"This is what life is all about."

-Kalinda Hunsperger

The Nursery Now

Highlight

This was the highlight of Jonas' weekend:

Today

Swim Lessons. Jonas was tentative about swim lessons the first week. He loves the water, but he wasn't so sure about the noise and so many new faces. This week he has been warming up to it. At the beginning of the week I caught the fleeting chuckle or smile and yesterday Matt said he kept saying "Mom". But today he thought he'd really come out of his shy, serious swim class persona by unleashing all of his vocal powers. In other words he shrieked like a baby pterodactyl the entire time. It was pretty hilarious.


Jonas and I lay under some rustling trees on the grass this afternoon. Jonas was mesmerized by the sight of leaves swaying in the wind. I love watching his sense of wonder as he really sees things for the first time.



Matt, Jonas and I have been lucky to have Colton and Jordan stay with us this week while they install security systems in Lloyd. Unky Jordan is an old pro at feeding, changing (clothes only, I suspect Jordan won't change a diaper until he is forced to), and entertaining Jonas. And Uncle Colton, who used to adamantly insist that he wasn't comfortable holding any babies, has been sneaking kisses and confidently toting Jonas around. He also loves to tease!



The final painting frontier (sort of, the red bathroom needs yet another coat- we've already done 5!). I am very grateful for a husband who abounds in the great gifts of mathematical accuracy, attention to detail and patience. I didn't trust myself with this project beyond choosing the paint color so he did this one solo.

Perfectly Proportioned & Farmer Tans

According to the nurse Jonas is a perfectly proportioned baby. He is in the 50th percentile for head circumference, weight, and height. What are the chances of that?

He is 25 inches long and 14 pounds 11.5 ounces.

Yay for rain days! Matt got to take a break from his regular 14 hour workdays to take Jonas to swim lessons today.

4 Months

Dear Jonas,

You are already four months old! You grow so fast and yet I feel as if I have known you all my life. You are discovering new things everyday. The other day you discovered that if you folded your body in half like a suitcase it would allow you to suck on your big toe and yesterday you cooed at the ceiling lights at the pool as you floated contentedly on your back. You are fascinated by your ability to pull your soother and bottle out of your mouth and then (sometimes!) put them back in. You have also been learning that the more you try something difficult like tummy time or going to swim lessons, the easier and more enjoyable it becomes.

I'm discovering new things everyday too. Like how even though I wish I could stop your growth for just a moment sometimes, so I that I could take a little longer to enjoy you during each stage, that it is even better to watch you learn and grow and overcome difficulties. That the more you grow, the closer our hearts grow together.

I love you so much sweet boy!

Mom

Jonas

Little Monkey


Milk Moustache



For Harinder. I took your Mom's advice.

Edmonton Energy?

For those of you who didn't know Edmonton has a team in the IBL (International Basketball League). The IBL is a spring leauge with most of the teams being from the United States but also has teams from Canada, China, and Japan. It is a super fast paced, high scoring game since the league has different rules to make it that way. Anyway, Royall and I went to a game last weekend and it was super fun. Jonas wasn't so sure about the loud noises though.

Andrew Parker. If you are from the Edmonton area and follow basketball you may recognize the name. I'm pretty sure he played for Ross shep in high school and now he is a dunking machine. He had two huge alley oop dunks in the game, pretty exciting.

Future IBL star JONAS HARKER.

Jonas was having fun playing with Aunts and Uncles and grandparents until he decided the introduction of the players was a little too loud for his liking. Even though he was crying the whole time I forced him to watch since he has a lot to learn before becoming a star! Just kidding, he only saw the warm ups and decided he had enough basketball. Maybe Royall will get her way and he will be a swimmer. We'll see when he goes to swimming lessons tomorrow I guess.

Matty

Amazing II

No, I haven't lost my mind and decided to paint my bathroom hot pink. That is the tinted primer for the paint color it will be, it's named "Amazing" and it is an amazingly rich red. Matt and I are painting the basement, the bedrooms are a beautiful silver (or what I imagine silver would look like if it wasn't metallic) and the rest will be a dove grey. We thought that since we would need to buy a special kind of paint to protect the bathroom walls from moisture we might as well experiment with a new color and we chose my favorite color- red.

This is a sample of the dialogue between us as we've been painting:

Me: I feel like I'm painting a Mexican restaurant.

Matt: Royall, you're painting your house.

Me: Maybe I should have gone with a muted, sophisticated teal to get my color fix rather than a gutsy love-it-or-hate-it red.

Matt: Do you love it or hate it?

Me: I won't know until the bathroom is finished. Right now I hate it. I'm not supposed to like it yet, am I?

Matt: I'd be worried if you did.

Me: It might be hard for guests to do their makeup in here with the red radiating off the walls.

Matt: You don't want your guests to look better than you anyway.

Me: I don't?

Matt: Nope.

As you can see our conversations about the basement bathroom are a pattern of doubtful statements from me and reassuring ones from Matt. Maybe it is because my parents never repainted a single room in a single house aside from a small bathroom on our acreage but paint feels incredibly permanent to me. Especially red paint. We've only painted the primer, one coat of paint and sanded once so it is a few coats from finished. Hopefully I can live with the end result.

Amazing

Our hot pink bathroom is coming along quite nicely.

Sleep Training

Jonas hasn't learned to fully appreciate that blissfully restful state of existence otherwise known as sleep yet. It's so funny (and not at the same time) to see the ways that dear silly boy fights to keep himself awake. He'll kick his legs as fast as he can (kicking off his blankets in the process), if his eyes are closing against his will he rapidly shakes his head back and forth (there is a bald patch on the back of his head to prove it), and if he has already fallen asleep in Matt or I's arms he will stretch and arc his back as soon as we transfer him to the crib.

I on the other hand have an excessive love of sleep. And Matt likes it moderately. So we began sleep training Jonas a couple weeks ago in the hopes of obtaining more sleep. It's been sort of informal and a little inconsistent thus far but we've had some success at night (he's had a few 7-8 hour stretches of sleep) and very little success in regards to naps.