Family
Heartfelt updates about family milestones and everyday moments. From taking Mazie to college and annual visits to the Renaissance Festival to Swedish‑pancake breakfasts and VR outings with the kids, this category celebrates togetherness.
Wordplay
Last night Mazie’s aunt came over and babysat while Tammy and I went out for a “classic” date – dinner and a movie. We went to Wordplay at the Edina Theater. It was a fun movie all about the world of crossword puzzles. Sound like a topic that doesn’t really deserve a movie? Well, that just means you aren’t aware of the annual crossword puzzle tournament and the ridiculous speed at which some people solve a crossword puzzle (just over 2 minutes!).
The movie was great, and particularly fun for me since I have so many geeky hobbies: rc helicopter? rc cars? telescopes? home network? solar power? Watching Wordplay is like getting a 90 minute pass into this world of crossword puzzles. To an extent, you could envision a movie about one of your geeky hobbies with you in the hotel convention center talking to the guy about how amazing your telescope, helicopter, car is.
Fun, lighthearted movie.
PAX
Tammy and I decided that we wanted to make sure to raise Mazie understanding the value of charitable giving and in general “doing good” in the world. One of the things we are doing to that end is making a donation to a charity of her choice (or our choice on her behalf until she is old enough) on her birthday. This year we decided to support PAX, an organization that is working to reduce gun violence amongst children and teenagers. I attended an event of theirs a few weeks ago and the numbers were shocking. Eight children or teenagers die everyday as a result of gun violence. Even more shocking is the fact that more houses have guns than Xbox’s.
PAX has two main programs. The first is called “ask.” and is aimed at parents. The simple goal is for parents to ask if there is a gun in the house before their children go to play somewhere. Awareness is key, and many accidents happen while children are playing and some of the parents have no idea a gun was even there. The second is “speak up!” which is a toll-free hotline for students to report gun related concerns in school. The hotline receives over 15 calls a day of reported gun issues in schools, and coordinates with the school administration to respond.
They are an impressive, national organization with low overhead and a passion for working on this issue. Hat’s off to them and all the great work they are doing!
Happy (Delayed) Fathers Day
Being a dad rocks.
That pretty much sums it up. I could just end this comment now and be done. Dad’s that are reading it would understand. In fact, the openness of the statement is ideal as you can consider all that individual greatness of being a dad with your kids.
This year was my 2nd fathers day. It’s fun that Mazie’s birthday is right before fathers day. It makes for a better day as you are already celebrating how awesome it is that your child has grown more and more.
Mazie is so cool. She’s a pro walker now, rarely falling or getting tripped up. She even does pretty well on uneven surfaces with actual shoes on. She’s really verbal. She ranges from her version of dog, banana, gypsie, logan, mom, dad to her tendency to be, as Tammy and I put it, squaky.
She is a strong willed kid. She knows exactly what she wants to eat, in what order, and will clearly communicate it to you. She has started to play games with me. She’ll pretend like she’s going to come to me and turns away at the last minute giggling. Simply put, it’s pretty awesome to watch this little girl growing up.
Being a dad is a pretty great thing. I realize that it’s so much easier than the mom side of the fence. No being pregnant. No delivery. No breastfeeding. Even the things that are shared, this dad gets the easy route on. I change a tenth of the diapers Tammy does. The hardest thing I do is going away on business trips, but I credit that away time with making me truly appreciate the wonder that is my kid.
I love my kid. I love my wife. I love being a dad.
Safety Stairs
I’m a super-excited Dad! I’ve been on the search for a long time for a gate that we could put on the stairs in our house and was having no luck. And now that Mazie is mobile, the lack of a child gate was elevating my blood pressure significantly. The problem? One of the sides that the gate must connect to is relatively short.
The left side in this picture is only 30.5" high. This turns out to be a major problem with most child gates. I was lucky to find this one at USA Baby that turned out to be a perfect fit for the space. If you have a challenging spot this is a wonderful gate.
I can now relax a bit while Mazie runs all over the top level of the house.
Mazie Walking!
Two weekends ago Mazie really started to walk. She’d been able to take a step or two for a while, but while we were in Lanesboro on the Olson Family trip she “took off” and decided she was mobile. In the last two weeks she’s gotten pretty good at it and now pretty much demands on walking on her own. Here is a video of her walking at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum. (Excuse the video quality, it was taken with my Canon S500 camera in movie mode, with a shaky hand.)
Add Video.
Mazie at 9 Months
It seems amazing that in only 3 more months Mazie will turn 1! She is doing great. She has recovered from her 2nd real cold with lots of coughing and sneezing, and most notably plenty of running nose. An almost never-ending amount actually. She’s decided she likes baby food and we think she has her 2nd set of teeth coming in since she’s been eating her hand pretty much constantly lately.
She’s turning into such a little kid now. She likes to babble at you for a while and will share some stories with you. They are pretty short still, but it’s just amazing to hear her voice and particularly to hear her giggle.
We had a trip to Ikea this weekend and Mazie and I had a great time while Tammy shopped with our friends Lisa and Eric who were in town for the weekend. All sorts of fun to be had at Ikea.
Mazie has chosen to stay fairly immobile thus far. She’s not crawling, and from the looks of things she is likely to just skip that whole process. She doesn’t like being on her belly at all. She does love it though if you hold her hands and let her walk around the house or around stores. She finds that to be a great old time. She can scoot around pretty well and can make it all over her play area.
I’m itching for spring to come and for us to be able to spend more time outside. We ordered a bike carrier/jogging stroller (Chariot Cougar 2 if you are interested, I’ll post impressions of it after we get it).
I put up a whole bunch of pictures from January and February. Don’t miss the pictures of her in the bowl.
Mazie Graduates to Bigger Car Seat
We got Mazie’s next car seat today, a Britax Marathon. They had a sporting pink one with flowers all over it, but we went for the more neutral and car appropriate (oh, and washable) version.
Mazie tried it out at the store and she loved it, or at least she didn’t yell at us right away. She is big enough now that she can use the bigger car seats but not too big for her infant seat, so we’ve still been using that. I’ve been thinking that she finds it annoying and wants to move up to the real car seat and stroller combination. That way she can sit up and see more things. She’s always craning her head around trying to look at things. I’d find it annoying at least.
Mazie is finally over her cold. Just some minor sniffles at this point. Tammy and I were able to catch it before she fought it off. Luckily we are able to blow our nose and have cough drops.
Mazie's Sick
So yesterday when I got home from work Mazie was having dinner and she was really sick. She didn’t seem nearly as sick when I went to work. She had a full-blown cold. She woke up this morning not feeling any better.
She has had a cold before, when she was very small. It wasn’t that big of a deal – runny nose and some mild coughing. This one is different though. This is her first, real cold. Nose is going crazy. She’s super-congested. Coughing stuff up. And I’ll tell you it’s killing me!
This morning I gave her a bath while Tammy was at the gym and after the bath, which I think she sort of liked with the cold and all, she would cough and then wimper. I could tell her chest was hurting when she was coughing. And what could I do? Zip. I just held her and she hung out with me a lot less excitable than she usually was. To prove the point, when Tammy got back from the gym Mazie just hung out with me and didn’t feel a need to jump into Tammy’s arms as fast as she possibly could (as is typical).
I sure hope she gets better soon. I don’t know how much of this I can take!
Quick Mazie update – she has teeth! Her bottom two teeth have come through and boy are they sharp. I know since I was feeling them this morning and she decided to take a bite on my finger.
Mazie Sleeps Through Night!
For the first time in the 196 days since she was born, Mazie slept through the night last night. She enjoyed restfulness, with minimal disturbances, from 7:00 pm to 6:10 am. Her mother was extremely excited but realistic that this is not a pattern yet. Her father was proud but thought she did this all the time. News at 11!
Mazie at 6 Months
Mazie turned 6 months old on Dec. 14th, and she had her 6-month Doctor appointment on Monday. She’s doing just great. She’s just growing faster and faster. She’s essentially 75th percentile for weight, height and head circumference. She’s mastered sitting up now and loves to sit on the couch or on the floor with tons of toys all around her banging things and having a blast. She’s also started real food now. She only had rice cereal, aside from milk of course, until she was over the 6-month mark. She’s started oatmeal now and really likes it. We’ve tried carrots which she was a bit suspect of, and at this point she’s decided that bananas are not for her. Whenever she gets a mouthful of bananas she gets a really funny look on her face.
I can tell she’s super excited about Christmas, or perhaps I’m just more excited about Christmas because of her. She’s going to love digging into all her toys. 🙂
Celebrity Spotting: Al Franken
Okay,so maybe this is the Minnesota version of a celebrity spotting. It’s not Madonna, or Bono, or any other single-named person (really, how pompous do you have to be to only have one name?).
Today when Tammy, Mazie and I were going into the Galleria for some shopping, we were passing in front of the entrance of Barnes & Noble and there is Al Franken getting out of a black Lincoln town car. Apparently he was in town for a book signing event so a lot of people had this “Celebrity Spotting”.
Anyway, we didn’t gawk or anything. Didn’t want to make Al feel awkward. 🙂
Home Vacation
I’m taking this week off, using up some of my remaining vacation time before it vanishes. Tammy and I are not feeling adventurous enough to go on a big trip with Mazie, so we are staying home for the week. I’ve picked a couple of projects to work on (like I need more of them!) and spending time relaxing and hanging out with Tammy and Mazie. We have some babysitting arranged so we can head out and have some outside fun as well.
I’m feeling really pumped about what I’m working on at the office lately (read: change the world), and it’s hard to disconnect. But, I know it’s healthy and I will come back after a week with even more focus and clearer vision.
'tis the Season
The holiday season is now officially upon us. We were at Southdale today and Mazie got her first picture with Santa! She didn’t have a lot of things on her list, but I clearly heard Santa mentioning something about the Teletubbies.
She had a great time today going around to different places and getting carried around by Mom and Dad. Such a cutie!
Santa’s little stand there had several print options, along with the option of getting a CD with the “Hi-Res Digital Photo” on it. I asked what resolution it was and none of Santa’s little helpers knew. They were shooting with a Canon Digital Rebel, so I asked if it was just native resolution of the Rebel. They figured yes. $26 later I have a CD with a 3.15 megapixel image on it. Now, that may be “Hi-Res” to some, but it’s practically a camera-phone in my book. Grrr…
Restaurant: Naar Grille
Tammy and I went to our first movie since Mazie was born today. We saw Walk the Line if you are interested (and yes, it was very good). We also went to a new restaurant for lunch before the movie. We tried out Naar Grille. They opened up about 2 weeks ago. If location really matters I worry for them. They are not in an ideal location, there is no major road with people zipping by. The food however was very good. We went on Sunday which we did not know was buffet only, but it was quiet tasty.
The food is billed as Mediterranean fare. The gyros were very good, and everything looked tasty. I’d encourage people to give it a try - particularly if you like this cuisine.
Music Everywhere!
A few months ago I bought the Roku M1000 MP3 player for Mazie’s room. I really liked it, even wrote on here about how great it was. Well, I liked it so much I decided to buy two more. Not the M1000, but the cheaper M500. Roku was running a sale, I think moving them out to make room for new models. I picked up two to put the whole music collection in the bedroom and a yet-to-be-determined location.
Install was easy as can be. Hardest part was finding a power outlet for it. (Note to self, need to redo power in bedroom!) Still like these units, even though I’m ultimately left a little frustrated with UPnP servers.
Mazie Moves... To Her Bedroom
Newsflash! Mazie has moved to her bedroom! This seems like a pretty giant step to me. I took her crib apart and moved it out of our room into her bedroom on Sunday night. Last night was her first night in there. She was a brave little girl, sleeping all by herself in that big room. It was a little shocking to have our bedroom back. Seems like there is all this room now, but it’s nice for us and I think she was ready as well. She seems to sleep a bit better in her room, it’s a bit more quiet.
She also figured out last night how to kick the music toy in her crib. After a few hours we started hearing music on the baby monitor and it finally dawned on us what she was doing.
I still miss taking naps with her though – she won’t do that, at least not easily, anymore.
2005 Olson Family Weekend
Last weekend was the 2nd annual Olson Family weekend. This is a fairly new tradition on Tammy’s side of the family where everyone does a mini-vacation together for a weekend once a year. Each year someone different plans it. Tammy is excited for the 3rd one next year already because she is planning it. 🙂 This year started off well by being much warmer than our trip last year up past Duluth.
Corinne did a great job picking this years trip to the Wisconsin Dells, or as those in the know call it, “The Dells”. We stayed at the Wilderness Resort cabins, which were very nice. The Wilderness is a little crazy, it’s a giant resort, waterpark, golf, spa location and I think it has some locals unhappy – but they seem to be doing a very good job. Tammy and I went to Sundara a while ago and loved it, which is also a Wilderness property.
It was a nice weekend with days outside hiking, geocaching and exploring the Dells, and nights goofing around and playing Xbox. I put up a number of pictures from the weekend. It was also Mazie’s first trip to Wisconsin, and she had a nice time hanging out with all her aunts and uncles (grandma and granpda too!).
Mazie's First Concert
On Saturday Mazie went to her first concert, and it was rocking! Our neighbor suggested that we go to see Ralph’s World with their family. Mazie had a great time!
When I first walked into the concert I was a bit surprised. It was loud! Not as loud as a show I would have went to at 1st Avenue, but a far, far cry from a guy with a guitar. Ralph’s World looked like a real band. Dudes in t-shirts and jeans, guitars, bass and drums. The three things that were a tip that this was a kids concert were the hundreds of kids having a blast, the song titles like “We Are Ants”, oh and the predominance of minivans in the parking lot.
I really thought Mazie would be screaming mad due to the volume, but she was digging it. She had a great time but had to cut it short because she got tired out.
If you have kids (you know who you are, see the minivan comment above), you should definitely haul the kids to a Ralph’s World concert. You will have some fun too!