Reasons To Get Out of Bed When You Should Be Sleeping

Lyla just called down from the top of the stairs:

"Mommy, my nails are getting a little bigger!"

The Unbearable Cuteness of Lyla

Lyla waking up from her afternoon nap.

Lyla being super cute.

Last weekend

Last weekend, Katherine's mom (who had been in Grand Rapids since Will had been born) went home to Marion, IN and took Lyla with her. When she asked if Katherine and Iwanted her to take Lyla for the weekend, we were conflicted and had mixed feelings. Katherine's never been away from Lyla for multiple days, while I have had to be away for days at time before for work. So we both didn't want her to go because we knew we'd miss her. On the other hand, Katherine was still recovering and the idea of taking care of Katherine, Will and Lyla was daunting. So in the end, we decided to let our little bird fly and spent Thursday through Monday just me, Katherine and Will.

While we did miss Lyla a lot (I mean A LOT!), it was a relief to have some low-energy, quiet time. In fact, one day at lunch Will was sleeping and I said to Katherine, "The lack of noise is almost deafening. What did we used to do before Lyla?" Her answer: talk to each other... seems vaguely familiar.

The weather was somewhat nice a few of the days so we did get outside for a short walk up to the corner and back. Here we are at the apex of our walk:
Here's Katherine and Will getting ready.

Here's Will in the awesome hoodie that Mandy loaned us (Ian sure is a stylish kiddo).

Another shot of cute Will.

And here's our first thought as to what Will could wear if we took him outside. Unfortunately it was bigger than we needed. Which is too bad because he sure is cute in it. It reminds me of another cute kid I know...

Will falling asleep.

Just because.

Babies have it pretty easy, don't they?

We are home

After a tenuous Monday-night and Tuesday, with Katherine's recovering seeming to run into some minor (and not uncommon) complications, Wednesday turned the corner and Katherine's body sprinted to the finish line, recovering well enough that they let us go home at the usual time. So the morning was spent reviewing instructions from nurses (e.g. cover the front when changing a diaper or you could get an unpleasant surprise), packing up our things (we brought a bunch of things to the hospital and received a bunch of things at the hospital... like a baby), and waiting for Patient Transport to wheel Katherine and Will out to the car.

That last part took a long time... not sure if "Patient" refers to who is being transported or a recommended state of being while you wait for them to arrive. They came, they wheeled her out, we loaded the car, we started driving, Will started crying, we made it home. Hurray!!!

Waiting...

On our way out!!

Home!!!


Our time at home has been great so far. The first night home with Lyla we were up all night trying to get her to sleep. So our expectations were pretty low. And we were pleasantly surprised. Katherine slept on the couch, I slept on the air mattress and Will slept in his cradle which I had set up in the living room. We'll probably do the same set up tonight while Katherine is still recovering (it's difficult for her to sit up on her own in our bed). Today we sat around, playing with Lyla and taking care of will. I tried to get back to work... it took me seven hours to write one email (granted I had to look up a lot of the information I was communicating in the email, but frequent interruptions to change diapers, tend to Lyla, help Katherine, etc. didn't help).

Katherine's mom has been here since Sunday taking care of Lyla and she's staying for awhile. Having her here has been great, a huge help. Katherine's dad is coming up tonight to meet his grandson and stay a few days.

Hopefully, Katherine will be back to normal soon, save the mandated restrictions like not lifting more than the weight of Will in the car seat. I know that Lyla wants to get back to climbing all over her and it's hard to keep an eye on Lyla so she doesn't kamikaze right toward Katherine before Katherine is well enough to handle it.

If you're in Grand Rapids and want to visit, call and let us know. We're thinking that we'll be up for visitors starting tomorrow. I know Will can't wait to meet all of you!

Here's more photos:

In my exhausted state, I totally poored my cup of water on Lyla while she was sitting on my lap right before bed. She forgave me, then proceed to prance around sans clothes for about 10 minutes before she went night-night.

Goofing off with dad!

Yay! Family! I am the luckiest man in the world!

The kid sleeps a lot!

The Tale of Little Blue Overalls Skirt*

Once upon a time there lived in a certain village a little country girl, the prettiest creature who was ever seen. Her mother was excessively fond of her; and her grandmother doted on her still more. This good woman had a little blue overalls skirt made for her. It suited the girl so extremely well that everybody called her Little Blue Overalls Skirt.

One day her mother said to her, "Go, my dear, and see how your grandmother is doing, for I hear she moved to within a 4-hour drive from you. Take her a kiss, and this little poofy side ponytail."

Little Blue Overalls Skirt set out immediately to go to her grandmother, who lived in another village (Marion, IN).

When she arrived she noticed all of the boxes stacked all around her house. "Grandmother, what big stacks of boxes you have!"

"All the better to move close to you with, my child."
"Grandmother, what a pretty bird you have!"

"All the better to make you smile with, my child."
"Grandmother, what tiny chairs you have!"

"All the better to entertain you with, my child."
The next day, Little Blue Overalls Skirt returned home after a wonderful time at Grandmother's and Grandfather's house. She was all tuckered out from the exploring and playing and reading that she did there. So she grabbed her bear, Bear, and went to sleep.

The end.

*Liberally borrowed from "Little Red Riding Hood" by Charles Perrault

Nap time.

As Lyla gets bigger little behaviors/mannerisms/etc. start developing that make her seem more and more like a little girl (as opposed to a baby). For example, when sleeping, she will role all around in her crib often ending up in some really funny sleeping positions. See for yourself:

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!!!

China trip wrap-up

The end of my trip was long and uneventful. I was scheduled to leave Xiamen Friday, May 30 at 2:15 pm local time. The general advice for international flights is to arrive 2 hours before hand. (Dad don't kill me, but) I arrived 15 minutes before my plane boarded. The challenge is the fairly rigid 12 - 1 pm lunch time that Chinese workers (at least the companies I was interacting with) maintain. Regardless of the reason, I got to the airport, checked in, rushed to Immigration only to have the police officer at Immigration take what felt like 20 minutes to scrutinize my passport. I think it is because I have a new passport and they've upgraded the design. I couldn't tell her to hurry up (both because of the language barrier and because any effort to speed up the process only would lengthen it).

Finally she let me through and I run to security. I had myself streamlined for getting through, with my laptop and toiletries at the top of my luggage, and quickly went through the security. I usually don't take my insulin out of my pocket because it doesn't set off the detector. Well, this time it did, so I had to take it out and when the security guard took of the lid her face became instantly alerted when she saw the needle. She showed it to another guard who also was alerted, then a third. Finally they go over to the guy running the x-ray machine and show it to him. Though I don't know what he said, he was non-plussed and basically told them it's both legitimate and common. So they gave it back to me and off I went to my plane.

Fast forward, slight rain delay, easy flight, land in Japan. Can't figure out where the ride I'm supposed to be getting to the hostel I reserved. Spend two hours exchanging money, asking people at different desks, making phone calls, waiting, making more phone calls, and finally getting picked up by Takashi. So Takashi is the owner/operator of:

Narita Airport Hostel
326-6 Takada, Shibayama
Narita, Japan
Tel: 81476285875

The reason I include the address and phone number is because I strongly recommend to anyone flying through Narita. Takashi is a former backpacker (having spent 3 years traveling around AsiaPac) and really wanted to start a hostel that quite simply cost less to stay at. So that's what he did. He set his price point at half of what the other local hostels cost (~US $15 compared to $30). But the thing is he offers accommodations and service that far exceeds the other place. For one, he picks you up from the airport. He also offers rides if needed. He took me by McDonald's on the way to the hostel b/c I hadn't had any dinner. I don't know, I just liked it so much more. I also enjoyed talking to him. This is a video of Takashi and Min (a fellow returning to S. Korea from a trip all around the US) and I talking on the way to the airport on Saturday).

All in all it was just nice to spend some time with a nice guy in the middle of my trip. Especially since I was traveling alone and so didn't have anyone to talk to most of the time.

My second flight went fine, it was 11 hours long. I left Japan at 10:45 am on Saturday and arrived at 8:20 am on Saturday. Because I crossed the International Date Line, my Saturday was something ridiculous like 37 hours long. I spent Saturday (in the States) forcing myself to stay awake. Sunday I went to church and waited to be reunited with my family. Katherine and Lyla had gone to Ohio for the weekend for Katherine's cousin's wedding. They got back around 6 pm on Sunday and fortunately both of them still recognized me. They both smiled real big when they saw me.

Being away from my girls was the hardest part of the trip. Both because I missed them but also because I wanted to share all the new experiences and great conversations with them. Katherine really is my partner in the fullest sense of the word and I know that every great thing that happened in China would have been better if she had been a part of it. Fortunately I'm pretty sure the Lord has plenty of adventures planned for us, but right now I'm glad to be home.

Various photos from Japan:
Takashi
Dining area at hostel:
The hostel is in a converted restaurant:
Screen in my bedroom:
Surrounding rice paddies:

Eating is hard work.

I know this is cruel, to exploit my daughter for cheap laughs, but this was hilarious and needs to be shared.

We've been feeding Lyla solid foods for a couple weeks now. Every night around six she gets a meal of rice cereal mixed with some sort of mushed fruit (so far it's been either bananas or pears, I think peaches are being introduced tonight). Every night Lyla's level of interest and hunger has been different, making the feeding unique every time. For example, two or three days ago she apparently was starving and end up eating two servings. She just wouldn't stop eating and would yell in between bites (as if she was saying, "GET IN MY BELLY!!!). Super cute, kind of disturbing.

And then there was this... Poor girl had had a long day and could barely continue. See for yourself:

Spring was here.

Spring is here!! Or was here, it's rather confusing because it got nice out. Then over the course of like three days everything in Grand Rapids bloomed. Then it got hot out (granted it was hot on my San Diego temperature scale... so like mid-80's. It's going to take some readjusting when the 90+ degree whether gets here).

But then, out of the blue (or gray, rather) Fall decided that it wanted a piece of the action. Temperatures dropped to the 50's, then the 40's, then the 30's. Rain fell. Snow threatened. Until we finally succumbed and turned the heat back on in our house. Fortunately, I think it's temporary. And soon we'll be back outside enjoying the verdant beauty of Grand Rapids. I'm sure you all remember what the outside looked like in February. This is the view out our front door now. Beautiful.

One benefit of the nice weather (while we had it) was that we got to spend a lot of time outside. It seemed like Lyla and Katherine were taking walks outside everyday. Their number one "going for walks" buddies are our new neighbors (Mandy and their one-year-old Ian). But Katherine has managed to invite practically everyone she knows to go on a walk with her. Part of the reason is that we got passes for the season to Meijer Gardens. Instead of getting the second pass in my name, we got a general guest pass so Katherine can invite anyone she wants. I think if you average it out, she's gone every other day for the past two weeks.

Here are Katherine and Lyla standing in front of some tulips in the Gaslight Village.

Here's Lyla laying out at a nearby park.

Here's Lyla all tuckered out after a long day of getting pushed around in the stroller. Rough life that kid has.

So as you can see the nice weather has been fantastic and after being cooped up all winter, we've fully embraced spending time outdoors. It's also been nice just to be able to explore our community. The first 4 or so months of Lyla's life were pretty much spent in our apartment. So we're really grateful to get out and explore with her.

But, like I mentioned, it's gotten cold again. Hopefully it won't last too long. We hadn't packed away winter stuff yet, so it hasn't been too hard for Katherine and I to go back to putting on jackets and long sleeves.

It's been a little more difficult for us to dress Lyla because it seems like in the past month, the warm weather came and we no longer needed to dress Lyla in a onesie, a jumper, and an outer-layer. But over that period of time she's grown like an inch or two longer. So she doesn't fit into a lot of the jumpers we have. And we don't have that many long-sleeve onesies that are in the 3 to 6 month size. Fortunately, we have enough to get by; but if the weather stays cold, Lyla's not going to be exhibiting too much variety in her outfits.

I wanted to show this one that she wore on Saturday. It was a gift from her cousin (not sure if either Emily or Allison wore it because you don't really need long sleeves all that much in Texas and Georgia). Anyway, it's girl camouflage. Girly because it has a pink ribbon on the shoulder and says "Cutie" in pink on the front; yet practical... for when you take your baby hunting... which I can't imagine we'll do. But after all, this is Michigan. Anything can happen.

The trip to Dallas

We left on Saturday after a day with Laura and Andy and a rushed lunch and headed to the Detroit airport. Getting through the airport with 5 bags, 1 stroller/carseat and 1 3.5 month old was not as difficult as we feared that it would be. Laura and Andy dropped us off and we toted everything up to the ticket counter, got checked in and headed off to the gate. The security check was also pleasantly easy to get through other than having to put everything through the x-ray machine. They even made Lyla take her shoes off!!! Picture to the right is of Lyla looking very excited to have made it through security with being "randomly" selected for a bag check.

Safely through the security check we headed off to our gate and to get some much needed coffee. Lyla was very good as we sat at the gate. She and I sat there while Katherine got coffee and then figured out the procedure for gate-checking our stroller/carseat. Here we are waiting for them to board our plane:
After a short-ish wait, they called our flight. We thought we would be able to preboard but they never announced any preboarding for "families with small children that may need a little extra time." So I was disappointed about not getting to take advantage of that. Not that boarding was difficult, Katherine and I were able to handle it pretty well. We went down the ramp, left our stroller/carseat at the end of the ramp, headed to our seats, and got settled in no problemo. Lyla was good the whole time, looking around at all the new things:

We were a little apprehensive about the take-off disturbing Lyla because of the change in pressure. Katherine was all set to start feeding her in order to force her to swallow and relieve the pressure build-up. As you can see, our concerns were unfounded:

The flight was very uneventful, the highlights included 6 foot 6 inch Kevin changing diapers in the lavatory and Lyla reading Sky Mall magazine. -->

We were a little anxious for that Lyla would get upset as we were landing but again our concerns were unfounded and she fell asleep as we were making our approach to DFW. I think Katherine and I were both pleasantly surprised at how easy the trip had been. We were both expecting any of the travelling with small children nightmares you hear about: inconsolable crying, massive spit up, out of control dirty diapers... but Lyla was perfect. She set the gold standard for air travel (a standard that would prove very difficult to live up to... tune in for the post about our flight back for a polar-opposite version of this story).
We arrived, de-planed, picked up our stroller/carseat and headed to the baggage claim. Katherine's parents (who came to pick us up) decided to park and come meet us so we had a nice visit while waiting for the luggage (I also appreciated the help carrying bags). Katherine's Dad had never met Lyla so that was neat (since the main purpose for the trip was to have Lyla meet 77% of our immediate family, it was great to have that start as soon as we arrived). Grandpa was super excited to see Lyla (so was Grandma) and Lyla was super excited to see them (though this kicked off a week of Lyla having to deal with people unfamiliar to her). After a long day of travel, we were glad to have arrived safely and without incident and were super glad to be in a familiar home with a bed to crash into.