June: Two Months!

Wow, I've taken a long break from blogging. But I have lots of posts up my sleeve: Dane's birthday, June's blessing, a post entitled "Disasters", and more! Stay tuned!

I am a few days late, but I wanted to post about June's two month stats.

Head: 39 cm, 58th percentile

Height: 23 3/4 in, 92nd percentile

Weight: 12 lbs. 10 oz., 90th percentile

Can you believe how big she is? I have no idea how I incubated such a huge baby. I mean, 90th percentile? I haven't seen 90th percentiles in anything related to the Hood family since test scores. Ha! We love our big, fat baby.

Hooray! I'm a big girl!

She is starting to smile a lot, especially when we go to get her in the morning. She sleeps amazingly well. I feel like the luckiest mom in the world because, from the time she was just a few days old, she has slept for many hours every night. She stays up late, often until 1:30 or 2:00 but then she'll sleep until 7:00 or 8:00, sometimes later.

She is also discovering that she can bring her hands to her mouth, and she often goes super cross-eyed in the process.

We've noticed that her breathing often sounds rattly, though she's never stuffy, and she doesn't seem to have a problem with inhaling or exhaling; it just sounds weird. Her pediatrician* said she has laryngomalacia, which means her larynx is floppy. As I've researched in online, it sounds kind of bad...but the pediatrician seemed to think it wasn't a big deal and that she'd grow out of it. We'll keep watching it.

Dane continues to be really cute with June. He is excited when she wakes up in the morning, and he loves to snuggle and hug her (though she's too big for him to hold her, haha). He interacts with her a lot, and she often perks up and stays quite attentive when he's around.

I love my two sweet children. I am a lucky, happy mom.

By the way, I never posted about the quilt I made for her. The lovely quilt, which I am rather proud of, provided the background for these photos.

Finally, this crazy thing happened tonight. We are renting our house from some people who live in North Carolina; their niece lives near here and she often comes by to pick up their mail, etc. Tonight, she called to ask if she could come by to drop off a belated birthday gift for Dane, so I said sure. This is what she brought:

What the heck?? And, because I'm lame, I didn't feel like I could tell her the million reasons we don't want a dog right now. Joel and I were freaking out, trying to figure out what we'd do with a puppy, when Dane confidently chimed in, "I have a plan! We'll go to the hardware store and buy the things we need to build a doghouse!"

I don't think so.

So I enlisted the power of Facebook to try to find a home for the pup. She is in a temporary home right now, and I'm hoping to find a permanent one tomorrow.

Dane took it pretty well, all things considered. But he was a little sad that the puppy was being taken to another home. And he kept saying how much he wants a pet. He even tried to argue his point by saying he wanted a pet just like his cousins, that "big girl, little girl, and big baby," (Lauren, Molly, and Claire). I asked him what pets they have, and he said they have three caterpillars. Haha. And as I put him to bed tonight, he sniffed and said, "I miss Petty." But I think he'll be okay.

So, that's a bit of our lives these days. Again, stay tuned for more, including Halloween!

*The pediatrician commented on how big June is and asked how tall I am, how tall Joel is. When he learned neither of us are super tall, he asked me how tall the mailman is. Hardy har har. But then he kept making more mailman jokes, at least three other times during the appointment. Kind of weird, no?

And in care you're wondering, our mailman is a woman.

Reptilicus

Dane was invited to a birthday party where they had a Reptile Man! No, he wasn't a carnival freak, he was a reptile handler. I was actually quite impressed with the array of cool animals he brought for the show. I wasn't exactly sure how Dane would handle being so close to scary looking animals, but he did quite well, as long as he was on my lap.

The guy started things off with a tarantula (which brought one girl to tears) and a scorpion.

Then he brought out a few lizards, which were all progressively bigger.
The biggest lizard was a...something something monitor. It was big and scary looking and named Mr. Grumpy Pants. Dane got scared for that one.

There were also two tortoises. The first one was about the size of a bike helmet, which I thought was pretty big. I mean, it's bigger than the kind you just find outside. But then he brought out a huge one!

Audience members who weighed less than 30 pounds were allowed to ride the tortoise. But alas, Dane has just barely become 31 pounds. Oh well.
Then we saw a baby American Alligator! Apparently they're illegal in Utah but you can have one if you have a permit, like this guy.

Then, the snakes. I personally am rather scared of snakes, but Dane was excited.
If you look at the top right hand corner, you can see Dane's little hand reaching out to touch it.

So excited that after seeing the first snake, Dane and his friends decided to be snakes. (The show ran a little too long for the younger kids.)

I'm pretty sure that first snake was some type of anaconda.
Then there was a corn snake, and we learned that snakes are good for eating mice because even if the mouse has rabies, a snake can't get rabies, so it makes us all safer. Cool, huh. But snakes are still scary.

Then, the 14-foot python!

This was the scariest for me, but the kids were just in awe.

Maybe Dane was a little nervous, too. But he was brave and touched it!

I touched it too, which made me wish I hadn't. Snakes are so creepy and evil looking. Blech.


In non-reptilian news, Joel has been getting increasingly creative when making pancakes in the morning. One morning, he delighted Dane with letter pancakes that spelled his name!

Fun times with a fun daddy.

Also, in the past two weeks, THREE new cousins for Dane have been born:
Joel's brother just older than him, Allen, and his wife, Monique, welcomed their fourth baby on February 7: Emery Frost

Then Joel's brother just older than Allen, Paul, and his wife, Tracie, had their fourth baby: Dorothy Elaine Frost (Dotte)

And just yesterday, Joel's younger sister Laurie Jayne and her husband, Adam, had their first baby: Hyrum Bridger Stradling!

Congratulations, and hooray for all the babies!