung through town on her way cross country.  she kindly gifted Story with a frog wood drum...thing.  Sienna immediately withdrew the drum stick and began playing.  while her wrist was a little stiff, she can hold a rhythm fairly well.  I'm trying to convince laura that, in light of this, the cymbals would be the perfect instrument for sienna, though she resists.  If I might ask a favor of all you, please send laura an email encouraging her to make the cymbals her future instrument of choice.  I think they complement the cello well.

School has also started, and is cruising along smoothly.  Great classmates, great material (our cadaver's heart had a sweet ante-mortem fibroblast clot in its right atrium and ventricle.  Didn't die from it, but enlarged teh atrium and probably caused some other problems), and great use of down time.  If anyone is feeling a little bored, or feels like they don't have a lot going on, I would highly recommend medical school. 

With all these transitions, though, squeek has been less than, um, mellow.  her sleep schedule has managed to get crumped (lame), and mealtimes are even more exciting than usual.  Additionally, she has become quite the risk taker.  I blame myself for this behavior, and laura whole heartedly agrees (who has taken up skeet shooting, in which she's the pidgeon.  Luckily for everyone, the little flinger thinger (Pull!) cannot propel her, but only gives her a good thump in the stomach).  Sienna received a plastic car/noise machine from a neighbor.  She likes to not only mount it, but then stand on it.  One time I was in the other room, and came around the corner and she was balancing, standing on top of the car with her arms in the air.  Big smile.  When she fails at this endeavor, we hear a big scream.
Check these out...they're rad:
                                    

Okay, Bye

Final Days

This last week has been an attempt to tie up all the loose ends before summer is over.  It reminds me of one of my favorite maine quotes.  I asked a friend, "so, how was your summer?" "It's ovah."  First we had to knock off some hikes, joining up with jen and luca to go to s. cottonwood creek (mike, you're right, it was fanastic. It seems I should take all my recreation advice from you.  I remember when I first met cate, and laura was preggers, and we weren't joining you two at the bar and you said, "eh, that's okay, you're not missing much." If I remember right, cate gave you a funny look), and then heading over to the humbug spires to check the dish. Let me tell you, the dish is gooooood.


I had to doggy paddle across the middle part of the creek, er,
um, River I mean... Raging river.



It turns out squeek digs the stream crossings



For those of that can see what I'm pointing at, and
for those of you that care (which I recognize are a scant few),
Above is the 800 ft tall granite wedge.  Superb rock quality,
coupled with a 3 mile approach.  In Montana terms,
this would be considered an afternoon crag (as opposed
to CA, where this is considered alpine).  We bailed due to
a horizon of lightning.



Sienna also digs checking out obscure climbing areas that we won't
climb at till she's bigger.



Lunch Time.  For those of you with tinies, or are
expecting, note the packet at sienna's foot.  There's a
couple different companies that make them including happy baby and
peter rabbit.  pure organic fruits and veggies, and they're
delicious.

We also had some final things to take care of up in boulder MT.  grandma and papa were out of town so we were taking care of the animals and garden while they were gone.



Sienna's giving the chicks water. She loved to watch the chickens,
whcih she calls ducks, but when amidst them mostly ignores em and
plays with the pail.  With this shirt she is lined up to play lacrosse,
which would be a good fit for her build.  Men's lacrosse, that is.



the dill went crazy this year.

We also had to put the final trim on the kitchen, which we were able to do.  Pretty darn pleased with how the whole thing turned out.

The final product.  The drawers to the right are full-extension drawers
(awesome), note the hanging pot rack (awesome), and behind the garbage
instead of a lazy susan we put in more ddrawer slides for the dehydrator and
canning jars.



Here's a close-up of the overhead shelves.
We used reclaimed lumber, which was a pain
to work with and way beyond our skill level,
but in the end turned out great.

 We also had to get in some running.  Tyson and I have egged each other into doing the seattle marathon in november, and after talking with jen, laura is psyched to do the half marathon then, too.  So, we've been doing some track workouts, which sienna also enjoys.


Definitely less baby, more girl.



While laura and I are pretty good at keeping pace in our intervals,
sienna has a long way to go.  I kept yelling, "you lack discipline" though
that didn't seem to help. She just wanted to play.



I think that's all I got.  What's she doing these days.  She walks and runs, climbs stairs and climbs down (still working on that), balances on one foot well enough to step over toys and legs and things.  She climbs into short rocking chairs, rocks, and climbs out.  Likewise on drums, strollers, plastic cars, etc.  She's experimenting with her movement, and is very confident over any terrain walking (including up and down hill, which is a big improvement).  She babbles, and repeats words.  She knows mama, dada, up, dog, woof, cat (not meow), bellybutton (which she drops the last syllable, and fudges the 'l's'), bubbles (bubuh), baby, head, shoes, and maybe some others (water, maybe).  More notably, she is understanding things.  She'll bring her shoes over to us because that means we're going outside.  When we say "you need to sit while you eat" she gives you a dirty look and sits.  "What's in your mouth," she opens her mouth.  "Where's your head," she points to her head. she starts to climb the stairs when it's nap time.  She reads books and finds the dogs in them. yesterday her hands were filthy with food and she was wiping it in her hair.  I threw my head into my hands in shame, and she kept doing it, and I realized that after a while she was pantomiming daddy by putting her head in her hands (thereby spreading the food).  She drinks well out of cups, sippy cups, bottles, eats mostly with her fingers and sometimes will feed herself with a spoon (usually the food drops into her lap before it makes it to her mouth (which is frustrating, though hilarious if you think of an adult doing it)).  She cuddles stuffed animals and sometimes kisses them, which makes daddy jealous.  Her favorite game remains running to the other side of the room, flopping onto the ground with her belly exposed, and giving you a big smile (that's your cue to march intimidatingly over to her and give her belly raspberries).  She learned this game from momma, who also flops onto the ground. When in her stroller she sings and lets the bumps play with her pitch.  throwing some excellent tantrums, though less violent than last month.  Is semi-purposefully bashing her head into the concrete with less frequency now.  This makes me happy.
That's about it.  i start med school tomorrow, so my posts will almost certainly be less frequent.  Laura is charged with taking over the picture taking.  Sienna is still in charge of being cute and kind.
c ya.

Summit or Plummet

About a month ago, laura looks longingly across our red suede couch, and sez "Peter...now, I know that we haven't climb much since sienna was born.  Or hiked much, or paddled much, or whatever.  But you know what?  I wanna summit something this summer." 

For those of you that don't know Laura that well, this is an interesting statement.  While she is adventurous and outgoing, and perfectly comfortable roughin' it, she does not in fact have that particular cut-throat, no-fear attitude shared by so many outdoor enthusiasts.  She takes her time with things.  I like to joke that the reason that her labor was three.5 days was that her body had to get used to it before committing.  Such an attitude explains how she could instruct dozens of whitewater paddlers down class IV rapids before descending one herself (that's not quite true, but it's true enough). 

Anyway, two conclusions can be drawn from Laura's statement.  One) nothing could stand in the way of laura's '11 August summit.  Two) laura is now a weekend warrior and peak bagger.

While the technicalities of the second statement are debatable (it's friday and I'm working sat/sun), the first statement is undoubtedly true.  Well, not quite true.  Here's what squeeker had to say about summitting:



not psyched... which is surprising given her pants



So yeah, we headed up to sacagawea peak (el. 9665) outside bozeman.  Great hike, and you're right mike, would make a good run (minus the rocky footing).  We made it up to the saddle at about 8900', maybe 3/4 of the way, and got nuked by the wind and a nasty sight of storm coming from the west. We bailed, but not before getting some pics. It started raining as we got in the car.



I don't think I have a choice...I gotta keep the 'stache.
At least until I get my UW SOM ID picture.



In her left hand is a tuft of goat fur.  She liked to impatiently bring
it up to her nose and sniiiiiiffffffff.

 

And now, for something completely different:

Summer Tiiiiiiiiiimmmmee

Having fun this summer, though it's about to end.  School starts in less than two weeks.  Sienna is growing up into a little girl.  Her arms are nearly huuman-proportions, her face is less chubtastic, and many of her fat rolls are toned. It also turns out that she's hilarious.  Very good sense of humor, in addition to being adventurous, social, personable, trusting, a good problem-solver, expressive, creative, good memory, kind, thoughtful, playful, preposterously athletic, and cuter than hell.  Basically, over the last month I've come to grips with the fact that my daughter is a lot cooler than I am, more interesting, more engaged, and has many of the qualities that I wish I had.  I don't where she got them, certainly not from me, and I know she's going to teach me a lot.

No doubt, squeeker loves flowers.  It turns out she loves
to sniff them. At first we thought she was putting them to her mouth,
but realized that she just liked to sniff.  She'll make an excellent
left fielder.



"Here, have a go, it's delicious"




Here you can see it pretty well. Definitely more of a little girl
than a baby.  Kinda crazy.  But don't let that look fool you,
she still poops in her pants.



Ahhh, not the lense, not the lense!!





Sienna also loves playing with older kids.  She has no problem being out of her league.  Kids that are way stronger, more coordinated, faster, she doesn't care, she wants to be right in there with them.  Her cousin Yale also was fascinated with older kids.  I suppose it helps her push herself, and is more fun and more exciting than playing by yourself, or those that are less outgoing.  It'll be curious what she does with a younger sibling. Laura and I were just talking, and imagining her being bossy or disinterested.  But, I think of another kid similar to sienna who loves being an older sibling.  who knows?

I guess that's also why I've been less prone to write during my posts. When she was a baby, I felt a certain ownership.  She's my baby. Laura's baby. period.  But I don't really think of it that way anymore.  She's sienna. she's her own person, with her own lessons to learn and experiences to have, and I feel a little funny writing about her in the way that I used to.  Heck, we don't write about our spouses or friends in that way; they are, after all, their own people with their own voices and they don't need this stream of commentary.  Likewise, at the gut level, I don't think sienna needs a streaming commentary. She's not my daughter, perhaps, as much as I'm her dad.

 Just yesterday, she was playing with a much older kid, and she did a back flip of the bed.  nearly landed it, of course, and was fine, but it raises the issue of whether or not it's our responsibility to keep her safe all the time.  Yes, we should have been more prudent and we got lucky on this one, but she's getting older and less fragile and has the responsibility to herself to get hurt and make stupid mistakes. Perhaps we can give her the tools to make good decisions, or provide an environment that fosters the development desirable personality traits, or model and explore good morals with her, but ultimately it's her life and she is responsible for it.  If she wants to be reckless, or a jerk, there's little we can do about it but be unceasingly supportive and ensure she knows that we love her.  This is perhaps too early to really jump into these thoughts, as she is still very much a baby, but it's all a progression, not black and white. 

In other news, Uncle tyson just came out and we did the three day Headwaters Relay
running race with the team, "The Honey Badgers."  We kicked butt, and saw some
amazing places with an amazing team.



Honey Badgers Don't Care. Cate, Melissa, Mike, Ty, Dan, Me, Ben, Clara.
We'll miss you mike. Good luck at OHSU.