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.





One Year Down

Happy Birthday Squeeker!!!!! 

Thanks for everyone who called and wrote.  squeek enjoyed the words of wisdom and the melodious renditions of feliz cumpleanos.  the winning voice likely goes to tom w who overcame his food poisoning to call.  "Happy birthday to blooeeaahhhh..."  We ran the name by sienna but she didn't like it, so we'll stick with squeek.  we actually had her bday last week when omie was here.  omie came out for a few days to hang and empty her "carry-on" suitcase, which was full of presents, onto an unsuspecting 1-year old.  She didn't know what hit her, but has spent the ensuing week climbing, biting, swinging,  and otherwise getting to know her various birthday presents.



Her first sweet. Momma made an angel food cake (with squash in it)
with a cream cheese (carrot & orange) frosting. squeek dug it, fo sho.





grandma dee and papa jim also joined,
along with kim and kira.



on a hike to lava lake. we didn't make it because
squeek's spidey sense tingled about the approaching storm.
Her spidey sense happens to be really loud.



in the kitchen that we're building in boulder.



Happy Fourth



The face of a true patriot



a day with the schoenes

Our home for the summer in boulder, mt



it was amazing.  at first she was put off by all the chirping,
but then she pointed and said "mcnugget"



picnictime!





two pictures of our butts in butte.  turns out butte has excellent granite.



more from colorado

At the Chicago Children's Museum with aunt maude.
they used kool-aid as coloring in the homemade play-do.
Ummmm, what do you think a baby is going to do with something like that?

The evidence is on her face.

circle j

Time for a history lesson. This is where laura grew up. In ten sleep, WY is this place, circle j ranch. It's a methodist church camp that laura's mom oversaw and managed.  I believe this was before she went into the ministry, and for laura was her home from about preschool through fourth grade.  It's the longest she had ever lived in a place before helena and then maine.  Asking laura where she is from is an interesting process because she moved around so much, but she doesn't hesitate to acknowledge that circle j was where she grew up.  you can see why.  A few years ago, we had conversations about where we wanted to live, and consequentially where we wanted our kids to grow up.  it's a fun game.  you should try it.  What we discovered is that the qualities of a place that would be desirable for a kid to grow up in change as they grow older.  For a kid kid, circle j wraps it up.  lots of fields, orchard, goats, river, woods, and tons of kids coming through in the summer to play with, including international students that call you woah-wah.  Totally ideal place to grow up, and explains why laura claims circle j as her own.  But then, as one grows up, such an environment would suffocating.  The opportunities are non-existant, schools are variable, your class is 13 people strong and you're the only girl in it.  Not the best place to go to middle and high school. Something bigger, with more opportunities would make more sense. but then, many would disagree with us on that, and that's fine.  It's odd to reflect on those conversations, which we had before we were planning on a kiddo and before we were thinking about medical school.  This was when we were in a mode of thinking in the meta-level without those pesky details to chain us down.  Things have changed.  Ask us three months ago where we would be next year, and we'd say we didn't know.  How much control did we have over it? none.  We have the next four years mapped, but after that?  dunno.  control? none.  We won't have any control over where sienna grows up until she's 10 years old, and even then, with the way job searches go, those options may be limiting as well.  Sorry squeek.  Sorry we can't give you a circle j to grow up in.  hopefully it's replacement will suffice (I imagine it will just fine).







This rock was laura's playing rock, and where she learned to love rivers,
and generally love being outside.  from it you could throw smaller rocks into
the water, or wade in its eddy.



This is what laura looks like while walking down memory lane



this is what sienna looks like when walking down laura's memory lane.
Incidentally, it's identical to what she looks like when stuck in a backpack
in the rain.



movies from colorado

what news of sienna?  she can open medicine bottles, even the ones that have been baby-proofed.  This convinces me that sienna is not a baby, but something else.  I have a few theories, but like any good scientist, I need to control my variables before running the experiments.
d
AS BBB VBV                                                                                                                          GG JHNV JN VMV HJM B JH BJ
I KNOW I joked around that sienna was writing posts before, but above is her first actual posting.  cool.

These are the twins, and importantly, the red leash is going to frannie the cat.  yes, they put the cat on a leash.

uncle brian with the squeek.

Now it's father's day

Most people don't know this, but father's day all ready occurred this year.  It was May 8th.  I woke up early to go to the store to fetch sausage and donuts.  I was making breakfast in bed for momma.  It was 7 on a sunday, and who should I find at the grocery store?  All the dads in bozeman, some with their children, similarly celebrating father's day.  Some got eggs.  Some got milk and cereal.  But all were there taking a special day to be a dad.

Above is the squeek, a few weeks ago, honing her swagger.  We're at the lobby of the hospital, right after she met her great opa (by the way, opa is out of the hospital and in rehab, doing much better).

badlands national park.  check it out if you get a chance.

at opa's.  practicing her growl

Sienna's got talent!

I get it

Howdy folks.  No pictures for now, so feel free to check in at your other favorite website (here are some suggestions: http://mountainproject.com/, http://www.nejm.org/, http://www.101cookbooks.com/). 


We started driving out to chicago after the last post.  swung through ten sleep, WY, laura's hometown, through the black hills and badlands NP, rochester MN to see rod and carol, and arrived in Madison WI for Matt J's wedding.  In ten sleep, she hit her stride, and really started running around.  before she'd walk here and there, but there distances between two places were not intimidating for her.  It helped that the house of the family friends we stayed with had a large living room with wall to wall cushy carpet.  so off she went, later putting on quite a show for the madison folks.  If anyone out there has any pics of the squeek from the wedding, please send them along and I can post them. As it turns out, it was a very busy weekend and our hands were full the whole time.  Therefore, we got pictures from the rest of our trip, but none in madison.  booooooooo.  then we came down to chicago to visit opa, who had gone into the hospital while we were in madison.  We went straight to the hospital and sienna got to meet opa, her great granddad.  we were afraid that she might freak out and forever fear him since that's what happened when we visited papa brownie at the hospital in november.  but no, she flashed him some smiles and ran around his room and in the hallway.  Opa loved it, as did we. Her frankenstein gait was eerily similar to many of opa's elderly hospital neighbors.  As we were leaving, the nurse called us over and asked us never to come back again (with sienna) because babies aren't allowed on the floor and opa had a nasty infection that we wouldn't want her to get.  so we spent the next four days in chicago, seeing frank and maude and going to the children's museum and the park.  then laurienna went to montrose, CO and i'm still here in chicago visiting opa in the hospital. This is all a roundabout way to say that laura has the camera and so I can't download pics to post. sorry.  Especially since her birthday is coming up, which puts her at one year, which means we'll end the blog (probably). maybe not. 
By the way, I forgot to mention when we passed the 9 month mark: so at that point sienna had spent an equal time in the belly as out.  therefore, she officially converted from an amphibian creature to a land creature.  around the table that night we discussed our options.  Sienna said that she enjoyed it in the womb.  Her needs were taken care of, always the right temp, no potty, etc.  However, she could see the appeal of living on land. She then climbed onto the table and broke into song:
"I wanna be where the people are
I wanna see, wanna see them dancin'
Walking around on those - what do you call 'em?
Oh - feet!

"Flippin' your fins, you don't get too far
Legs are required for jumping, dancing
Strolling along down a - what's that word again?
Street"

She had doused herself in water and collected a bundle of forks, calling them dinglehoppers, though I made her get down because I didn't  feel comfortable with her on the table holding all those things.  I knew where these things led, namely to my untimely death at the hands of a morbidly obese witch with bilateral lower extremity amputations due to diabetic ulcers.  Not psyched about that.  So, anyway,  we put it to a vote and we decided that sienna would stay out of the belly (2-1 vote, with sienna in the minority).

After the wedding, laura and I were talking.  she paused and looked like she was gunna start crying.  "What?"  "someday sienna will wear a dress of white and get married."  "yeah, it'll be great."  "but didn't you think about that?" "no, course not, why would I?"  "you didn't think of it at all???"  "no, that's ridiculous, why wooooo..."  It was at this point that I started balling. 

I get it.

Tent Time

We're Back! Last tuesday we headed out to the city of rocks, ID, a super-primo-groovy rock climbing area.  It is composed of large swaths of granite fins/domes that are medium grain, making for friendly crack climbing and fun face climbing (or both).  It was all a giant experiment as we had no idea how squeek would do.  Not only were we all sleeping in the tent together (in 35 degree clime), but also trying to climb as a duo (sienna makes an awful belayer).  As it turns out, we were more successful in the first endeavor than the second.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.
First we drove.  Googlemaps put it at 6.5 hrs, though it took us closer to 8.5 due to various baby-induced stops (and taqueria-induced temptations).  Squeek wasn't too psyched, but did fine.  we had borrowed a mini dvd player thing so she could watch harry potter if she got bored, but we didn't need it ("Peterrrrrr. This is why people think we're bad parents. Stop lying!").  Then we got to camp and set up our place.


Aftering pulling out the camp essentials,
we were ready for fun



getting ready for bed.

 though sienna took a little while to fall asleep (basically until dark), and required mommy to cuddle her to sleep, she slept through the whole night. not bad.  The other nights she fell asleep on her own, so momma and I could hang out and not go to bed immediately.  yeah squeek!  during nap times, we had to open the fly so that it didn't get too hot, but basically she would crawl around in circles for twenty minutes before falling asleep.  A few times we peeked in and she would be reading books to herself or stroking the sleeping bags.  Overall, not bad.


During the days we hiked around a bit.



Checked out the climbs.



We climbed around on rocks



We chewed on some dirt.  Actually,
we chewed on a lot of dirt.



we took a bath



We walked around a bit.







And otherwise chilled out!



 All in all a good vacation. we had to leave early because we were starting to get epic weather.  40mph winds with rain and snow.  Not fun. the utah desert was gettin blown to us, so we couldn't see the other side of the valley because of the dust.  we didn't get any pictures of climbing because, as it turns out, not only does sienna not belay well ("watch your brake hand!"), but she also is bad at photography.  She got one, but it didn't turn out well. 

The first climb set the tone.  I start out soloing up a chimney twenty five feet to the top of a boulder where the climb starts.  I choose left side in when it should have been right side in.  Then I make a long stretch over the gap to get my first piece in, which since it's been a while I don't trust and I have to extend for rope drag anyway.  Sienna, in the meanwhile, has occupied herself with fitting marble sized rocks into her mouth, and so mama is occupied with chasing her around to get them out of her mouth ("watch your brake hand!"). Sienna hates this, and proceeds to yell and cry. I climb up, trying to concentrate, and discover that while my strength is fine, my footwork is awful. It's been since two aprils ago since we climbed anything seriously, and it shows. So up I go a hand/fist crack with good smeary feet.  Then it starts raining and hailing.  Laura yells don't fall, trusts the grigri and grabs sienna to go under a boulder that is protected.  Sienna is screaming, though she finds some bat and pigeon poo to eat and is happy, until momma takes it away.  I'm nearing the top, having walked my three number three camalots up and up and up. I had read that there was a bolt near the top as the crack widened to number six size, but it's still a ways off and I'm runout.  The good news is that I can't hear sienna crying anymore, because I'm far enough away and because the wind has picked up. Unfortunately, what should have bee cruiser friction is runout sketchfest since now my shoes and the rock are saturated.  Additionally, my trail rope (the climb is 150 ft) and the lead rope are really heavy and dragging at this point, further precluding smooth slab climbing.  So I grovel up the 70 degree OW/chimney for the final thirty feet expecting to see some chain anchors as it levels off. Nope, and all my big gear is on the route, so I make a creative anchor and rap off.  Laura is feeling epicked, so I go back up to clean and downclimb the back side.  While the other climbs we do are better, all had an air of "we're in an epic, even though this is a one pitch crack climb."  We ended up deciding that it wasn't particularly safe so said we'd only climb on more straightforward, shorter, easier, and better baby-set-up climbs.  That's when the weather turned, though.  But, regardless, the climbign was fantastic there, and the whole place was beautiful.

Sienna loved camping.  not only could she crawl anywhere and eat dirt, but she could be with momma and dadda always. and there were lots of dogs.  highly recommend the baby camping experience, especially when it's with such a sweet little girl.  We'll be doing it again very soon as we drive out to wisconsin.  hot dog.

Mother's Day

By the way, happy mother's day, and thanks scott and abbie for callin'.
It was laura's first.  she got breakfast in bed (it was gunna be, but she got up.  it's her own fault), and then free frozen yogurt at moberry, and then a big party (that she made brownies for.  thanks dana for the ooiegoowey fudge brownie mix suggestion. wow).  I hope that I was able to display my appreciation of your new state as a mother.  and happy mother's day to all such empowered individuals.  you make this world a better place.