Eleven Months!

No, that's not how long it's been since I was consistent at blogging, though it does feel that way.

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Tommy is almost a year old! And we're long overdue for an update.

So I'm about to gush about how awesome he is.

Ready? Go!

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First of all, I think this has been the most fun couple of months yet.

Being a mom is hard work, but it is SO rewarding.

Watching my little baby grow up and learn so many new things every day is just

mind-blowing

and amazing

and wonderful.

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I am so blessed and

I have never been so in love.

(Sorry Nate)

He's about 30" tall and somewhere around 22 pounds.

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He's walking. All by himself.

Just yesterday he figured out how to stand up from the ground

without holding onto anything for support.

I'll miss the little "downward dog" pose he did trying to get the hang of it.

He used to get really mad if you didn't let him hold your hand to walk him all over the apartment,

but he's a little more independent now.

He still comes and takes my hand plenty often.

I think he likes the company,

and so do I.

He's super smart.

I mean, I can't believe how fast this kid learns.

Allow me to brag about his vocabulary.

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His favorite words are Dada and Dat (that)

but he also says:

Hi

Mama

Sack (snack)

Baba (bye bye)

Crsh (crunchies)

Ight (light)

and

Baku (vacuum)

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He tries to repeat words all the time too.

Some favorites are:

Dakey (blankie)

Ugck (yuck)

Tasth (trash)

Dasth (dance)

Gafspth (glasses)

Mesthp (mess)

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[S's are hard- think Daffy Duck saying "desthpicable"]

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And of course he makes all sorts of other fun noises that I don't understand.

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We also play the "where is" game, and he can point to:

Mama

Dada

Light

Bike

Snack

Blankie

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He still LOVES his bath.

Every night Nate says, "Tommy, is it bath-time?"

And his whole face lights up and he hustles off, leading the way to the bathroom.

Then he stands at the edge of the tub while I strip him down

(he knows to step out of his pants one leg at a time)

and bounces impatiently with a huge grin while we wait for the water to fill up.

It's adorable.

Current Obsessions/Quirks:

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Tommy loves the lights in our house.

All of them.

And he knows how to turn the switch up and down to turn them on and off.

[He turns his bedroom light on every morning.]

He points at all the lights and wants me to hold him up to them so he can touch them.

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He also loves the quilt I made for our bed.

The first day I put it on, he got super excited and rolled around on it, laying his head on it

and flopping into our pillows.

Now he just loves to play on our bed, which he can climb onto by himself.

(It's low to the ground, about a foot high)

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He gets very upset when you take anything away from him,

but lately, the worst has been when you throw away his diapers.

Yep.

He cries and cries.

"That was my favorite diaper! Wahhh..."

It's seriously just as bad as not letting him have my cell phone.

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He loves the vacuum cleaner. 

He crawls around it in circles or crawls in front of it really fast,

like he's playing Chicken with it.

Sometimes he pats the head (?) of it while it's on.

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He likes to see how close he can get to cords that are plugged in before we say no.

Sometimes he actually listens and wont touch them, but other times he just goes for it.

Too bad you can't really explain "dangerous" to a baby.

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He is obsessed with the drawer under our oven.

Nate finally taped it closed because Tommy wanted to climb in and out of it again

over and over and over.

He usually ended up getting frustrated and crying and driving us crazy.

(But I might let him play in it sometimes when I need a distraction in the kitchen...)

There is one cupboard he's allowed to climb into, and he still likes that.

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He loves music!

He has ever since he was teeny, but now he can dance!

Even if you just say "music" or "dance," he'll start to bob up and down or rock side to side.

And when you actually play music, he gets really excited and boogies.

Pretty much the cutest thing you've ever seen.

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He has finally gotten better at taking naps

(though he likes to poop as soon as you put him down for his first one, of course)

and at night he has been sleeping till 6am.

Thank. Goodness!

The 5:00 thing was getting really old.

He's also been sleeping through the night on most nights, though sometimes we have to go plug in the pacifier. Then he's out cold again. Occasionally he gets a bottle at night, but only if he cries a lot.

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He's eating all sorts of tasty food.

I'm pretty sure he thinks he's ready to eat "real" food only and no more of that pureed stuff,

because he's a total mooch!

He wants everything we eat, all the time.

Luckily he's got four teeth (yay!) so we let him try most everything.

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His favorite food is cake.

Or perhaps the cream inside of Oreos.

But he doesn't get those very often. :]

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He also loves fruit and every type of bread he's tried:

Pancakes, waffles, toast, plain bread, crackers, pizza crust...

Don't judge- he likes to try things, and it's fun to watch his reactions.

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He also loves water and is starting to realize that juice is pretty tasty too.

He tolerates veggies, but we think carrots are his favorite.

He hates peas.

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He likes to stick his tongue out and say "ahh" when his mouth is full.

(I swear we didn't teach him that.)

He is actually a pretty serious baby and it's pretty rare for him to really laugh.

But when he does, it's awesome.

I will do whatever it is that makes him laugh as long as he'll keep laughing,

no matter how silly or ridiculous it is,

because it's the best sound in the world.

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I love my baby.

I can't believe it's almost been a whole year.

As much fun as it has been and will be to watch him grow up,

sometimes I wish he would stay this age forever.

Mothering Fail: Tommy vs. the Booger Sucker

So today when I put Tommy down for his last nap, he didn't think he wanted to sleep yet. He's had to cry himself to sleep a couple times during the day (it takes, like, 20 minutes max- average 10) so I figured that was about to happen again.

I listened to him talk to himself, wondering how long till he got annoyed and started to cry. He coughed a couple times, but that's not unusual because he tends to choke on his drool a lot since he's teething. I wondered if I should peek at him, but that tends to backfire when you want him to sleep and he isn't. So I just kept listening.

Then I heard another cough- this one a bit (sorry) mucus-y sounding. 

That got my attention, so I decided to go see what was up. I've felt like I've been fighting a cold for a couple days, so I wondered if maybe he was coming down with something too.

The first thing I saw when I got to Tommy was a massive puddle of spit-up. Enough to be considered vomit. Pretty sure I gasped, since he's never done that before. Then, still just thinking he must definitely be sick while also distractedly registering the fact that he could now reach the items on the changing table that's against the back of the crib, I moved and wiped off the booger sucker from within the giant puddle.

I had already taken him out of the crib and stripped off the sheet and wiped off gak-splatters before it finally dawned on me.

The booger sucker. 

Tommy wasn't sick!

He gagged himself on the booger sucker and made himself throw up!

...

Holy crap.

How did I let that happen? How did I not hear him getting into things? Why didn't it occur to me that a baby who is pulling himself up on everything could probably reach that stuff by now? Why didn't I go in sooner? He could've been really hurt! 

GAH. 

Poor baby. At least he's ok.

Needless to say, the changing table was pulled away from the crib and is awaiting a new destination in Tommy's room.

Gotta love those awesome moments of motherhood!

Post Explosion

Howdy!

I'm trying to be better about blogging on a more regular basis- mostly because I really think it's good for me to sit and write, stay in touch with family and friends, and meet new people- but this last week I (obviously) didn't do so well. So here's to another shot at being a better blogger.

A friend of mine wrote a post full of "mini-posts" not too long ago, and I'm going to copy her. So here are the things I've been wanting to talk about, each in it's own neat little nutshell:

My Beliefs

I've always been hesitant to write about my own personal beliefs on this blog, because I know many of my family members who are not of the same faith read it to know what's going on with my little family. I don't want them to feel overwhelmed by too much "church-talk" or to stop reading. But my beliefs form the core of who I am. They are a part of everything I do. And I admire others who write about the church and their beliefs openly, without fear of rejection or causing problems or debates (possibly my least favorite thing in the world) and with no shame, and I want to be more like them. So, my wonderful, amazing family, if you do not want to read about what I believe, you can skim/skip those posts. But please don't stop reading my blog, because I want you to be a part of my life, and since we're all spread out, this is an easy way to do that. And I'm also more than willing to talk about anything, anytime, if you have questions- even if it's "how can you believe in [insert topic here]??" as long as we do it without bad feelings or spite. ...K?

Whew! Had to get that out. 

This leads to my next mini-post:

General Conference 

As members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we believe that there are still prophets on the earth today, as there were in Biblical times. And twice a year the prophet speaks to us in a worldwide conference that is broadcast over TV and internet. Six months ago for the last one, I was in the hospital after giving birth to Tommy, and didn't really catch a whole lot of it. This time I got to sit with my husband and watch (almost) all of it (babies require naps and diaper changes, you know), and it was great. Conference is always so uplifting! And yes, I'm going to talk about the biggest buzz too- new missionary ages! Wow! [Guys can now leave at age 18, rather than 19; and girls can leave at 19 rather than 21.] I think it's especially neat for girls, because- let's be honest- there's always been a stereotype that "girls only go on missions because they can't get married." First of all, how awful is that? We should never question anyone's reason for wanting to serve a mission. But now? Now I think that thought-process can be thrown out to the garbage for good. Girls can serve missions when they are 19. Now it's more obviously a choice to serve out of a true, sincere desire, and not just a "might as well, since I can't get hitched!" How cool is that? And just think of the massive influx of missionaries that will go out in the next year or so: all the 19-year-old guys and 21-year-old girls, PLUS all the 18-year-old guys AND 19 through 20-year-old girls. Good thing they've been expanding the MTC!

"A marvelous work is about to come forth among the children of men...

For behold, the field is white already to harvest."

Tommy is Crawling

For those of you who saw my "Ahhh he's crawling! WithOUT the bellyflops!" post on Facebook, that was literally within seconds of it happening. Tommy has officially mastered the crawl. He was already getting into things before he was a master-crawler, but it's definitely gotten worse. And he's speedy! But with crawling also comes a new-found desire to get UP. Tommy pulls himself to his knees on any surface that he can reach. TV stand, coffee table, couch, mom and dad's legs, and most recently, the crib. Yep, we had to lower the mattress finally, because Tommy was hanging on (for dear life) to the edge of his crib at 3am, not knowing how to let himself down. Last night we discovered it didn't help much, because he still pulled himself up with the bars (instead of the top beam) anyway. Yeesh.

Nate was walking (or running, as his parents describe it) by 8 months. EIGHT MONTHS. If I have a walker in two months, I will eat my hat.

(Don't worry- I don't actually have any hats.)

Tommy is also teething, which he has been forever, but there's actually a little white tooth-tip poking through his lower gums, and it now hurts when he bites my face. Yes, you read that right. Tommy likes to bite-slash-latch-on to my chin when he gets close enough. Makes me feel a bit self-conscious about my chin! It's not that big/pointy, is it?? (That's actually how I discovered he had a tooth coming in.) He doesn't do this to Nate because he has a beard. Who wants to suck on a beard-face? Blech.

AND (I hesitate to say this "out loud" for fear I'll jinx myself) Tommy is napping! Easily! His first nap is sometimes still only 40 minutes, but that's ok. It tends to hover around an hour. I use that time to try and get a little workout in each morning. Then he takes another nap that's usually 2 hours-ish, and sometimes a 3rd mini-nap in the late afternoon. It's a pretty good little routine.

The best part?

He puts himself to sleep.

And he LIKES to put himself to sleep.

He used to fall asleep in my arms, but now when he's ready to sleep he gets super squirmy and fussy unless you put him down in his crib. Then he promptly wiggles around, gets comfy, and goes to sleep all by himself. This is so so so nice.

=)

Fall is Here! Psych.

[Speaking of Psych, does anyone else LOVE that show?]

So, I was going to write about how much I love Fall, and how pretty and wonderful it is, and THEN all of the sudden it was 28 degrees outside. What is the deal! Right when I was getting ready to enjoy Fall --I even made homemade personal-sized chicken pot pies JUST for Fall (thanks to April's inspiration- but I forgot to take pictures)-- it whipped around and turned into Winter.

"It's not usually 110 degrees all Summer in Kansas, I promise!"

I suspect you'll tell me it's also not usually 28 degrees in October?

Luckily the weather has come back around again for a little while (I hope) and it's been hovering around 50 at night. I can handle that. Let's just not rush into Winter too soon, ok?

Well, there's more I could talk about, but this turned out quite a bit longer than I expected.

Have a happy Monday!

[Sorry for the lack of pictures- I have a bunch I need to upload!]

6 Months Old!

Happy half birthday Tommy!!

Yesterday my sweet little baby boy turned 6 months old. Here are some fun facts about him:

Stats:

Height: 27.5" {84th percentile}

Weight: 18lb, 10oz {71st percentile}

Noggin: 41.5cm {5th percentile}
Still tall and thin with a teeny little brain-case! But growing well month-to-month.

Words:

Bababababa, gheeeeee, mmmm, gagaga, and my favorite, "hoo, hoo, hoo."

Ok, not words. But he babbles a lot, especially when he's nomming on a toy. And it's cute. 

Foods:

Likes pears and apples, is suspicious about bananas, and is not a fan of sweet potatoes (all of which are just like Mama). Going to start stretching his palate more soon!

Talents:

Army crawling! It used to be sort of a mix between the Worm and a bellyflop, but he's a little more coordinated now. Still doesn't do a traditional "crawl," but he is definitely on the move!

He can also sit up by himself (for a little while), is great at grabbing things, and is already trying to pull up onto the coffee table. Can you say, yikes?

As mentioned before, he now can put himself to sleep. Yay! Still wakes up really early sometimes, but mostly just chatters away happily instead of crying. This is good.

But he does cry and throw a fit when I don't let him have things like the laptop or my phone. Why didn't anyone tell me tantrums start so dang early!? At least they're short-lived.

Favorite Toys:

Mommy's cell phone case (since he can't have the phone), a chewy-twisty-knobby teething ball thing, any shoes he can find, and Daddy's backpack and bike pedals. The fact that only one of those is actually a toy? Irrelevant.

LOVES:

Playing with Daddy. He gets carried upside-down, bounced on the bed, tickled, and held up high in the air. Nate gets the most smiles, squeals, and giggles by far. But that's ok, because hearing them laugh together is music to my ears, and I do get plenty of my own.

Also loves bath time. Hard to say who ends up more wet- Tommy, or the one giving him the bath. Sometimes cries when we take him out because he wants to keep splashing!

Sometimes he drives me crazy

Most of the time we have lots of fun

Already keeps me on my toes 

Always I love him!

Getting Tommy to Sleep

{Ok, I promise I wont only post about my child's sleep issues all the time. I actually have quite a few post ideas just waiting around for me to type them up. But before we get to those...}

Well, third time's the charm! We went ahead and started the crying thing again. For the third time. It took a couple more horrible, awful, sleepless nights for us to really have the gumption to do it. 

But it was still hard.

The first night, Tommy cried for an hour and a half. 
[To clarify: I was going in every 15-20 minutes to check on/calm him. I can't do the one were you just completely ignore them the whole time, though I ain't judgin' if you have! Every mom has to do what works for herself and her family.]

I only cried a little bit.

The second night I prepared myself for another long wait for him to fall asleep. I had a book to read and my little chart to write down what time I went in to check on him.
But I only had to go in twice before he zonked. That's right, he only cried for 30 minutes. Talk about a major improvement from the night before! What a relief.

Night number 3 took 20 minutes.

Night 4?
No minutes.
No crying. At all.
He just played with his taggie blanket and fell asleep, all by himself.

Can I get a Halle-freaking-lujah? 

Now he goes down and either doesn't cry at all, or only cries for 5-20 minutes. 20 may still sound like a lot, but it's really not.

But our problem wasn't just putting him down- it was that he kept waking up.
We had to let him cry a few times when he woke up at 10 or 11pm, but surprisingly, even after just a couple days, he only cried for about 10 minutes before falling back to sleep.
And while he does still do this occasionally, it's pretty rare now.

As hard as it is to listen to your little baby cry for a long time, the freedom of being able to put him down at night and know that he'll go to sleep on his own is so nice. Now we're working on his naps, which are sometimes easy, and sometimes hard, and still usually too short. But I'll let you know how it goes.

Here's What Happened

So, we started the sleep training thing one night, and it was pretty awful.

Tommy cried for an hour and a half before he fell asleep. 

[Yes, I did go in intermittently and check on him- 15 minutes has never gone so slowly!]

Remember, we don't want this: I'm awake! His eyes look so tired! :(

Overall the 1st night went just the way the book said, though. When I woke him to feed him (instead of letting him wake up on his own), he went right back down and slept till 6:30, with only one teeny peep around 3, for which I did go in and give him his pacifier (the book says not to- whatever). I was thinking, Hey! This might actually work!

But then we decided to put it on hold for another week. Here's why:

The 2nd night, he went down without crying at all! (Maybe I put him down too drowsy?) So when he woke in the middle of the night, way earlier than normal, not in teething pain and not hungry, (why are you doing this?? More below.) I didn't want to make him cry after he hadn't had to just prior. I was afraid he'd be confused and sad and angry. :( So I guess I chickened out.

But there are a few other reasons that kind of throw a wrench into the mix. He's got teeth that are super close to breaking through (or so I've been thinking for 2 weeks!) and I don't want him "crying it out" when he's in pain. Pain needs to be attended to!

Then, he's almost crawling. Supposedly, when a baby is close to hitting a new milestone, they have a harder time sleeping because they are "excited" to keep practicing it. This actually seems to be pretty true of Tommy, who rolls onto his belly and pushes himself up multiple times each night. And then gets frustrated because his habit is to push up, making it so he just wont/can't/doesn't sleep on his belly because he doesn't relax. Sigh.

I love to crawl around my crib!

And finally, my dad is going to stay here tonight, and will be sharing Tommy's room. Pretty sure having an extra person (who tends to snore like a freight train- love ya Dad!) in his room will distract Tommy and any hard work we would have already accomplished would just go down the drain.

I know that I'll be able to find reasons like this all the time. Babies are pretty much constantly teething and learning new milestones, and there's always going to be some random something that comes up to mess with things. So we decided to just wait till after my dad left, and then we'll start again, teeth and crawling regardless (unless when he cries I can tell it's from pain- and I wont be completely ignoring him anyway).

And it's SO TIME for this, because the last couple nights, he's been going down easily but waking up about 2-3 hours later, and not going back to sleep for at least two hours!!

He doesn't want food, he doesn't act like he's in pain- he's just wide awake. I think somehow he's convinced himself that bedtime (we've done the same routine since he was like 6 weeks old) is now another naptime. Sleep a little, then be awake again for a while! Then bedtime, around 12 or 1am. Which means he's usually waking up right after I fall asleep.

Ahh! How do I fix this!? 
Hopefully the sleep training thing will help, but what if it doesn't?
What if he cries the whole two hours?
I will literally lose my mind.

I'm trying to be optimistic, but sometimes it's hard. It really has been helpful to hear about others who have had trouble with this too, though; it's always good to know we're not alone.

Come on, Tommy, let's do this thing!

Operation: Get My Sanity Back

Tomorrow we start "the sleep easy solution!" with hopes of getting Tommy out of this I-can't-sleep-without-Mom-or-Dad funk. I'm sorry, but I can't sit in that dang chair every day for much longer. My iPhone keeps me entertained, but there's only so much Solitaire/Words with Friends/Bejeweled Blitz a woman can take.

Their website

This book was sent to me by my mother-in-law with hopes that it would be a miracle cure for our problems. Here's what we are hoping to change:

1. Requiring a lap to fall asleep in (or, a nap in which to fall asleep, for those of you who prefer correct grammar)
2. Wont let you put him in his crib awake (hence the lap)
3. Crappy naps. Average nap lasts about 40 minutes or less (lately he's been waking minutes after I put him down, and refusing to go back to sleep- I don't know what to do!)
4. Average total daily nap-time of 2 hours (should get 3-4)
5. "Night noshing" (he only takes one bottle, but the goal here is to sleep through the whole night)
6. Night sleep that lasts no more than 9 hours
7. Early waking (we want him to sleep past 5:40!)

I've kind of been against sleep books. I don't really know why. Maybe because I know I'm an uber-perfectionist who will freak out if something doesn't go exactly the way the book says it should. Which we all know it probably wont.

[Remember the lady with magic photographic-hearing-memory who "knows what babies are saying" based on the sounds they make? Made the first couple months of Tommy's life super stressful for me. "That lady said this means he's hungry! Why wont he eat!? HE'S HUNGRY BUT HE WONT EAT! Gaaaahhhh..." Not everything is true for everyone, friends. Even if Oprah says it is.]

ANYway, this book claims to have a solution for all of these issues. I'm nervous to try it because it says bedtime fixes usually only take about 4 or 5 days, but nap fixes take longer, and those are my biggest problem. They also happen to occur while Nate's at school, so he wont be able to help keep me sane. We'll see what happens. 

Their method, in a nutshell:

1. Do your normal bedtime routine, but don't let Baby fall asleep during
2. Put Baby down still awake
3. Say goodnight and walk away
4. After Baby starts to cry* wait 5 minutes, then go check on him, shush him (for no more than 30 seconds, no physical contact)
5. Repeat Step 3
6. Wait 10 minutes, repeat check, walk away
7. Wait 15 minutes, check, leave
8. Continue to check on Baby at 15-minute intervals until he stops crying and falls asleep.

Supposedly the time it takes for him to fall asleep should shorten each night and by about day 4 or 5, he should put himself to sleep soon after you put him in the crib. We'll see what happens! And you do the same thing for naps, though it usually takes a week or longer to change (which is going to suck- letting my baby cry without someone home to comfort/calm me? For days in a row? Yikes.)

*I'm afraid Tommy wont start to cry. For a long time. Because that's what he's done other times that I've gotten fed up and walked away. He plays/talks/rolls around/tries to crawl in his crib for a lonnnng time, but doesn't go to sleep. So what's the problem, you ask? "If he's not fussing, who cares?" I care! Because he's tired! He's super sleep deprived and grouchy all day long! The child can't put himself to sleep even when he's exhausted, and somehow we have to fix that.

This is a not-quite-crying-it-out method, and I hope it works. Because I am at my wit's end.

I'm sure there are people reading this going, "what a crappy idea!" Well, if you have a miracle method, please, do tell. If this one doesn't work, I will be willing to try just about anything. And of course, I will keep you all updated.

Source

Just Keep Swimming...

Picture Post!

Tommy's first time "swimming."

 Two cool dudes.

 Sup?

 Gotta test the water first...

 Feet!

 Tommy is easily distracted.

Mostly I just like my hair in this one.

 Kisses!

 Hangin' with Daddy.

Sharky!

Tommy wasn't too sure about the gigantic, cold bathtub at first (especially when Daddy slipped getting in with him! oops!) but he relaxed after a few minutes and had a great time. Especially loved kicking his feet to splash, and playing peek-a-boo with Mommy coming up from underwater.

A note to my cancer-cautious family:

It was overcast and shady and we were only outside for a short time.

Tommy did not get sunburned. Neither did I.