9 Months

Ever since Orin learned how to crawl on all fours,

he has been unstoppable.

He now easily cruises over to objects, pulls himself up,

and holds on bobbing, weaving and babbling until he 

a) loses interest and moves on, or

b) falls down

To help Orin enjoy his new skill set to the fullest,

Casey and I decided to get him a platform activity toy for his birthday.

The toy features a large array of brightly colored objects

all of which can be pressed with the result of some random 

song or factoid being sung by an overly enthusiastic woman.

As I write this she is singing "Green Circle! Green Circle!"

Orin adores it.

We also decided to get him a pair of leather slipper shoes

to help eliminate falls caused from his socks slipping

on the hardwood floors.

There were a large variety of patterns for the slipper shoes.

Casey made the final decision.

But today was not only made special because of Orin's birthday.

It is also the day that Uncle Alex sets out on the second,

and longest, segment of his Special Forces combat training. 

He will be out of contact for 5-7 weeks in some undisclosed part

of some undisclosed state doing some secret SF training operation.

This segment boasts a 70% attrition rate.

It is the last segment where soldiers can fail out of SF,

so today and tomorrow and all the days of the next month or so

try to remember to say some kind of 

manly sounding prayer for my brother.

He has certainly come a long way since 

his boot camp graduation 2 years ago...

And now, I am going to shamelessly post a large number of pictures 

of Orin without any descriptive tidbits

except to say that they were taken a few days ago when

the temperature reached 60 degrees and 

Orin and I decided to take in a little sun...

Goodnight.

Colds and Hats

Over the course of Aunt Andy's visit,

 Orin slowly recovered from his cold.

Had he not spent so much time pampering himself,

the cold might have lingered longer,

but he was quite a diligent nurse. 

While Andy stayed with us, she spent her free time 

knitting hats for the whole family

(she is pictured here in the hat she made for me)

Orin's was created from the yarn left over from mine and Casey's.

At first, Orin thought that his hat was great.

But when we told him it had been woven from leftovers,

he threw a tantrum and vowed never to wear the hat,

or matching scarf, ever again. 

I caught his disgust on video.

But by the end of the visit, Orin forgave Aunt Andy

and moved on to more pressing issues,

like trying to catch his kitty.

And in baby updates:

Orin's top two teeth are coming in.

You can see all four if you look closely at this picture.

Andina

The first few days of Aunt Andy's visit

we just hung around the house, 

allowing time for me to recuperate from my cold

and letting Andy readjust to life back in the first world

(she has been living in Haiti for the last year and a half).

But yesterday was so beautiful, 

we knew we had to get out of the house,

so I took her to my favorite hiking spot right across 

the Washington line.

Today, another beautiful day called us outdoors,

this time to visit the Japanese Gardens.

It was Casey's first time at the Gardens and, as usual,

he showed his enthusiasm for the experience by doing wheelies. 

Even though it is the middle of February, the Gardens were beautiful

with broken stone walkways, waterfalls,

and bamboo fountains.

After the Gardens we headed to our favorite restaurant 

in the city for some Peruvian Tapas.

Orin was so excited about the new food, 

it was hard to keep him contained.

Occasionally, when I would take too long to get him a bite,

he would resort to eating the table.

I was always one second too late 

to catch this particular act on camera

but, as you can imagine, it was quite amusing. 

Orin had chicken, bread, sweet potato, avocado...
and maybe a few too many habanero-infused martinis

because we had barely enough time to savor dessert

before he started babbling about not getting a fair

share of the octopus dish and we had to leave.

Until next time.

When I will remember to order two desserts.

The Worst Trip Ever

Last week, Colleen, Cody, and baby Rowan 

flew out to Oregon to visit us.

It was their first time seeing Portland and 

while it should have been great

it was instead a complete and total disaster.

Everything that could have gone wrong did. 

To start, they were supposed to come out on 

Thursday and stay 6 days,

but at the last minute Cody had a work conference 

and they had to move their flight to Saturday. 

On Saturday morning they missed their plane and arrived 8 hours late.

The next day, the beautiful weather we had been having 

gave way to grey skies, rain, and snow.

Undeterred, the boys set out for their first day of fishing. 

Needless to say, they caught nothing. 

And the next day when they went out again: still nothing.

But this time, when they went to leave, they realized

the van was out of gas, and

had to call Uncle Steven to come bail them out.

Back at home, things were worse. 

Everyone was sick. 

Rowan spiked a temperature of 104 and had 

to go to the emergency room two days in a row.

Orin also had an emergency doctor's appointment.

The few pictures I have from the visit were taken

 during a short interval when

the babies stopped crying long enough,

and Colleen and I had taken enough cold medicine,

that we could all act like things were going well.

Here is Rowan, fishing for Orin.

Rowan was a determined fisherman. 

But, alas, I don't think he was ready to hook

a 20 pounder.

Even though the trip was a complete failure,

Colleen and Cody have promised to return some day

for the tour of the city that never happened, 

the hike in the Gorge that never happened,

the meal out at the great Portland restaurant that never happened, 

and a view of Mt Hood and Mt. St. Helens, 

neither of which emerged from behind the clouds the entire visit. 

After I dropped them off at the airport in the wee hours

of the morning, I went back to bed.

When I woke up, I drove back to the airport,

this time to pick up another visitor:

Auntie Andy.

Driving north on I-205 the sun was shining and I saw both

Mt Hood and Mt St. Helens clearly in the distance.

I took it as a sign that the bad luck spell was over.

And so far, it looks like I was right.

But more on Andy's visit later,

for now, I am still shaking this cold and so I am off to bed. 

A Crawler

Lately I have been feeling rather lousy and so, unavoidably,

I have let some of my responsibilities fall through the cracks.

One of them, if you hadn't noticed, has been the blog.

But, slowly I am recovering from my ailments 

and will have to play catch up, for it has been a busy week.

To start, I would like to give you a quick update on Orin.

He is now officially crawling in places other than the doctor's office.

That is, as long as he is not burdened by pants. 

Today, in the middle of a diaper change, 

I suddenly felt inspired to let Orin be diaper-free for a while.

He was quite pleased, I suppose, because he thanked me by instantly

proving that I had not made up the fact that he was 

now capable of crawling on all fours.

I was so happy to watch him buzzing around the room 

that I almost forgot to break out the camera to document it for you.

But I remembered.

I did not, however, remember that Orin was still bottomless.

He reminded me a couple minutes later.

The resulting need for a clean up ended the photo session prematurely,

but at least it was documented.

Now I realize that without video you don't have to believe that Orin

is actually crawling in the above pictures. 

But this one should take away any doubt... 

the look of determination on his face, 

the steadfast support of his puppies.

This baby is totally on the move.

There is much more catch up coming, but for now, I am off to bed.

Fisherman Orin

Yesterday, we spent the afternoon at Casey's favorite Portland event:

The Sportsman's Show,

 motto: "If you are not wearing full camouflage, don't bother coming"

The Sportsman's Show is where people of all ages 

who like to kill things

can get together and share products, services, and advice

related to killing things.

There are thousands of vendors all competing for your attention,

so many of them have devised strategies to 

lure customers to their booths.

To snag people like Casey, they show off large, dead fish.

To trap people like me, baskets of candy are pretty effective.

And to attract Orin, pretzels will do the trick.

We had a good time at the show,

walking around looking at the different exhibits

and getting compliments on Orin's hat.

One of the vendors even let Orin spin the wheel for a prize.

He was completely content with his duck identifier card 

until he saw this: A snow dirtbike.

It took us a long time to convince him that he was going to need to

grow just a bit more before he could ride this kind of bike.

"Maybe next year," we reassured him, as we headed towards the car.

And I think he believed us.

Big news from the little guy

Yesterday, Orin and I went to the doctor for his routine check-up.

Orin was first weighted (20 pounds) 

and measured (27 and 1/2 inches... if I remember correctly).

The doctor then asked us some "behavioral questions" 

to see how Orin was developing.

For example, she asked if Orin was responding to his name,

imitating sounds, eating solid foods, etc.

All of my answers were "yes," until she asked if Orin was crawling.

"Well," I said "he is army-crawling."

"That counts," said the doctor, smiling reassuringly.

She laid a couple pamphlets down on the table

and left the room, saying the nurse would be back in a minute.

As soon as she was gone, Orin turned, 

noticed the pamphlets sitting on the other end of the table,

and, like he had been doing it all along, 

 crawled across the table (tummy up) to grab the papers.

I was beside myself... clapping and cheering.

The nurse came in right at that moment and, without question,

thought I was nuts.

It was a big moment.

I thought about calling the doctor back to change her notes,

but managed to restrain myself.

I can't even tell you how great it was to see 

Orin crawl for the first time.

It is too bad that the only other person to witness it was the nurse,

because he hasn't crawled again since,

causing Casey to think I made it up.

But I didn't, I promise.

Documentation in pictures is on the way.

Supercar Sunday

Last weekend, Casey and I joined millions of Americans 

in the celebration of Superbowl Sunday.

For some die-hard fans, the Superbowl is the pinnacle event

of the year, the culmintaion of everything that they believe to be

right and true in the world.

For us, the game is nothing more than an excuse to sit on the couch,

drink beer, and stuff ourselves with food that has so much cholesterol,

you can actually hear your arteries screaming in protest.

This year, we spent the Superbowl at our friends' house.

Matt and Vanessa were equally apathetic about the game,

but I think the general consensus in the room was that 

we were rooting for the underdog, the Arizona Cardinals.

While we watched the game (or, rather, ate chicken wings),

Their son, Jude, showed Orin all his toys. 

Jude's Leap Frog station was pretty cool,

but his red car was Orin's favorite.

Orin figured out how to scoot around on it

in about 3 seconds.

After that, it was all he wanted to do.

Needless to say, the Cardinals lost,

(so often the fate of the underdog)

but it was a good game, so I don't think anybody cared,

especially not Orin, 

who was too busy pushing the car around to notice.

The following day, Casey and I were talking about how 

much Orin liked Jude's car, and decided it was time that

we bought him a vehicle of his own.

Casey found the perfect one: a bulldozer.

It has an ignition, a horn, and (of course) a movable bucket.

It also lights up and flashes every time Orin moves. 

You can't possibly understand how annoying this is, but Orin loves it.

Oh, and best of all, it is apparently quite tasty.