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.
- One of the memory sticks in my MacBook seems to have died. I isolated the bad DIMM and I’m back up and running on the single good DIMM. I had to head to Radio Shack for a very tiny screwdriver. I’ve already files for an RMA. Luckily I have multiple laptops along so it was all fine.
- Mazie has learned lots of new words. She’s learned “please” although it sounds like “plea” and she now appends it to everything she says – which is very cute.
- This tiny 2-bedroom apartment is actually starting to feel like where we live. Scary.. I miss our house.
East Coast Adventure '06 - Day 27 - AT
Today we left Asheville and headed into the mountains. We drove about 30 miles northwest of Asheville to Hot Springs, NC. Hot Springs is one of the cities that the Appalachian Trail goes right through the middle of. The sidewalk that is on the main street of Hot Springs has “AT” trail blazes embedded right into the cement. Our visit was more to the AT than to Hot Springs, so Mazie loaded up into the kid carrier and we headed out for the trail.
I knew we weren’t going to get much of a hike in. I figured Mazie would make it an hour in the carrier and she did just about that. She did a great job walking by herself on the flats. She navigated the roots like a star and looked smashing in her bright green fury jacket.
It was fun to be on the AT and hiking with the white “blazes” of the AT in sight. Honestly the trail was no different than any other hiking trail we could have been on. However, this one could take you all the way to Maine if you just kept on walking. How cool is that?
Go to day: 3, 4, 8, 10, 12, 15, 16, 17, 22, 23, 24, 27, 28, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 37 or East Coast Adventure collection.
Crazy, Sleep Deprived Dad!
Ever since we’ve arrived in Asheville, Mazie has had a horrible time sleeping. She’s just screamed all the time in her crib and for the first time ever she has been waking up in the middle of the night and we’ve had to bring her to bed with us where she proceeds to kick us and wake up constantly making everyone unhappy.
The sleep issues have driven her father to the brink. I left the grocery store tonight with two 50 foot rolls of tinfoil. You bet, tinfoil! I’m determined to get this kid to sleep better. The room she was trying to sleep in was too bright. So there I was at 7:00pm tonight slapping tinfoil on all the windows to black out the room. I have to admit that I felt a little crazy while doing it.
So far it’s worked. She went down on her own (first time in Asheville!) and is still asleep. I only hope that she makes it the whole night. Oh please, oh please…
Update: While the blacking out of the windows did get Mazie to go to sleep on her own, it didn’t solve the problem of sleeping through the night. She woke up at 3:30am and would not get back in her crib. After 30 minutes of attempting to calm her I brought her back to bed with us.
Traveling With a One Year Old
It’s now the 25th day that we’ve been “on the road”. For me, this now marks the longest I’ve ever been away from home. While it’s not a huge deal, I do miss the creature comforts and the simple familiarity of your own domicile. Traveling is always a bit stressful. Yes it is fun and all, but I find that I never really relax. Even now, sitting in the hotel unwinding and tapping on this laptop it’s not like if I were at home doing the same thing.
However hard the travel may be for me though, it’s peanuts to what it’s like for Mazie. We are still just getting going on the vacation part of our trip but Mazie is taking a while to get used to it. The biggest problem by far is sleep. She just isn’t getting enough of it. And as anyone with kids knows, a lack of sleep results in a very unhappy baby, and equally unhappy Mom’s and Dad’s.
At home Mazie is a great sleeper. You put her in her crib at bedtime and she just goes to sleep. On the road, she screams. And screams. And screams. Getting her to sleep is an accomplishment of it’s own. Tonight we let her cry for 10 minutes (blood curdling, shaking the other hotel rooms kind of crying) and after that I went in and held her in the bed while she fell asleep and then moved her to her crib. Last night she woke up at 2:00am, ready to go. Wide awake. Oh, and screaming. I brought her to bed and she finally went back to sleep in our bed, but it was a long night for everyone.
She has refused to take a nap anywhere other than her car seat since we left Minnesota. This issue highlights one of my pet peeves on toll roads. While driving on the toll roads Mazie would be sleeping away, ever so happy, then we’d have to stop for a toll. As soon as the van came to a complete stop she’d wake up and it took some extra special quiet to get her to go to sleep again. Usually she was then up and ready to complain about the car seat. Toll roads and sleeping babies do not mix!
The hotel we are staying in has three rooms, but unfortunately the only door is to the bedroom. Tonight we put her in our bedroom to see if that works better. I sure hope it does, the meltdown that took place at 3:00pm today doesn’t need to be repeated. This afternoon’s meltdown included a full on screaming festival followed by rubbing food into her hair. Tammy’s looking at other hotel options now, just in case.
First Two Weeks
I just put up a bunch of pictures from the first two weeks of the Great Adventure. These were edited down by Tammy, which is far superior to me and means you actually get pictures of people instead of just things.
Other updates from the first two weeks:
Also, happy to say that I’ve been sticking to my weight loss program with good diligence and I’ve lost 5 pounds in the last two weeks. Yeah!
Day 17 of the Great Adventure is starting with Grandma Kaye and Aunt Angie visiting. We are heading to the Bronx Zoo this morning!
East Coast Adventure '06 - Day 3
On Friday we embarked on the Thingelstad Family Great East Coast Adventure 2006! What is this amazing event you ask? We are going to be away from home for 5 weeks. The first three will be in New Jersey while I work out of our office here, taking advantage of being in the same office as so many others. The last two weeks will be on vacation in North Carolina. Yeah!
Days 1 and 2 of the adventure were travel days. We left Minneapolis on Friday morning around 9:30a and drove, and drove, and drove. We took breaks for Mazie to get out and run around. We camped in a Starbucks in Rockford, Illinois waiting for a monsoon like rain to pass and providing an opportunity for Mazie to let out some energy, and me to get some back (triple espresso!!!). We also had a great Japanese dinner in Rockford. However, we didn’t take into account that as soon as Mazie saw the food on the grill getting cooked that she would want to eat. Squaking was moderately high. We spent the night just outside of Toledo, OH in a splendid Holiday Inn Express.
We arrived to our great little apartment here in Lawrenceville, NJ last night after another long day of driving through Ohio and Pennsylvania. At one point while driving through Ohio in the morning Tammy looked over at me and said the best line of the whole drive
I’m going to sleep. Try not to do anything stupid.
I appreciated her vote of confidence and continued to motor along while her and Mazie got some rest.
We spent Sunday here in NJ getting the apartment setup and preparing for the week. Stay tuned for more updates from the Great Adventure.
Go to day: 3, 4, 8, 10, 12, 15, 16, 17, 22, 23, 24, 27, 28, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 37 or East Coast Adventure collection.
Nintendo DS Lite
Yesterday we were at Best Buy on my occassional visit to wonder around the store and just check stuff out. Tammy finds these trips annoying since I rarely buy anything, and after 5 minutes decide to leave. Yesterday though I decided to check out the gaming aisles and stumbled on the Nintendo DS. I had read about these “brain games” for the DS in Scientific American Mind magazine and was intrigued. They had one of these on the demo unit so we played it, and it was pretty fun. 10 minutes later we walked out of the store with a DS Lite and three games.
I decided that my ban on ever buying a gaming console again (at least until Mazie is old enough to find it fun) was not applicable since this is a portable unit. So far, it’s a lot of fun and the portability makes a great for flights. The initial set of games we got were Brain Age, Big Brain Academy and Super Mario Bros. Now it’s time to start looking up information on hacking the DS! 🙂
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.