Recurring themes.....and Juneau

Mendenhall Glacier

Aunt Lisa taught John Harrison the word "bear" by showing him a stuffed bear. John Harrison really likes bears....one of his seven comprehensible spoken words is "bear." So, when we saw this bear in Juneau, we had to get a picture of John Harrison with his furry friend. It is fun because John Harrison can identify a bear when asked to do so and we love hearing "bear" in his sweet voice. John Harrison's second sentence was "bye, bye bear" (his first being "dada getcha").

There is no doubt that John Harrison is a busy little guy. We took a compact umbrella stroller with us on our trip....there is a small three point lap strap/harness, but no chest harness. John Harrison almost constantly moves, squirms, reaches, kicks or grabs his legs, or lurches his body forward while in the stroller....generally showing an enthuasism for life, desire to be a part of everything that is going on (including reaching down to investigate the moving ground), and longing for attention of anyone around and reflecting his inner drive to be in constant motion. Several times on the cruise, people I strolled past (including cruise staff) gasped and reached out to "catch" John Harrison thinking that he was not strapped into his stroller. Other people would make comments about John Harrison not being strapped in....I would nicely say that he was strapped in, but that he likes to move around a lot. As you can imagine, these comments got old as those making them often looked at us like we were bad parents.

Along those same lines, John Harrison also enjoyed trying to take off his hat, socks, and shoes while we were strolling him around either on the ship or out walking around in Alaska. You can imagine that the weather was fairly chilly some of the time. It was quite a challenge to keep socks on John Harrison's feet and a hat on his head while we were out and about. So, if it wasn't too chilly (we had unusually warm, sunny weather and many of the days had highs of over 70 degrees), if we were not going to be outside for long, or if we just were too tired of stopping to instruct John Harrison about keeping his socks on and continually putting his socks back on (again and again), we would let him go sockless. I don't know how many times people (almost all older or elderly people) stopped to tell us that John Harrison had pulled a sock off, that we needed to put socks on our son, or that John Harrison was in the process of pulling his socks off. These comments got VERY old. I would seriously be pushing John Harrison in his stroller and be holding his socks in my hands and someone would feel the need to tell me that John Harrison didn't have socks on OR that he needed to wear socks (these occurrences happened frequently). At first, I smiled and held up his socks and laughed about how John Harrison just pulled them off. However....keep in mind that out of two thousand passengers on the ship, there were about 10 children (three or four under the age of two) and only a handful of people were under the age of 50. At some point on the cruise, almost every grandparent-aged person made a well-intended comment about John Harrison's lack of socks or seeming failure to be properly secured in his stroller. Ok, well that assessment may be a bit of a stretch, but over a 13 night cruise, we received HUNDREDS of comments about the need for socks or for our son to be strapped into his stroller. We finally got to the point that we would just smile at people who made these comments to us. What is the lesson in all of this??? If you see parents strolling a sockless child, automatically assume that the parents are completely ignorant of the risk of their child contracting pneumonia and quickly instruct the inexperienced parents of the need to properly clothe their child. OF COURSE NOT! Instead, smile and just say "hi" or if you really feel the need to say something, comment about the baby's cute outfit, sweet smile, or pretty eyes.

These pictures are from our day in Juneau. While in Juneau, we visited Mendenhall Glacier. John Harrison fell asleep on the busride to the glacier and actually stayed asleep after we got off the bus. David and I knew that John Harrison needed a good nap, so we sat down on some benches instead of walking the scenic trail. David wrapped his jacket around sleeping John Harrison and appeared "pregnant":) (see above picture). Once John Harrison woke up, we wrapped him up in his puffy winter jacket and walked the trail to see the glacier.....yes, he did wear his socks and hat almost the entire time :). In fact, John Harrison was so bundled up that he resembled Ralphie's little brother in the movie The Christmas Story.