Six Months old and on the go...

Today is Sequoia's 6 month birthday. I know it is only a half-birthday, but it still feels like a pretty good milestone for all of us. She is thriving and her parents are surviving ... so basically all of my goals going into this have been met.

We added to Sequoia's stockpile of gadgets this week. Colleen was able to locate this wonderful critter-pack on the Peninsula Mommy site and got it for almost nothing. We are both excited by the prospect of getting Sequoia out for some fun hikes now that the crisp fall weather is showing up.

Hopefully we will get out to the Shenandoahs and Blue Ridge Mountains occasionally this year. Sequoia really has enjoyed her limited time in the pack so far and I think we will get a lot of use out of it.

Her other big present also came through the Peninsula Mommies network and again was basically free. Sequoia absolutely loves this walker. It has a little steering wheel with a car horn in the middle of it that she just loves blowing. I really don't think it is road rage - it looks much more like road glee.

She can't control where she is going yet, but I am certain that it won't be long before I pass her on her way to Beaverdam Park or headed to the beach with her group of little friends - each cruising in their own little walker.

It is a lot of fun watching her explore and discover the world around her. Of course as her world grows, so does our realm of constant vigilance...poor Colleen is torn between wanting Sequoia to learn how to crawl and dreading the loss of her sanity that will accompany it. Of course I am mostly kidding as Colleen absolutely thrives on helping Sequoia discover the world around her. She has been doing a great job evaluating and researching our options and making a commitment to creating the most nurturing and enriching environment for our little family.

Rogue and Yukon look out....

Today we headed a couple of miles down the road to watch some Agility Dog Trials that were held at the Belroi Kennel Club. A friend of mine from Richmond - Janet Bowers - had mentioned that she would be volunteering at the event so it was a good excuse to get out to see her and watch what intelligent dogs can do.

It was an absolutely gorgeous day to be doing anything outside and we were surprised by what a big event the Agility Trials were. The event lasts all weekend and runs from around 9 until 4 both days. There were dogs of all breeds (pure breeds that is) competing on courses of varying degrees of difficulty based on their class and level of training. The dogs we saw were mostly competing in the expert class.

Sequoia really enjoyed seeing all of the dogs. A lot of them looked like her two boys since Border Collies pretty well rule this event. Well I would say that the dogs looked a lot like our pups right up to the point when they took off and actually did what they were supposed to do and listened to their owners....

Sequoia split her time between the very slick wrap (a Mai Tei) that Colleen carries her in and riding in my arms. She even got some cuddling time in with a Corgie named Pippy that was competing in the trials. We would love to take the time to train our dogs to do this sort of thing - ideally Colleen believes we should get a couple dozen sheep for them to tend to - but since our youngest dog is a cross between the very agile Border Collie and the somewhat chunky Mastiff breeds, he has always told us his butt was too big to do agility courses.

Well certainly we saw plenty of very sleek, fast and amazing Border Collies flying around the courses - beautiful animals doing what they love.

But the we also saw this full figured lady (a Bull Mastiff like Yukon's dad) competing (or at least completing) the course and a light sort of went off in our heads. Yukon could do this (we never really questioned Rogue's abilities....) if we could find the time.

Our latest plan is to wait until Sequoia can walk and then let her train them. That should manage to keep everyone occupied and tired out ... sounds like a win - win to me....

Good Grub for our Cowgirl...

The other day Sequoia and Colleen packed up the blender and some fresh produce and headed down the road to meet some of their friends for a festival of fresh food making. They pureed, diced, boiled and processed any number of beautiful fresh veggies and fruits (bananas, peaches, cantalopes, prunes, apples, carrots, and green beans) into wonderfully colorful baby mush. They then freeze the resulting grub in ice cube trays for individual servings later on. Sequoia has a very cool little device that allows you to put pretty much any sort of food in it - frozen or otherwise - and your baby can safely suck on it and eat it through a mesh bag. It is awesome!!!

Here Sequoia is surrounded by some of her food while slurping on some sweet potatoes and protected from the fallout by the cool Cowgirl bib that Grandmom Leila made for her.

We think the bib is tremendous as it actually covers the landing zone for most of her meals. Certainly some food items manage to be hurled beyond the scope of the bib, but we can only realistically protect so much of the house. There is a rumor that there will soon be a new cousin in Colorado wearing the same style bib....that will be neat.

An Apple a Day ...

With the weather starting to show trends towards the delightful crispness of autumn, Sequoia has been enjoying the chance to spend more time outside without becoming a sweaty little mess. With the the new season however, comes an onslaught of colds and coughs.

She is almost 6 months old now and has unfortunately discovered what it is like to have a cold and an ear-ache.

Up until the past week she had managed to avoid anything resembling an illness - not even diaper rash. But this past week saw the entire family taken out by a nasty cold and poor little Sequoia also got an ear infection out of the deal.

That has not kept her from being mostly smiles and laughs. She really does not complain at all - and when she does, you can be quite certain there is something that needs fixing. We had seen her holding her ear, but being new at this and since she was not actually complaining, we missed the fairly obvious that she had an ear-ache. It was not until she went in to get checked out because of congestion that the doctor noticed the ear infection.

Well, we are learning as we go. She is getting better and hopefully will soon be over her first bout with our inexperience with baby-ailments.

Baby on the move...

Baby on the go - that's what Colleen is calling Sequoia these days. It is almost as if she can climb straight up walls like Spiderman. Well I might be exaggerating about that, but for a baby who can not crawl yet, she is mobile beyond belief.

Sequoia has no intentions of sitting still and has started giving us a glimpse of the little adventure traveler that hides within. She is very close to real crawling, but does not let that keep her from getting around. She rolls, squirms, slithers and occasionally walks (not really) to wherever she wants to go.

Diaper changes have become an adventure that resembles trying to put pants on a river otter. She is a wiggling, giggling little clown on her changing table and on more than one occasion I have ended up accidentally putting her outfit on backwards while attempting to keep all the legs and arms straight. Colleen enjoys pointing that out whenever it happens.

As you can see, she has mastered the art of looking back over her shoulder to see if we are going to catch her before she launches off over new horizons. Her parents really hold her back from some pretty cool stuff. In this picture it includes keeping her from doing a forward flip into the laundry basket...we think we are pretty good parents, she thinks we're a couple of buzz kills.

On other fronts, Sequoia and Colleen joined a bunch of their friends from their Peninsula Mommies group to volunteer down at the assisted living nursing home in Gloucester. The basic idea is that the residents get to play with our kids and our kids get to see where their parents will be living in a few years....I might have misread the mission statement, but it was something like that. Anyway Sequoia did not have her nap today and was not exactly miss smiles and sunshine today when Mr. Kelly attempted to make friends with her.

One of the highlights for Colleen and Sequoia was meeting a Bone-a Fido movie star. That's not a typo ... the movie star was Zelly the dog (short for mademoiselle). Evidently Zelly starred with Ingrid Bergman ('s daughter...) in the classic "Zelly and Me". Nope - never heard of it either, but that does not mean it's not interesting. I plan on Googling it to see what I can find out about the star caliber of Zelly. It has the makings of a made for TV movie...

And quite honestly, my favorite part of the story is the fact that Sequoia's friend Brooklyn showed up sporting a pony-tail. That is pretty cool stuff for a little girl who has obviously been envious of Sequoia's flowing locks for quite some time now.

Hurricane schmurricane ...

If weeks derive their personalities from some sort of underlying motivation, then this week's motivation was storm preparedness.

As most of you know, Hurricane Hannah had the mid-Atlantic states in her sights this week leading the vast majority of us to reminisce about storms from the past like Isabelle, Floyd, Hugo, Katrina and the oh so destructive, but not too terrifyingly named Bob.

Anyway, I spend a lot of time at work prepping boats for storms that never arrive and then convincing everyone that it is always better to be prepared than to wait until it is too late. As with many things it is too easy sometimes to fall into the "boy who cried wolf" mentality. For better or worse, that is not a trap I tend to fall in.

I think that the entire Hurricane Preparedness scenario is a really good analogy of parenthood. You spend countless hours attempting to prevent any number of catastrophes ranging from dropping your kid off of the changing table , keeping them from choking, sticking fingers in electrical outlets, to the much larger picture of making certain they will get a good education and be exposed to the proper value systems.

We plan and we worry and we try to keep laughing and smiling the whole time, because this is fun after all. Colleen and I are embarrassingly new to all of this and I'm not ashamed to admit that we do some pretty stupid things from time to time. For example, if Sequoia is sleeping too soundly we have to go nudge her to make certain she is ok ... Anyway, my point is that regardless of how funny the moment is, we are always balancing our joy with the ever present "did we forget something?"

All we can do is trust in our instincts and do everything possible to prepare ourselves to help Sequoia prepare herself for the future.

I know that there will be plenty of times that we will study about, worry about and prepare for some unwelcome development or another that never materializes. I am equally certain that many of the situations that we have diligently prepared for will come and go without any of our "expertise" being needed.

That will be just fine with me. If we get to the end of this adventure and can look at Sequoia and say " Well we did not screw you up too bad...." that might be all we can ask for.

Granted, I certainly believe that my little girl is going to turn out far better than anything I could take credit for. Colleen and I have already witnessed glimpses of her personality that tell us she is something special - an old soul in a babies body.

What she becomes in life will be the result of not only us and our immediate families but of her extended family of friends, teachers and the world around her.

We will do everything we can to put her in a position to take advantage of what the world has to offer.

We will do our best to protect her from any storms life might direct her way.

But mostly we will sit back and continue to be amazed by how incredible this little person is.

She will keep it all in perspective for us and remind us what is really worth worrying about.

Of course I will continue to prepare for anything that poses a threat to my Sequoia, but I will never once feel let down if all of our concerns and preparations end up being an exercise in over cautiousness.

That's what us new parents do after all ...

Dog days of summer...

Something that provides us with endless hours of entertainment is watching the relationship develop between Sequoia and our fuzzy boys. Colleen and I are certainly not alone in having our lifestyles radically altered with the arrival of Sequoia. The dogs have not surprisingly had to make some huge adjustments to their routines and where they fit in the pack these days.

Luckily Sequoia absolutely loves her dogs. She gets frantically excited when she sees them - flailing her arms and legs wildly and letting out very excited belly laughs. Early on we noticed that she would intentionally try to call them if they left the room - squealing to get their attention and then doing her best to interact with them when they came back by to see what all the fuss was about. This was long before it ever occurred to her to do the same thing to get our attention for anything other than primal needs - food, sleep and poop. These days she has started to realize that it can be a little boring if she is in the room by herself and she will fuss to get our attention so we can go back to entertaining her. It is good to feel needed. The dogs however, got this attention early on.

Rogue, our oldest Border Collie, is by far the calmer of our two dogs. He has taken the whole Sequoia thing in stride. He is neither overly concerned nor overly impressed with her. He seems to have a sense of what she is and that he is responsible for keeping her safe, but other than the occasional drive by sniff, he pretty much lets her be her own person.
Yukon our younger Border Collie is our free spirit. I refer to him by a lot of names - Wild Man being the most common - and a friend of ours politely described him as a Feisty Firecracker. I would describe his personality as unbridled joy. Anyway, I had some pretty big concerns about whether or not he could tone things down enough to safely interact with a defenseless baby. Well we do need to monitor the interactions since at 60 pounds he could accidentally cause tremendous damage with one accidental swipe of the paws, but in all honesty it amazes me how drastically he modifies his behavior when he is around Sequoia. He is very gentle and visibly acknowledges that Sequoia ranks higher in the hierarchy of the pack. He obeys when we make Sequoia do the hand motion for sit and he can't wait for her to figure out how to throw the tennis ball that he repeatedly gives to her.

Through all of this, Sequoia is as happy as can be. She really loves her pups and laughs with delight whenever they enter the room. She pets them when they are with in reach and is not above stealing their chew toys when they are sharing a play mat together. Not that we let her chew them, but the fact that Yukon does is one more example of his acceptance of where Sequoia fits in the family.

Labor Day with the crew...

The pace of life has not slowed down one little bit as of late. My job has me busier than ever - which of course is a good problem to have in this economy given that my career is based on saving the world from ugly boats...not exactly the most solid of industries these days. On the home front we are frantically finishing projects on the house as we are hoping to list it for sale in the next week or two.

And of course Sequoia is constantly expanding her horizons which means she is also constantly challenging Colleen and I to adapt to her new abilities and needs. Every single moment - waking or otherwise - is spoken for.

( Don, Brooklyn, Sequoia and Leo)
Fortunately one of the most fundamental things that Colleen and I agree on is that life is measured by the quality of time not the quantity of money. So regardless of how busy and chaotic things threaten to get, we always find a way to slow things down enough to spend some time together as a family.

(Clare and Katie)
Today we had a fun Labor Day cookout at the house for the Gloucester Mommies Playgroup that Colleen and Sequoia are members of. We had 7 families over, all of whom have a kid roughly Sequoia's age, plus a few older siblings. I am very happy that sequoia has managed to fall in to such a wonderful group of playmates.

(Elizabeth, Jennifer and Brooklyn)
It was really fun to get to watch how all of the kids interacted with each other. This is something that Colleen and Sequoia do on a regular basis during the week while I am at work and although I have heard the names countless times this was my first time meeting many of the kids and parents.

( Elayne and Christine)
All of the kids were great and many enjoyed walking (or being carried) along our nature walk, bouncing on the trampoline, playing badminton or just kicking back and playing with their little friends.

Colleen and her daughter are certainly in their element entertaining friends.

I love the pure joy in their faces as they play together - even when it involves nothing more complicated than the wicker on the back of the chair they are sitting in. With Sequoia it is always about getting down to the basics and finding the simple pleasures in life.