My Kid Is So Cool

Mila's week in coolness:

Saturday- made friends with a couple of Trinidadian kids at Baltimore's Caribbean Carnival (very small compared with the ones I experienced in Boston, but still great) in Druid Hill Park. No other white kids to be seen along the parade route, but of course Mila didn't care- especially when she was given a Trini flag to wave. Brought back memories of my experiences as the only non-Islander participating in the Jouvert Morning celebrations at Carnival in Boston, when I played with the Jah Jah Drummers. Mila loved the costumes and huge DJ soundsystems on semitrailers going by.

Sunday- Went swimming/wading at Prettyboy Reservoir up near the Penn border. Definitely no other toddlers around. Overheard a swimming college kid say to his girlfriend, "I wish my dad took me places like this when I was little." Very beautiful dip in the woods.

Tuesday- Toddler birthday party for Mila's friend Sage. Book exchange!

Wednesday- Going camping at Catoctin Mountain Park with the Dalby family. Our first time camping as a family of 4! Hope the tent works out alright for all of us.

Friday- Artscape festival for the next 3 days, happening right down the block from our apartment. Exciting weekend, including a Mobtown Modern-organized happening for 111 bicycles, "Eine Brise"!

Drew Smiles!

Late June Family Chill Time

The close proximity of our wedding anniversary, Father's Day, and Marie's birthday, in combination with maternity leave, put us in a mood for outdoor excursions in late June. The obligatory vacation video here brings together Drew's first closeup, as the new star of the Spangler family, with a few shots from recent trips to Rehoboth Beach and Rocks State Park. Music by DJ Dubble8: "Anniversary".

First 4 weeks of a relationship

Big Sister Mila

Mila is a wonderful big sister. There is nothing that she enjoys more than holding her little brother. Of course she is having to adjust to this new role in all kinds of ways. The predictable difficulties all seem to be in her relationship to Marie and I and how we divide our attention between Mila and Drew. If Drew begins crying and needs to be held, Mila also gets upset and wants to be held. Sometimes she chooses to whine in place of using the words that she knows to express her feelings. A desire to return to the state of being a baby is understandable. Mila has also been more emotionally fragile in general, sometimes manifesting as a meltdown in tears after a simple attempt at correction or redirection on my part. Sometimes it manifests as anger toward me, with words such as "you go away RIGHT NOW!" Those last two words pop up more and more. Marie and I don't actually use those words in that way in our interactions with Mila, but somewhere Mila latched on to this expression as a way of affirming her strong personal will.

Marie and I are careful to provide Mila with special activities and outings that are just one of us and her, to avoid any hint of Mila's needs being de-prioritized. We are grateful that Mila is finally feeling better after a lingering cough and fever that kept her from playing with friends for most of these weeks since Drew was born. Yesterday, Mila's friend Charlotte came over and helped Mila fingerpaint her new cardboard castle that Marie put together. I have plans with Charlotte's dad, Paul, to take Mila and Charlotte to a couple of Orioles games- they have a subscription to discounted tickets in the kids' section. Mila has shown some degree of an interest in baseball during walks past the diamond in Patterson Park, and has had some fun with a balloon and a cardboard tube (see video above). Some time in the next week I am also hoping to go camping with Mila, Silas, and Ben (Silas' dad). It has been almost a year since Mila's first camping experience with me, described in the earliest days of this blog. Wow, it is amazing how much has changed in a year!

New Arrival

Andrew Leo Spangler was born in the last minutes of May 28. His introduction to the world in the operating room at Maryland General Hospital was not at all like the birth that we had been preparing for, the birth that started in our own home with a midwife and a heated tub, but we are on the other side of the mountain now. We are especially grateful to our midwife and her assistant who helped us navigate the unplanned entrance into the hospital, provided invaluable support, and stayed with us continuously for a day and a half.

Marie and baby Drew are now doing well now, though there is certainly a lot of emotional and physical healing that still lies ahead for Marie. Drew has made miraculous progress from his first moments of life on the outside, and joy has increasingly replaced stress as I have caught up on sleep (in a general sense). Mila has also revealed herself to be a perfect big sister, trembling as she controls all her impulses to squeeze her little brother, exhibiting a gentle and cautious touch as she pets his head. The future of this blog is now the story of a family of four.

Warm Weather Celebration

4 favorite spots for a Warm Spring Day in Baltimore: Our sidewalk in Mount Vernon (preferably with trike scooter or chalk), Federal Hill playground overlooking the Inner Harbor, the Maryland Zoo in Baltimore, Robert E. Lee park off of Falls Road.

Yes, the warm weather is here and we're very pleased. Aside from our much-needed time in the outdoors, Marie and Mila and I are getting our home ready for the new arrival, just a few weeks away! Our current favorite name for baby boy is Andrew Leo Spangler, or just Drew. We have all our supplies, but still have more mental and physical preparing to do. Mila is very excited and enjoys play acting interactions with her baby brother. It is quite a special time.

I probably won't be updating this blog very frequently in the next month or so, until our life with with our new family member develops its own groove. In the past month I have been doing a fair amount of "micro-blogging" on Twitter (to the neglect of this here blog), and I think I'm going to be giving that a rest as well. Until the next stage of the journey...