June 21

June 21, 2007

Sully was born on the summer solstice.  The longest day of the year, and it was in fact the longest day of our lives.  I remember driving into town from our place in Teton Village, the sun setting behind us as we crossed the river and wondering if he would be born on this first day of summer or early in the morning the next day.  Little did I know that he would be born within minutes of our arrival at the hospital and that his birth was going to involve life flights and a three week NICU stay in Utah.  Such was our crash course into the terror and joys of parenting.  The picture above was the first time I saw Sully,  I had been unconscious for his birth and unsure of his fate when I came to in the ICU.  By the time this little reunion took place I was only able to touch his little hand and his right knee, everything else was strapped down and wired up.  Moments later he was wisked away to another state where I would have to wait a day and a half to see him again.  Mike and I had to wait a full week before we could hold him for about 5 minutes at a time.

What we learned in those first frightening moments, and the subsequent recovery period was that Sully was a fighter of the fiercest regard.  A force of nature who simply will not be denied his opportunity to do what he sets out to do.  He still is.

June 21, 2008

One year later and the only residual effects of his health scare was a dreadful sleep pattern caused by months and months of sleeping with a never silent oxygen saturation monitor and an oxygen canula stuffed up his tiny nose.  By the age of one, Sully was a walking pro and was talking up a storm in his own little language. (Dee Doo!  Brava!).  A year into this thing Sully was cracking us up on a nearly constant basis.  Easy going and full of hilarity Sully could charm the pants off the grumpiest of people. (And this period encompassed our brief foray living in NYC where the professional grumps live).

June 21, 2009

The terrible twos were pretty terrific.  Sully was still extremely easy going and hysterical to be around.  This was the age of catch phrases that would put any child sitcom star of the 80's to absolute shame (Whoa Momma! , Awww Nuts! and of course: Hippopotamus Quesadilla)  during this year we began to get a grasp of the never ending reserves of energy this kid was storing deep within his tiny little body.  On a road trip around the South West that summer we started to get a sense of what an outdoorsman we seemed to have been given charge of.  And then there were the trains.  Oh good grief you mommies of baby boys out there!  Be weary of the trains! They are a ploy to turn your tiny man into a vapid member of the consumer society!

June 21, 2010

The age of trains continued and nearly consumed us all! Most of our free time was spent in the pursuit of the perfect track.  It was also during this time that our dodging of the terrible twos seemed to catch up with us and we suddenly found Sully not so easy going after all.  Enrolling his eager little mind in preschool a year earlier than we had planned helped. His brain needed more diverse learning and he was craving social interactions with his peers. This was the age of the budding comedian with gems like: "That toilet looks thirsty, I think I'll give it a drink" and of course his infamous pickle bit.

 

June 21, 2011

Ah the frustrating fours!  This is the age they should warn new parents about.  Having assumed that we were amazing parents by navigating the twos and even the threes with relative ease we were abundantly under prepared for the mayhem of the fours!  This was the age of trying new things and getting extremely frustrated when they did not go exactly as he wanted them too.   All of the meltdowns and tantrums that we did not experience in his teeny tiny years seemed to have been held in reserve for this year and we found ourselves scratching our heads and failing epically in our attempts to reason with him.  Still, this was the age of amazing leeps, no longer completely obsessed with trains, we now seem to have a future civil engineer on our hands.  Bridges that span the kitchen counters, lego masterpieces that make us wonder if he has an actual engineer living under his bed helping him and creatures made of tinker toys and kinex, and whatever other trinket or thing he can incorporate have become a common occurrence.  As hard as he works his little brain in the pursuit of the perfect robot/bridge/rocket ship he works his body just as hard.  There is no rock or boulder Sully will not climb and no trail he doesn't want to explore.  This was the year he first climbed the King after begging to climb it all summer long.  More recently Sully has spent every weekend hiking the trails of Grand Teton and many weeknights running around on the trail system of Snow King.  As much as we try to tire him out with these escapades, we usually only succeed in wearing ourselves out, never-the-less, seeing the way he uses the outdoors so comfortably is something that brings us much pride and joy.

June 21, 2012

Which brings us to today.  Sully at the ripe old age of 5.   What a half a decade!  We're looking forward to the challenges and triumphs of the next year as he takes on Kindergarten and who knows what else!