Stocking Stuffers

As we wait to see whether or not we will be able to travel back to see family and friends this week (like everyone else in the midwest right now due to the weather), we decided to post a few pictures from Christmas. Last Sunday, Shannon's mom was able to come out to watch Grant for the week while his school was closed for Christmas. He and his Gigi had a fun time playing.

Although she was supposed to fly back to Tulsa on Christmas Eve, her flight ended up being cancelled due to the blizzard that was hitting Oklahoma. Luckily we were able to get her on an early morning flight on Christmas morning. After we got back from the airport, Grant opened up his presents. He actually did a pretty good job of grabbing a hold of the torn paper and tearing it off himself.

We hope that everyone had a wonderful, white Christmas! Hopefully I-70 will open up soon and we can get on our way. If you haven't received our Christmas card yet, then it should be there soon, but here are a few out-takes from the photo shoot that we thought were funny.

Is he taking the picture himself?

All I want for Christmas...

Like many families, December has historically been one of the busier months for us. This year we've had our usual amount of holiday parties, shopping, and gift wrapping, however now we have another person who has added an extra set of all of those same activities to our plate. In addition, we've put added pressure on ourselves by trying to refinance our home, so there have been more paperwork and calls than normal (but hopefully it will be worth it, so keep your fingers crossed).

So we're just going to post some more pictures and a video and get back to wrapping...

Goddard School Party Opening 1st present

Ms Olga & Ms Mary, Grant's teachers

Here's Grant's 1st tooth (very tough picture to get)

Playing with his one week old friend, Claire Gibbons

Fine motor skills are improving

Mouth Madness

It's been another busy week, which makes me wonder... is busy the new norm? This time of year used to be all about kicking back with a Fat Tire while watching KU basketball. Now, we find ourselves "watching" the KU game at the same time as we put together a high chair and the Christmas tree, all while checking the monitor religiously in hopes that Grant is still asleep in his crib!

We cannot get over the fact that he looks like SUCH a big boy in his high chair!

Grant hit another milestone this weekend when he tried his first veggie ...peas. Yum! He seemed to enjoy them for lunch on Sunday.

However, turns out he was a little bit fussy that night, so we were not sure how much his tummy liked them. On Monday night, he wasn't too interested in eating the peas and actually gagged a couple of time when we gave him some (we of course stopped trying after that). Then again on Tuesday night he didn't want to eat the peas, but this time we noticed something else in his mouth... a tooth! Yep, it's true Grant has a small white cap sticking up on his lower gums. Fun times are ahead..

We also took this video of Grant laughing and playing in his new exersaucer. Thought you might enjoy...he sure did!

5 months

It's been a pretty busy couple of weeks in the Scrivner household, not only because of the holidays but mostly because of Grant's first illness.

A week before Thanksgiving, we noticed that Grant was not acting like himself and had an elevated temperature (though not a fever). Shannon took him to our pediatrician who said that he had a little fluid in his right ear but that it was not red or inflamed. She said that as long as he was sleeping alright, still eating, and didn't have a temperature above 101, it was likely just a cold and would need to run its course. That night and the next morning he still was a little stuffy but seemed better, so Shannon decided to go ahead and go to a conference in Washington DC. It was a good thing that she had previously decided to only be gone from Friday morning until Saturday night (I guess she didn't want to leave Grant alone with me for longer than 36 hours) because the preschool called me at work on Friday and said that he had a fever and I needed to pick him up. I knew that Grant would eventually get sick and that this day would come at some point... but I guess I was hoping that he would be like in the third grade or something.

When I picked him up from school that day, his nose was runny, he was fussy, and of course he had a fever, so I called the pediatrician again. She said that she expected that it might get worse before it got better, but wanted to take another look in his ears in hopes that it had not gotten worse. I was very relieved to hear her say that there was actually less fluid than the day before. I felt much better about making it through the next day without Shannon.

However, it unfortunately did not turn out to be the fun, guys-night-in that I had previously planned in my head. It became very apparent that Grant was definitely not feeling good. He slept a lot (though in many short cat naps) and although he was still hungry he wasn't interested in eating as much as normal. So Grant and I passed the time with a lot of napping, movie and college football watching and luckily the time went by kind of fast without Shannon. Also, I'm pretty sure that he slept through the night (but I must admit, there is a slight possibility that I just didn't hear him wake up because I'm such a sound sleeper) though in my defense he had already slept the "entire" night a time or two.

After another fever in the wee hours on Sunday morning, we thought that he might be on the road to recovery. Unfortunately we were wrong and that evening and the next morning was filled with more lethargy and elevated temperatures. We decided that it was best to keep him home from school on Monday and take him back to the doctor. I have to say that I was pretty surprised when the pediatrician told me that his right ear was now actually worse than a couple days prior because the fluid had moved to the other ear as well, and that it was slightly red. She decided that it was time to treat, so she prescribed Grant amoxicillin to help clear up his ear infection. Shannon ended up staying home with him the next day, and he finally started to act more like himself. By Thanksgiving, we were glad to see that he was pretty much back to normal. He's still pretty congested but seems to feel a ton better. We're glad to have our happy baby back!

Over Thanksgiving weekend, Grant got to play a lot on his new exersaucer (thanks to Kathleen for lending it to us!) and perfected his skills at eating cereal. We're planning to start some veggies this coming weekend...

Happy 5 month birthday little guy! Boy does time fly...

Transitions

It's been a very busy week with a lot of exciting events, so I'll keep this brief with plenty of pictures.

It has finally reached the dreaded time for Shannon to go back to work so we enlisted Grant's Gigi (Shan's mom) & Mimi (Shan's grandma) to help us out in the transition. They were incredibly helpful while they were here. They cooked and cleaned but also gave Shannon a chance to get back into her work routine without having to get Grant completely ready for school each morning.

While they were here they walked Grant around the neighborhood, worked with him on rolling, and even taught him a few new tricks, like feeding himself! (haha)

Speaking of feeding... Grant tired his first solid food, rice cereal, for the first time last Saturday! He seemed to like it but had a little trouble figuring out what to do with his tongue, so a lot of it ended up on his face.

Last Friday was Grant's first day of school! Here's a picture of Shannon getting his cubby ready. (Grant is on the floor to her left)

And another picture of Grant with his wonderful teacher, Miss Mary, and two of his new lady friends, Skyler and Beazy (who knew that was a nickname for Elizabeth???). Oh, and there was no crying (by Grant OR Shannon) on his first day. This week we'll have to do it all on our own.

Last weekend was also Halloween, so even though we didn't want to take Grant out trick-or-treating, we did dress him up. Grant wanted to dress up like his big brother, Brady, so both of them were pumpkins this year.

This last piece is a video of Grant giggling that is from late October. I think I was singing the new Pearl Jam song to him, but whatever it was it sure cracked him up.

Rollin'

On Friday Grant went to the pediatrician for his 4 month check-up, which meant another round of shots. This time he took them like a champ... and then cried hysterically. Unlike the last round of shots however, he did not have a fever afterwards and was back to his usual self that night. His official stats are now: 13.7 lbs (30%) and 24 inches long (50%), with a head circumference still at the 50th percentile. The other exciting news from the appointment is that the pediatrician feels that he is ready to try some rice cereal. So we plan to start that sometime soon, which we hope will help him go a little bit longer between feedings at night.

In other big news, Grant rolled over for the first time this week! For the last couple of weeks we've been waiting for him to figure out how to complete the process of rolling from his back to his tummy but he kept getting stuck on his side. One morning though Shannon put him on his tummy and away he went. Luckily she grabbed the camcorder just in time to catch him doing it again. Although he still hasn't finished figuring out how to roll over from his back, we're confident that soon he'll be rolling all over the place. Watch out world... here comes Grant!

Punkin Patch

This week we got ready for Halloween by taking Grant to a Pumpkin Patch. Even though he was pretty tired and not smiling too much, we were able to get a few cute pictures.

We were even able to get a family picture!

You might also enjoy this video of Grant chatting it up (loudly). Its been hard to get any good videos of him lately because he has become very curious about the camera. If we catch him talking or doing something cute, he stops once the camcorder comes out and just stares at it trying to figure it all out. So for this video Shannon had to be across the room (so sneaky...) to capture him talking while he was playing under his gym.

Wicked awesome weekend

I don't know if you've noticed it... but I like firsts. I love that Shannon and I still have firsts and am excited that we get to experience all kinds of firsts with Grant. I don't know if you could say that I'm obsessed with firsts (although I am kind of crazy and have to have the first chip out of a bag of Doritos), but no one ever remembers the second time they did something, right?

So with that being said, we've had a couple more firsts lately. On Friday night, Shannon and I went to see the broadway show Wicked so Grant had his first non-family babysitter. It worked out pretty well because the show did not start until 8 pm so we were lucky enough to have our friends Erica and Darren over for dinner before the show. Since we've been putting Grant to bed around 7:30, all they had to do was change his diaper, put on his pajamas, and hang out while he slept. Normally Grant has been sleeping until at least 1 am, so we did not anticipate any trouble. He did however throw Erica a slight curveball when he decided that he was hungry a little after 11 pm, but luckily we were on our way home so it all worked out. We are so thankful for them because this was the first time that we have gotten out of the house together without Grant since July!

Then the following morning, KU played Iowa State so we decided to head to Choppers, the KU bar in Denver, to watch the football game. It was Grant's first time to watch KU outside the house as well as to observe other people, besides daddy, get very excited and upset at the television screen. Needless to say, he soaked everything in. He was stylin' in his new KU shoes (that mama made) and was a big hit with the waitress. Due to all the excitement in what would turn out to be yet another win for the Jayhawks, he stayed awake the entire time we were there. Next week its all about "Hawk love" and the Buffaloes.

Grant attempting to roll - stay tuned

Playing with Freddie the Firefly

(this is Shannon) By the way, David just named himself "baby benadryl" due to his new ability to put Grant to sleep quickly. I guess you can count that as his first daddy nickname. :)

More videos...finally

Grant's been doing some fun/funny things recently so we have been lucky enough to get a few good pictures and videos. One of the things is that he has been reaching, grabbing, and exploring a lot more with his hands. There was a video that we took about a week and a half ago of him reaching for the rattle on his gym. We didn't get it uploaded at the time and well, we're learning that if we wait long enough he'll do something even better. This is a video of him actually grabbing the frog on his gym and giving a sneak peak of another one of his new talents, blowing raspberries.

Then this weekend he realized that he has a tongue (after watching his mama) and has been using it more while talking and also will occasionally stick it out.

Later on that day we got this funny video of him putting those two talents together.

In other Grant news, we started to put him to bed earlier (in his crib) in an attempt to establish a more structured bedtime routine. Up until this point, we would change his diaper, get his pajamas on, and Shannon would feed him right before we were ready for bed (typically around 10 pm) and then he would start the night in a pack and play in our bedroom. This weekend however, we decided it was time (or, probably past time...) to get a good routine going and to try to do all of those things sometime around 7:30 pm. So far he has been a little slower to fall asleep, but has actually been pretty good about soothing himself. He still isn't sleeping through the night though (still wakes up around 1 am and again sometime around 5). Maybe that will be his next big talent.

All in the family

My mom and sister, Beth, made it out to Colorado last weekend and had the pleasure of meeting Grant. We had a great time heading up to the mountains, finding deals, and of course... staring at Grant.

September in Colorado is the time of year when the aspen trees begin to change color, so we took a short trip out of the city to catch a glimpse. We drove to an area that we haven't been to before along Fall River Road past Idaho Springs. There is a hike up to St Mary's Glacier that unfortunately we didn't have time for on this trip, but we would love to do it in the future (any takers? Its a glacier, how cool is that!) We all enjoyed seeing the beautiful scenery and taking in the crisp mountain air even though it turned out to be a little early for the aspens this year. Although they had not yet completely changed color, many of the leaves had started to turn yellow. We still considered it to be a successful trip because at least the leaves were still on the trees by the time we made it up this time around.

The following day the girls did some "power shopping" at the outdoor outlet mall in Castle Rock. Grant and I went along for the ride and took advantage of one of the last days of summer by hanging out outside while they went from store to store. The weather was absolutely perfect during the entire weekend, with temps in the 80s, but when my family left on Monday it was snowing! The snow was brief and there wasn't any accumulation, but it was such a dramatic drop in temperature from the previous day.

In between our outings, Beth and my mom had fun just staring at and holding Grant throughout the weekend. It's amazing that so much time can be spent on that 'activity'.

Grant has been getting much better at attempting to grab things. He keeps reaching for his frog when he is playing under his 'gym' and has successfully caught him several times. He is also clearly trying to focus on keeping his hand steady so that he is able to hit the rattle. It's great to watch his determination. Shannon has also noticed that she has to watch his hands when she is feeding him because he will hold on to her hair or jewelry (with a tight grip!).

Get in my belly

Last Friday I got a little taste of what Shannon goes through on a daily basis. I had the day off since I worked the previous weekend and so she decided to go to the Just Between Friends sale that was going on in Denver. We knew that she would be out for a few hours, long enough that I would need to feed Grant by myself. This wasn't the first time that I've watched Grant by myself (she gets out of the house to run errands probably every weekend). It also wasn't the first time that I got to feed him. However it was the first time that I tried to get something done while watching him and also the first time that I had to get the bottle ready when she wasn't here. Not complicated stuff though, right? Wrong!

My first mistake was assuming that Grant would cooperate with the schedule that I had made in my head. Most of the time he was great, but whenever I put him down to play under his "gym" (so that I could get some stuff done) he would get a little fussy. At one point I held him for a while until he fell asleep, at which time I was able to lay him down on the couch right next to me. I thought for sure that I had a good solid 45 minutes before he would wake up, but it couldn't have been more than 15. Luckily he was in a good mood after waking up so I just worked with one hand for a little while longer while I held him with the other. Since I was watching the clock, I knew that he would be getting hungry soon, but instead he decided to doze off again. So, I thought that I could just get the bottle ready as soon as he woke up, which was definitely my second mistake.

Of course when he woke up, he was overdue for food and wanted it at THAT moment. So, I started off trying to warm up the milk with my free hand (the other holding him), but soon decided that it might be a bit dangerous to have hot water that close to the baby. But as soon as I put him down he cried louder than I have ever heard him cry. I kept taking the bottle out of the hot water and would think that it was way too hot, only to swirl it around a little and find that the milk was actually not warm enough. It ended up taking me close to 20 minutes to get the bottle the perfect temperature. Brady kept looking at me with those judging eyes. I could just see it on his face, "Aren't you going to do anything about his crying? Mom never takes this long". Finally I got the temperature right, Grant got some food in his belly, and our happy baby returned. Needless to say, I will no longer wonder why Shannon is able to get only a few things done while I am at work.

Some firsts

This last week Grant had a few firsts, some more exciting than others. After the previous week's shots, he had his first fever. The doctor said that he could have a slightly elevated temperature up to 48 hours after the vaccines, but that we should not be worried unless it gets to 102 degrees... rectally (apparently that is the most accurate method at this age). On Monday night he was feeling a little hot so Shannon and I debated on whether or not we should take his temperature... rectally, or if we should just give him some infant Tylenol. I did not want to give him any medicine unnecessarily, but I REALLY did not want to take his temperature that way because whenever we are at the vet and Brady gets it done, he always makes a weird noise and then looks at me with the most confused, pitiful eyes. I thought there must be some other way, so we used a pacifier thermometer and it was slightly elevated. We then put a thermometer under his arm, and again it was slightly elevated. But of course we had to know whether or not we needed to call the doc or just give him a little medicine, so we had to do it the proper way... rectally. It was actually pretty painless (for everyone involved) and the temp ended up being only a little over normal at about 99.7.

Also at his last appointment, the pediatrician asked us how long Grant has been sleeping at night. At that time his longest night had been 4 hours between feedings, but he was still pretty inconsistent. I guess around 2 months of age is when some babies start to "sleep through the night", which she considers at least 6 hours of continuous sleep. The pediatrician said she was not worried and she wouldn't change anything until around 4 months. However just days later, Grant made a new best and slept 5 hours. Then Thursday night, he made it over the hump and hit the 6 hour mark (10:30pm to 4:30am). Shannon was so excited, but the next day said, "Why am I still tired if he slept through the night?" Unfortunately the excitement quickly faded because he has since gone back to only going about 4 hours between feedings.

The other exciting first for the week was Grant's first KU football game. He was almost as excited as me for the season to start, and we watched most of the game together and he even Waved the Wheat for the first time after a touchdown.

Our new favorite picture

A couple more cute baby pics

Two and a half men

Yesterday Grant turned 2 months old, so my friend, Tony, drove over 1800 miles to celebrate with us for the weekend. (okay, maybe it was just a coincidence) It was a good to have another guy around so we could teach Grant about the finer things in life like golf, ultimate fighting, craps, football, and fine spirits. We had a great time catching up, but the weekend wasn't all partying for Grant as it ended with a trip to the doctor today for his 2 month check-up.

We knew that the appointment was going to be bittersweet because although we were very excited to find out exactly how big he is getting, we knew that it was also time for his first round of vaccines. Shannon and I had a competition to guess Grant's weight and she ended up getting it almost exactly right. Based on his huge thighs, I went over by exactly a pound and she was under by only 2 ounces. He is now tipping the scales at 12 lbs. 2 oz and is 23 inches long. The fun ended there and unfortunately it was time for the shots. The first one was a liquid that was given orally, which he must have liked because he kind of smiled but then he got three shots in his legs while we had the job of holding down his arms. Needless to say, he didn't enjoy the experience, but he seems to be doing fine tonight and is resting up. We'll have to do the whole thing all over again in 2 months for his 4 month check-up. Here's a picture of his battle wounds. (Yep, that is three band aids you see). Poor guy...

We thought we'd end this post with a funny picture that we took this week. It is appropriately titled "the poop face". I was so excited to finally capture this expression of his on camera that I didn't realize the mess that I was about to face. Oh the joys of fatherhood...

Stand by me

Grant has been getting better head control in the last week or two and has also been doing his best to try to stand, which he really likes doing. Don't get me wrong, he is still very wobbly when he attempts to stand and he needs us to support him, but it is quite funny to watch because it looks like he is dancing. Sometimes he'll even lift up one of his legs as if he is trying to take a step. We'll try to get a video of it whenever he is trying it next.


Also we had our first confirmed giggle from him this weekend. He has been talking and making noises while he smiles (like you can see in one of the videos from the last post), but this weekend he started laughing in response to us laughing at his smiles.

We're wondering if babies learn certain things in the womb. For example, how does he know to pout when he isn't getting something that he wants? Where did he learn to hide his face when he's upset and doesn't want to show his smile? Why does he wait to pee until I am changing the diaper?

"Does this mean I have to get up at 3 am?"

An exciting milestone for Grant and I happened this week... I finally got to feed him!  It was one of the things that I was anxious to do but also was a little nervous about.  Much like changing a diaper, it was something that I had not done before.  However unlike changing a diaper, feeding him was something that I was a little jealous that only Shannon got to do.  I was pretty surprised when I got home from work and she asked if I wanted to feed him.  I was very concerned if I was holding him and the bottle at the right angle, but he did not seem to care at all so it must have been alright.  Lucky for me, Shannon said that I'm still off the hook for the middle of the night feedings since it would take more time to get a bottle ready than it would for her to just feed him.  Whew!

Also this week, Grant has been smiling a lot more at us.  Previously he would smile every once in a while, but according to all of the books it was just due to gas.  So, when he first started smiling a lot recently, we kind of just wrote it off.  Now though, he will smile when he hears one of our voices or when he sees a face he hasn't seen in a while.  It's one of the best feelings...

This first video showcases his wonderful smile in the first few seconds.  We can't help but smile also when watching it.

He's a happy little guy in the second video.

6 years (really?!)

Today is our 6th wedding anniversary.  Since Shannon has been getting a little cabin fever, wanting to get out of the house and I had a few days off from work last week we decided to head to Breckenridge for a couple of days.  It was kind of a last minute decision and our options were pretty limited to about a 2-3 hour radius because of the little one.  We also tried to pick a place that we had not been to before, but it had to have a "nice, little, walkable downtown" since that was going to be our main activity.  A lot of our friends head up to Breck for skiing and love it in the winter so we thought that we'd try it in the summer time.

We dropped Brady off at "camp" on Tuesday morning and headed up to the mountains that afternoon.  The drive along I-70 was the easiest that we have ever had; I strongly recommend heading to the mountains mid-week in an off peak time.  We didn't do too much the first night besides drive around Summit county and get acquainted with the area.  We topped off the night with a trip to Breckenridge Brewery for dinner, even though there is another one in downtown Denver.  On Wednesday we tried to sleep in as much as Grant would let us before we hit the downtown scene.  There are a lot of quaint stores along downtown scattered in between all of the T-shirt shops and ski and bike rental stores.  After a few hours of walking around we decided to drive up to Silverthorne to the outlet shops, which is close to Lake Dillon.  That night we ordered room service (something we haven't done since the morning after we got married) and Shannon spent some time soaking in the jetted tub that was in our room.  Thursday morning we slept in again and took the long way home along Highway 285 which took us through Bailey and the famous Coney Island stand.  

Even though we didn't do as much stuff or stay as long as we used to on our getaways, it was exactly what we needed.  It was exciting to think about all the things that we can do on our future vacations when Grant gets older.

Another video

This week there was an overwhelming demand, in response to the last post, for more videos.  We haven't taken too many videos so far but we do have this one that we took when he was waking up.  I'm not sure if you can hear all the grunting that is going on, but he does a lot of that when he is waking, which is fantastic at 5 in the morning (or earlier, says Shannon).  The other thing he is does when getting up is a ton of stretching, so you're literally watching him grow right before your eyes.

Also there are few other things that I want to respond to from the last post:

1.  That was not a furry, white blanket behind Grant's head in the last video, it was my hairy untanned legs.

2.  We do realize that his initials are GPS.  No we did not intentionally do that, but we just tried to stay away from names like Aaron Samuel that would end up with obviously bad initials.  The funniest comment I did hear about his initials though was that he would never get lost.

3.  No I will not tell you the other names that were in our finalist list, but for the record they were not the names that I may have told you (I did kind of like Dexter and Samson though).

4.  We would not have named our child after a person just because he was a KU basketball player... well probably not... but we did like the name Kendrick.

Keep the comments coming and we'll respond.

What's in a name

Some people have asked us how we decided on Grant's name.  There's not too much of story behind it, but we thought that we'd let you know.  Some of you might already know this, but Shannon and I picked out a name for a boy well before we got married.  However, that name was Shawn Kendrick, so we obviously didn't use it.  Shawn was a name that I really liked and Kendrick was the name of a great KU basketball player while we were there, Kenny Gregory.  After 5 years though, Shannon wasn't feeling the name Shawn anymore and I thought that it sounded too much like Shan.  I wasn't feeling the name Kendrick as much, and also there was an anchor on a local news station named Bob Kendrick and I didn't want anyone thinking that we named our baby after him (I thought that he was a good anchor and all, but he's since been canned).  So it was back to the drawing board.

Basically we decided that we would not pick a family name, but would not rule out a name just because it was used by someone in the family.  For a month or two we literally just bounced names off of each other.  We would find inspirations in everyday life, the TV, newspaper, and even patients at our hospitals.  We also had several books that we would flip through every once in a while so I have no idea exactly where the name came from.  After a while we came up with an unofficial list of 5-10 names.  Shannon really liked Grant and it did not take long for me to dig it as well.  The middle name was trickier because we couldn't just take the runner up.  The name had to sound good with both Grant and Scrivner, which actually is harder than we thought.  It also could not start with an A because of his initials (even though my Dads initials are GAS).  The other thing that we were looking for was an Irish name which kept leading us back to Patrick.  We tried it out for the last few months and knew that we had found his name.

Grant is now close to 4 weeks old and so he is not doing a lot except for sleeping, eating, and pooping.  However he is making more facial expressions than I thought he'd be making this early.  Here's the first video of him making faces.

Come one, come all

Who knew it could be so much fun staring at a newborn?  It must be true when you say "time flies when you're having fun" because the last two weeks have flown by and we've barely left the house.  For an entire week, we went out only a handful of times, mostly to take the kids (Grant and Brady) on a walk or to pick up groceries.  Then last Saturday, Shannon's family arrived and spent a week with us.  Together we cooked, changed diapers, watched the Food Network, and took turns holding Grant.  A couple of friends came over to meet the fam on Sunday and also to enjoy burgers and brats.  Grant's friend Andrew gave him a preview of what he has to look forward to when he is 5 months old.

The big event of week 2 was when we were able to leave the house and actually go out for a nice lunch.  Shannon has been wanting to have sushi for the past few months so we went to Sushi Katsu, where they have a great all you can eat lunch for a pretty good price.  Lucky for us, Grant loves his car seat, so he stayed asleep the entire time.  We were also able to get in our first post-baby date (and the first time that we left Grant with someone else) that week when we went to see the new Harry Potter movie.  Shannon somehow made it through the entire movie without falling to sleep, which was a great feat.  Other than that, it was just nice to have a few extra hands around the house.

Now it's back to work for me...