feeding the duckies

Nathan's found his smile!

Filed under: Nathan on January 10th, 2009 | No Comments »

…and off to the Plane;
Flying with 2 toddlers and an infant??
We must be insane!

We had a wonderful trip to Buffalo to celebrate Christmas with Grandma and Grampa Jaromin and my sister’s families. Getting there, however, was another story.

Mad Dash

The children were nestled all snug in their bed,
Blissfully unaware of the drama ahead,

First there was the thrice-delayed flight. While the delay itself wasn’t all that long (~2.5hours), the timing was rather inconvenient. It meant that instead of heading out around 10:30am for a 1:25pm flight, we were left anxiously watching southwest.com for flight updates until around 1:30 — which was an hour into the kids naps. It suddenly became clear that there was going to be a flight afterall, sometime after 3:00pm. With this realization we immediately snatched groggy kids from their comfy beds, strapped them into their car seats and made a mad dash to Midway. With less than an hour to go, we arrived at the airport. Thanks to curbside check-in and family security gates, we made it to the gate with 15 minutes to spare…only to find that the flight had again been delayed by about an hour.

In this case the delay provided a bit of welcome “breathing room.”

Musical Chairs

With Annalise buckled in her seat and Sean in my lap,
Mama and I hoping that Nathan would nap!

There are 4 overhead air masks per seat section on your typical MD80. We acquired this tidbit many months ago when traveling with 2 “lap children.” On a very full flight, a helpful attendant informed us that we’d need to split up since the four of us plus the stranger in the third seat made 5. Now that we were five all on our own, we knew we couldn’t sit together. Through a difficult-to-reconstruct-and-even-harder-to-convey process, somehow each of us wound up sitting with the opposite of the kid(s) we began the flight with.

The Descent

When from the row behind mine, there arose such a wailin’
I knew the descent would not be smooth sailin’

Then, it was time to land. At this point, Annalise and Sean were sitting in the row behind me with their Mother, while I was content cradling a sleeping Nathan. This is when Annalise broke down. And by “broke down,” I mean that she began screaming “Daddy” so loudly that I’m not entirely uncertain the pilots couldn’t hear her. Being the perceptive person that I am, I knew that something must be done. I bravely pressed the “call” button. The response was swift and decisive — If you’ve accidentally pressed the call button, please turn it off now, thank you. I looked around to see nothing but other travelers, women mainly, looking at me with mostly empathetic eyes, at least one of them mouthing something about wanting to help.

In all fairness, the flight attendant did continue on over the intercom with something to the effect that you should press it again if it was a true emergency, but by that point, I had already propped up a now stirring Nathan in the seat next to mine, twisted around and pulled Annalise over the seat back and onto my lap. And that was how we landed, with Annalise, eyes closed and silent, on one knee and Nathan on the other.

Turns out we were lucky, for even as we were lining up for take off, the rapidly rising temperatures gave birth to fog and extremely poor visibility.

Midway was closed by 7:00pm that evening.

A Grand Visit

Then down the jet-way, our nerves raw and fried,
Well-met at the gate, Papa! Grandma! they cried;
So up to Grandma’s house- Nathan’s sleeping anew,
With the house full of new toys — and Papa!, Papa! too:

The weekend was great fun. It primarily consisted of ~3-year olds Annalise and cousin Samantha playing very enthusiastically together, while Sean tried to keep up with his much older cousins Shea and Josh. High winds off the lake resulted in an hours long power outage at G&G’s house, necessitating the move to my sister’s in Hamburg. In spite of this very minor inconvenience, a grand time was had by all!

The Cousins with Grandma

An (Thankfully) Uneventful Return

Nearly everyone slept for the entire flight home. Whew!

With the view out my window all winter-y and white,
I reflect on a great trip, and hair-raising flight!

Merry Christmas Everybody!

...and to All a Good Night!

Filed under: Annalise, Nathan, Sean, Suzy on January 7th, 2009 | 1 Comment »

This year’s photos with Santa…

Nathan Kenneth

Sean Patrick

Annalise Barbara

Filed under: Annalise, Nathan, Sean on December 16th, 2008 | No Comments »

Well…while Mommy and Daddy weren’t quite ready for the transition, Sean had other plans. After nearly a week of greeting us at his door in the morning (instead of safely inside his crib), we decided it would be safer to make the conversion from crib to toddler bed. Thank goodness his crib is convertible, since I still haven’t finished Nathans!

Filed under: Sean on December 16th, 2008 | No Comments »

Filed under: Annalise, Patrick, Sean, Suzy on December 14th, 2008 | No Comments »

We decided to have a family portrait taken this weekend…and that meant it was also time for Sean’s first haircut! We all loved his little curls in the back, but the locks were getting a bit too out of control. Unlike his sister, Sean took the entire process in stride…no crying, complaints or even turning away!

He was a great sport and I think he looks adorable in his new ‘do.

Filed under: Sean on November 23rd, 2008 | No Comments »

Filed under: Annalise, Nathan on November 19th, 2008 | No Comments »

Meet Nathan Kenneth. Born November 9th, 2008 at 7:15pm.

Vital statistics: 9lbs., 21 inches long.

First portrait

after the sponge bath

Nathan with Mom and Dad

Filed under: Nathan on November 10th, 2008 | 2 Comments »

picnic by the riverwalk

With the temperatures soaring nearly 20-degrees above normal and much colder temperatures on the horizon, we decided to take the opportunity to spend one last evening on the riverwalk. Typically we’ll head down to Washington Street for dinner, often winding up at Potbelly’s. This evening, Suzy packed us a “dinnertime picnic” and so we ate at a table in one of the numerous gazebos overlooking the river.

Following dinner, and a brief game of “tag” between Annalise and Sean, the family headed down to our favorite spot to feed the duckies. Perhaps the geese have already flown south for the winter as there were only ducks around — which was a great thing as the geese tend to be much more aggressive and “crowding.” Afterward, we ran around the “labyrinth” for a bit then loaded up into the wagon and headed back.

It was truly a lovely evening.

Filed under: Annalise, Sean on November 4th, 2008 | No Comments »

Peter Pan and Tinkerbell

Filed under: Annalise, Sean on November 3rd, 2008 | No Comments »