SörenMan

I've been wanting to upload this video for a while, but I'm just now getting around to it. (He's a much better walker now.)

Soren loves wearing capes and since we don't own any, Karl made do with what we had. I think this is the best super hero costume I have ever seen. And the best super hero.

As always, we're usually about 3 minutes too late in grabbing the video camera. Soren was walking around Superman style with his arms straight out just seconds before this. It's still pretty cute though. Here's Soren coming to save the day...

New Family Pictures

While my sister and her husband were here the first week of August, we spent their last day taking pictures at Jada Winery a mile from our parent's house in Paso. Although it was a super hot day, we were rushed to get ready and Soren wasn't in the most photogenic mood, Ken (our photographer) still managed to get some good pictures of the family all together. We have been begging our mom and dad to get updated pictures of the family for years and we (the kids) were all hating the outdated picture of us above the fireplace. Plus, we have a new little addition to show off now! So here they are...the updated Cashdan Family photos:

Mama Mia!

No, not the movie.

ME!

After several months of trying out all kinds of other words, Soren has finally been saying "Mama" and using it appropriately! This is a sweet sound to a first-time Mama's ears. It's usually when something's happening that he doesn't like, and he wants me to bail him out, but just yesterday he said it when I walked out the door for a second to take something outside. I could hear him run to the door and cry "mamamamamamama" until I came back. Super sad, but also super cool.

Now we've just got to work on getting him to say "Papa" to Karl. Then we'll both be happy campers. Unfortunately, Soren really loves to say his D's, not so much his P's.

When we decided to call ourselves "Mama" and "Papa" to Soren, we had no idea it would be such a hard concept for most people to follow along with. I do realize that most American families call the father "Dad" or "Daddy", but it seems like there are enough families doing the Papa thing that people wouldn't be so thrown by it. We were wrong. I guess it just figures since a lot of people are thrown by the name Soren too - why start making things easy on ourselves now? Whenever you do something out of the norm, people have a hard time adjusting. We both just really like the way "Papa" sounds and we hope Soren will start loving it (and saying it) soon too!

Science of Sleep

I've been doing a lot of thinking about sleep, especially because I have become increasingly more of a crazy sleeper and/or dreamer. Last night, Karl and I listened to a show on NPR about the fear of sleep as we played Scrabble. They had all kinds of stories from people who, for one reason or another, were afraid to fall asleep. One guy shared about his "disorder" that would cause him to act his dreams out while he was sleeping - a really bad case of sleep-walking. The final straw was when he jumped, not out of, but through a second-story hotel room window in the middle of the night because he was dreaming that he was about to be hit by a missile. How weird are our minds that we can come up with this stuff and we have the potential to actually carry them out in real life and not know it?

For the past several nights in a row, I've had a freak out about something in my sleep. Last night it was that Karl had to get up because he was going to be late. I started firmly tapping on his knee cap and insisting he check the time because he was going to be late to wherever he had to go. He told me he was not going to be late and that I should go back to sleep. I could not believe he was acting so non-chalant about being late. He didn't even care! He reluctantly checked the clock after telling me to be quiet and go back to bed. The time was 3:15am. Sorry babe! I was obviously dreaming, but Karl couldn't get back to sleep for a while after the hoopla. I have only vague recallections of this occurence and only after Karl announced that I will now be sleeping on the couch for my offense.

The night before last I woke Karl up at around the same time because I was convinced that there was a gigantic spider in the bed with us. I'm talking the size of a cat. I stood up on the bed and jumped over Karl's sleeping body and kept telling him very adamantly to get out of bed. He refused. I got so mad at him that he didn't care that there was a huge spider in the bed. He just told me that he couldn't get out of bed and I kept telling him that that's a ridiculous thing to say. Over and over we went back and forth until I woke up and realized that I was probably dreaming. I was still a little perturbed that he just flat out told me he couldn't get out of bed. I calmly climbed back over Karl and checked under the sheets - just to be sure there was indeed no spider cat in our bed - and fell back asleep instantly. I asked him about it the next morning and he vaguely remembers the ordeal, but he thought that it was hilarious that he told me he "couldn't" get out of bed.

Apparently, this kind of stuff happens a lot in our bed at night and it's becoming more frequent. The show we listened to mentioned that people who act out their dreams have a Dopamine deficiency so their bodies aren't able to regulate their sleep cycles. I'm not really sure if that could explain why this has been happening to me almost every night lately, but it's worth looking into I guess. I don't really want to sleep on the couch, and Karl's getting pretty tired of being woken up to me insisting that he get out of bed.

The last time this happened was when Soren was first born. Almost every night for 2 months, I would wake up sometime after having nursed Soren in bed, frantically try to find him in our sheets. Somehow my brain never remembered that I put him back in the co-sleeper after I was done feeding him and I was convinced that he was under our sheets. I felt the same exact panic that any parent would if they thought their baby had suffocated, except I was literally half asleep. Every night Karl would comfort me as I was madly tossing sheets all over the bed repeating "I can't find him...I can't find him!" Karl would ask me if he was in the co-sleeper and, of course, he always was.

Dreams are such a weird thing to me. We have other lives and crazy thoughts to live out that we would never have in our waking hours. I'm getting a little scared that my dreams aren't staying put in dreamland and although I know (or hope) this happens to everyone once in a while, my "episodes" are becoming more and more frequent. I guess I've got some research to do...

So Far So Good

Well, we made it successfully into August! It has been full of fun, family and driving so far. My family reunion in Cambria was really special and it brought back a lot of memories of growing up with all of my cousins. Apparently, there was a lot more singing in my family than in other families, because all of the "newer" in-laws seemed a little scared when we burst out in song. Of course Soren loved it and kept wanting to get ahold of my aunt's guitar during our sing-along. I think he's a great addition to my musical family.

Stancie and Adam leave in a couple of days and I'm amazed at how fast 10 days go by. I will post more pictures of their stay in a few days, but here's a teaser for you until then...

Soren has officially reached the age where he wants to try on shoes. He was adamant about getting into Uncle Adam's Vans...I love it!

July....You Don't Want to Hurt Me

We've almost made it through the month of July alive. It was a close one though.

Here's a little taste of our month:

• At the beginning of the month, Karl got food poisoning that lasted 2 days. At the same time, I got mastitis. Both of us were sicker than we had been in a long time and were completely useless.
  
• Right after our bouts with sickness, Karl took off for a 2 week tour of the Bay Area with his Construction Management summer class.
• Soren and I joined Karl for the 2nd half of his trip and stayed with my family in Pleasanton. I spent my days with Soren and my Aunt Christie, laying out by the pool, taking the dogs for walks, hanging out with my cousin and enjoying being away from my crazy life at home.
• Right after we got back from up north, we turned back around and drove to Santa Cruz for Karl's mom's family reunion. Karl's grandparents and aunt from Alaska got to meet Soren for the first time, and I got to meet a lot of people for the first time too!
• After the reunion Karl's parents, grandparents and aunt headed down our way to spend the week in Cambria. We somehow managed to see them every night they were here. By the end of their stay, Soren really warmed up to them and I think he understands that he's part of a really special family.
• Soren got 4 molars. The uppers were especially hard, giving him a fever of 102 degrees and making him the unhappiest he's ever been. We've had some looooooonnnggg nights this month.
• Soren learned three new things: 1.) How to eat with a spoon. 2.) How to throw a tantrum. 3.) How to give (close-mouthed) kisses.
• The last day of this month (tomorrow) will be a great end to a crazy month. My sister and her husband are flying into SLO for our family reunion. (Yes, a lot of reunions this month!) They will stay for 10 days, which will be their first trip back here together since Soren was born. Soren's already practicing all of his new skills to show off.

So there you have it, a little glimpse into our July. As you can see it was a pretty wild ride. Needless to say, we're looking forward to August!

Raaawr!

Karl and I have been reading a lot of Good Night, Gorilla to Soren lately. He loves when we make the sounds of the animals as we flip through the pages (the armadillo is a tricky one.) We noticed that Soren started repeating us when we would "raawr" for the lion. Of course, we thought this was the cutest thing ever to happen.

On Thursday when I was home alone with Soren, getting ready for work, I put him in his crib so I could take a shower. I set him up with some books (not Good Night, Gorilla though) and a bunch of toys to play with while he had some alone time. Here's what happened when I walked by his room after my shower.



This is just another example of us not giving him enough credit for the stuff he can do. Not only does he know what sound the lion makes, he can pick them out of any old book! We realize this is something every baby at this age can probably do - we're impressed anyway.

Since we have a lot of time alone at night due to Soren's 7pm bedtime, Karl and I LOVE watching videos of our little buddy after he's gone to bed. This one has just topped the list!

P.S. Notice that whine and expressive eyebrow raising and furrowing? I'm getting a LOT of that lately....welcome to toddlerhood!