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.
Celebrity Spotting: Doug Savant
We are all in Iowa City this weekend to see our friends Lisa & Eric and particularly their new baby girl Rachel. She’s as cute as can be and so tiny! I know Mazie was that tiny, but I have no real recollection of it.
We are staying at the Hotel Vetro, which is an overly hip hotel for Iowa City and while going to the elevator today Tammy saw someone in the hallway she was positive she knew. She stopped the guy while telling me “Isn’t that someone we know?” I looked at it wasn’t, but it was one of the actors from Desperate Housewives, Doug Savant.
I checked online and his wife is from Iowa City so I would guess they were here visiting.
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.
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!