Sick

Calix has been mildly sick for a while, and worse sick for the last week. Today he was put on an antibiotic, so we hope he gets better soon!

Sometimes he gets super snuggly, which is nice in a way, but it is still super sad because he is so uncomfortable. But it’s nice to be able to comfort him.

Naked steps

At this age, Calix is extremely difficult to change, dress, dry off, or otherwise hold still. The steps up to the attic are right in the hallway where we dry off Calix after his bath, so Calix always sees them when I’m trying to get him dry and into his diaper and jammies. It’s become a tradition to let him climb up the stairs after his bath, in the nude. That kid is getting so fast at stair climbing! Meanwhile, I follow him with a towel, drying him off. He may not be still, but at least he’s going in a somewhat steady trajectory!

Dazzled by Twilight

Years ago, I gave up on flying home to Ohio for Thanksgiving (since I was going again in a month for Xmas). Instead, I started taking some really awesome trips over the 4-day Thanksgiving weekend, like to Hawaii and the Redwood Forest.

This Thanksgiving weekend, Colin, Calix, and I decided to take a trip, heading out to the Olympic Peninsula.

We stayed at the Olympic Suites, an awesome place in Forks with suites that include a full kitchen.

We cooked fancy meals every night. I love bringing a crock pot on vacation and getting the meal set up before heading out for a day of hiking, then coming home to a room full of delicious smells.

Forks is a pretty funny town to go to nowadays, because it has been transformed by the Twilight craze. It is really a very small town, with one main strip, but now all of the stores have to have Twilight paraphernalia in them. There were random pre-teen girls wandering around and the occasional “Twilight Zone” and “No vampires beyond this point” signs. Out of probably 20 stores in town, 2 of them were “Dazzled by Twilight”.

We visited the Hoh Rainforest and the Pacific Ocean (Rialto Beach).

We happened to be in the Hoh on the only day that it hadn’t rained in a month, so we felt really lucky!

We saw a number of salmon in the tiny creeks along our hike, all basically on their last legs.

It was back to raining the next day when we went to Rialto Beach. Calix seemed to really enjoy the ocean, although it may have been because he got to wear a giant yellow poncho (did you know there is basically no such thing as rain gear for babies?), and he could lick all of the rain off of it. I think he also liked the sounds and sights of the waves crashing.

It was a really nice, really relaxing weekend for the 3 of us. I just love taking trips like this, and I only wish that we got to do it more.

The only downer was that Calix is still getting over his colds, and he had some pretty rough nights. The first night Colin and I ended up getting only about 4 or 5 hours of sleep, because Calix woke up coughing painfully in the middle of the night and just couldn’t get back to sleep. The next couple of nights were better, but there were still long periods of painful awake coughing, waiting for ibuprofen to kick in. Poor baby! I’m just glad that he is basically doing well during the day and was able to enjoy our trip.

On our way back, we stopped at a DNR campground by a river for lunch.

Here’s a picture of Calix and Colin singing together by the water.

Mammals

• Douglas squirrel (Tamiasciurus douglasii)

Birds

• Brandt’s Cormorant (Phalacrocorax penicillatus)
• Hairy Woodpecker (Picoides villosus)
• Gull sp.
• Surf Scoter (Melanitta perspicillata)
• Varied Thrush (Zoothera naevia)
• Winter Wren (Troglodytes troglodytes)

Fish

• Salmon sp.

Plants

• Bracken fern (Pteridium aquilinum)
• Leathery Polypody (Polypodium scouleri)
• Licorice Fern (Polypodium glycyrrhiza)
• Maidenhair Fern (Adiantum pedatum)
• Sword fern (Polystichum munitum)
• Redwood Sorrel (Oxalis oregana)
• Himalayan blackberry (Rubus armeniacus)
• Horsetail sp.
• Red-twig (or Red-osier) Dogwood (Cornus stolonifera)

• Rhododendron sp.
• Salal (Gaultheria shallon)
• Salmonberry (Rubus spectabilis)
• Scotch Broom (Cytisus scoparius)
• Vine Maple (Acer circinatum)
• Big-leaf Maple (Acer macrophyllum)
• Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii)
• Fir (Abies sp.)
• Pacific Madrone (Arbutus menziesii)
• Paper Birch (Betula papyrifera)
• Red Alder (Alnus rubra)
• Sitka Spruce (Picea sitchensis)
• Western Hemlock (Tsuga heterophylla)
• Western Red-cedar (Thuja plicata)

Fungi

• Nidula sp.
• Chlorociboria aeruginascens
• Chondrostereum purpureum
• Craterellus tubaeformis
• Heterobasidion annosum
• Hygrophorus olivaceoalbus (Colin says this was the mushroom of the weekend.)
• Hypholoma capnoides
• Hypholoma fasciculare
• Lactarius sp.
• Panellus longinquus
• Panellus serotinus
• Pseudohydnum gelatinosum
• Russula sp. (Mostly white with black disc. Acrid. Associated with Spruce. Any guesses?)
• Single tooth fungus (Below. Any guesses? Colin says he knows the damn thing and just can’t think of the name.)

• Stereum hirsutum grp.
• Tremella mesenterica (Probably. Or Dacrymyces palmatus, but there were lots of Stereums around, so that indicates Tremella.)
• Tricholomopsis rutilens
• Xerocomus zelleri
• Xylaria hypoxylon

9 months old

Calix turned 9 months old last Thursday, and it’s like he’s a different baby. He’s so thrilled that he can move himself around and is very adept at playing with toys and getting into things. There is endless amusement all around him.

Flying

Calix has just been having a blast over the last couple of days now that he can easily crawl around, go from a crawling position to a sitting position, pull himself to a stand against furniture, and cruise along and between furniture. He can just move his little body pretty much every which way he wants to go. He’s even starting to want to climb things. This morning he climbed up two steps all by himself (we were watching closely, Mom!).

Colin and I were talking about the joyousness with which he approaches all of this exploring, and I realized how intense it must be for him to be able to move all around the room like that. Try to imagine it. It must be something like if you suddenly realized that you could fly.

Crawling!

Calix has been working on crawling for a long time, but I think that as of this morning, we can officially say that he really has it down.

The baby in the mirror

Calix and the baby in the mirror clearly both want the same thing.

Mostly post-partum

A big milestone for Calix passed unnoticed on Monday – Calix has now spent more time outside of me than inside of me. Conception to birth was 37 weeks and 4 days, and Calix is now 38 weeks old.

Getting into stuff

Even though Calix isn’t consistently crawling, he clearly has the urge to explore. He loves playing with the laundry basket, standing at the side of it and going into it in search of treasures.

First Halloween

When we were home in Ohio, Jenni and I decided to put together some Halloween costumes along similar themes. Jenni made a sun costume for Robert and a moon costume for Elizabeth. Since Calix doesn’t have a twin, he had to be both the sun and the moon.

We went trick or treating in a big cadre with the other babies and parents from our PEPS group.

Calix and all of the other babies loved his costume, because it was shiny, and it had jingle bells on it. Calix of course thought that it would be best if he could eat the costume. It’s amazing that the costume made it through 2 halloween parties given all of the tugging and mouthing it got over that time.

Calix also enjoyed chewing on the crinkly candy bar wrappers. We enjoyed the candy