Evan Dodds – Non-work-related blog

Well, my month at home with “the Boy” (aka Little G) is rapidly drawing to a close. Tomorrow I go back to work.

Today is also my birthday, so it’s a little bittersweet that my “present” is being done with my month.

I have to say, I’ve really enjoyed and cherished this month even more than I expected. I knew it would be “fun” and “wonderful”, blah blah blah… I didn’t realize how much I’d really enjoy spending all day every day with my little guy.

He’s grown and changed so incredibly much just in this month, it’s hard to believe. We started out the month targeting a couple of things for our time:

• Solidifying the scheduling Jodi had started — getting him to sleep and eat and play at the right times during the day and sleeping (give or take) regularly through the night.
• Increased acceptance and success with “tummy-time”

Well, we knocked both of those out of the park — Little G now sleeps regularly through the night (Thanks BabyWise!), and we’re doing great with tummy-time too!

Tummy Time!  

   The Dodds  

Yesterday we ran in the Pumpkin Push 5k (our 3rd time with this race and Gabriel’s 2nd… sort of). We convinced MIL to run the race with us as well, and we got a couple of great photos! My camera was acting up, so good thing MIL had hers along!

Four Runners
(ok, 3 plus one pumpkin being pushed) 

 We’ll take that friendly-looking pumpkin there in the middle.

Well, September just flew by. I didn’t do much blog posting, if for no other reason than because Jodi+Gabriel+I spent so much of my “time I might normally be blogging during” time doing fun mommy+daddy+baby stuff instead.

But now September is effectively over. Which leads us into October… and a month of me taking parental leave from work!

It officially starts Monday, but I’m thinking of this morning (Saturday) as the first day of my leave. We’ve (roughly) got Gabriel on a schedule now, which in some respects limits how much fun we can have — no all day activities (like we’d be able to do that anyway!), but also helps us all to get better sleep at night.

This should be an illuminating month. A month to remember.

Gabriel and I made use of a beautiful Saturday morning this past week to go for a stroller-run in the Bob Revolution. We set our sights more for a fun, easy, (flat/not-hilly) run than anything and then headed out the door.

We made it about 2.25 miles, over a few blocks and then up to Union Ave and back. Very pleasant on the side streets, and no traffic at 8am on Saturday so that was good.

Of course, little G fell right to sleep from the bumps on the path, so most of his exercise from this run was from REM sleep I guess.

Jodi, Gabriel and I walked down to the Sunday Blue Angels show over Lake Washington.

Didn’t take too many photos because I was having to sprint back and cover Gabriel’s ears from the loud LOUD planes fairly regularly.

Gabriel Evan Dodds was born Saturday the 14^th at 5:47am – 31 hours after he let us know he was on his way and 3 days ahead of his due date (good thing too; we were getting impatient to meet him)! Everybody is doing just fine.

Gabriel Stats:

• 8lb 10oz
• 20.5”
• Full head of red hair like his mommy!
• He passed right over Friday the 13^th and decided to be a Bastille Day baby instead.

Gabriel Photos (it was hard to choose just a couple from the hundreds I took!):