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.
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Changing tables? Waste of time and money. First of all, changing a baby that is sideways in front of you is stupid. Second, you never take the baby to one of these changing things, you just change them. I insist on Mazie having her feet toward me to change the diaper.
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The crib in the baby’s room? Try the crib in your room. Today we moved the crib up into our room. The family bed is great, but going from that to a crib in her room, in another room, is too much. Crib goes to our room for a few months, then into her room. (Or so we think…)
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Mazie currently doesn’t dig anyone but Mom holding her after around 7pm. Nothing to learn here, just that this stuff happens, it will change in a while.
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Stuff is everywhere, almost, and she’s still not mobile yet! The Intellitainer has taken over the fireplace. And the great thing is, I don’t really care.
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This swing is the most important thing in the world.
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Function over form. Who cares how it looks, it works.
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When the baby is melting down, and you know Mom can make it better, but you really want to try, don’t. The continued meltdown results in frustration for baby, you and Mom. Know when to fold ’em.
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Honda Odyssey. ’nuff said.
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We found John Sumner at the art fair. We totally missed him the first day and we have a giclee of his, Moe, that we got in his gallery in Sonoma, CA.
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We were struck again this year by the photography of Edward Holland. We came really close in previous years to getting one of his items. He’s got an amazing eye and produces these striking, vivid photos.
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I was struck by the work of Liang Wei from Washington. He had a number of pieces that I really liked. Tammy wasn’t quite as taken with him as I. Hope to see more from him.
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We really like the work of Jay Long as well. The art is striking. Unfortunately for us it was all framed in oak, and we really, really don’t like oak.
Just Typing
Sometimes I just feel like typing something on this here website. I guess that’s the advantage of being the site operator, author, editor, publisher and everything else.
This has been a busy week. I’ve been completely absorbed with this project at work. We finally got it launched today and I really think it’s one of the, if not the, most amazing thing we’ve done. If you are curious, go to MarketWatch when the market is open (M-F 9:30a to 4:00p ET) and look at news stories, quotes, etc. You’ll see the quotes are streaming at you. We did this ourselves, and it was a massively challenging and fun project. I was literally unable to sleep, waking at 4:00a most days, my mind whirring with ideas. I’ve gotta take some time this weekend and decompress a bit. I put some especially peaceful music on my iPod so when I wake up in the middle of the night I can try to listen to that to help me sleep.
I sort of took today off, even though Mazie and I went into the office for a couple of hours and I was email for a couple more hours at home. We had furnace contractors, roofing contractors and our landscaper over today to discuss projects. I pulled the trigger on the furnace one so that is going forward. I need to decide on the roofing project soon so that I can let the solar guys (we are also looking at solar heat and electric) know what is going on.
We are starting phase 3 of our landscaping project. First phase was the front yard, 2nd was some hardscaping in the back yard, and this final phase is the conversion back to native plantings for the undeveloped area in our backlot. It was completely filled with invasive plants, and we are now getting ready to transform it. It will be perhaps the most challenging and interesting of the projects, but the least visible, at least from the curb as it were.
I’m debating the whole solar thing. I’m not sure what I think about having 4’x6’ black panels sticking up off the top of the house for heat. The solar electric stuff is much less obtrusive, but has a lot higher cost.
We are heading to Wisconsin for a family weekend with Tammy’s side of the family. I expect it to be a blast. May pack up the telescope since we’ll be in darker skies. I feel a little bad that I haven’t given that the time it deserves. I really do have too many hobbies. It’s just that everything is so interesting! 🙂
Mazie Mazie Mazie
Little Maze is getting less little by the day it seems. Along with getting bigger she’s really developing a lot more of a personality. She’s got her “I want mom” cry, her “I’m hungry cry”, and her “I want mom” cry. Did I mention that one already? We went through a few days a while back where she decided her dad simply would not do. If I tried to hold her she just threw a fit. She’s gotten a lot better at that too, throwing fits that is. She can get her legs and arms shaking, and just wail. If this gets beyond a certain point there is nothing you can do but give her to mom.
She’s also having a lot more fun cooing and blabbing to herself in the middle of the night. She particularly likes it when her dad tickles her and blows on her belly. She giggles away for a good long time. This ends up being endlessly fun for her dad and fills his heart with big amounts of pride and happiness. If you can make your kid giggle you can do anything.
We have her four month appointment next week. That seems to have arrived quickly. I think Tammy may disagree with that assessment though. That means another round of shots, no fun. We are looking forward to getting an okay to start giving her some food. We acquired a high chair already continuing our pattern of getting baby stuff well ahead of the need for it.
Maze loves her new mini-van. She thinks it’s just great. She particularly likes the navigation system. :-)
Tammy and her sisters threw a surprise birthday party for their mom recently and she did a little photo shoot with Maze and the birthday stuff. Some great pictures, check them out. My friend Dan and his wife Melanie are about to have start this parenthood thing any day now! With these 4 months under my belt I get to give advice to someone like I actually have a clue what’s going on. That’s fun too.
Honda Odyssey
Ever since Mazie arrived we have been learning that taking a car seat in and out of a station wagon is not a terribly comfortable thing to do. We’ve also been planning on getting a new car for Tammy. We started looking at minivans a few weeks ago and today we pulled the trigger!
We bought a 2006 Honda Odyssey. I got completely “shiny pebbled” (shi-ny peb-bled, v. 1. to get obsessed with bright and shiny gadgets and forget all practicality) as we were exploring our minivan options and went all out on the Touring edition with DVD and navigation system. I worked a good deal (thanks Internet!) and got a reasonable price relative to dealer invoice at Richfield Bloomington Honda. Their Internet sales guy was quick with emails, only took a couple of back and forths to get to a good price and we had a deal done. Walked into the store the next day and did the paperwork. We got the silver pearl metallic color, pictured above.
A year ago I would have told you you were crazy if you told me that I would be all hyper about a minivan, but this thing is so cool! It has every gadget, bell & whistle you could ever want. It’s too much to even go through here, and I haven’t figured out what they all are yet. The side and rear doors are all motorized. I’ve vowed to go as long as possible without actually touching one of those. 🙂 It also has a backup camera, all kinds of different sensors and of course twice as many cup holders as passengers. There is even a 110 outlet in the back with AV ports to plug in your camcorder or game system.
On top of the gadgets, it drives very well with some very notable braking power. I also like the “ECO” mode that shuts down three of the six cylinders to get better gas mileage. It has the run flat tires with the mandatory tire pressure sensors. If you get a flat it just lets you know and you need to get to a shop relatively soon.
Can’t wait for a road trip!
Trouble Having a Geek Dad
I wonder if when Mazie is older she will think this is a cool picture, or shake her head about her geeky dad. (Get your own Hello World Creeper.)
Dad Tips
I’m no expert on this matter. In fact, I’d say I’m far from it. But clearly I’m doing an adequate, or even above adequate job. Some wisdom to share:
Feel free to add your own!
Mazie 3-month Update
I think both Tammy and I are stunned at the thought that little Mazie is only going to be 3 months old this week. The 14th is the big day! She is very excited, I can tell. We are stunned because it seems like forever since she came into our lives. That should not be read as a good or bad thing, but that the period of time before she arrived seems very, very far away. It’s easy to sit back and think of things that happened, say a year ago, and feel like you are reminiscing about a previous decade! Anyway, time goes on for all of us and I’m sure that these first 3-months have seemed even longer for her.
Mazie continues to grow and amaze us both. Since the last update here, she’s developed a lot. She tracks you as you speak, or walk around. She giggles a lot and at least has convinced me that she likes to play little games with me. Mostly this involves me tickling her belly or cuddling her up and rocking her around. Then she giggles, I feel amazed, and we repeat until she’s had enough of it and gets ready to blow a gasket.
Speaking of blowing gaskets, she has started to do that. The last few nights she’s discovered her full-bore cry. We have started to wonder if babies can just get colic at 3 months!? This is when she’s supposed to be settling into more of a pattern and relaxing. We’ve started to put her to bed earlier, partly as a result of the crying. She’s getting more sleep but it’s not necessarily doing anything about the crying.
Mazie went to visit her great-grandparents last weekend and did great. She went through 10 hours in her car seat each way without too much fussing, and delighted us both by keeping a fairly stable nighttime sleep pattern, however she was way too excited to take any naps during the day which lead to some cranky behavior.
Two Weddings in Two Days
This is wedding weekend for us! Tammy’s sister Michelle is getting married tonight and we are both in the wedding. Tammy is a bridesmaid and I’m an usher. Luckily my mother is coming to help with Mazie duty but it’s going to be an interesting adventure timing breastfeeding and other parent duties with all the wedding stuff going on.
Then, tomorrow morning I get on a plane to New York for my friend Greg’s wedding. Tammy and Mazie are staying here. The first Northwest flight out is at 10:20am arriving in La Guardia at 2:00pm. The wedding is at 4:00pm in Central Park. And just to make things exciting the Northwest mechanics are expected to go on strike at the end of the day today. Luckily Greg’s wedding is going to be a relaxed affair so I could get there as late as 3:30pm, but it’s tight!
Whew! Hope this all goes smoothly!
Mazie's 2-month Checkup
Mazie had her 2-month checkup today with the pediatrician. I arranged my schedule so that I could go as well. We really liked the pediatrician that we met with. He was recommended by our neighbors who have two kids.
Mazie is doing great. She’s a big girl! She’s 97th percentile for both height and weight, and 75th percentile for head circumference. She’s already 24" long and tipping the scales at 13 lbs 1 oz. (For reference, she was 7 lbs 11 oz and 21" long at birth.)
The hardest part of the visit were the shots. Mazie got 4 different shots, after we confirmed they were single dose vaccines that contained no mercury. The nurse had me hold her hands and talk to her to comfort her. The shots were done in like 5 seconds, but Mazie let out one heck of a yelp when she got poked. I picked her up right away and held her tightly in my arms and she relaxed pretty quickly, and then even fell asleep. I felt really bad for her – poor little girl.
She’s been having a hard time tonight, residual effects from the vaccinations. After a good nights sleep I think she’ll feel better.
Mazie at 8 Weeks
This Tuesday Mazie will be 8 weeks old. It’s time for us to schedule her 2 month appointment. I remember thinking how insane that was. We went from the 2 week appointment and then 6 whole weeks without seeing professional help. How would we do it!? Well, it’s been fine. Mazie is doing great and so are we.
She’s put on a good amount of weight. She’s already well over 12 pounds. This last week in particularly seems to have been a watershed week. She’s been so much more engaging and interactive than ever before. She will smile and play with you for a while. She loves it when you tickle her and play with her while she’s on her changing table. Also, much to the pleasure of Tammy and I she’s actually started to smile at us, instead of randomly at walls and other objects in the house.
She’s been doing well with sleep, although sometimes she puts up a bit of a fuss trying to get to sleep. But once in the bed and snoring away, she does well. She seems to be spitting up a lot more lately than she did at first. I’m guessing that has to do in part with a lot more volume of milk going her way. It’s pretty funny how being a parent pretty much makes all your “eww, gross” reactions go away. A pile of spitup goes all over your shirt, you wipe off the visible stuff and continue on your way, no worries.
She’s a strong girl too. I’ve been holding her up and letting her support her weight with her legs. She can do this for a few seconds at a time and then needs a break. She likes to lean up against me in a standing position for minutes at a time.
That’s all for now. Of course I put up some more photos as well. You’ll notice two pictures of me sleeping with Mazie. This seems to be a not to uncommon occurrence.
Uptown Art Fair Conclusion
Tammy and I returned to the Uptown Art Fair after having previewed yesterday. We brought Mazie with us this time, so we went early to avoid the heat. It was another great day and the crowd was immense even at 10am.
We took a walk through the area we like the most and saw some more artists that we really liked. Tammy also found a custom purse by Laura Maclay that she really liked and decided to get.
Further artist highlights (again in no order):
As I predicted yesterday we returned to Keith Grace to make our annual purchase. We got the dog painting that you see in this post. It’s a great piece and we really liked his technique. He combines collage, acrylics and oils to make these striking, graphic pieces. The collage work also ties back to the subject of the painting as well.
Mazie at 6 Weeks
Mazie will be six weeks old in a couple of days. This seems to be a pretty big milestone, at least in her parents eyes, since supposedly after six weeks of breast milk she has now built up an immune system that will keep basic nasty germs and viruses away. This will give Mazie’s Dad and Mazie’s Mom confidence to take her out more, into more varied environments, without constantly worrying about the cleanliness of everything around us and giving sinister looks to strangers who emit a short cough while passing. Really, don’t these people know better than to cough around a baby!
Mazie’s getting much better with the whole controlling the head thing. She likes to be held in a sitting position where she can then survey the room and check things out on her own will. After her rapidly developing neck muscles get tired of this, she assumes a rather odd position resting her head forward onto her chest.
She doing fairly well with the sleep thing. Still wakes up a couple of times and maintains her track record as a pretty loud sleeper, lots of grunting and squeels. Sort of like a pig farm, but if you take that analogy any further Mazie’s Dad will smack you, hard. Some nights she decides she just doesn’t want to sleep and this spirals her parents into despair, as they become achingly more and more tired until they reach the point of misery.
It’s been hot as blazes here so Mazie’s stayed inside most of the time. Her Mom is completely and totally obsessed with her being too hot or too cold. How are babies born in the tropics? Mazie has lived so far in a well controlled 72 degree house. We got a Maclaren Vogue stroller so that she can get outside without being in her crazy, five-point harness car seat. Mazie loves it, or at least I think so.
Tonight she’s taken to “spitting up”, but with a bit more volume than a spit, and only on Mom so far. This seems to be a new thing.
I put up some new photos to share with everyone (including what her Mom has decided is the cutest photo of her and her Dad!). Also note the photo included here, where Mazie is modeling her great Road Sign Math onesie!
Bicycle Commuting
I’ve been riding into work, bicycle commuting, for about a month now this summer. This is a big part of my plan to get rid of the “sympathy weight” I put on while Tammy was pregnant with Mazie. It’s working, I’ve been able to take off good weight every week without getting completely obsessed about what I’m eating. I’m really lucky when it comes to my commute.
In some ways, I feel like I should be obligated to ride my bike to work. I can get on a bike path after going 3 blocks from my house on residential streets. The path crosses some roads, but mostly it’s just a great trail. I then have two options of trail that I can take going into downtown. So I get to take one trail in the morning, and a second trail in the evening on the way home. There are also a few people that ride into work as well so on the way home I usually have some company as well.
One of the highlights of this commute is when the trail that I take on the way into work crosses over highway 100. This is the same highway that I get onto after a few miles and crawl the rest of the way into work when I drive. Everyday as I ride in I always take a moment to let up on the pedals, look to the left and chuckle a little bit to myself as I look at the hundreds of cars piled up, going very slowly. When I look ahead I see clear trail, trees and fellow riders or walkers out having a good time.
The only part I miss about riding into work is the music. I really like listening to tunes in the morning and there just isn’t any safe way to do that on a bike. The weather has been great, making it even more enjoyable. I find that when I ride into work I show up with a better outlook on things, and in general a more pleasant disposition. On top of all that I’m saving money on the record high gas prices and not paying for the toll-lane on the way home. All this and I get to help the environment, and my body, all at the same time.
Hiking With Baby
I was reading some “evergreen” content on BabyCenter.com tonight. They have some semi-decent content targeted at dad-types. Anyway, they highlighted hiking as an activity to do with your baby. I like hiking so took a gander.
They mentioned this group started in San Francisco called Grateful Dads.
It’s a group of dads that get together once a month on a weekend morning and go for a hike. It’s all dad’s and the kids vary from very young, 2-3 months to about 2 years old or even older. I checked out the site and I like the idea.
I know there are a decent number of dad’s that read my site. Anyone interested in doing some daddy/baby hiking? Mazie is a little young right now, but in a couple of months would be plenty old enough.
Cutest baby ever, at least to her Dad. 🙂
Windows Media Player as Infant Education
I learned a new trick tonight while holding Mazie. We were sitting onthe couch and I had my laptop next to me. I was singing to her and keeping her occupied and decided to put on some classical music. Mozart of course. And then it dawned on me that I had a great infant toy in front of me, so I gave it a shot.
I maximized the WMP visualization window and put it in random rotation with Mozart. I then held Mazie on my lap so she could see the screen. I had always figured these visualizations were only interesting to those on illegal substances, but it turns out 1-month old Mazie really dug it. She was watching the spinning graphics and when the screen would suddenly change to something else she would stop sucking my finger for a moment and check it all out. She particularly liked the flutes in the Mozart selections we were listening to.
Forget the Leap Frog – just grab your laptop!
Mazie Turns 1-Month
Today is Mazie’s 1-month birthday! It’s an odd stretch of time. It seems in some ways like forever ago that we were in the hospital and brought her home. I look at her now and she’s already grown so much. We have gotten over our regular panics and now just panic every once in a while. We no longer have to track feedings and diapers to make sure all the inputs and outputs are working right.
Other milestones are starting to occur. Tonight, for the first time, I got to watch her all by myself for about an hour while Tammy went grocery shopping. We are teaching her to start taking a bottle, and it’s not a very easy process. We are also trying to get her to accept a pacifier, but that also isn’t going so well. She seems to only want the “real deal”.
We’ve made it out now a number of times but we still feel a lot more comfortable at home. We haven’t taken her on many walks due to the extreme heat. So, we’ve been mostly sticking to the house waiting for 6 weeks to pass when she’ll have more of an immune system.
I put up a collection of photos from the last three weeks as well.
She’s a great kid, amazing, we love her like crazy… and we’re pretty tired. 🙂
Not All Fun and Games
Tomorrow Mazie celebrates becoming three weeks old. She is filled with anticipation of exciting “three-week-old” things like having some milk, making some dirty diapers, maybe even taking an extra nap in the afternoon.
In her first three weeks Mazie continues to be amazing and incredible and beautiful and simply the best, or at least according to yours truly, Dad. She’s learned to exercise her lungs more with some mild wailing. I find that it bothers me less if I consider it exercise. She’s gotta learn how to get all that air in and get it out quick after all! She is still being very nice to us and sleeping relatively well. I’ve acquired a very valuable skill – being able to put her to sleep at night. I just talk about computers, telescopes, Road Sign Math, etc. 🙂 In all seriousness, the nightly routine involves me swaddling her real tight, which she hates at first and cries and pushes against but after a few minutes of rocking she settles down. Then we put the “heartbeat” CD on fairly loud which makes a womb-like sound for an hour. Perhaps not surprisingly this puts all of us to sleep pretty quickly as well.
Tammy is obsessed with her being too hot or too cold, still. She’s also obsessed with cleanliness. We changed her diaper for the first time today outside the house, at Eden Prairie center. There was much care taken to make sure nothing was touched. Germs! Everybody had to wipe off with the baby wipes after leaving. I find it all very funny and cute, but it’s really great too.
Happy Independence Day!
We aren’t doing much exciting for the fourth this year. I really like fireworks but with Mazie being just under three weeks old fireworks don’t sound like a good idea. [Hint: Stillwater has the best fireworks around!] We had a classic 4th of July barbecue in it’s place. Barbecued bison burgers and baked beans. Yum!
Some Independence Day moments of Zen to share…
Too Cold! Too Hot!
The people at the hospital were clearly out of their mind when they decided that we could go home with this small, fragile little baby. Seriously! Like we have a clue what we are doing? This should be left to the professionals.
The basic newborn crises have went away. We have plenty of diapers to change now. Mazie is gaining weight like, well, like only I can. Her belly button has revealed itself. Replacing these fears are the more basic issues of her being too hot, too cold, too sleepy, too awake or whatever the concern of the moment is.
This morning she had her first real bath (as opposed to the sponge baths she got before). The bath went well, but when we were done she was freezing cold. You sort of freak out when your baby is shivering. Fast forward to this afternoon. We took a brief trip to the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum and left after about 10 minutes. Why? Too hot! She had to be baking! We took all her clothes off except her onesie and then the dreaded sun came out! She’s going to get burned! RUN!
We retreated to the safety and air conditioned, sun protected comfort of our home to attempt to venture out another day.
Mazie, The First Week
A week ago today Mazie introduced herself to us. Since then Tammy and I have shifted from glee to fright many times, sometimes all within a matter of a few minutes. We’ve been worrying about everything. First there was the lack of dirty diapers. My read of the situation was that she was starving to death. Tammy frets constantly about her being warm enough. Then there was the incident with blood around the umbilical stump – I won’t even go there. But it seems that we are getting the hang of it. Yesterday was our first crisis free day.
Mazie on the other hand seems to be doing just fine even with her neurotic parents. She sleeps amazingly well, at times sleeping six hours straight through the night. We hope that isn’t just a phase. She’s co-sleeping with us which makes it a lot easier for everyone and I think keeps her calmer at night. She’s caught up on her dirty diaper quotas, making up for lost time. She’s simply adorable. After she gets her milk she has a tendency to get the hiccups. We ventured outside today on our first walk with the stroller.
Everyone kept telling me that everything will change when you have kids. I knew it would, it’s a huge thing after all. But I feel a need to reiterate it and reflect that yes, everthing did indeed change, for the better.
I also put up some new pictures from Mazie’s first week.