Omnium-gatherum
Matt Hanson’s Brain Archive
July 25, 2006
A Mild Disaster
It was still early morning on Mother’s Day when I ventured downstairs. I don’t remember exactly why I was headed downstairs just that I didn’t get all the way to the bottom when I noticed a peculiar sheen to the floor. A small bit of panic swelled from somewhere inside me. Slowly, not sure I wanted to do this, I looked over to the right to survey the rest of the basement. The panic leapt into my throat when I saw things floating. The kids were up and I had a serious problem on my hands.
“Kiimmm!” It was not how I wanted to wake up my wife on Mother’s Day but I had to forgo my breakfast plans for her…and sleeping in wasn’t an option either. Sorry hon.
We were only one of many houses in Dover, in fact in all of NH, to experience basement flooding during these rains and we learned what a destructive force water can be. It only took several inches of water to destroy most everything - furniture, speakers, lots of books, the dryer - we were lucky it didn’t hit the furnance (just another inch). I’ve since ripped out the floor, the wall paneling, drywall (which got very moldy), and all the wood. Our basement is finished no more.
The upside of this is that we will get to refinish the basement in the way we’d like to do it. I’ve been playing with Home Designer to visualize the exact layout. It will still be another couple months before I can even get a contractor out to the house, but it will be a cool addition when all is done.
All in all we got off lucky considering how many people’s homes are completely devestated by floods every year.
July 12, 2006
It’s always difficult to fit in everything around Christmas time. This year we didn’t do Christmas with Diana until April and so combined it with Jeff’s Birthday - see the lollipop-cake-man!
We also had some very good weather in April, so here are some pcitures of the girls playing in the backyard and other various pictures of them inside as well.
Colored Eggs
Easter is colorful time. Egg painting has become a tradition at our house and Kaley loves dipping and coloring them. Maizy however is not at a point where she can sit and color eggs or even handle them. She’d be far more content throwing the eggs on the floor, stepping on them, then pouring or drinking the egg coloring. Perhaps next year. This year we used paint, stickers, and traditional egg water colors - take a look inside!
May 26, 2006
Red Fire Trucks
What little boy doesn’t like Fire Trucks? They are bright red, big, they make noise, and they have lots of moving parts. And firemen get to wear cool hats. Our neighbor Daniel is just a few months younger then Kaley and now it was his time to turn 3. Fire truck cake, fire truck pinata, and firemen hats for the kids.
Traditional birthday games need to be modified slightly for kids this age. Sharp tacks in the hands of blindfolded little ones is not a great idea - so instead there was a pin-the-fire-badge-on-the-dalmations-firemen-hat. And do we really want to give sticks to three year olds inside the house, then blindfold them, spin them around then tell them to swing it? Even without the blindfold this can cause serious unintentional damage. Instead the bottom of the pinata was home to a colorful series of strings, most of which did absolutely nothing. Daniel went first, picked the magic string out of the dozen available and yanked - showering all with candy on the first try.
The No-Sticks and No-Tacks was a good avenue to take.
May 25, 2006
Creative Movement
The activities have started. As kids it invariably starts with dance, gymnastics, or piano lessons. As they get older it becomes sports, karate, the violin, skating, or any other myriad of activities. But how do you choose what your kids should do? Should she learn foriegn languages? Should she continue with dance, or start an instrument? The fact is that with limited time and a finite budget you can’t send your kids off to do the countless number of fun activities there is to do.
Kaley has been taking a kid music class (called Music Together) since she was little, and now Maizy is doing the same thing. They both have fun, I think it’s valuable, and most importantly the music is very good - and not just for kids.
This past Winter, we decided it was time for Kaley to give Dance a try. The class, called Creative Movement, got her working on basic ballet steps, and now tap. The final dance piece the class put on for parents wasn’t exactly very active (at 3, what do you expect? They end up mostly standing there not really sure how to act in front of all these people), but most importantly she enjoys the class a lot. Perhaps she enjoys dressing up in the outfit even more then the dance class itself. I’d like to get her trying Kung Fu this next year, but maybe we’ll just start with Gymnastics.
November 12, 2006 - I added pictures from dance classes in May and the beginning of June
May 15, 2006
The Girls Together
While I have in fact taken less pictures of Maizy by herself then I had with Kaley I do take a lot of pictures of the girls together.
Push-up Pops
playing
painting
poking
in purple
My Valentines
A bit belated…
I’ve got 3 lovely girls living in my house.
Hug O’ War
I will not play at tug o’ war.
I’d rather play at hug o’ war,
Where everyone hugs
Instead of tugs,
Where everyone giggles
And rolls on the rug,
Where everyone kisses,
And everyone grins,
And everyone cuddles,
And everyone wins.Shel Silverstein
March 7, 2006
Almost walking, almost talking
As I’ve said before I’ve been pretty lame at taking pictures of Maizy over the past year. But it’s not just Maizy - I find myself leaving my camera at home for all sorts of events. But when I look at my pictures I see why; I’m getting sloppy. My pictures are getting to be second-rate and it’s hard to get excited about taking them. I just need to put some more energy into it. I’ve also been slow on the draw - these pictures are already a couple months old.
Regardless here are some pictures of Maizy, playing at the house, at the playground. There are some good smiles at least. She’s almost a year old in these pictures and that’s a fun time. She’s crawling and standing up on her own using chairs and objects. Not only that but at almost a year she’s able to play more with Kaley without us worrying about her getting hurt. Granted Kaley sometimes is rough with her but she’s able to take it a lot more, and she has her own methods of fighting back…she likes to pull hair.
Starting at 6 months, perhaps sooner, Kaley was interested in the TV. There were a couple tapes (the Comfy Couch) that she would sit and watch the whole thing. Maizy couldn’t be more different. She has never spent more then a few minutes looking at the screen even for the most colorful and vibrant looking scenes. She may look at it for a minute but then she’s on the move to explore or play with some bauble in the corner. She’s either just too active with a short attention span or she needs glasses…
February 18, 2006
“I can’t believe he did it!”
All parents will remember that first Christmas where their kid(s) first “got it”, that this was a time for excitement. The jolly benevolent man in red was coming down the chimney, and bringing gifts to fulfill our imagination! This was the year that Kaley was that kid who held Santa Clause in awe. She came down the steps Christmas morning and saw that bright red plastic fire truck, with Rescue Hero Billy Blazes on the ladder ready to hose down anything.
“He did it, I can’t believe he did it! The fire truck!”. It was a great day.
Christmas is a conflicting time for me. On one hand it is an exciting, fun time and I want to share it with my kids and have them experience it. I loved Christmas when I was a kid and wanted to share some of that with my kids. On the other hand, the excesses of Christmas around us have dwarfed the real meaning of Christmas. It’s now got two separate parts: the Christian part and the secular gift giving part. To complicate it further I no longer subscribe to the Christian religion, so am I a poser for still celebrating a part of Christmas? Maybe. But when I was a kid, it was religious; I was religious. So how do I reconcile these feelings? I’ll teach my kids the real meaning of Christmas, as I was taught. When they’re older they can make their own decision, as I did.
This gallery contains several Christmas celebrations from the end of December to into January: My family Christmas, Kim’s family Christmas, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day. To me, that’s the real value of Christmas - visits with loved ones.
February 17, 2006
A new, New Years Eve Eve baby
It’s amazing that kids go from speaking a few words to having a huge vocabulary in a year. It was less then a year and a half when Kaley first started speaking and now she constantly amazes me with her word usage. Of all the milestones my daughters have reached none have been more satisfying then my Kaley’s ability to hold a regular conversation.
She loves crafts. Of course she loves TV like most kids, but it’s nice when she turns off the TV and comes to us and says “i want to do a craft”: coloring, painting, gluing, cutting…inside are pictures of ‘bubble crafts” - blowing bubbles with water color paints and pressing them to paper.
November and December ranged from Playground weather before the snow fell, to fort building weather after the snow fell. The end of the year brings birthdays for Kim and Maizy which means at least some pictures of birthday cake. This year we had an additional surprise. On Maizy’s first birthday a new baby was born.
Congratulations to the Crouses and a big welcome to Meryl, the Famous Crouse !
December 19, 2005
Rick Charrette and the Bubble Gum Band
Rick Charrette is a bit of celebrity in Maine, at least amongst the kid circuit. For years he has been singing and performing his songs for kids. I personally don’t remember Rick Charrette from when I was a kid, but there are others my age that do. Perhaps his fame never quite made it to the sleepy town of Hampden. Kaley and I were first introduced to him when he played last Christmas at the Portland tree lighting. It was a very cold and crowded square of people that squeezed in to see the lighting of the giant 60′ tree and Bubble Gum Band in action.
This past November we were invited to take Kaley and see him in concert at York High School. But not only that kaley was invited to go up on stage with several other kids during his “Alligator in the Elevator” song. She was the yougest of the kids and we met Rick before hand so he could meet the kids and tell them what they were to do. Kaley was a bit scared and I really didn’t think that she would end up going up there. But when the time came around I just nudged her in the direction of the other kids and away she went. She got to stand next to Rick and had a great time as can be seen in the pictures.
November 28, 2005
She’s 3
We had a kid birthday party for Kaley last weekend, the theme of which was ’shapes and colors’. Cake, ice cream, presents, and games were the order of the day. Also in this gallery are pictures of Kaley on her actual birthday, the day after Thanksgiving this year, when we were at Me-Meres house.
The Terrible Two’s?
While the age of two is usually called the ‘terrible twos’, the time between 2 and 3 was when Kaley underwent an amazing transformation from baby to an independent communicative toddler. This ia an amazing time of language development where they start off with perhaps a couple words at the age of two, and by 3 they have an extensive vocabulary and talking in complete sentences. Kaley continually uses words that I wonder where she learned them from. She knows colors, shapes, can count by rote to 20, and can actually count things to 3 or 4. It’s amazing how far she’s come in a single year.
Potty training is another big devlepmental milestone and I cannot stress this enough…take your time and you will have less problems in the long run. We waited until Kaley was showing an interest, about 2 and a half. In about a month she was fully potty trained. The terrible two’s are present in all children I’ve ever met - referring to the tendency of them throwing tantrums and the difficulty in communicating with them. Encourage them to use words and don’t respond to communication via whining, or tantrums. But perhaps we just had it easy. Despite the occasional difficulty I am looking forward to watching Maizy through her two’s and am curious what the similarities and differences will be.
October 28, 2005
She likes to eat, she loves to scream
I have started taking more Maizy pictures to make up for my poor performance in past months. She definitely has a more active personality then Kaley ever did. Not that Kaley was lackadaisical, she was just able to stay in one spot for more then a few minutes. Not so with Maizy. Showing no interest in television or sitting still, she’s always on the move and when she’s not on the move but wants to be she screams.
We’re not talking about a normal baby scream or crying here. No, this is a harsh guttural scream that pierces the brain, then gets louder and louder until it drives you out of your mind, or you set her free to roam once more. But other then the scream factor she’s a pretty easy. She goes to sleep on her own, sleeps through the night and happy most of the time.
She’s now getting old enough where we can let Kaley play with her more without fear. She’s not as fragile as she once was and in another few months she’ll be able to pick up Kaley over her head like the twig she is. It’s actually a pretty good combination for siblings. One of them is older so has seniority, but the younger one is tougher and stronger. Kaley’s still learning to keep her hair out of grabbing range as it’s always fair game.
October 27, 2005
Among other things, a Cassie Tibbetts
The real end of warm weather. This year instead of watching the fall foliage we watched the rain. No real leaf colors - not until the end of the month when most of them just turned to brown and dumped on the ground over a couple days. Not a good fall - no apple picking for us this year or much outside activity. However…
I want to congratulate the Tibbetts on the birth of their baby daughter Cassie. She was actually born at the end of last month but we got down to see them early October…pictures inside. we brought dinner for the family and said our Hellos to the new gal, new parents, and grandmother. Hope things are going great in Cassie town.
We made a quick trip to Bangor, ME about mid-month. Rain canceled our planned river boat outing. But we visited with Kim’s long lost cousin Sara and her hubby in Winterport. She’s in the middle of cyclo-cross racing season as she trains to go pro. Best of luck! See pictures of a cyclo-cross race.
Kim and I worked on a couple pumpkins one night. Kaley and I did one that molded up pretty fast. Just recently Kaley and I put together our traditional scarecrow, Beady, to sit watch at the front of the house. He came out looking a bit more goofy then normal.
Must get ready for this weekend, the pumpkins are coming to town…
UPDATE (Oct 30, 2005)
Pictures add of Kaley doing Pumpkin crafts and trick or treating.
October 1, 2005
Teeth, Family, and little tiny houses
I got some great pictures of Kaley and Maizy together this month and must try in the future to do more. It really started cooling down this month so no more pool pictures. Kaley started going to “school” (playgroup) 2 days/week and also got her first dentist appointment. Kim took the girls to see their great grandmother, and last weekend we went to Portsmouth to see faerie houses spread out across the the city. These are small individually built small houses..the whole idea was started by some childrens book. Some of the houses were neat but the best part was just walking around Portsmouth on a brisk fall day.
