15 Months Old

Last week Claire reached the 15 month milestone. She's now about 22 1/2 pounds and 30 1/2 inches long...and still not walking, though we are getting closer. We're hoping that while I spend two weeks in Washington starting later this week all her older cousins will inspire her to join the two-footed crowd. Claire's favorite activities at this point are playing outside on the deck/patio with water and scooping up gravel, pushing her little toy dog around on the floor (she loves dogs), reading books, playing with shoes, and climbing on anything. She's developing a vocabulary little by little and does lots of chattering. We are down to one nap a day, though it's usually only about an hour long. Interestingly, as the night progresses she gets happier and happier and goes from her crankiest at about 5 PM to being positively full of it by bedtime, not acting tired at all. We head out to Washington on Thursday, and I'll try to post from there at some point.

Stress-Reliever Weekend

I shouldn't have asked, "What Next?" (see previous post) To culminate our lovely week last week we received a letter from our daycare provider on Friday telling us she was closing as of August 1st. I managed the Lyme disease and rattlesnake without breaking into tears, but this one put me over the edge (thanks mom and dad for providing long-distance shoulders). I am a planner, to put it lightly, so not knowing where our child will go when school starts up again at the end of August was distressing. We had wonderful care for Claire last year in a small, in-home daycare. I was frantic wondering if we'd find a place with an opening, much less a similar situation. Thankfully, it's just for the mornings and not full-time. Yesterday I did find a place for her in a daycare down the street from school which everyone raves about; it's just bigger than we were hoping. I'm sure Claire will love the activity, and now that she's a little older she can add to the bustle herself.

We did need to blow off some steam this weekend. Nate went for a long hike with a friend Saturday, catching some native cutthroat trout in the lake beneath the peak they climbed (see picture above). We took turns fishing on the Madison on Sunday, though my kind husband let me hog most of the time. I got my first post-baby trout! It felt great to just lose myself in the rhythm of the water, thinking about nothing but where a fish might be hanging out and how to get my fly out to it.

First Ticks, Now Snakes, What Next?

For a family who loves the outdoors, Mother Nature isn't loving us back lately. First, when we were out in Massachusetts we found a deer tick embedded in Claire's arm (major Lyme disease area). After consulting with a local pediatrician out there, we were told all we could do was wait to see if any symptoms like a rash, fever, loss of appetite or fatigue developed. Nate and I were both kicking ourselves because we had noticed the tick earlier but didn't recognize it as a tick because it was so small. So, of course, we were watching Claire carefully, and she seemed fine...until Monday night when she didn't eat dinner. Tuesday morning she had a fever and was pretty subdued, so I called the doctor's office (of course my doctor was out so I had to talk to a nurse on call). The doctor felt we should bring her in for an examination where she ruled out any other obvious sources for the fever. After consulting with an infectious disease specialist and a pediatrician they all agreed it was best to play it safe and put Claire on a three week/three time a day course of antibiotics. We're happy to say the fever responded immediately, though Claire still seems a little out of sorts. The doctor says this treatment "should" take care of an exposure to Lyme Disease.

Thus, I spend Tuesday and Wednesday basically holding a sick, fussy child and was hoping to get out this afternoon and take Claire to the county fair for a few hours. We had been playing outside in the morning and I left the garage door open after coming inside to put Claire down for a nap. After she woke up and had lunch, I gathered our belongings and heading out to the garage to load the Subaru. I briefly considered letting Claire crawl down the few steps into the garage as she likes to do but for some reason just decided to keep holding her. Thank Goodness! As I passed the front bumper to get around the car, I saw and heard a coiled rattlesnake about two feet away right in the garage. I know I let out a scream and dashed back inside the house. My next thought was, "What about the dog?" I didn't see him on the porch so I'm worried he's already been bitten and is off licking his wounds somewhere. I'm calling Nate and screaming for the dog at the same time. Hemmie thankfully was just at the entrance to the garage and actually decided to listen for a change, coming directly inside instead of investigating farther. I had to leave a voicemail for Nate, explaining that we were safe, but trapped in the house because there was a rattlesnake in the garage. Nate was just about to take lunch so called me back within minutes and decided right away to come home as we didn't want to NOT know where the rattlesnake was or let him out of the garage to reappear later. (I am now considering the idea of learning at least to shoot something with snake shot.) When he got home, Nate was able to corner the snake and shoot it, and, for a prairie rattler, it was big--about 38 inches long.

We were both shaken thinking about all the worse scenarios that could have happened with a snake and a small child crawling around. We've had snakes on the property before but never this close to the house. I know we are going to be very vigilant about looking at corners and shady spots before taking Claire outside. In both of these situations, scary though they have been, we see how they could have been much worse (i.e. not finding the tick and thus dismissing Claire's fever or having Claire encounter the snake at ground level). Still, when Nate got home I had to ask, "Are you ready to move to a condo in the city yet?" (by the way it's dead in the photo above--don't worry we didn't stop in the middle of the whole situation to take photos for the blog)

We're Back!

We arrived home from almost two weeks on the East Coast late Saturday night. We had a wonderful visit with Nate's family and friends. Claire managed all the transitions well, and while flying with a squirmy 14 month old isn't exactly relaxing, we thankfully were not the family getting dirty looks from the rest of the passengers. In fact, on the way home we had evening flights and Claire fell asleep at the very end of the first flight and slept through the layover and all the way through the second flight, phew! She definitely learned to enjoy being the center of attention on this trip, and I'm afraid coming home with only mom and dad to entertain her will be a bit of an adjustment.



Some highlights of the trip:

--Several days to enjoy the swimming pool and living room full of toys at Nema's house

--Fresh, local produce and delicious meals from Nate's mom's farmstand and garden

--Nate and his dad spent two days striper fishing off Plum Island

--We took a trip to Cape Cod to visit dear friends of Nate, Dick and Linda Colville, and got to enjoy the beach and delicious seafood which we love

--Spending four days in Southern New Hampshire with the whole family, getting in some hiking, swimming, and more amazing meals courtesy of Nate's sister Sarah and her husband Bruce

--Little shopping trips to Keane and Peterborough without Claire : )



In general, we had fun just hanging out with family, watching the cousins play together, taking walks, good food, good conversation...thanks so much Susan, Sarah and Bruce, and Charles for all you did to host such a wonderful trip for us!

Trip to Massachusetts