My Experiences as a Father... April 5 to May 4, 2004 (60th month)

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Tuesday, May 4, 2004 - Maeve's 5th birthday
We wanted to have a Mexican theme to Maeve's birthday.  It was going to be "The Cinco De Mayo for the Cinco De Maeve".  Maeve insisted her birthday was the 5th of May, because cinco is 5.  I had a hard time explaining why we were celebrating a day early.
 

Sunday, May 2, 2004
Maeve woke up with a nosebleed today.  It was well under control, but I got to talking about how the medical term was "epistaxis".  I said it was a good way to scare people, because everyone knows what a nosebleed is, but few people know what epistaxis is.  I said we could tell her Sunday School teacher that she had epistaxis, just to see what she would do.  I said another fun thing to do was to talk about eupnea.  First I said that tachypnea is breathing fast, and dyspnea is some difficulty breathing.  Eupnea is normal breathing, but almost no one uses that term.  We could tell her Sunday School teacher that she had eupnea all morning, but that her epistaxis had stopped.  Maeve didn't want to do that.  I'm pretty sure I would have ended up explaining the terms before they would keep a child "suffering" from those ailments in their class.
 

Saturday, May 1, 2004
Jill is the assistant coach for Maeve's soccer team.  This week was their third game.  Maeve's coach ran around on the field with the team, while Jill yelled instructions from the sideline.  The opposing coach walked up and down the sidelines yelling instructions.  His yelling was a lot louder.  He was almost hoarse because he was yelling so loudly and passionate, so he even sounded more like a coach. It was a lot easier to hear him, and he said things that you would expect a coach to say, like "Good D!" and "If the ball gets back here, kick it as hard as you can the other way."  The other team's goalies would also dive for the ball.  It looks very impressive, and they did a great job of preventing goals, but I told Hilde that it was also a good way to get kicked in the face.

Hilde and I couldn't hear Jill yelling from the other side of the field, especially over the yelling of the other coach.  I yelled, "Hey lady, do some coaching!"  Apparently Hilde liked that, and for the rest of the game, every so often, she would wave both arms and yell, "Do some coaching, lady!"  The people on our side of the field thought it was all very funny.

Maeve and I went to the convenience store between games.  A few parking spaces over, there was a pickup truck with several rolls of insulation.  It was Johns Manville insulation, so there was no pink color to give it away, and there were no pictures on the packaging.  Maeve said, "Look, Dad, insulation."  That was a proud Dad moment.  I told her she was right, and that most girls of any age wouldn't know what that was, and almost everyone her age wouldn't know what it was.
 

Thursday, April 29, 2004
Maeve has a habit of coming into our bedroom at night and making Jill switch beds with her.  Last night, Maeve and I fell asleep snuggling on the couch, and Jill fell asleep in Hilde's room.  Jill woke up and went to our bed, but she left us on the couch.  I got paged from work about 3 AM.  I picked up Maeve and she asked what I was doing.  I said, "We're moving to someplace more comfortable."  I put her in her bed and she said, "No, your bed..."  I said, "There's someone in my bed", referring to Jill.  Maeve said, "Kick her out."  Instead I snuggled with her in her bed until she fell asleep.
 

Wednesday, April 28, 2004
Jill, Maeve and Hilde went to Nanny's yesterday.  This time it was Hilde who tried to get rid of Jill as soon as they got there.  She said, "You don't have to go in.  You can just stay out here.  You can just drop us off."  It was OK for Maeve to stay.
 

Tuesday, April 27, 2004
Maeve and Hilde got temporary tattoos.  Jill pointed out that I was the only one without a tattoo.  She said maybe tattoos aren't a guy thing.
 

Saturday, April 24, 2004
Today were Maeve's and Hilde's second soccer games with the local league.  Jill came to this one, and Hilde just wanted to hang onto her legs.  Hilde wouldn't even practice with Maeve.  I pulled Hilde away and talked to her for a few minutes, and then she started practicing.  Jill couldn't figure out why I could get Hilde to practice and she couldn't.

We went to get me a haircut in between games, and of course Maeve and Hilde got their candy.

Maeve had a great time in her game.  She keeps getting better at kicking the ball and going after it.
 

Friday, April 23, 2004
Jill asked Maeve if she would like Jill to be a pastor.  Maeve thought about it for a few minutes and said she would like it, because then she could sit up front in church.
 

Tuesday, April 20, 2004
Hilde usually asks for "plain peanut butter in a bowl" for breakfast.  Jill wanted to buy some peanut butter without any hydrogenated oils.  She got natural peanut butter.  The bagger asked if natural peanut butter was supposed to separate like it was doing.  In the morning Hilde said it was "icky peanut butter".  Jill went and got her some non-natural peanut butter.
 

Saturday, April 17, 2004
Today were Maeve's and Hilde's first soccer games with the local league.  Hilde was supposed to be there at 8:30 AM to practice.  Maeve and Hilde usually prefer to stay up later at night and wake up later in the morning.  It's usually tough to get them ready to go to preschool on Tuesdays by 9 AM. I wasn't sure how easy it would be to have everyone ready in time.

Jill is the assistant coach of Hilde's team, but she had a church meeting, so I was her replacement.  I think I did a great job.  Hilde and Maeve practiced kicking the ball from one end of the field to the other before the game.  Hilde got bored a little before Maeve did, so Maeve ended up doing more practicing than Hilde.

I did notice that Hilde had her tongue hanging out a lot while practicing.  I said it looked like she was doing CPR.

Hilde seemed to have fun running around during the game.  At her age, there isn't too much fierce competition or practiced strategy going on during the game.

After Hilde's game we went to get groceries to make a picnic lunch, since Maeve was supposed to be early for her 1 PM game.  We planned a picnic lunch so we would be at the field 45 minutes before we had to be there, and wouldn't be late.  There was a petting zoo in the parking lot of the grocery store, so we visited that after getting our groceries.   There was one baby pygmy goat that Hilde was trying to get to come over to be pet, but the baby goat was not interested.  Hilde kept yelling, "Baby, come here!"  We also saw camels, ponies, chickens, more goats, a kangaroo, a zebra, and even two skunks!

Maeve and Hilde made their own sandwiches when we got home.  We also got water and chips, and left for the soccer field.

After lunch, Maeve started practicing with her team.  Maeve seems to be doing better than during practice on Thursday.  It looks like the practice that she did with Hilde in the morning was very helpful.   I'll be excited to see how much better she is after a whole season of this.

During the game, Maeve did a pretty good job of running after the ball, and didn't seem to have any problems getting right in the middle of a pack of people trying to move the ball around.  She even got to be the goalie at one point.

It was a cooler day, but it still got up to the upper 60s during Maeve's game, with lots of sunshine.  Maeve's coach said that she looked flushed and sent her over for some water.  Her head felt hot.  I gave her some water, and asked if I could take off the t-shirt under the team jersey.  Maeve insisted it stay.  Later, after Maeve went back into the game, I visited her while she was goalie because everyone was at the other end of the field.  I gave her some more water, and then poured a bunch on her chest and back to keep her cool, since she wouldn't let me take off the t-shirt.  After the game, I asked Maeve and Hilde if they wanted to play around with the soccer ball at the soccer field, or go home for more water before going to the park with swings.  Maeve said she wanted to go home first to change all of her clothes, because, "My underwear are soaked."  We would find out later that Maeve was not hot and flushed, but that she just had a mild sunburn on her cheeks.

Jill joined us at the park with the swings and the slides after her church meeting.  Maeve and I watched the skateboarders for a while.  There were about a dozen skateboarders, and Maeve asked why none of them were girls.  I said I didn't have a good answer, but that maybe too many parents tell their girls to play with dolls instead of sliding skateboards down railings and ramps, or the parents say that skateboarding isn't a girl thing (of course I said she could do anything she wanted to, whether people say something is a boy thing or not).  Maeve thought maybe girl skateboarders didn't think it was a nice enough day.  Jill thought maybe all of the girls were tired from winning their soccer games, and they would go to the park tomorrow.
 

Thursday, April 15, 2004
Today was Maeve's first soccer practice.  We knew that Maeve needed to know how to kick the ball, but they also practiced stopping the ball, passing the ball back and forth between two teammates, and kicking the ball between two cones.  Using the cones as a goal instead of a net was a little confusing, because we talked about kicking the ball into a net.

Hilde spent some time on the swings, but then Hilde also got some practice kicking a ball around.
 

Tuesday, April 13, 2004
Jill thinks she would prefer a peppy car to her large, sluggish minivan.  She says she misses having a manual transmission.  I think the seating and cargo space is nice, and the minivan doesn't seem very sluggish to me, though I have to agree with her about the transmission.  Still, it is something that Jill is exploring.  Today Jill asked Maeve what she thought of a particular car that they saw in the parking lot.  Maeve said, "We can't get a car to replace the van because it is not as easy to play in.  We need a van."
 

Sunday, April 11, 2004 - Easter
As part of their Easter candy, Jill got Maeve and Hilde a box of Jelly Belly jelly beans to share.  There were forty different flavors, and the lid had a map of what each different flavor was.

Maeve and I were downstairs and we heard something that sounded a lot like a bunch of jelly beans being dropped on the floor.  Maeve and I went upstairs to help collect them all.  Then I worked with Maeve and Hilde to sort them out and get them all back in their places.  Some of the flavors got mixed with others that looked very similar, but for the most part we got it all straightened out.  That was a fun hour and a half.
 

Saturday, April 10, 2004
I moved to a new cube on Wednesday, and I asked Maeve and Hilde to come to work to decorate my new cube.  I told them I needed some new drawings from them.  They also needed to see where everything was in my new cube, how to get to my cube, etc.

We stopped by my office for almost two hours today.  My new cube is away from the windows, and there are no lights near my cube that are always on, so it is much darker.  Maeve and Hilde found the pads of paper, pens, highlighters, etc.  By the time we were done, I had four drawings sprucing up my new area.
 


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