Brotherly Love

I know I have mentioned before how much Peyton adores her big brother. She gets excited when she gets to see him at the end of the day at school and she is excited to see him in the morning when he greets her in her crib but I don't think I have mentioned how much Austen loves his sister. Here are just a few instances of him showing his brotherly love:

• Peyton recently went through a brief period where she didn't want to sit in her car seat and face backward. She wanted to see what all the rest of us were looking at so she would cry. This incessant crying wouldn't bother Austen in the least even though it drove Tom and I mad. Austen would just look at his sister and hold her hand if he could (depends which car we had) and say "It's okay, Peyton, your brother's here. I'm not going to leave you." The empathy he had for her was amazing and shows the depth of our sensitive soul.

•Now that Peyton is crawling, Austen, thinks she is more fun. He asks me every day when we get home from school if Peyton can play in his room. After I scour Austen's room for small hazardous parts, I put her down and they play. Sometimes together, sometimes side by side but Austen is always looking out for her. He tells me when he thinks something is too sharp for her or when she is going to bump her head or when she is close to knocking over his humidifier and dumping the water everywhere.

•He tells us too when he hears her crying. One morning our monitor was turned off and Austen kept saying that Peyton was crying. We didn't know the monitor was off so we thought he was making it up until her crying grew louder and we heard her. Now, he doesn't always tell the truth about hearing her because he wants her to be awake when he is.

•Austen also likes to help feed her, entertain her when she is getting changed and push her in her stroller.

So far he is a great big brother and proud to be one too!

An Interview with Austen

I can't believe that Austen is going to be almost four. I mean I can remember when I was four! Alright so it wasn't exactly yesterday but still I remember age four clearly.

So tune in and find out who is Austen's best friend, his favorite girl friend and why he thinks he's only two.

Peyton's Rough Week

Last week was a rough week for Peyton. Combine spending 10 days on vacation with your family, new teachers in her classroom and the beginning stages of separation anxiety for our 8-month-old and you're sure to have a problem.

Peyton started out the week crying around our extended family. She clearly wanted her mom and her mom only. Daddy was okay but only sometimes. She went back to school after vacation and there were a lot of changes in her classroom. All new teachers and somehow our 8-month-old knew that these people were strangers. Her old teachers, now in different classrooms, would tell me how excited she would get when she would see them during the day and how she would stop crying. In fact, one day I came to pick her up from school and after I picked her up from her classroom we were on our way to Austen's class upstairs. All of a sudden, Peyton started going crazy, kicking her legs and waving her arms. I realized that Peyton was excited about the lady entering the classroom in front of us. It was her old teacher! I didn't recognize her from behind at first but Peyton sure did.

Anyway, Friday seemed to be a better day for her. She was all smiles when I came to pick her up so hopefully the weekend didn't destroy that progress. She has also been working on crawling. She started on Labor Day and has been getting faster this week. Like Austen was at her age, she's fascinated by Adler's food and water bowls. See her in action...

Pure Michigan

Michigan probably has one of the best ad campaigns around to entice visitors to explore the shores of Lake Michigan. I hear these commercials daily when I am at work with the radio on and instantly I'm transported to the fun times and memories I've made there with friends and family.

Well, we just got back from one of those times and made many new memories to add to our old ones. We rented a new house this year since it was basically just the four of us (aside from some brief visits from Papa and Grandma Szurgot) and we didn't want to listen to Austen whining to go in the pool each day. The house we rented actually had a clubhouse pool anyway so Austen still got the benefit of swimming in the pool when we wanted a break from the lake without having it be a tease right outside our doors. We had some great days at the beach. The water was clear. There was a great sand bar and there were even waves. You would think you were on the east coast if you didn't know better - one of the many reasons I am fond of this part of Michigan.

Peyton enjoyed playing in the sand and didn't eat too much of it. She floated in the lake and the pool with her floating exersaucer and practiced her crawl (she actually crawled forward today!).





Austen enjoyed playing ball at the beach, building huge sandcastles with his daddy and swimming by himself with his noodle and life jacket in the pool. He ate ice cream almost every day and took long naps in the afternoon because he was so tired from the morning's activities.








Adler enjoyed running on the beach, rolling in the sand and sitting on the front porch listening to the crickets. She went kind of nuts later in the week from all the bugs and Tom and I thought we were going to have to check her into the nutty farm because she was so disturbed by them that she hid in the bathroom and lay wide awake panting all day/night. After a good 48 hours she snapped out of it and was back to normal. Something spooked her. Maybe it was the black squirrel outside our house.



It was a good vacation but like all vacations, we were sad to see it end. Hopefully someday soon, these jaunts up to Michigan will become every weekend or so occurrences when we have our own beach house. Our land is waiting.