Rolling...

Here are some funny pictures of Amelia holding up her head and rolling -- and then getting herself into some funny spots. Hope this link works -- this is Heidi, the less tech savy one of the operation.

http://picasaweb.google.com/crumlives/MoreLakeGeorge/photo?authkey=1n9DevOK6vo#5221193338537648770

Uh Oh....

Amelia rolled over from her belly to her back today... we are really in for it... she now rolls in both directions!

Pictures are coming...

Vanya's Boat

http://picasaweb.google.com/crumlives/VanyaSBoat?authkey=wafQVHPTjiI

These are some pictures of a boat that I am building with Winter and Vanya. Winter is a wooden boat expert and afficionado who seems to me to be in his 60s but I am told he is older. Vanya is Heidi's cousin who I am pretty sure is 17 or maybe 16 and I of course am 35 so it is truly an intergenerational project.

Vanya, like all 16 year olds, has been pretty busy so I'm helping out with some of the not so fun for 16 year old parts of boat building. (Those parts are very fun for Winter and me though.) We are going to leave the painting of the boat to Vanya. I know that he is quite an artist so it may be a fantastically original paint job.

If you look at the pictures you can see that it has been an interesting job. The main problem, well there are many big problems, but I think the main one is that the directions are nearly indecipherable and the schematic drawings have been downsized to the point where you can no longer read the numbers. The guy who wrote the directions, Jim Shotwell, is a great and kind guy but clearly is not great at translating his great knowledge of boats to text. So I have basically been progressing to make it look boat like. The other problem with the decking of the boat is that they sent the plywood pieces in sections that were not the full length of the boat. This meant that there is a seam in the middle of the long axis, a seam that does not match up with any of the structure of the boat. Design grade = D-.

As with any project I have learned many things that I could do better the next time around. Things that I can't fix on the current project but could fix at some future point. Sorry about that Vanya :)

Oh-for anyone that is still reading--the picture of the Lake George House was my idea of a joke. It is the biggest house on Lake George and owned by one of the owners of the Red Sox. Our house is wonderful beyond belief--but slightly smaller.

Our Lake George House--a view from the water.

Grandmother and Baby

Grandmother and Baby!

Swimming With Amelia

Swimming with Amelia! She loves to swim! Or at least she doesn't scream when she gets in the water - she looks around and enjoys being underwater (with her head out, obviously...)

Post 100 from Lake George

2 July 2008

100 posts about Amelia--wow! We all hope you have enjoyed and will continue to enjoy following the trials and travails of Amelia and her parents. We made this site to keep anyone who was interested in Amelia updated on her progress and have been very happy that so many have told us that they liked it.

We arrived at Lake George yesterday and are looking forward to a very fun stay for the fourth of July weekend. The highlight of today was when Heidi took Amelia swimming for the very first time. Amelia seemed to love it and floated in the water with Heidi for about 15 minutes. She had a smile on her face the whole time and she didn't even turn blue.

The big work of the day was the purchase by Grammy and Aunt Liz of some new deck furniture. Last night I sat down and crushed the old wooden bench. After that they calculated that the old furniture was 27 years old so they decided that was enough use and set off to Lowe's to buy some new stuff. I was very excited that the hardest part of the setup was cutting the zip ties off of the packaging. Everything else went together with minimal work. It is perfect timing for Amelia because the table came with a giant sun umbrella that will enable her to be out on the sunny deck with us all summer long.

OK--Heidi needs to shower--I'm off.

Laura's visit

This is Laura, Heidi, Amelia and my trip to Portsmouth.

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This is our friend Chris holding Amelia.

And this one is of Ameli holding on to her dear old dad...

Our Third Cat

29 June 2008

Amelia has moved to the all important cat phase of her development. She is now fascinated by blinking lights, strange lights, loud sounds and the end all be all of cat-dom--toys with little bells inside.

This morning I was shaking a little belled toy in front of her and I felt a little bad that this was the exact same way that I had entertained our cat Badger when she was little. The feeling quickly passed as I remembered a mere 2 weeks ago when nothing I tried would calm her in any way.

In other news my sister Laura came to visit this weekend. She is 5 months pregnant with her second child and is taking a weekend break from kid one and husband Chris to come see us. We are super excited to have her here. It is a little rainy this weekend but we will have pictures of whatever we wind up doing.

Cape Cod with the Elliott's

June 2008

Our good friends the Elliotts--Chris, Emily and their kids Sydney, Morgan and Mia--came out to Cape Cod last week to visit with some of their New England friends. We were very excited that they made the 15 hour drive out to see us. Elliott had purchased an old motorcycle trailer which he mounted so that it could be towed behind their car. Then he and Emily piled the roof rack full of bikes, bags, and beach furniture. Morgan loaded the car with his swords and Sydney brought her dolls and a light saber she borrowed from Morgan so she would be able to fight too when they got to the Cape.

This picture is from 30 seconds after we arrived. Morgan and Sydney were so excited to hold Amelia that they nearly ripped her out of the car seat.

They were also very excited to help calm Amelia in the early mornings. This picture was from around 6:30 am and we were the only ones up. Their only request was that I change the channel from Sports Center to cartoons.

At any rate we were very excited that the Elliott's made such a long trip. We had a wonderful time with them at the beach.

Dan's Bachelor Party

The other day on the way home from work I bought Heidi some flowers.

Before you get too excited I should tell you that I bought these as an advance thank you for Heidi allowing me to go to my great friend Dan's bachelor party this weekend. One of the things that I have always loved about Heidi is that she knows how much I value my friends and she remains an awesome woman that still encourages me to go to bachelor parties even when I have a baby. She's a pretty great find.

Also before you think it was a crazy bachelor party I'll tell you that we rented a cabin on Squam Lake and did a ton of fishing.

And don't worry this picture is as close as we got to any strippers. I think it is getting better but I'm still working on my baby weight.

Amelia Smiles

This is my new favorite picture of Amelia (this is Heidi, by the way). If you're ever up in the middle of the night feel free to think of me because she has turned on me and is waking up every 2 hours to eat and then wants to play. She's still cute at 1, 3, 4 & 5 am (wait...that's more than every 2 hours...) but it would be better if those were p.m. hours and not a.m. hours. In other news she has found that she can put her hands together and then put them into her mouth. She makes loud sucking sounds and we find it very cute. (again, not cute during a.m. hours...)

Amelia and Pen

This is the same pen that I used as perspective for the first picture that I took of Amelia. Just wanted to show how much she grew--and how she isn't purple any more.

Becky holds the baby

Becky and Amelia on the porch at lake George.

Lake George

I'm behind.

Two weekends ago we went to Lake George but I have yet to have the chance to post some pictures of the trip. Between Amelia crying and occassionally going to work I've been a bit busy.

This is a picture from Heidi's dock at Lake George. You can see Jay and I holding in our stomachs and Matt not needing to.

Here is one of Hunter and Lesley on a boat ride. He really like riding around the lake in the boat. (In the future I will continue to provide this kind of deep analysis of the issues at hand.)

I love this one of Becky having fun on the boat.

Hair

So the other day Heidi left me at home with Amelia again. After the last videos that I put up it is very fair to ask, "Why?" But she did anyway.

I arrived home for Amelia's feeding time and quickly took some frozen milk out and began running it under hot water. While that heated up she fussed and fussed and I was hoping for a stay in the laws of thermodynamics so the milk would thaw faster. Eventually they thawed and I had a great feeding with her. She sucked down several ounces. (Now for you non-believers our there--I did some calculations and found that if I were drinking as much milk as Amelia I would be drinking about 1 gallon every 3-4 hours. A couple ounces is a big deal if you only weigh 10 pounds.)

After the feeding Heidi tells me that she is supposed to play for a few minutes and then go to sleep. Today Amelia played for a few minutes and started screaming. I entertained the screaming with all of the normal things I have tried in the past but to no avail. But I did need a hair cut.

I shave my head with an electric razor like they have at the barber shop. You know the one with the big plastic guard that looks like it could also be used to trim around hedges. I reasoned that if the sound of water, and air purifiers and clothes driers calmed Amelia that maybe the sound of the trimmer would too. So, holding Amelia firmly in one hand, I started up the trimmers and began to shave my head. (A nice little clean up with a number 2 guard.) The right side of my head went really well as it was done with my right hand but the left was a little more of a challenge. I had to switch the bundled Amelia over to the right and try to relearn how to shave with my left hand while not dropping a baby. Slightly challenging. In the end though I finished it off and it was certainly a passable job. (From the front at least--later in the day I discovered a mini-Mohawk on part of the back of my skull.)

The trouble began as Amelia continued to cry. The trimmer noise had calmed her for a bit but once that was done she was in a tizzy. I knew that baths had calmed her in the past so I set up the baby tub in the sink and filled it up. As the tub was filling I took her clothes off and got her ready for the bath. When I carried her over to the tub I held her naked against my chest. Well, all the hair from the head shave was on my chest. The hair got all over her.

I didn't panic because I was taking her to the bath anyway. It would wash off there. But it didn't. Have you ever tried to flush a recalcitrant hair off the wall of a shower? That is what I was dealing with all over her body. I tried to use the sprayer but she didn't like that at all. And I tried to wash it with her bath rag but that just kept re-depositing the hair in new places. Finally I cleansed enough of the hair off or her that I thought she would be OK and I took her out of the bath.

In the rush to dry her off the towel that I chose was the same one that I had used to brush the hair off of my own head before this whole bath saga began. This towel, covered in tiny hairs, served as a hair paint brush to cover my beautiful baby with 5 times the amount that was on her from the original accident. I knew that at this point we both had to be fully washed down. The next 20 minutes involved; me in the shower with Amelia screaming outside, both of us in the shower with Amelia screaming and my favorite both of us outside of the shower fully wet with now idea where a hair free towel was.

Of course in the end we figured it all out and when Heidi came home she was sleeping on my chest as though there had never been a problem.

Just another day in learning how to be a dad....

Happy Fathers Day

Father's Day 2008

In my first Father's Day I would like to pay tribute to the best Dad I know--John Crumrine. Anyone who knows me well also knows that Dad and I don't always see things the exact same way. But disagreement doesn't mean disrespect and if there is anyone in my life that I respect and honor it is my Dad.

When I think of my Dad one of the first things that always comes to mind is a quote he sometimes used when I was growing up. This was always delivered after I did something exceedingly dumb . (My Mom actually said at one point that I messed up really big one time a year rather than the normal teen pattern of messing up early and often--but this is about Dad.) His quote was, "One boy = a whole brain, Two boys = 1/2 a brain, Three boys = 1/4 of a brain and Four boys = no brain at all." At the time he told me that his dad had passed the saying along to him. And at the time I had just gotten into trouble with 3 other boys--totally proving the four boy-no brain theorem.

I think of my Dad more and more every year. Most likely because with each passing year I realize we are much more alike than we are different. As I chop wood to heat our home like Dad did for us, as I mow the yard or even as I shovel large amounts of dirt. That's right--even when I shovel dirt. Shoveling dirt is something that my Dad and I know well. Recently I moved a large birm on the side of our driveway to the back of the house. The birm was about 4 feet above the driveway surface so it was like shoveling a pile of dirt the size of an elephant to the back of the house. I thought about renting a tractor to do this but with the thought of my Dad in mind I figured I would just shovel it. So over the course of about 5 nights I moved the pile--I looked at it as good exercise.

This is nothing compared to what Dad is capable of. Many summers ago he decided that he would like to fill in the old swimming pool at their house. Some would have hired someone to do it, others might have rented a back hoe but my Dad chopped up the surrounding concrete with a sledge and filled in the whole thing with soil. I think he said something about it all being good exercise.

I suppose this connection to soil makes sense. Dad was trained to know water but after moving to Ohio farmland he became and expert on soil so he could help area farmers. I still remember him taking a correspondence course and reading his big book of soil. He always tried to get my sister and I interested in the kinds of silt and loam but I don't think either one of us took too much interest in it. I always loved how excited he was about it when he was telling us about the difference between that patch of brown and the patch of darker brown right next to it. And he really knew the geologic and local reasons why they were different. Even though I'm sure I said something teenagerish at the time I distinctly remember thinking, "Hunh--interesting," inside.

This excitement of explanation is something that I try to emulate in my teaching. When I wade into a river with a group of students, pick up a rock and explain why there is a stonefly on the bottom of that rock--I'm thinking a little bit of how Dad might explain it. And I have even picked up some of the things that my Dad used to do. He can tell what kind of tree something is just by looking at its bark and the twigs. And I don't mean just 4 kinds of trees--I mean every tree we ever ran across. As I've gotten older, and especially with all the hiking I do, I have found that I really like trying to identify trees this way too. I'm no where near as good--yet--but it is fun. And just like my Dad I enjoy telling students what tree is what even if they aren't really listening to me. I know they will appreciate it someday.

As my Dad moves to his third retirement and all kinds of travelling around the country to see grandkids I want him to know that I appreciate it today. I am who I am because of him and I'm very exctied about being exactly the same kind of Dad for Amelia that he was for me.

Happy Father's Day

Home Alone With Amelia

I was home alone with Amelia today while Heidi ran some errands. It gave me new appreciation for how hard Heidi's new job is. I would have written about it but Amelia won't let me--so here are a couple clips of the day.

Of course moments after I took this video I put her down in her crib and she slept until her mom came home--figures.

Rosie and Andrew Visit

30 May 2008

Today began for me at 4am. It began for Heidi at 2 am. That is when Amelia, lovely Amelia, began to cry. I noticed the crying but tried to stay asleep, but when 4 came and some real screaming was going on I thought I should wake up and see what was going on. Heidi was certainly ready for a break and, while groggy, I was happy to take Amelia.

My first attempt was to simply turn on the TV and hold her. Amelia noticed this pathetic try after 3 minutes and let me know with some good sqwaking. Next, I tried to start a load of laundry and hold her near the machine. I was careful not to let her bounce off but she still did not calm down. So at about 4:30 I suited her up, put her in the car seat and headed out for a drive.

I had a ton of talk radio recorded on my iPod and within 200 feet Amelia was asleep. I knew from past experience that driving would be the best thing to keep Amelia calm so I decided to drive for a while. I did hope I could get some coffee for the ride.

First I looked at the local place--closed.

Then I drove on to Alton to look for coffee. No big deal, I had to drive anyway to keep her calm.

But all of the places in Alton were closed too. I was now 9 miles of 35mph driving from home and I really wanted coffee. It was only around 4:50 so I decided to keep driving. I knew there was a Dunkin Donuts in Wolfeboro 7 miles north. The drive from the southern tip of Winnepesauke up along the eastern side was beautiful. As the sun rose to my right it illuminated the lake on my left creating incredible scenes.

At about 5:10 I arrive in Wolfeboro. The Dunkin Donuts was indeed open and I got a large coffee and a bagel. DD bagels are often terrible but this one was fresh out of the oven and terrific. As I spewed sesame seeds all over the car and spilled sugary coffee on my work pants, Amelia made....not a sound.

I dropped Amelia back at home around 6 and went to work. It was a long day but I actually will remember it as a fun one because of Amelia and I's morning together. It was further highlighted by the fact that our friends Rosie and Andrew came for dinner.

Andrew and Rosie are going to teach in the Philippines for 2 years and this was one of our last visits. It was great to see Rosie hold Amelia and rock her to sleep.

Push Up Contest

While adults sat and watched the youngsters had a pushup contest. Anna can do a lot but Becky can do them one handed.