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.