My Experiences as a Father... October 5 to November 4, 2002 (42nd month)

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Friday, November 1, 2002
I brought my shop vac into the living room tonight to vacuum up some cracker crumbs on the floor and the couch.  The last time that Hilde saw me use that was to "dust" the ceiling fans at the end of summer.  When I carried the shop vac into the house, Hilde started pointing at the ceiling fan in the kitchen.
 

Thursday, October 31, 2002
When I asked Maeve a few months ago what she wanted to be for Halloween, she said she wanted to be a "flight paramedic".  We decided that Hilde should be a flight nurse.  Maeve also said she wanted to be a policeman, so we decided she would be a state trooper flight paramedic.  I had a great time preparing.  I built a stretcher out of PVC pipes for one her life-sized dolls.  I got reflective tape and large star-of-life patches for the back of the "flight suits".  I found a helicopter and a star-of-life embroidery design, and Jill embroidered a logo and their names on the "flight suits".

At lunch I came home to take pictures.  We staged the doll having a car accident.

Hilde and Maeve each had their own basket for their candy when we went out trick-or-treating.  I carried the stretcher and Hilde.  We went up the street, but Hilde was fussing a lot by the time we got back to our house.  We dropped off Hilde, and Maeve and I finished the road.  By the end Maeve was getting pretty tired, and she rode the stretcher home.
 

Tuesday, October 29, 2002
Tonight I noticed that the thermostat said it was colder than the thermostat setting.  The baseboard hot-water heaters were cold.  I carried Hilde downstairs to see why the furnace wasn't coming on.  Hilde had turned off the burner switch again.  I told Hilde that she wasn't supposed to play with that switch any more, but I'm not too hopeful that the lesson stuck with her.
 

Saturday, October 26, 2002
Maeve got goosebumps when she got out of the tub tonight, before I dried her off.  Maeve asked about it, and I told her they were usually called "goosebumps", but that the correct term is "piloerection".  I asked if she could say that, and she pronounced it just fine.
 

Wednesday, October 23, 2002
Today was the first snow of the season.  Hopefully this will be a decent winter with plenty of snow.  I would like a good New England winter.
 

Tuesday, October 22, 2002
Hilde went for another doctor's visit today.  This time she got three shots, and these she noticed.  She was 23 lb and 31 inches tall.
 

Monday, October 21, 2002
Maeve wanted to sleep in the tent last night, so I didn't take it down.  It's a little hard to move around in the living room with the tent.  It's also hard to watch TV if you aren't in the tent.  Jill just called with a pretty strong threat that started with, "If you ever pull a stunt like putting up a tent in my living room again...".  While Jill was in Richmond over the weekend, her sister Joan asked Jill why she didn't just leave it up.  Joan got an earful from Jill about that.
 

Sunday, October 20, 2002
Today Maeve and I went to see Peter Pan at the Stadium Theatre.  This was Maeve's first time in a real theater with live actors.  Maeve thought Captain Hook wasn't as scary in real life as he is in the Disney cartoon.  It was a lot of fun, but it was clear to me that the actors were "volunteers".  They did have the whole "Flying by Foy - a PROFESSIONAL stage flying company" that got the actors flying around.  It wasn't as convincing as the cartoon version, but they were up in the air.  I asked Maeve after if they looked like they were flying or hanging, and she said hanging.

The play took three hours, so we had to leave right from there, rush home to get Jill and Hilde's flight information and then try to get to Logan.  Between running into traffic from Foxboro Stadium, having trouble getting through the Big Dig maze of detours, and a lot of traffic on northbound I-93, it took two hours to get there.  That seemed a little too long for a Sunday evening.  We hit way too much traffic getting out of Boston, too.  I was pretty torqued by the time we got home.

Maeve had decided that the tent in the living room should be taken down after Jill and Hilde got home.  Hilde fell in love with it right away.  She was going in and out, and putting even more toys in there.
 

Saturday, October 19, 2002
Maeve and I went to the welding store today to pick up some items for my new welder.  While we were there, I got some beanie hats, and we even bought Maeve a colorful welding hat.  Maeve wore her hat and a beanie hat home, and then put them in her garage tote.

We also went to see the VeggieTales "Johah" movie.  It was the first movie that Maeve had ever been to.  She was very well behaved, and seemed to really enjoy it.  I was worried about her falling asleep during the movie, but she waited until the trip home to fall asleep.
 

Thursday, October 17, 2002
Maeve and I took Jill and Hilde to the airport today.  I know it's a bad idea to go to Boston during the work day, but we didn't have much choice.  I also needed to get back to pick up a welder at 4 PM.  Even leaving Logan airport at 2:30 in the afternoon we hit crazy traffic and wasted too much time.  I told Jill that she didn't need to fly out of Logan again.

This was Hilde's first airplane trip.  Just like Maeve's first flight, Hilde's first airplane trip was about 20 years earlier in her life than mine was.  She was just a few weeks older than Maeve when she took her first trip.

Maeve and I put up a tent in the living room to sleep in while Mom was gone.  It's big enough that it makes getting around it very hard.  At first Maeve said she didn't want to sleep in it, but she really enjoyed it once she figured out how to open and close the flaps.  She started calling it her house.  She took some books, crayons and toys in and zipped all of the flaps shut.  At one point she said, "Dad, open my house and look at this".
 

Friday, October 11, 2002
We went out to dinner tonight and Hilde was in a high chair in the aisle.  A woman walked by with a son about the same age as Hilde.  The woman pretended to be talking for her son and said, "Look at that hot chick", referring to Hilde.  On the way home I talked to Maeve and Hilde about it.  I think that it's best if males are not allowed to get TOO confident.  Confident is good, but TOO confident is just bad.  They end up acting inane and causing trouble for everyone.  I told Maeve and Hilde that if anyone ever calls them a hot chick that they should kick them in the groin.  Even if they like the person, it's still better long term for him to be put in his place.  Maeve said, "OK".  Jill said we didn't need to have this conversation when Maeve was only 3.
 


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