The Family in DC

We hosted my parents and my sister, Karin, her husband, Dave and their 5-year-old son (my nephew), Ethan over the weekend. This was a picture-perfect weekend in DC, with high temps in the mid-70s and the air conditioning OFF.

It's a really special time for the family-- Ethan got to meet his young cousin, Jack, and he got a sneak peek at what his future holds since Karin is bringing another bundle of joy into the family next year.

I will post more photos in an album down the road, but the one of Ethan at the White House is a favorite. I can just imagine the snipers on the roof checking him out.

Glorious Sleep

On the verge of his 3-month birthday, Jack is starting to figure out his sleep routine. On both nights over the weekend, Jack went down around 9 o'clock and put in a solid 5 1/2 or 6 hours before waking up to feed, and then he went down again for a few more hours. Very civilized.

Last night, Jack went down at 8:30p, slept for 8 hours, woke up to feed at 4:30a, and then slept until 7:15a. What a little champ!

Meeting Alex

Approaching his 3-month birthday, Jack already has a great circle of friends, and it continues to grow. In the previous post, we welcomed Alexander into the world. You'll see more photos of young Alex in the new album.

Jack and Alex

There are also a couple of great shots of Ellie, Jack's unofficial girlfriend, in the album. She is doing great and it's fun to see these little babies next to each other.

Of developmental interest, our little guy is super advanced in at least one category: teething. According to baby literature, "The vast majority of babies sprout their first teeth between 4 and 7 months of age." Try telling that to Jack, who already has three tooth buds. This makes him a little cranky, especially because he doesn't know how to gnaw on a teething toy yet. In fact, he's just starting to figure out how to get his hand in his mouth. Mostly, he finds himself tonguing the sore tooth spots (top and bottom) and wondering what the heck is going on.

Despite the early teething, we find that Jack is a good-natured boy who graces us with buckets of smiles every morning and charms everyone he meets. How can you not love this little guy?

Jack's new best friend, Alex

On Saturday, Matt & Mae had friends over for a baby shower. Jack was on his best behavior and didn't even fuss when mom and dad gave Aunt Mae a practice run at bottle feeding and a diaper change.

Maybe Jack took that opportunity to telepathically communicate with the little package Mae was carrying, because on Monday morning, Alexander Joseph Fromm decided he was ready to come into the world.

Everyone is happy and healthy, and the new family will be returning home on Wednesday. I'm sure there will be many more pictures of Jack with his friend, Alex, in the years to come!

Labor Day weekend pics (finally!)

Sure, it's two weeks after the fact, but I finally uploaded some pics from our Labor Day weekend journey to Ohio. As you read in the previous post, we stopped in Pennsylvania on our way there. The first few pics in the slide show are the only shots I got in PA since we were so wiped out from the drive, but I do have some good video footage to splice together.

And then we made it to Ohio! Jack did great with Jen's family and got to meet a lot of people. Remember cousin Kristy from the baby shower back in April?

Well, time marches on and here now we have Jack and his cousin, Alexandria!

Bill threw a party on Saturday for Jack with the Engle clan, while Debbie and Steve invited Jack to "crash" Steve's party celebrating his retirement from Ford on Sunday with the Ramsey clan in attendance. Fortunately we had Monday to recover from all the excitement. Tuesday was a long ride home, but the little guy made it intact!

Click the album below for more photos from the weekend:

Labor Day Weekend

Holla!

I haven't had a chance to get the Labor Day pics and video put together, but Jen shot this moment with Jack last night and I had to put it up.

Labor Day weekend adventures

Jack thought he was hallucinating Friday night when he arrived at the Telenko family home in Pennsylvania and came face-to-face with a coyote. Well, a stuffed coyote head, anyway. Like any respectable Keystone-state resident, Shannon's dad has a couple of hunting trophies in appropriate places (e.g. the den.) Jack thought the coyote was a great distraction after his less-than-steller debut as a road warrior.

It is well established that Jack hates traffic. With this in mind, we decided to break up our road trip to see Jen's family in Ohio into a two-part drive. Part 1 would get us about halfway there on Friday and allow us to stop and visit with Shannon & Steve and their twins at Shannon's parents' home, a short hop off the PA Turnpike. Of course, we're dunderheads who didn't head out the door until 2:30pm. On Labor Day weekend. Leaving DC. It's 75 miles to Hagerstown and it took us 3 hours to get there, with another 125 to go. Yeah. So Jack wasn't so pleased about all that.

Although the hospitality was wonderful and the twins were a hoot (should have some video of them up soon), our confidence was completely shot. Maybe our boy wasn't cut out to travel, or maybe we just were terrible parents who couldn't convince a baby to enjoy a car ride. Either way, we thought it would be nicer to stay with the Telenkos or just turn around and drive home rather than continue our journey to Ohio.

With great trepidation, we decided to press on. And then, The Innovation. Jack was starting to fuss about 20 minutes into our Saturday morning drive (part 2 of the trip) when dad thought, "What the hell, I'll open the sunroof." Magically, the boy quieted and peace settled into our car. After a stop on the turnpike for a feeding, we continued with the top popped for 2 hours as the boy peacefully slept all the way to the Ohio state line. At one point, we were passing through a construction zone which dropped our speed and wind noise, prompting me to quip to Aunt Niki: "The bus can't go below 50!" as if our little Jack were the bomb on the bus in Speed (Keanu Reeves finest hour.)

There's a lot more to come from this trip-- pictures, videos, descriptions of the people he met at fun picnics. But that's for another night. Dad is tired and ready to sleep!