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.
- The first thing that comes to mind is that the parts that are easy are easier than I expected they would be, and the parts that are harder are way harder. I know that doesn’t make a lot of sense, but maybe if you’ve been there before you know what I mean. Like changing diapers, is trivial, but calming your kid at 3 a.m. is really hard.
- Those protective father instincts sure kick in. I’m always worrying about her and want to protect her at every turn. Imagine when she starts to walk! I’m going to need a sedative.
- I’ve never been one to be real comfortable with newborns. They seem so fragile. All that disappears in about 2 seconds with your own kid. There just isn’t much better than laying with her on your chest and patting her back.
- The most amazing thing in the world is being able to bring comfort to your baby. When she’s crying for whatever reason, and you pick her up and put her to your chest and she calms down and is happy, that’s amazing. Of course the reciprical is also true, when you cannot provide her that sense of calm, that is pretty much the most horrible thing in the world.
- How can a kid that does not have precise muscle control get her socks off so easily!?
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.
Being Daddy
Mazie turns 4 today, 4 days that is. It’s been an incredible four days. I realize everyone all over the world goes through this process all the time. As a result, it should seem somewhat routine from a global perspective, but on an individual level everything seems profound and amazing and like you are the first person in the world to ever do any of this stuff.
Mazie overall is doing great. She needs to catch up on diapers. There are numbers she’s supposed to be hitting and she’s behind. How do you like that? Four days old and already behind quota. She sleeps really well, usually getting two 4 to 5 hour sessions in per day, along with some shorter naps. She’s a great sucker!
Some thoughts on my new title of “dad”:
New Addition
It is tradition that a husband get his wife a present after the delivery of a baby. After being in the room and seeing in every little bit of detail all that is involved, a present hardly seems a satisfactory way of saying thank you. We decided to celebrate this event with art rather than the classic gift of jewelry. Art lasts just as long as diamonds. I contacted Amy Lynn Stevenson who we already have one piece from and discussed what I wanted to do. She came up with a wonderful painting that she titled “New Addition”. The dimensions are 5 feet wide by 3 feet tall.
I really love it and Tammy was very happy with it. I can’t wait to some day give it to Mazie to have in her house.
Happy Birth Day Mazie Kaye!
Mazie Kaye Thingelstad was born on June 14th at 3:17 pm. She weighs 7 lbs 11 ozs and is 21 inches long. Baby is doing great, and Mom is recovering from the [most amazing and traumatic] event.
Daddy Boot Camp
I went to North Memorial today for Daddy Boot Camp. They recently renamed the class to the much more boring title of New Dads Class, but I’m going to insist on calling it Daddy Boot Camp. I guess they didn’t like the military overtone of boot camp? I dunno.
I got there promptly at 9:00 am and was a little surprised to only find two other expectant dads there. To be clear, this is a guys only class, no chicks allowed! We started at five after and it took until about 20 after for all the dads who were registered to finally arrive. Rule #1 to being a dad, learn to be on time and reliable!
We went around and made introductions. There was a truck driver, a computer guy (not me), golf course manager, machine builder, etc. Huge variety of backgrounds and professions. We also had to explain why we were there. One of the future dads said “so I can stop being afraid of being a father?” Get a group of anonymous guys like this together and your not going to get a lot of “touchy feely” talk, but he certainly hit a nerve with the whole room. It was nice to hear people actually fess up to being really excited, and also being totally freaked out about what is to come.
The instructor commented that when his wife and he were expecting he felt like he was always two months behind his wife. When she got pregnant she was engaged right away, but it took him until she showed. I can surely relate to that. Our baby is due in two weeks and Tammy is ready for it anyday. I feel like two more months would be just right.
The class was good. I learned how to swaddle a baby the right way, like the nurses do it. Down-up-down-up. I’ll show you sometime – I rock at it. While I’m now comfortable with the mechanics of changing a diaper, I still think it’s probably pretty gross. It was really funny how much happier all us guys got when we got to do things with the plastic baby dolls. Give us something to do and we are much better off than just sitting there.
They showed a video on Shaken Baby Syndrome that was horrific. It wasn’t violent or anything, didn’t show some baby getting shaken, it was just so bad. What a horrific thing to do to a little baby. Nauseated me just a bit.
In the last half-hour a “veteran” Dad came in with his daughter who was 6 months old and fielded questions. That was really good and the kid was just darn cute. He talked about the experience which was still fresh in his mind. I liked that.
PS: Quick update on the name front. Zaida is probably nosing ahead right now over Mazie. We’ll see what we think when she’s born. And, if somehow it’s a boy, we’ll just have to make something up!
