Shawna’s grandmother (Ian and Leah’s great-grandmother), Norma Nave, passed away in her sleep last night at the age of 90. It was not unexpected, she had been in poor health for some time, but had remained remarkably feisty throughout her health problems. She will be greatly missed.

Edited to add: Obituary at  The Examiner

Wow. Time just keeps slipping right on by, and I just keep not posting anything here. *sighs* So here’s some things:

• Week before last, Ian and Leah’s Arizona Grandma (a.k.a. my mom) came to visit for a week. Ian greatly enjoyed having another Grandma around to run ragged, and Shawna got a bit of a break from having to deal with two little people on my first week back to work.
• Leah is growing well, having put on about 2 more pounds in the last couple of weeks. She hasn’t been officially measured since her 2-week doctor’s appointment, but we’re approximating with the bathroom scale. She’s definitely not malnourished.
• Her eyes have stayed blue, and in the sunlight, what little hair she has is almost red; definitely much more red than Ian’s was. She seems to possibly have an allergy to something in her environment, possibly one of Shawna’s bath products, as she’s been getting a rash on her face after being held. The pediatrician’s office wasn’t too worried about it, but we’ll check back with them at her 6 week appointment.
• Ian is definitely taking the idea being a 2-year-old to heart, including the “wanting to be independent and do things for himself but not being dexterous enough or physically able to do things”, the “random mood swings and tantrums for no particular reason”, and the “strong opinions about what type of diaper, what pajamas, or what shirt to wear today”. I’m sort of envisioning this as being what having a teenager is like, except a teenager you can’t necessarily pick up and carry into their bedroom with, “I’m sorry, but you are going to bed now, and you’re not wearing your galoshes to bed.” We’re all learning the art of picking our battles, though.
• On the other hand, Ian is also becoming much more interested in creative play, crayons and Play-doh, building towers, squirt bottles, and other such. He also likes to “help” with many of the everyday things around the house - some of which (taking out the trash, doing the laundry, scooping the litterboxes) he is actually helpful with, and others of which (loading the dishwasher, vacuuming, doing dishes, putting ice in the glasses for dinner) he is questionably helpful with, but is quite offended if he is not allowed to help.
• We’ve determined that going out to eat (formerly one of our favorite pastimes) is probably something which is best limited to special occasions when trying to do so with two little people. In general, though, this will probably be a good thing for our wallets and our waistlines.
• Other random milestones: Ian and Leah attended their first They Might Be Giants concert at the KC Jiggle Jam; Justin (and Ian and Grandma Sue) participated in the Urban Photo Safari; Leah turned one month old; Shawna had her first night out without the kids tonight, and everyone is still in one piece.

That will be all. I’ll try to get more pictures posted soon.

The problem with things going well is that it doesn’t provide much fodder for interesting things to share with the rest of the world. (And in some cases, you’re afraid to brag to the world about how well things are going, lest you tempt fate and things stop going so well.) All that said, things have been going very well. Leah has been eating well, growing well, sleeping relatively well, and in general being a good baby. Her weight check last Tuesday showed that she was already back above her birth weight by 3 ounces, which is excellent - the usual rule of thumb is that babies should be back to within one ounce of their birth weight by 2 weeks of age.

Ian has been doing well, he seems to be adjusting well to his little sister - I think having me home to provide him extra attention has probably helped to balance out the attention being lost to little sister. I started working half-days from home last Wednesday, and went back into the office for the first time today (still just half-days this week, though). Ian seems to finally be getting past his “going-to-sleep” issues, or at least doing a lot better job of doing so, and it seems Shawna actually had a good first afternoon with the two of them at home by herself today.

We had a very mellow weekend - went to a picnic in the park on Saturday sponsored by our financial advisors. Aside from being a bit windy and brisk it was a nice outing - Ian got to spend some quality time in the bouncy castle, and we got some free barbecue and out of the house for a bit. Otherwise, the weekend was just spent keeping the house in order, doing a bit of shopping, and lazing around the house. I can’t say that I’m exactly ready to go back to work full time; working from home, now that I have a reasonably private space to do it in, was kind of a nice thing - I think I’m going to start trying to do it on a slightly regular basis, assuming it doesn’t get too many people at work upset.

I also finally got my new camera, which I am thus far enjoying - I will leave you with a few photos to enjoy.

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