I write this with the disclaimer that I know I have not written a post regarding Bjorn’s first birthday, July 29th.  This post is the consolation prize–13 months today–August 29!  Lucky 13.

Bjorn had a very busy July and August.  He traveled across the country, up and down the state of California, went on his first major hike, reconnected with old friends (hi, Grace!) and somehow managed to turn one-year-old!  We’re in such a fun time with him right now–he loves to belly laugh (especially when you tickle his armpits or ask him what a cow says–I THINK those are mutually exclusive).  He could spend hours on the swing at the park. I’m not kidding about that.  If you keep pushing him on the swing, he’ll be happy for approximately forever.  Also–he is pseudo walking!  He loves to try and navigate the dangerous territory between mom and dad’s outstretched arms by himself.   Its so fun to watch him start to stretch his independence–and, I won’t lie–its also a little scary.  You turn your back in this house and Bjorn is climbing up the stairs or trying to climb in the dishwasher.   Its sometimes hard to reconcile the need to say “no” to everything with the knowledge that I should let him explore and learn about the capabilities of his little human self.

Here are some videos of him walking in California.

And just in case you were wondering–yes, that is his only outfit.  Overalls and a white onesie.

Our trip to California was fantastic (once we finally got there–I’ve recounted the terrible no-good story of our outward bound trip so many times that if I write it here I’ll just get angry again so we’ll just confirm that it was horrible and leave it at that).   We spent much time with Nonno and Nonni and saw many of our wonderful California friends. On Bjorn’s actual birthday we went to a Padres game versus the nasty evil high-payrolled but lacking in talent Dodgers (but let me tell you how I really feel)–and the Padres won!  This was obviously because Bjorn was in attendance.  Over the weekend, Nonno and Nonni hosted a fantastic family birthday for Bjorn in which Bjorn promptly decided to take a nap for a majority of the party.  That’s just how he rolls.  We had tied a balloon around his waist in order to be able to find him in the milieu of relatives which was marginally successful.  He had a great time with Cousin Caroline who trekked down from Westwood.  He was a little unsure of Gruncle John and Uncle Scary…which really just re-enforces that he has great judge of character (I kid, I kid).   Let me also tell you that Lars also spent HOURS putting together a rocket-ship birthday cake for him. It was FANTASTIC—and when it came time for Bjorn to demolish it as is the fashion for first birthdays–he could not care less.  We ended up having to put a Ritz Cracker on the cake in order for Bjorn to even touch it.  He was skeptical of this whole “birthday cake” trick and he let us know.  At the end of the night he was swimming in toys and books and scoots (oh, the scoots!) and was a pretty happy camper.

Here he is being ambivalent about birthday fun!

And here is a video showing what amazing parents Lars and I are.

The in between of our trip was spent in the beautiful Eastern Sierras and cold cold (but beautiful) San Francisco!  We packed our bags on Tuesday and headed up the scenic highway 395.   Bjorn did great on one of the longer car trips he’s been on–but it did really seem like divine intervention when he was just losing it and we crossed a crest into Lone Pine and the first thing we saw was a playground–right at the base of the Eastern Sierras and on a lake.  It may be revisionist history but I think there were even rays of sun shining down on it and angels singing?  We stopped and took a little swing and then made the final push for Bishop where we were staying that night. The next morning we hiked Little Lakes Valley–a trail Lars and I did back in 2006 and recalled being easier than it ended up being.  Maybe we were just in better shape back then.  Okay, I KNOW we were in better shape back then.  7.2 miles gorgeous hiking miles later, we were back in Bishop just hanging out with the family.  We went for pizza that night where Bjorn enjoyed flirting with the waitress (he was able to bamboozle free black olives and bread out of her) and watching all the semi-trucks caravan up HWY 395.

The next day we parted ways with Nonno and Nonni and started our trek to San Francisco via Mammoth Lake and Tioga Pass/Yosemite.  Coming into San Francisco, we saw all the giant windmills just east of the city.  They might as well have been a ceiling fan farm–Bjorn was enamored with this magical land of ceiling fans that just grew out of the ground!  We finally made it into San Francisco late Thursday night.  We were, very generously, offered lodging at my very good London-Town friend, Paul’s, beautiful house and came in and promptly trashed the place.  I think I’m just kidding  but with a baby, its hard to tell.  My gauge for what’s clean and what’s not has changed a little.  We also managed to be the least classy people in all of San Francisco–because after a long drive over the mountains and at 9:30pm at night–we took our ridiculously dirty and barefoot baby into a Taco Bell/KFC Combo restaurant and ate bean and cheese burritos.  Willingly.

The next day we would start our adventures with Kate & Grace all over the Embarcadero and Fisherman’s Wharf.  Carousel rides, playing at the park and nonsense and mayhem would ensue.  Unfortunately, Bjorn is up from his nap so this post will just have to be a TO BE CONTINUED…you can blame it on the little guy.

Bjorn recently celebrated his first birthday!  Hooray!  Unfortunately, he has lame parents haven’t been able to update about that OR our trip to Sunny (and not-so-sunny) California in over a month.  However, I had to share this fun gift he received from his buddy Minal who also happens to be a PhD student at the University of Michigan School of Public Health.  Either Bjorn is a genius or Minal takes it down a knotch whenever they interact. Hard to tell.

For Christmas, Minal gave Bjorn toy vegetables–including an ear of corn, tomato, carrot and a potato.  For his birthday, we received a grocery basket full of toy vegetables plus a birthday card with golden retriever puppies on it.  In said card it reads:

Dear Bjorn,

I thought I would get you this card because these puppies are as cute as you are.  Wanted to wish you a very happy first birthday!  This is an extremely special occasion.  Obesity is becoming a major problem among children and adolescents.  I hope you have lots of fun with this gift and teach all of your friends at Gretchen’s House how important it is to eat fruits and vegetables.  Hope you have a very fun-filled birthday!

Your friend, Minal

Bjorn, if you head Minal’s advice–let me just add that tomatoes aren’t vegetables and that if you eat too many carrots you’ll turn orange. 

Photos…soon?

So, of course a very important hike that Lars and I did back in September of 2007 was Marcellina Mountain where we got engaged at the top.

We can only assume that Bjorn understands he will need to be a hearty hiker to roll in this family so he is starting his regiment of practicing for elevation gain early…We usually just let him crawl around on our pretty baby-proof first floor (there’s no escaping the allure of the TV and DVD player no matter how hard we try).  Anyway, yesterday morning we went looking for Chubs and found him mid-flight up the stairs–precariously getting from one step to the next.

Who Me?

About to Summit.

So, they say that most climbing accidents don’t happen on the ascent–they happen on the descent.  Because climbers are so tired and not as focused or, in Bjorn’s case, just don’t know how the eff to get back down without going face first.  We’ll have to work on this.

Not too long after I wrote my last post about how we had to schedule a doctor’s appointment for Bjorn due to the wheezing he was experiencing, the ER called and said that a radiologist had found in the x-ray something that would indicate a foreign object was trapped in his lung. We would later discover that they thought they saw a pocket of air in the lung which would indicate that something was blocking air-flow. Regardless, they told us not to have Bjorn eat or drink anything for the next hour while the pediatric surgeon (!!!) reviewed the x-ray and that they would call us back.

In hindsight, I should have asked more questions but I think I just wasn’t really processing correctly what the nurse was telling me. Surgeon?! Are they going to cut my little baby up? Luckily, we were able to get in touch with our pediatrician who pulled up the x-rays and told us that they were probably just trying to do a bronchoscopy (sp?) where they would have had to put Bjorn under general anesthesia and search his longs and then, if they found something, pluck it out. STILL–a scary procedure.

One visit to the ER and five hours later, Bjorn does not need a procedure. The surgeon and attending concurred that Bjorn was wheezing on the exhale rather than the inhale which did not indicate a foreign object. What it does indicate and a word we’ve been hearing a lot more frequently in our multiple doctor’s visits is “asthma”. Bjorn was sent home with a tiny inhaler and a spacer and a face mask and we have to do breathing treatments with him now twice a day. We went to see a pediatric asthma specialist on Saturday morning and were told if wheezing were to occur again (Bjorn has wheezed before in the winter months) that he would need to become a regular asthma patient. So….that’s where we stand now! We have a follow-up appointment with our regular pediatrician next week and hopefully Bjorn will be breathing pretty again, soon. If he has asthma–well, we’ll just cross that road when we get there–but I know we have great resources in the Ann Arbor area to help him if he does.

We almost made it to the one year mark without every having taken Bjorn to the ER.  Alas, this statistic is no longer on the table as we made our way through the sliding glass doors of the UM Pediatric ER late last night to get my little Bjorn Monster checked out.

It felt a little weird to be going to the ER.  He was actually in a great mood!  He was smiling and alert and cuddly and kind of babbling to himself–all signs of a happy little guy.  However, we had had a pesky wheeze all evening and it seemed to be getting worse and worse and was accompanied by a wet-sounding cough.  Happy little Bjorn was obviously getting pneumonia or on the verge of a massive asthma attack in my mind.  So, we checked with the on-call nurse if she told us wheezing in infants is a one-way ticket to the ER if we felt like we needed to go….so we bundled up (actually we stripped down–its friggin HOT here) and made the trek across town.

(Side note–what do people who live in rural areas DO when their little guys are wheezing!?!  I mean, if its an hour plus trip to the ER it would be a lot harder decision to go, right?  Or maybe its not and you just do it!  Either way, I’m happy we live a five minute drive from a top tier hospital).

We checked in, got triaged, and Bjorn started putting the charms on pretty much everyone with a pulse.  He was dancing and singing and so happy.  Other triaged patients with probably much more severe claims probably thought we came to the ER just to mock them–he was THAT happy there.  He likes to stand on his two little feet and rock side to side and smile and laugh.  He especially likes to do this for nurses.  What an attention seeker!

Our resident checked us out and determined that we were hearing a pretty strong wheeze in Bjorn’s chest–but it was only in one location so they figured he might have swallowed something that was obstructing his airway passage.  (Additional side note–our resident was obviously amazing because he was from UCLA and I wanted to give him the UC secret handshake but since I am pretty sure that doesn’t exist I just kept my mouth shut).   He ordered a chest x-ray to see if they could see a foreign object and so then, we waited some more.

While waiting–no fewer than four doctors or nurses came into our room and said “I hear there is a cute dancing baby in here!”. I should have taken a picture, too–because right before we came to the ER, Bjorn had had a bath.  And I just towel dried his hair.  Which was sticking straight up in random odd places.  He looked punk rock.

The chest x-ray was traumatic.  For me, that is.  They strapped Bjorn into this little seat and took both his arms and strapped them straight up into the air and put a frigging  CHIN STRAP on him.  He literally was stuck in the “put your hands in the air where I can see them” position nearly naked with a CHIN STRAP on.  Oy vey.

Radiologist couldn’t find anything so the resident thought we might try a nebulizer with a spacer (?)…but by this time Bjorn was asleep on our chests and when he checked him for the wheezing it was completely gone (this was at around 11:45pm).  He was just sleeping peacefully–waiting to do his tiny dance again.   We were released with orders to call the doctor tomorrow (today) if the wheezing comes back (which it has) and if he gets a fever (which he does–low grade!).  Sounds like it will be another fun day of doctor’s visits and Bjorn doing his thang.

So, how long do we let Bjorn go without taking a bath before Lars and I are technically considered bad parents? 2 Days? 3? How about 6? Because I think that’s what day we were on when I finally caved and put him in the tub today. A good scrub-down with some baby wash and he’s good as new! Every night this past week its been one reason or another as to why we shouldn’t wash him. He are some of them:

• He’s going to daycare tomorrow, where he will inevitably just sit in a pile of mud and eat sand all day long.
• Why give him a bath now when he’s just going to eat a graham cracker later and get crumbs of graham cracker goodness stuck all over his face, hair, god knows where else?
• My back hurts
• I think the baby pool counts as a bath?
• My back still hurts

Anyway–it was a major accomplishment today to get him into the tub.  He friggin LOVES bathtime so I don’t know why I don’t just let him get in the tub more often.  Oh yeah, I know–because it is SO BORING.  I mean, its okay if you have a good book to read.  Also Bjorn tries to stand now, regardless of the imminent doom he faces from trying to stand on a slick porcelain surface with limited agility.  So that, too, is a challenge.  I really should keep my little man more clean, though. New Year’s Resolution?

Things are good in Ann Arbor.  We’ve really been enjoying our new home and especially its proximity to downtown.  This weekend I woke up on a beautiful Saturday morning and Bjorn and I headed down to get a cup of coffee at Sweetwaters.  Then we headed over towards Zingerman’s where I picked up some pecan cranberry bread (umm so good!).  Lastly, we strolled through the Farmer’s market where blueberries were in full swing as were bouquets of beautiful flowers.  We picked out a bouquet of orange butterfly flower with some baby’s breath.  Back home at 9:30am and I felt rejuvenated and full of life’s bounty and all that poetic wholesome nonsense.  But truly, I felt so thankful that our community offers us the opportunity to have these wonderful niches of time.  Saturday mornings at the farmers market with my sweet baby boy are just special times.

Michigan summers create for beautiful flowers.  I’ve included some photos of Bjorn in our backyard among the hydrangeas that are just so fantastic to look at.

My little wild thing...tamed by the hydrangeas

"Not sure why dad put me here to take my photo...."

Mommy needs to remember to put her hair in a pony tail the next time she decides to give Wild Thing a piggy back ride. He is a big fan of using hair as "reigns"--piggy back ride not required.

After a couple of intense weeks of moving into our new home, we thought we were finally over the hump of chaotic activity.  Our boxes are unpacked, our furniture assembled (save the sofa we are anxiously awaiting from IKEA), and we’re, for the most part, effectively “living” in our new place.  The only chaos we thought we had left was the details.  For example, our living room table is covered with paper and boxes right now-we’re just trying to figure out where to put things that don’t really have a place, yet.  We’ll get there.  It wasn’t going to happen this week, though.  I’ll tell you why. Illness.

Last Saturday evening, Bjorn ended up with a 103 degree fever which, let me tell you, was maybe the scariest night of Lars and I’s life.  When people use the term “burning up” they aren’t kidding!  Bjorn was on fire–so hot and all he wanted to do was cuddle with Lars and I.  He wanted nothing of his crib, of lying by himself…no, he wanted to lie on top of us.  Poor baby. Often times during the heights of the fever, he would have minor muscle spasms where his legs and arms would twitch and his little body would shudder.  Scary stuff.  We had talked to the on-call nurse and she said to just keep pushing the fluids and to give him motrin, which we did–but it seemed to not give him much relief.  By morning, the fever had gone down significantly and we thought the worst was over.  He still had a low-grade fever and was definitely not himself but we knew we could deal with this level of illness.  The week has since been a slow return to health and we’re still not there. On Friday, after a couple projectile vomits and a scare with dehydration we went to the doctor who gave us the action plan of  spoon feeding Bjorn for four hours with pedialyte…a teaspoon every five minutes.    Meanwhile, Lars comes home, mentions not feeling very well, goes upstairs to lie down, and doesn’t emerge until 10am the next morning.  The reason-the stomach flu.  And it was a doozy…I asked Lars how he was doing at 11pm after Bjorny had finally gone down and I believe the direct quote is “I want to die”.  Glad he’s not in pain now but still can’t really stomach anything other than saltines, water and gatorade. Boo!

We all seem to be on the mend now (I’ve said this before this week so who knows how true it is)…and hopefully we’ll be one hundred percent for the long weekend over Fourth of July.  Bjorn’s got a park at his disposal and he’s not afraid to use it (when healthy).

Swinging Hard. Living Large.

For Lars and I, so-called “minimalists” (okay, more Lars than me)…we have way more boxes stacked up in our dining room than I thought possible!  Packing away your life blows.  However, its mitigated by the fact that we’re, on Friday, moving to a fantastic little house on the west side of Ann Arbor where we’ll have a basement and oodles of storage so that we can tell people we’re minimalists but then hoard like crazy in the knooks and crannies.

Moving is made a little more difficult by Bjorn’s increased desire to be mobile.  We used to be able to just set him down and he would kind of play within the circumfrence that his arms would reach but now he is getting into everything.  Especially electrical sockets.  I mean, no joke, it was the first thing he went for when he realized he could move forward.

Stop Action Bjornamation from Megan Jensen on Vimeo.

Safest way for Bjorn to keep from going AWOL is to put him in his jumparoo.  Sometimes the transition into the device is not always the easiest but he doesn’t seem to mind.  Just a new challenge for Special Agent Jensen.

The One Legged Jumping Bandit from Megan Jensen on Vimeo.

We’ve also had the added bonus of having all of Bjorn’s cousins in town for the past week!  Ryder, Mats, Anikka, and Geddy have been chilling Ann Arbor style.  Its been a crazy couple of days and we’ll hopefully have more photos to post later–but we’re so happy that they made the trek out here to see their Michigan family.

And, just when you thought we were done with the fun, we have Nonni coming out tomorrow for a whole week of fun with Bjorn.  An extra set of adult hands to keep Bjorn out of trouble and harm’s way should be awesome.  We also think she is going to LOVE our new kitchen (and hopefully make us many good things to eat).

We have a couple more photos to share here.  No updates on the Bjorn site–Daddy has been busy buying a house, renting a condo, and keeping madness and mayhem at bay.

This slays me.

The Manicurist’s Dilemma from Megan Jensen on Vimeo.

What a crazy whirlwind these past couple of weeks have been.

Firstly, Bjorn is semi-mobile.  And by semi-mobile I mean he can scoot backwards (not forwards);  go around in in a circle on his bum;  and have no directional velocity at all but sometimes he manages to push himself into the corner between the file cabinet and the TV and we’ll consider that a mobile success because there’s no where left to go.  We’re pleased he’s showing a lot of patience with himself in this transitional period–there are definitely tears when he reaches a little too far forward and falls on his face…but for the most part, he’s just enjoying exploring the places his little limbs can carry him.

A more conventional way of getting around when you're a wee one. Bjorn & Lars at the Arb.

Bjorn has also been attempting to stand.  Sometimes I set him down in his crib (which we have not “dropped”, yet) and come back into find him on his knees just holding onto the railing singing a little ditty to himself or chewing on the plastic barrier.  He can’t pull himself up to standing, yet—but he certainly gets awfully close in multiple situations.

Moral of the story on both of these fronts…we really need to start baby-proofing.

T.R.O.U.B.L.E.

….and we’re not really going to start baby-proofing the condo.  Possible ever.  Why, you ask?  Well–as it turns out, we are most likely moving to a house in Ann Arbor in the relatively near future and we’ll have a whole slew of baby-proofing to do there in the coming weeks.  Living dangerously until then.

Lars and I casually went out house-hunting two weekends ago–just to see what was on the market and to check out the various neighborhoods all decked out for spring.  There was one house in particular that we wanted to look out which turned out to be a bust.  I mean, the current owners were still living there so a showing had to be scheduled and while they were away, their giant parrot was not.  Kind of a killjoy because of how much I hate birds.  I could have overlooked the parrot except the space just wasn’t large enough.  Lucky for us, though, our friend Al who was showing us the houses in his realtor capacity, brought us to 1711 Charlton–a quiet, tree-lined street in the west-side of Ann Arbor.  We (okay mostly me) fell in love.  It all happened so fast after this–we put in an offer, it was accepted after a couple of back and forths, and now we’re moving forward.  We have a tentative closing date of June 3rd but are still working out some details after the inspection which hopefully will be resolved without too much duress.  We’re excited to have more space and a big kitchen and a lovely backyard where we anticipate Bjorn will run through the sprinklers with reckless abandon.  It even has a doggy door so its totally our duty to get a dog, now.  (Right, Lars?).

1711 Charlton

Overall, I’d say we’re pretty happy with how things are progressing right now.   I’m not going to lie–I still wish we lived closer to my parents and San Diego friends who I miss pretty much all the time.  Many of you have had this conversation with me talking about the pros and cons of moving…staying in Ann Arbor vs. moving to somewhere out west (where I feel my heart and person ultimately belongs)…but I know that right now, this is the correct decision for our little family in securing the best quality of life for all three of us.