Skip to main content

Baltimore/ICIS

I am finally getting around to writing about our awesome visit to Baltimore a couple of weeks ago! I have told you about the adventures from the drive, but the best part was definitely visiting Tracy & Brock, as well as a lot of friends who were also in town attending the ICIS conference. Oh, and the conference program was great too, but I will not bore you all about those details :)

We were BEAT after driving all night and arriving at Tracy & Brock's house in Laurel, MD at 5:15am. But the babies were pretty awake at this point and Tracy stayed up after our arrival as well, so we decided to set up pack-n-play's, unpack toys, and generally get settled. Tracy and Brock have an awesome setup in their basement, with a lot of room to play! They are also expecting a baby on June 1st, so there were infant seats, etc. available for S&Z as well.

After doing so great on the overnight drive, the babies had a bit of an "adjustment" to napping in new digs. I think they slept for < 1 hour for the morning nap, so Derek and I were just too tired to play when they woke up!



We did manage to get them out for a walk around the neighborhood in the afternoon, however.


One of the great things about this trip was that we figured out how to do the usual caretaking outside of the comfort of our normal environs. For example, we set up a little changing station on the floor near the play area.



I read books in the room where Derek and I were staying. Tracy's copy of "Good Night Minnesota" was a big hit! We definitely need to pick this one up for S&Z's library!


S&Z ended up taking over half of Tracy's kitchen!


After conferencing all day on Friday, the Nelson lab had a reunion get-together at a condo that Sara (Webb) was renting downtown. Silas & Zoe had so much fun seeing familiar faces like Kristin & Lisa, and meeting new friends like Kelly, Sara, Lola & Viola!




How many developmental psychologists does it take to feed one cranky, overtired, overstimulated Zoe? I would like to say that the magic number was 3, but she ended up coming to me to eat once I finished feeding Silas!


On Saturday, Derek and I took the babies to the conference center in order to see some more friends. They were very curious about everything that was going on!


Ben, Marta & Maria hung out with us for awhile outside of the poster session, which was awesome!


They instantly made friends with everyone around them, including another random little boy and his mom!


After a quick diaper change in the hallway (no diaper deck to be found!), we ran into Viola and Elisa on our way to lunch.




As you can imagine, after all of this fun socializing, babies crashed and burned...



We did still manage to have our first restaurant lunch with them, however, with much help & distraction from Tracy, Eliza & Sharon (and a little March Madness B-ball on the big screen)!



Tracy and Brock were SO accommodating to have us stay with them, and they were such huge help with the babies during visit. I was so excited that they were able to get to know them... We can't wait to meet their baby girl this summer!!!






This was our first trip away from home and it definitely gave us some practice and inspiration for the Midwest (MN/ND) Extravaganza that will be happening from May 30th-June 6th!!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Silas' Blog

Well it's been a busy 3 years since I last posted! Stay tuned as we may have more posts coming now that it looks like I have a new contributor... Silas recently read a book called "Starting Your Own Blog", and now he is bound and determined for us to let him start his own blog! We convinced him that he should start out by drafting content and a posting calendar. We made templates this morning and he wrote his first "post" today!

Parks

We decided to get Zoe's haircut on Saturday morning at a place geared towards kids called Snip-Its . Neither Derek nor I anticipated what a meltdown Zoe was going to have. The haircut is half-assed at best and Derek will have to fix it when she's more calm. We were so traumatized that we headed to the park to get the day going on a better foot! We went back to Larz Anderson, the park where the  Psychiatry picnic was held on Thursday . It is really close to our house and is lovely and shaded. I think it's one of my new favorite spots! The kids like it too :) S&Z love playing with wood chips, so there was a lot of that! Snacks were enjoyed on the bench and I tried to get a few pictures of the haircut... Excuse me, I'm chewing pretzels :) This morning we met up with Wendy, Dave, Sydney & Ivy at the Newton Center Playground. It was HOT HOT HOT, and there wasn't too much shade. The kids have inherited my low tolerance for heat, so they spe

Sickness Update

We saw the pediatrician again this morning - it was our 4th visit in as many weeks. Both kids have an antibiotic-resistant sinus infection. Zoe also still has an ear infection after 5 days of meds; thankfully Silas' double ear infection is finally gone after the 10-day round of amoxicillin. While in the waiting room, we noticed that a rash had appeared on Silas' arms and trunk. Since this coincided with being on meds, Dr. Rundquist had to assume it might have been related to the amoxicillin. Silas was going to get a non-amox antibiotic for the continued sinus infection, and because it's easier to have them on the same meds they were both prescribed Suprax. Silas' O2 saturation was also down a little and he was wheezing during the exam. Apparently he also has broncholitis and he'll be treated with albuterol. He was given a nebulizer treatment in the doctor's office that he tolerated amazingly well at the end of a very long doctor's visit (we were there for 2