Delivering Said Cake to Auggie's Parents | 09.28.12

We brought the cake to Phil and Amanda.  Auggie is up to 10 ml of milk every two hours (may be up to 12 mls today) and he's now topped two lbs!  The cake was in celebration of his weight gain.  He got to snuggle up to his momma with some skin to skin contact.  So precious.  Hang tight buddy.  You're getting there.  

Making a Cake for Baby Cousin Auggie | 09.27.12

Auggie's up to 10 ml of his momma's milk per hour (I think) today.  So it will be a while before he can eat cake, but boy, when that day comes, will we let him eat his fill.  Anyway, Tilly and Emma are making a cake to celebrate that he topped the scales at 2 lbs today!  

Tilly's Gopher Weekend | 09.22.12

Down the homestretch with Paco, Emma's exhausted.  I figure if I can give her time to rest and be unencumbered with a maniacal munchkin for a few hours, everyone wins...especially when I can start introducing Tilly to some sports, to real role models (college women athletes), etc.  

We went over to the Gopher women's soccer game, and she loved it.  The lights went out with about 15 minutes left in the game, so that was fascinating to her.  She also loved Neil Diamond's Sweet Caroline, and was being very coy with Goldy Gopher.  Oh, by the way, she spontaneously told me on the way home that she knows his name is Goldy Gopher, but that she thinks he should go by Badass Gopher.  (My bad).  

The play Saturday with her cousins was ok...not that great of a production, but always nice to see each other.  The Gopher football game later Saturday night was awesome.  It was the first time in TCF Bank Stadium for either of us.  Compared with what it felt like as a student in 1990 to have to go to a game in the Dome...well, there was no comparison.  

I am newly hooked for the first time on Gophers football.  I just hope Jerry Kill is building something worth following.  It sure seems like he is.   

Frank's Ultrasound | 09.20.12

We got a chance to see Frank today, but he wasn't cooperating for full on frontal face shots.  He's not transverse any more...he's head down, counting down to emergence.  

Tilly was interested in seeing him on TV at the doctor's office, but I think she may have been underwhelmed.  Oh well.  Less than 4 weeks now, I guess.  Man.  Less than four weeks.  

Less than four weeks.  She's got 4 weeks left of being an only child, of being the absolute center of the universe.  I can't wait to watch her and her brother become friends, but I will also be a bit sad for her when she's got competition for everything.  

Less than four weeks.  

 

Visiting Baby Auggie | 09.19.12

We went down last night to Childrens' hospital to visit Tilly's baby cousin August.  He arrived a bit early, so he's just going to take a little while to get home.  He's a scrapper, and a squirmer.  He got to rest in his mom and dad's arms for the first time yesterday.  Tilly can't wait to meet him and hold him.  There will be a full house at Christmas, with Tilly, Auggie and Frank.  

Amishland 2012 | 09.03.12

(First off, not sure what I did to the format of the blog, but maybe that's the universe telling me it was time for a new look.)  We took our annual pilgrimage to Vernon County-ish, Wisconsin the last week of August.  We rented an adorable little cabin (with an outdoor shower and an outhouse) for $350 for 8 days!  The cabin was on a farm with another main house owned by Cory and Lynn Brye (Brye's Buck Camp Cabin, I think they call it).  

We did the normal stuff:  Crazy Frank's, finding little swimming holes in regional or county parks, Amish hunting, prime rib dinner, lots of hiking, trips to Viroqua.  It was just so peaceful.  Emma was well along with the baby, so the combination of lack of indoor plumbing and heat wasn't ideal, but she was awesome about it.  We canoed one day on the Kickapoo and did really really well for a group that included a 3 year old, a pregnant woman and a guy that's not uber-comfortable on the water.  

The day we left, Tilly was literally screaming and kicking that she didn't want to leave the cabin, so I took that as confirmation that we'd picked a good place.  It was about 10 minutes NW of Viroqua, so it was easy to get to town.  The solitude was spectacular.  

The highlights for me were hiking down the hill to Duck Egg Creek, getting attacked by a goose at The Blue Goose, and hiking with Tilly in the Kickapoo Valley Reserve, where she stormed up a steep steep hill, determined to get to the top of Black Hawk's Rock.  She is turning out to be a natural leader, and that makes me so happy and relieved.  

I should have written more down while we were there.  The weather was dry but nice, and it seemed like Tilly could not have been happier.  We bought a used copy of Sleeping Beauty at Crazy Franks, and I think we watched it on average 3.5 times a day.  Last year it was Thumbelina.  

The Driftless Area, aka Amishland, aka the Kickapoo River Valley is just a magical place.  The glaciers haven't been to that particular area for approximately 700,000 years.  The terrain is, consequently, dramatic and easy to get lost in, literally and figuratively.  Culturally, it's like a demolition derby wearing a straw hat...Amish farmers, Chicago cabin owners, hunters, locals, hippies, toothless hillbilly ginseng farmers, an Orthodox Jewish summer camp, canoe outfitters...it's a bit like a warmer, deciduously wooden, hilly Ely (minus the lakes).  We'll be back.