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!