Sebastian’s Quiver

I know what you’re thinking.  “ANOTHER hike?!?!  All these people do is hike hike hike.”  Well, that’s pretty close to true.

Juliann, Sebastian and I took off to Multnomah Falls, the biggest, touristy falls in the Gorge by a huge margin.  The reason why we chose to do this hike was twofold:  1) The guide books said that the hike behind Multnomah Falls was one of the best waterfall hikes in the Gorge, and 2) it was cold and rainy and we knew few, if any, tourists would be clogging up Multnomah Falls.

We were right.  Few people were there.  Halfway up the very steep, mile long ascent to the top of Multnomah Falls (where the real hike begins) it really began to rain pretty hard.  Luckily, it let up and we got the top, though it was a tough uphill (1 mile with 800+ feet of ascent - that’s a lot).  Up behind the Falls it turned from a plain old uphill slog to a beautiful, verdant wonderland of cascading falls, rocky overhangs, and tall, old trees.  Juliann carried Sebastian most of the way in the sling, though I took him for about a mile in the middle and the last half mile out of the total 6+ miles.  We desperately need an Ergocarrier.

I’d like to point out how wonderful Sebastian was on the hike.  There was a short time when he was getting a little cranky, but that didn’t last long at all.  He slept for the beginning of the hike, but he was awake for most of it.  He was looking around at all the trees and water and falls.  When he was awake he never stopped gazing at everything around him.  We (i.e., Juliann) did a great job of keeping him dry when it was raining, but when he did get drizzled on, he didn’t mind it at all.  The only thing that he didn’t like was when his view of the scenery was blocked by the raincoat.

I’m not sure what else I can say about how beautiful this hike was.  I think it was one of the most beautiful hikes I’ve ever been on.  Oh yeah, did I mention that this was about a 30 minute drive from our house?

I posted about 45 photos on the photoblog with additional comments for most of the photos, but here is a taste of some of the better shots:

Multnomah Falls - this is what everyone comes to see.

Faerie Falls - this is one of the falls that is way back on the hike.

I know this looks tilted, but it’s really not.

The end of the hike!  We made it!

I thought that I would share this bit of cuteness:

Sebastian Being Cute

If you can’t view it, let me know.  It’s a Quicktime movie, so you might need to install Quicktime if you don’t have it.

It was bound to happen.  After months and months of trying, Sebastian finally rolled over.  He first did it on the couch, then he did it on the bed (both soft surfaces), and then he did it on the floor (hard surface).  He finally was able to get enough momentum to swing himself up in spite of his pinned arm.  It seems that he can do it whenever he’s interested in it.  Sometimes he’ll give a half-hearted attempt at it and not do it, but when he puts his mind to it, I think that he can do it pretty much at will.

Now it seems that he’s trying his darnedest to crawl.  He moves his butt up and down cycling his legs trying to propel himself forward.  Unfortunately for him (and fortunately for us), his front end isn’t strong enough to start moving forward.

Checking the infant milestones, it seems like rolling over is a fourth month thing, so it seems that Sebastian is a little ahead of the curve.  I know it doesn’t really matter whether an infant is fast or slow to some of these milestones, but it does allow for a little extra parental pride, no matter how misguided it may be.

Over the past week Sebastian has really improved his motor coordination.  His hands are in a constant state of clinching and unclinching, trying to grab onto anything possible.  He’s also an expert of bringing things to his mouth.  Bunny ears?  Check!  Abima head-nipples?  Check!  Books?  Check!

The other things Sebastian has learned how to do is squirm.  He hasn’t figured out how to roll over or crawl yet, but he’s a top notch squirmer.  This morning he squirmed halfway across the bed and almost pushed me off.  That means we now have to be careful where we put him down and where we let him nap.  He’ll be turning over in no time.

I thought I’d snap a couple photos this morning while he was at his most peaceful: napping in his chair.  You can see his Bunny-Fo-Fo in the second photo.

Sunday was Juliann’s first Mother’s Day!  Such a rare event deserved very special consideration, so I mulled over many different ideas of what I could do to make the day even more special.  I decided on taking Juliann (and, of course, Sebastian) to her very favorite place in the whole world:  the Oregon Coast.  Of course, I also treated her to breakfast in bed, a box of special gourmet chocolates from Cork, and a gift certificate for a 90 minute massage at one of the nicer spas in Portland.

(An aside:  This past Friday (May 9) was the five year anniversary of the day we first met.  We had a special dinner with a great local bottle of wine and an excellent bottle of dessert wine from Badia a Coltibuno in honor of where we got engaged exactly four years previous.)

Back to Mother’s Day.  Juliann picked up some yummy foods from New Seasons, we packed up the car with changes of clothes and food and extra shoes and socks and rain gear and camera equipment.  Sebastian slept for the entire 90 minute drive to the coast and we ended up at Ecola State Park.  To give you an idea of where we were, here are two photos taken seconds apart (I know the sky is very different in the two photos, but that’s Oregon weather for you).  For a sense of scale, in the first photo, you can see some people down in the lower left corner of the photo.

Sebastian was great, as usual, on our trek outdoors.  He was awake for the beach hike and he was mostly asleep for the forest hike.  Here he is all bundled up on the beach (click to enlarge, like all the other photos):

Juliann is pretty much Sebastian’s full time chauffer.  I find it pretty amazing that she does all the hiking that I do, but with a 16+ pound wait hanging off her frontside.  She is often way out ahead of me, and not just because I stop to take photos.

Here are a couple more photos from the beach.  As always, please go to the photoblog for more photos and captions.

After we finished on the beach, we went back to the car and had lunch.  From there, we went on the forest hike.  The hike was a loop and the first half of the hike was 100% uphill - no small, level stretches, no slight downhills - it was very steep and all uphill, about 1.25 miles and a gain of 800+ ft in elevation.  The forest was beautiful, though.  Huge trees and lush greenery surrounded us.  The second half of the loop took us closer to the coast and we had some wonderful views of the water and beach and lighthouse.  Here are several photos from the hike:

The lighthouse.  For a closeup, go to the photoblog:

So many trees:

One final look back at the beach:

And there you have it!  Our very first Mother’s Day.

Another week, another hike.  This time, we took to the hills, or, more accurately, the Columbia River Gorge.  There are a ton of hikes and beautiful places in the Gorge to go hiking, but we chose to hike to Elowah Falls and the Upper McCord Creek Falls, both located in John B. Yeon State Park, about a half an hour drive east of our house along I-84 (no relation to I-85, for you curious Atlantans out there).

The hike was wonderful, if a bit close to the highway.  The highway noise disappeared as we hiked in a bit closer to the waterfalls.  Unlike last week’s hike to Sauvie Island, Sebastian was awake for the entire hike (he slept most of the Sauvie Island hike).  He really enjoyed looking around at all the wonderful scenery, and especially the waterfalls.

One thing that I noticed him doing today: his manual dexterity seems to have taken a leap.  He can now sort of maneuver things around with more accuracy.  As I type this, he has managed to get his bunny’s ears into his mouth a couple of times.  He loves Bunny-foo-foo’s ears almost as much as he loves Abima’s head nipples.

Below are some photos of Sebastian a day before the hike, and some I took during the hike.  As usual, please visit the photoblog for even more photos

Sleepy baby:

Classic Sebastian look:

And now for some more Oregon beauty.  Read it and weep, east coast chumps!

Idyllic setting in the woods:

Ooo, a babbling brook:

Elowah Falls:

Great view across the Columbia into Washington:

Upper McCord Falls:

A slightly blurry photo of us (notice how nicely dressed they are in Nau gear):

Finally.  Sebastian FINALLY started laughing out loud while he was awake.

Normally, Juliann does the paddycaking with Sebastian, but this morning we were in the kitchen and he was sitting in his vibrating chair and I decided to give the paddycake a try.  As soon as I started he started to crack up!  A huge grin instantly appeared on his face and he could not stop laughing for two rounds of paddycake.  His laughter was raining down upon us, wave after wave.  What a wonderful   I have to admit I was getting a little worried about his lack of laughter, but I can rest easy knowing that he has a lot of laughter inside of him.

We also are pretty sure that Sebastian has started teething.  Today wasn’t bad, but the past several days he’s started drooling a LOT and he’s been wanting to chew on things, which seems to bring him relief.

In case you were wondering, Sebastian is about 16 lb and he’s about 24.5 inches long.

We are most probably going to go hiking on Sunday, and I took some photos of him this evening, so I will probably be posting more photos shortly.

UPDATE:  upon further measurement, Sebastian is actually 26 inches long.

Sebastian turned 3 months a several days ago and he’s doing more and more every day.  He’s ALMOST rolling over now.  When you put him on the floor on his back he likes to do crunches with his legs.  Sometimes he’ll throw his legs over to one side along with his arm and he is SO close to rolling over.  We cheer him on every time he does it, but his underneath arm always seems to stop him.  He’s not strong enough to move it into a position where he can get the rest of his body over it.  It shouldn’t be long now.  My uneducated guess is within the next week.

He’s also babbling a lot more.  He does a lot of variations of “ahhhhhhh” sounds and sometimes he’ll do it for 10 to 15 seconds.

Sebastian is also sleeping more.  His normal bedtime is around 9pm or so and last night he slept 4am, which is his longest stretch of uninterrupted sleep ever.  He’s also starting to go to sleep on his own.  Juli drove down to visit her grandmother in Eugene last week and he slept for the entire two hour car ride.

He has also gotten really grabby.  He loves grasping clothes and fingers and books and papers and toys.  He still loves his Abima and his bunny and now he’s starting to talk to them.  He loves it when his mother plays paddycake with him - whenever the song starts he gets super smiley and his eyes get really big.  Speaking of smiling, Sebastian laughed out loud while he was awake for the first time!  It was more of a giggle, but he did it a couple of times within a span of a minute or two.

Sebastian has been getting out more and has been much more social recently.  Juli takes him to mommy/baby yoga and storytime at the library and he loves watching all the other kids and he loves it when the older kids pet him on the head.

Juli and I took Sebastian on his very first hike on Sunday.  We drove out to Sauvie Island (a whopping 20 minutes away) and we went for a hike near the big lake on the island.  It was BEAUTIFUL. (See below to see some photos of the wildlife that we saw.)  Yet another reason why Portland is a fantastic place to live.  The very same day we went on a wonderful two hour hike in 65 degree weather with the sun shining, a guy I work with (Mark) went skiing about an hour outside Portland.  Oh, and on Saturday we went to the farmer’s market and picked up some freshly laid eggs, just-picked butter lettuce (amazing!), picked some Swiss chard from our backyard, and got a fantastic espresso from Ristretto Roasters.  All in all, a wonderful weekend.

As always, more photos can be seen on the photoblog, complete with descriptions.

Click on the last photo above to see a larger version so you can see what the bird is carrying in his talons.

We went to a children’s store in the Alberta Arts section of Portland the other day (for you Atlantans, think Little Five Points, but more shops and restaurants) and they had tons of toys and brands that Juli and I really like (Plan Toys, blabla, Haba, etc.). Juli was talking to one of the women who work there (there were four people working there even though the store is less than 1000 sq ft) about how we were looking for a rattle for Sebastian. The woman asked how old he was, and when we told him that he was almost 3 months, she pretty much told us to forget about it because they can’t comprehend anything at that age anyway, and they can’t really see anything or DO anything with stuff. Ummmm….really? And you work for a children’s store? And, oh yeah, you’re wrong. Sebastian loves his rattle. And he loves his Abima.  So, Lady Who Works In The Children’s Store, maybe you should learn a little something about children before you decide to sell toys to their parents.

As for Sebastian, he’s getting more and more expressive with every passing day.  He does his share of babbling and grunting.  His manual dexterity is light years ahead of where it was last week - he’s grabbing on shirts and cat fur and toys all the time.  He does a pretty good job of trying to manipulate Abima’s head nipple into his mouth.  He definitely prefers some toys over others.  The other day I put him on the bed after a diaper change and I found Abima laying around so I picked him up and showed him to Sebastian and Sebastian started flailing his arms and legs in happiness to see Abima.  It wasn’t long before he was sucking on Abima’s head nipple.  I also found a wooden song flute and Sebastian loves it when I play it for him.  Of course the only song I can really play is Michael Row Your Boat Ashore, but I’m not a bad improviser (though I wouldn’t classify myself as a good improviser, either).

So here are some new photos.  As always, there are more photos on the photoblog.

Sorry for the recent silence, but we finally moved into our rental house (wow, what a nice house!) and we FINALLY got our internet connection installed and up and running.  No photos as of yet, but expect some by this weekend.  I’m also planning on posting a few photos of the house in case anyone is interested in seeing some.  The garden in the backyard is amazing, and we have a range in the kitchen that must be 40 years old but it works great.  There is a dial that you can adjust so that you can set how well done you want to cook your meat (rare, medium-rare, medium, etc.).  We’re still unpacking, but we’re making progress.

As for Sebastian, he hasn’t missed a beat.  Juliann (Juli officially switched her name back to her full name with the move to Portland) has been taking him out for walks every day to see the neighborhood.

When we were still in the apartment we were getting ready for bed and Sebastian was all swaddled up and laying in between us.  Juliann and I were just laying around not yet sleeping when all of a sudden Sebastian started to smile.  Then he started to giggle!  He was just giggling away while completely asleep!  It was amazing to be able to see his first laughter.  What could he have been so amused about?  And why did his first laughter occur when he was asleep?  He doesn’t laugh or giggle when he’s awake.  He certainly smiles a lot, but no laughing.  What was he dreaming about that he found so funny?  Do other kids laugh first when asleep?  Was he dreaming about someone tickling his feet?  Or telling baby jokes?  Was he thinking how lucky he is to have Juliann and I for parents?  Was he thinking of all the great times he had with his best friend Julius?  Was he watching Monty Python?  Was he thinking about all those chump physicists who believe String Theory?  I guess all these questions will remain unanswered, but it’s certainly interesting to think about.