Four Months Old

On January 11, 2007 Lucy went for her 4 month update at the doctor. Everything is progressing nicely according to them and the things they expect at this stage. She weighed in at 13 lbs 9 oz and 25 inches long.

She's standing up with help, of course. She's started to sleep in her own room at night. Just yesterday she had rice cereal, her first solid foods! Also this past week she rolled over for the first time.Daisy is her best pal. Lucy's mood brightens when she catches sight of her canine buddy. Daisy loves to lick Lucy's hands and feet. Lucy loves to grab at Daisy's tongue. It's a win-win.

Lucy's other best pal is Kjell. They hung out in the mountains last weekend.Yesterday (I can't believe I'm not blogging about something that took place 2 months ago!) we took ourselves to the U.S. National Whitewater Center to see it for ourselves. It's really an amazing feat of engineering. The lazy Catawba River outside of Charlotte has been transformed into a whitewater park. It's also where the U.S. Olympic Kayak Team will be headquartered and train and all that. The ramp in the photo on the left is an "elevator" that takes boats back to the top of the rapids after the end of the run.
The whole thing was drained for cleaning yesterday, but that almost made it more interesting. You could see how the rapids can be manipulated and changed to keep it interesting for the paddlers. The place just opened this fall after a series of delays, but it looks like it'll be a fantastic warm-weather hang out with all the water activities, climbing walls and even a restaurant with a terrace over-looking the whitewater. Oh, and there are over 11 miles of hiking/mtn biking trails. This place was pretty amazing. We can't wait to go back.

Even though it was a chilly day, Lucy didn't mind being so cool.

Happy 90th, Great Grandpa!

December 28th, 2006 was a big day. Peter, Kim, Will, Hannah, Vaughn, William, Nana and Papa joined us to celebrate Great Grandpa's 90th birthday. He's looking great, isn't he!

Yuletide Happenings

Sorry to offer up Christmas photos and news here at the end of January. Blogging seems to take up a good bit of time. Perhaps if I were more proficient (and knew, for example how to type without this being underlined) folks could hear from us more often. This is a photo of us after we picked out our tree. This winter has been unusually mild, but it was bitter cold that night.

Below are some shots from our Christmas in Mattapoisett with Grandma, Lou Lou, Amy, Eloise, Marcy and Dave. It was mild up there too, but got pretty chilly on a couple of evenings. You can see in one of the photos below that Lucy and I got bundled up tight before and evening walk with the dogs, Lu and Zu.

I'm on a bit of a blogging roll, so I'm going to try to keep the photos coming. See, I've lost the underlines, but I'll be danged if I know how I did that.

Another thing that's been a challenge is that I've noticed that the layouts look different on Internet Explorer and Firefox. Incidentally, we as a family prefer Firefox. Try it! You can download it here.

Christmas in Mattapoisett

Reasons to be Thankful

This Thanksgiving we passed the fried turkey and passed little Lucy all around. We had four generations come together with Great Papa Horace, Papa Tom, Dad and Lucy all together. Uncle Peter and cousins William and Hannah got their turn with Lucy too. Papa fried our bird to juicy perfection. Papa gave Lucy a great little seat to keep her entertained. She loves to whap the red bird hanging down.

After Thanksgiving, Heather, Lucy, Daisy and I went to Beech Mountain for the weekend. Saturday our hike gave Lucy a little sun burn (just a little), so Sunday we had to protect her head a better. She approved. By the way, sometimes you get good shots with the timer feature and sometimes you don't. I catogorize our group hiking photo as the latter.

I'm driving myself to distraction trying to get the layout to look good. Sorry folks if it's weird looking. You can figure it out I suppose. Clearly, Blogmaster I am not.

Quick update

Monday November 13th was a big day in our house. Actually we didn't know it until Tuesday the 14th. We woke up stunned at having slept through the night! That something like good sleep can change your outlook on life is remarkable. Lucy was refreshed and a little proud of herself.

In other news the oh-so-inconsistent Carolina Panthers are 1-0 when Lucy tailgates prior to their home games. Even more impressive, they average over 200 yards rushing and allow zero points on "D." I'm referring to the November 19th game against the St. Louis Rams, of course. Since then the Panthers lost in an embarrising effort against the Redskins. I digress.

Jamie, Maija, Kjell, Heather, Lucy and I feasted on (Bojangles) chicken and biscuits prior to the game. It's worth noting that Lucy did not actually attend the game. Dad went with Jamie. It's also worth noting that we tailgated alone in Daddy's parking deck where it was easy for the mommies and children to escape traffic prior to kickoff--and it was free.

You can't really tell, but Lucy has on a great little Panther's outfit under her sweatshirt. Obviously, Kjell in his shades was the coolest kid in the parking deck. You can click to enlarge any of these photos. I've got some good Thanksgiving photos coming soon!

Some of Lucy's firsts

Bill and Cheryl got married on October 29, 2006. This was Lucy's first wedding. She liked it. Actually this was her first dance too, come to think of it.

Lucy's first Halloween was low key. We had only a half dozen or so trick or treaters. Thanks to this outfit from Nana and Papa, Lucy was our cute little pumpkin. She didn't know exactly what to think. Here's a cute shot minus the pumpkin head.









Last weekend was Lucy's first visit with her Grampa Peter and Gram Rhoda. We all went out to eat at Mama Ricotta's, which was Lucy's first visit to a restaurant! She was a perfect angel and sat quietly the whole time. On Sunday she had her first visit with her great great aunt Lois! As luck would have it, Pam, Charles and Lee had come to visit Lois for the day, so she got to meet them as well!

Recent Happenings

Lucy went to Rural Hall to meet the Gribble clan, including her new pal Sawyer on Oct 14. Sawyer is walking and talking, but still perfecting his patter with ladies. All the same Lucy was quite taken with the older man.




The very next Saturday Lucy arrived in Mattapoisett, MA for a visit with Grandma, aunt Amy, uncle Lou Lou, cousin Eloise, uncle Dave, and Marcy.



Eloise, who celebrated her 1st birthday while we were there, enjoyed meeting her new cousin.




Lucy had lots of fun with Grandma and enjoyed sharing stories and catching up. Below Lucy describes the nursery.










How's this for alliteration? Uncle Lou Lou lulls little Lucy (left). Dave had the touch too.

Been a little while

I've gotten some heat from Lucy's admirers for not keeping them better informed. Lucy (and her parents) have had quite an eventful first 8 weeks. She's already been on quite a road trip. We hauled her to Massachusetts to see grandma last week. She even attended her first wedding last weekend in Maryland on the way back home. We have lots of photos from these events to share, but time is short at the moment to upload it all. For now know that Lucy is doing great and happy as can be. I promise to be back soon with more photos and news!

Feeling right at home

Things at home have gone well. Mom and Dad are adjusting to a schedule with less sleep. Lucy is adjusting to life on the "outside" pretty well too. Thanks to everyone who has shown their love and support recently. We appreciate it very much.

I promised more details last week so here we go.

First of all, many more folks have asked about the car seat inspection than I would have ever guessed. You'll be glad to hear daddy installed everything just right! The guy at the fire department was impressed actually. Shoot me an email if you need help installing a car seat. I'll be glad to walk you through it.

Ok, here's what happened on September 11, 2006. Heather woke me up about 3 a.m. and declared that she had been having contractions for the last hour(!). We flipped on the light and timed them over the next hour to see how regular they were. Sure enough they were coming at regular intervals, but weren't too intense or too close together. Somehow we both managed to fall back to sleep for a couple of hours.

When daylight broke the contractions had diminished. I went to the office to see if I could tie up any loose ends--thinking it might be a while before I could check in again. When I got back Heather's contractions had started up again. By lunch they were pretty strong and regular.

Heather wanted a natural birth and wanted to stay at home as long as possible. Paris, our doula, was on her way over to the house to help. By 2:45 p.m. Heather felt we should head to the hospital. I intercepted Paris en route to our house and suggested she meet us at the hospital instead.

The nurses explained later that they were prepared to send us home the minute they saw us come in. A woman that relaxed was not in hard labor. In triage however, they determined that not only was Heather in labor, but that things were moving at quite a clip. Paris joined us in triage.

The great thing about CMC (Carolinas Medical Center) Pineville is that you labor, deliver and recover in the same room. It's like a hotel suite. Heather was drawn to their jacuzzi hot tubs. She never got a chance to get in.

Forty-five minutes later, Lucy joined us to a crowd of cheering nurses. Amazing. I was the lone man in a room full of amazing women who made this happen. The OB, Dr. Bajaj was fantastic in supporting Heather's desires to go "natural." Paris was a fantastic coach and calming influence. This is the portion of the story where words fail. Amazing. Hooray for Heather and Lucy. They were my heroines that day.

She's here!

Lucy Pearson Dyer was born on September 11, 2006! She weighed in at 6 lbs 12 oz and 18 1/2 inches long. We're all doing great. I'll post the whole story soon, but first wanted to get some photos out there.

Child seat? Check.

Not too much to report. We're getting things all set up. We have two bases for the car seats already installed. The next step is to run by the fire department and have them double check my work. Apparently the overwhelming majority of these things get installed improperly. Clearly I know what I'm doing, but it's always best to double check.

Heather's last day of work was Thursday. Today we went over and cleaned out her office.

Tomorrow we head back to visit the midwife with less than 10 days to go until our due date!