Musical Prodigy?

So I'm always a little behind on blogging but here's a quick entry of something that happened back in March. I've really wanted to get back into practicing my violin regularly and pulled it out one day and started to tune it. Jaren would have been about 2 1/2 months old, and he laid there and listened and seemed content. And then I started playing and this was his reaction.

Oh the poor little guy. Ha-ha, I'll blame it on him being startled by the volume of the violin and not my skill in playing it. After I calmed him down I was able to hold him and play a little so he would get used to it, then went on to my regular practice. 

I was always impressed with how my mom was a great example at developing her talents while being a stay-at-home-mom. I want to be the same example to my children. So here's to still improving my talents and hopefully teaching Jaren to love music at the same time.

Passport Photos

Jaren needed passport photos.
Requirements:

• Facing forward
• Looking at the camera
• Eyes open
• No red-eye
• Mouth closed
• No tongue showing
• Not overly smiling
• No hands or other extremities visible

SERIOUSLY! Have any of them tried to get a baby to fit all of these requirements at once? We only took about 200 shots before getting some to work. Much to my dismay Varian took some "practice" shots with him in outfits I didn't want to use; the white onesie because white on white really washes a person out :) and the red outfit because he had already spit up heaps in it that day and looked all crusty.

In the end this is the photo I voted for: (Look at that darling face!)

But Varian was worried that the head tilt would be too much and so he let the evil-post office lady talk him into this one:  

Oh it's ok, but it's not nearly as cute. He looks a little sickly with that white against white and double chin. Sigh. I'm such a sucker for photos and memories and records. I would have much preferred the first one. But I wanted to include on this post some of the blooper shots that I think are so hilarious or just plain darling. So I hope you enjoy:

Baby Surgery

This is kind of old news for most of you, but Jaren had surgery back in March and we had to sleep over at the Mater Hospital so they could keep him attached to all these monitors. (The hide-a-bed-chair below is where I slept...good times.) He had two inguinal hernias and I was grateful that we caught them early on and for all of the doctors that helped us find and take care of them. 

My GP was awesome especially and when she found out that we were concerned she instantly ordered us ultrasounds to find out for sure if he had the hernias. I really felt like she was going to bat for us and it was reassuring.

Also two thumbs up for all the really great people at Mater Hospital and how great they were to us and how quickly they got him into surgery. You know people in the states are really anti socialized medicine but we've really been blessed here with our medical care! 

I felt pretty calm going into his surgery - before hand was harder when he seemed like he was in pain and there wasn't much we could do about it. It was hard not to second guess things. Are you still hungry or is it those mean hernias? Are you tired or is it just those hernias?...etc. You can imagine. Poor little boy. But the surgery went really well and he did great. The following pictures are him the next morning. Obviously he's not in that much pain, or he's just really excited to play with all those fun cords.

 

(So seriously I really want to blog but when I try it drives me bonkers. The photos won't go where I want them to and draft never looks like the preview and neither look like the final post and I spend all this time trying to fit things in and they look different anyway which makes me frustrated. At times I think I should stop trying but then I see the published post and the format bugs me so I go back and try and fiddle with it until it looks less stupid. Has everyone just accepted that it won't cooperate or am I not doing something right? For example I kept clicking on a photo and then would click on it to be centered but instead it would just disappear. Now why would it do that? I try to drag photos around but they rarely will follow and then end up in weird places. The writing will look one way on the draft and then have big spaces or breaks on the published post. I end up just posting to see what it really looks like and then re-editing it till it's finally decent, or less annoying. I think I would be able to post a lot more if I didn't have to waste so much time on just trying to get the layout of my post to do what I want. Any tips???)