Adrenaline Rush

Last night at 11:47 pm, I was sleeping soundly - very soundly. The wind was gusting fiercely, but this didn't disturb my deep slumber. I had gone to bed quite late the night before, and I was making a serious effort to catch up on my Z's.

But it was at that very minute that Mac bolted up and let out a loud, barbaric vocalization.

I awoke in a panic. In the split second that followed, my first three thoughts were:
-someone is attacking us
-there is an animal in our bed
-Mac is having a seizure or some other medical problem.

My heart was pounding. But in this split second, Mac had flopped back down and was motionless and silent.

I paused a second, but Mac didn't move.

I shook hime gently. "Mac, are you ok?"

"hmmm? yeah," he muttered sleepily, without an ounce of concern in his voice. I, on the otherhand, had some concern.

"Mac, you just sat up and screamed."

"I stood up," Mac clarified. "I think I was dreaming."

"Mac, you've never done that before!"

"Yeah." he was completely non-plussed and almost instantly asleep.

I rolled over and tried to go back to sleep, but I was so alert I couldn't even close my eyes. My legs were twitching, my heart was racing; obviously my adrenal glands had gotten me prepared for a "fight or flight" situation. But my easily duped endocrine organs had apparently never considered that Mac might just be dreaming.

I tossed and turned. I considered getting up, but instead I watched the clock for the next two hours. I last remember looking at it at 2:15.

---

When my alarm went off this morning it didn't seem possible that the night had already passed. I hauled myself out of bed and into the bathroom. Mac was in there a few minutes later, earlier than I have seen him up in a month, and he was looking quite chipper.

"How'd you sleep?" I probed.

"Oh, pretty good. How about you?"

"Hmmmm..." I gave him a strange look.

"Not so good, huh? How come? the wind?"

I just kept staring with a strange look.

"What?!" He was clearly confused.

"You don't remember waking up?" I asked

"No."

"We even talked," I informed him.

"What did we talk about?" Clearly, no bells were ringing.

I decided to clue him in. "You got up and screamed."

"Oh. Was that just last night?" Umm, hello?,YES!

Mac now got interested: what did he do? what did he sound like? what did we talk about? I filled him in.

Then Mac says,"yeah, that was a weird dream," but he has no other details. But he does have a little bit more light to shed on the subject:

"My dad does that. I think he yells in his sleep almost every night."

Fantastic. I can't wait to go to sleep tonight.

Swim Time!

Megan and I have been attending swim time at the YMCA for the last 3 months or so. It's not called swim class, or swimming lessons because they don't actually teach anything. The actual name of the program is called "Parent/Child Water Acclimation" or something like that.

Meg loved the first 5-week session so much, that I sucked it up and decided to enroll again. It's not very much fun for dad. Each class is exactly the same. We sing songs, blow bubbles, and do hand motions for the first 10 minutes, then we play with toys for the next 10 minutes, and then we wrap up with some more songs, bubbles, and hand motions during the final 10 minutes. So, needless to say, after the 16th or so class, I'm ready for some new songs. Megan, however, hasn't learned the words to the original ones, so we'll keep going :)

Vital Stats

Magan had her one year check-up today:

Height - 28 1/4 inches (50%)
Weight- 20.6 pounds (40%0
Head Circumference: 46 cm (75%)

No more chunky jokes about Megan... we'll have to switch to big head jokes.

Megan's First Birthday

Megan had a wonderful first birthday.

We started the day with breakfast at the Original Pancake House here in Salem. This was very appropriate as Megan's first real outting was to the Portland Original Pancake House (at 5 days old). This time, though, Megan was chowing down pancakes.

We then tried to do some shopping at Toys-R-Us, but a hospital page cut our trip short. After a little detour to Salem General, we headed home for a nap.

Then the party started! Great Aunt Sharon and Mac's mom ('Mamaw') helped us celebrate. First there was ripping into gifts (and spending an excessive amount of time with the cards and bows instead of the box contents). Mac was extremely jealous that Megan got a tractor before he did!

Then Megan attacked the cupcake. Actually, this was pretty dull. Megan was criticized for being too neat, and I was criticized for choosing yellow cake instead of messy chocolate (but I don't like chocolate). The best part was the traditional birthday accordian serenade by Aunt Sharon, only the second time I've seen the performance (Mac and I have only heard it over the phone for our birthdays) - Megan could only give a wide-eyed stare at the bellowing box, but warmed up to it when she got to push the keys.

And on to the cake:

Megan needed us to feed her a bite before she figured out that she was supposed to eat the thing, but after that she put a good deal of it away-certainly enough to get hopped up on sugar!

Happy Birthday, Megabeth!

My Turn

B F FFFFFFFFFFFFGTgttttttttttttttttttttttttr676U fgcwwwaaaaaaaa`````````````a``````````4zzz32w

-Posted by Megan (hey it's her birthday, how could I say no?)

Bad Hair Day

As a mother, I really haven't wanted any advice. Mac and I feel like things are working pretty well for us. Truth be told if my kid is having trouble with something (like waking up at 4 am every morning two weeks ago, just as a hypothetical), I really don't want to hear about parents who kids started sleeping through the night at 3 weeks and I certainly don't want to hear about kids who never slept through the night. Sure I've asked a few questions here and there, but for the most part, I can google just about any child-rearing question I have.

But not this time. Over the last couple of weeks Megan has started a stage that left me completely perplexed. I had no idea how to handle it and there was absolutely nothing on the internet about the subject, so I turned to other mothers:

WHAT DO I DO ABOUT MEGAN'S HAIR??

She's got an unruly mess that is constantly flopping in her eyes, but I don't want to cut it or she'll never get a girl's do.

So here is the answer that I got from two moms:

Our Big Ess Wall

Mac did a great job of hanging everything for our Big Ess wall. What a great primary care giver!