Will's first bath.

We gave Will his first bath this past week. We got a little behind schedule giving it to him because of the unplanned trip back to the hospital. Fortunately babies are resilient and he seemed no worse for the wear.

Will wasn't too happy with the bath, though he seemed to like the warm water. And he really liked it when I sat him up. Katherine even says he fell asleep like that, though I couldn't really tell. The whole thing was reminiscent of Lyla's first bath... just not as stressful for the adults.

It was good to see him all clean and shiny. His hair definitely is blondish, though the jury is still out as to whether he'll be blond haired/blue eyed (like his mom) or come over to the dark side, by which I mean dark brown hair, dark brown eyes (like his dad and sister). Either way, he is super cute.

Bath time, fun times!

Marveling at my little girl

*Cue Cats In The Cradle by Harry Chapin
It seems that just today Lyla has advanced developmentally in leaps and bounds. She's been more interactive, more attentive, more content, and more vocal over the past few days. But today she did three things that blew me away and brought a tear to my eye. (I know this is just PFS - Proud Father Syndrome, but three things all happening today made her seem so grown up and that just got to me.)

When I was feeding her peaches and apple sauce she grabbed the spoon and guided it into her own mouth. Wow. From what we've read that signals that she's starting to want to figure out how to feed herself. It was just neat, not too big.

The second thing was more impressive. I was sitting on the ground and letting Lyla sit on my crossed legs. I held my hands stationary in front of her and she proceeded to reach up and place her hands on each of mine (left on left, right on right). She then pulled herself up under her own power and stood up. It was awesome and she did it a number of times including twice starting from sitting flat on the ground.

The third was after bath time tonight she stood up again pulling herself up on my arm. She then turned and faced me, grabbed each of my thumbs in her opposite hand and walked about one foot towards me supporting herself (usually when she walks I provide counter force to steady her... not his time). In addition, she had this intense determination as she was walking. As if each step was a real triumph. When she finally did it (i.e. reached me) she had the most excited look on her face. She had done it!! It melted me. Big smile, teary eyes, visions of my little girl growing up into a young girl. I wish you could have been there to share it.

I love Bay View!!

I wanted to post more pictures from our trip. I love Bay View, our time there was great... a little emotionally overwhelming due to how much BV means in my life, my desires for it's continued importance in Katherine's and Lyla's lives, the need to coordinate between many interested people to invest in BV's future, the amount of work, time and money needed to restore/expand for growing families (our house in BV was built in 1896... that's old). Those are a few of the emotional threads that defined our trip. But I would not trade time spent there for anything.
Here are pictures:

The Schalk children and me tromping around the backyard:
Family portrait:
Lyla thinking about crawling (cute shirt Lyla!! thanks J.W.!!):
Lyla practicing standing (and giving Dad an opportunity to showcase the living room):


Lyla helping dad work:

Lyla's bathtub didn't fit in the car so we improvised:
Mmmm... carrots.... hrrummpphh. not enough teeth. dang it!
Lyla, all tuckered out after a walk:

Visiting Kevin's other family (on the left is my Aunt Natalie, she's my maternal grandmother's sister and thus my grandaunt. She and her husband, Uncle Homer, bought their house in BV in 1973 which is one block away from ours. On the right is my Aunt Hope, Natalie's daughter, my mom's cousin, my first cousin once removed and Godmother). I was really excited for Lyla to meet them because they're the closest living relatives to Lyla's grandmother and great-grandmother.


Yay Bay View!!!

Sittin' in the tub.

Guess who's a big girl and no longer needs a sling when she takes a bath??
Good work, baby.

Lyla is fun.

Katherine, Lyla and I are having a lot of fun growing together as a family. Well, we assume Lyla's having fun because she doesn't cry a whole lot. Here's a glimpse of the Ring Family Players rehearsing for an upcoming public service announcement Lyla's been asked to film. (sorry the video is sideways)

After rehearsal, Lyla went up for bath time (and mom and dad remembered to bring the camera). Here she is getting ready to undress (the green dino buddy is named Drew and the orange dino buddy is named Lyla):

And here she is in her tub. Yeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh Lyla! Woo woo! (yes, she's making her Chuck Norris face)

Good work baby.

Bath times are fun times... almost

The avid readers among you will remember that bath time did not start out as an enjoyable experience. After more practice and some adjustments to the bath time ritual, i think we're all figuring it out. Last night was the first time that Lyla took an entire bath without crying. I wouldn't go so far as to say that she enjoys it yet, but I think that day is not too far off. Probably the biggest change we've made (Katherine's suggestion... a mother's instinct is a force to be respected) is filling the tub with warm water high enough that Lyla is a little submerged in the sling that she sits in. I figure that the warmth of the water is far more soothing than the cold air in the bathroom on her naked little bottom. Katherine and I are getting quite good at cleaning her too: wipe the eyes, wipe the face, scrub the hands, then arms, then front, then legs, then wash the hair, then clean her bottom, rinse, lift her and wash her back and we're done. It's becoming quite a fluid process. The other boon we received last night was that Lyla slept 6 hours (from 11:30 pm to 5:30 am). We think that the bath helps and so we may make it a permanent part of the nightly routine.

I'm not going to post any pictures of bath time to go with the story (1. neither Katherine or I have had any free time during the bath to stop and take pictures; 2. Future Lyla probably wouldn't appreciate pictures of her in her birthday suit being posted, regardless of how cute she is). So instead, here's a recent video:

Playing dress-up

After bathtime last Friday night, Lyla decided to put on a pretty dress. Lyla's grandmother had gotten her a dress to wear when we took her home from the hospital. But at the time, packing up everything we had at the hospital took a long time and it was so cold out that we skipped putting on the dress. So, one week later, we finally got to see Lyla in her pretty dress.

I didn't know that there was a market for ironic baby clothes, but those pithy tee-shirts are all the rage these days, so why wouldn't young hipsters want their children to reflect their apathetic worldviews. It is a nice picture, right? Well, that was one of, oh I don't know, a bazillion shots that it took to get one when she wasn't howling (she's not a fan of bathtime yet). Take a look:


After a lot of crying and impromptu attempts to sooth Lyla, Kevin discovered two new methods: 1. Lyla seemed to like it when I lay gently across her; and 2. well, see for yourselves:

(<-) Almost have it!

Got it! (->)

Lyla Katherine Ring

Lyla Katherine was born December 4, 2007 at approximately 10:00 pm. She weighs 7 lbs 14 oz and is 20 inches long. Right now she has a good deal of brown hair (go Ring genes!) and dark eyes.

After a long day, Katherine had to have a cesarian, not because she or the baby were in danger, just because after about 2.5 hours of pushing the baby was facing sideways. Katherine was great, the doctors were impressed with how good she looked after all of that pushing. The rapid transition into cesarian was frightening but God is faithful and everyone is okay.

We've been out for about 1 hr 15 minutes and Katherine is resting. Lyla already pooped once and is going to eat soon. Here's some pictures and a video.