Gooch and Nesbitt come to visit

This weekend we had a great visit with our friends Jim Gooch and John Nesbitt. Some pictures and a video at the end....

Part II of the keys

Heidi already told the ending but I wrote this without knowing that--so my take on the keys :)

Part II
Over the next few days of our vacation I made calls trying to see if the keys were in lost and found or if there was a way to duplicate them without the originals or any proof that the car was ours. Every call to the lost and found was futile but they did often ask, “Where did you leave the keys?” I suppose this is a common first reaction for normal people but I would think that people that work in lost and found would realize that this question is pointless since if the person knew where they had left the keys they could go there and recover them.

The duplicating of keys has, like every other part of car repair, has moved to a digital, electronic and difficult phase. So when I called the dealership they said that they could make me new keys but for $137. Now the original keys were quite nice but I don’t think they were worth that much money. And if you consider that just 10 years ago you could copy keys for about 2 dollars that is quite a large increase.

I tried many approaches during our week in Ohio including a plan where I rented a car that would be ready for us at the NH airport. In this plan we would drive home, search like crazy for the lost keys and then I would drive back, return the rental car and drive home. Doesn’t sound to bad but a 45 minute 1 way trip isn’t exactly what I was looking for after a few plane rides. So we just stopped working on the problem and decided that we would figure it out when we got to NH.

When we went to bed on our last night in Columbus we still didn’t quite know what we are doing [1] but we went to bed anyway with the thought that we would figure it out when we got there. But then at 1am Aaaaaaaaaaaaa! Waaahhhhh! Heidi did her best to calm Amelia and then gave her over to me. She was crying louder than I had ever seen her cry. I was so worried that she would wake up her 2 year old cousin Katelyn that I went down into the basement and tried to walk her to sleep down there. But for the first time she didn’t respond to any of the normal tricks. She just kept crying and crying. To make our flight we had to leave at 4am so I was really hoping to get her to sleep—which I did by 3:20. A restful 30 minutes later I woke up worried that I had missed the alarm and just got up.


Amelia was very good on both flights, possibly due to staying up most of the night, and we arrived in NH without incident. Heidi and Amelia took up a spot near the in-airport McDonald’s I began trying to figure out what happened to the keys. As stupidly as on our first day of the trip, I had worn flip flops but insisted on running to the car to see what the situation was. I jogged, walked fast, dodged cars that were trying to hit me and made it to our car. I walked right up to the driver side door, grabbed the handle and opened it. Oooops! I jumped in and there were the keys in the ignition[2]. As dumb as it was to leave the keys in the car I was very happy to have them and immediately headed back to the terminal to tell Heidi that we could grab our bags and we could go home. The car had been unlocked for a week but I still felt the need to hit the remote lock as I walked away. But it didn’t make the characteristic ‘beep’ sound. I walked back to the car got in again and tried to start it up—totally dead. I had not only left the keys in the car but I had left the car on[3].

There are some more details but I’m going to end it here. We had the attendant at the airport jump the car and we were home in no time. Lesson learned—next time we will take the 8 am flight rather than the 6 am one.


[1] Don’t worry—this story is sort of boring me too but I had to finish it since I said the first part was part 1—next time I have this kind of idea I won’t do part 1 and part 2 since clearly part 2 sucks more than part 1 and part 1 might not have been that good.
[2] Just so you know this approach is not recommended in states other than NH and VT.
[3] Just so you know this approach is not recommended in any states.

Car Key Olympics

It's Heidi here... thought I'd update everyone on what happened with the car keys -- Tom got busy with work (someone has to pay the bills...) and didn't finish the story.

Arriving in Manchester we didn't know what to expect but we were REALLY tired. Our worst case scenario plan was to rent a car, drive home so Amelia and I could settle back in, and then he would drive to the dealership and try to get a duplicate key. Then drive back to the airport, return the car, and retrieve our car. We were really hoping this wouldn't happen.


So, we land and Tom leaves me and Amelia at the food court to sit tight and wait. He goes to get our luggage and brings it back upstairs to me. He then goes to the car...

He found the keys in the ignition of our unlocked car. The battery had run down but he was able to get a jump from the Manchester parking garage people. Tom then had to come back into the airport to get us and our bags - I couldn't carry both bags and deal with the stroller (and Amelia who has learned to launch herself out of her carseat when not strapped in) and he couldn't pull up and park out front as the parking lots Nazi's will ticket your car immediately. So, Amelia and I go and sit on the benches out front while Tom returns to the car for a third time, loads up, and retrieves the two of us.

Needless to say, we all took a big long nap when we returned home that afternoon...

Speaking of naps, Amelia is still sleeping like a champ and we can't believe how much our (my) life has changed in a few short days. It's amazing what a few hours of sleep will do for you!

Baffled

Well, Amelia slept very well last night. We remain totally confused about how to raise a baby. Just when you think you know something--it all changes. She was up for an hour or so around midnight but then slept so well that we had to wake her up at 7am. Then at 8:30 she went down for a nap (with no walking around or anything like that) and she fussed for 3 minutes and then slept for 2 hours. Again we had to wake her up so she didn't sleep too long.

Very odd. But also great news.

Corn Hole

People have been asking us what corn hole is. It is a game played by throwing bags filled with corn at tilted boards with holes in them. Players score 3 points for tossing a bag in the hole and 1 point for a bag on the board. Similar to horseshoes the points cancel each other so if one player sinks a bag and another sinks one and has one on the board, the second player scores 1 point.

The game came to us from Ohio and our friends Justin and Val. I first played it at St. Michael's Maryland while celebrating Alex's 30th birthday. Then Justin and Val came to vist and Justin helped me build some boards before repeatedly beating me on my home course. (He recently proved that he is still the best by beating me 21-0 while I visited Ohio.)

The nice thing about the game is that it is cheap, easy to make and much easier to learn and play than horseshoes. It is also possible to play with your daughter in the baby bjorn. It throws off your ballance a bit but you can still play pretty well. When Amelia was in her big crying stage I would play by myself walking from end to end and the motion of the walking would put her to sleep.

The video here shows Matty and Tucker playing. They came to visit the second week that Amelia was born. This was a very fun trip.

Fun with Katelyn

Olympics

In the spirit of the Olympics we thought we would post constantly as Amelia begins her sleep traitng. We had read many books, as I referenced earlier, and tonight began putting Amelia down and not going to her when she cried.

We were totally prepared to check on her every 10 minutes until she fell asleep. My guess was 1 hour, Heidi's was up to 2.5.

Heidi gave her a bath and put her down. Heidi then took a shower and I was left to check on Amelia. The system was that I would check after 5, 10, then 15 minutes--just to make sure she was OK. (For those of you trying to learn from this blog it is page 183 of the Ferber book.) The plan was that this pattern would continue until she was asleep--no matter how much crying she did.

After 5 minutes I checked on her and she was sqwaking a bit but comfortable. After 10 minutes she was asleep. YES that's right our insanely hard to put to sleep baby fell asleep on her own in 10 minutes. She certainly has been playing us for the last few weeks. At this writing she has been asleep for over 2 hours on her own with no coddling from us.

We shall see how the rest of the night goes...

Amelia Tries to Stand?

So here Amelia does her best version yet of tipping over and trying to get herself into a crawling position. Much like T-rex she doesn't yet have the arm strength to get herself on all 4s. She also may have inherited her mother's T-rex arms (I never noticed them until she pointed it out but they are quite not long). For the record I think my wife looks beautiful and I wouldn't change a thing about her.

On another note we are trying sleep training this week. Sounds so formal and brutal. Very much like football 2 a days which are starting right now. Heidi has read many books on sleep and I have read the sections that she has highlighted for me and it seems like what we are doing is basically letting Amelia cry it out while checking on her every once in a while. Supposedly it is only meant to take a few days and then they sleep through the night. But if you have ever read this blog I'm sure you will agree that it might take longer for our dear one.

Final, but different topic, I looked up how Amelia was doing in comparison to Verne Troyer AKA mini-me from the Austin Powers movies. I thought that maybe she had surpassed his height and weight. She had not--he is 2 ft. 8 inches and 35 or so pounds. I did learn that I was not very original in my mini-me idea. I found several other parent blogs that marked when their child had become bigger than Verne.

Amelia meets her cousin!

One of the highlights of our trip to Ohio was that Amelia got to meet her cousin, Katelyn, who is 2. Katelyn seemed to take to her well and wanted to hold her and pat her head and help her jump in the jumper. She calls Amelia "Meel-ya" and it is very cute. Follow this link below for many cute pictures and video of Katelyn & Meel-ya!

http://picasaweb.google.com/crumlives/OhioWithAmeliaAtChrisAndLauraS/photo?authkey=UOGPbcFzq70#5231789285672865602

Bizzaro Amelia

How does a kid this cute still spend hours at a time crying?

Our friend Emily Elliott, who has 3 young kids of her own, put forward a theory that there are actually two Crumrine kids. There is cute Amelia that is out during most of the day, at parties, in front of everyone and basically any time non-parents are watching. Then there is fussy Amelia, sort of the bizarro Superman of baby world, that cries and fusses and basically makes life tough--but only when no one is watching.

This is the Amelia that we saw the night before we left for home. Luckily Chris and Laura have a big house so I was able to go down to their finished basement (ahh imagine a finished basement--ours is similar to a prison from the 15th century) and walk back and forth to calm Amelia. This sadly began at 1:30 am and lasted until 3:30. Not bad but we had to wake up at 4am to go to the airport so we didn't get that much sleep.

On a related note when we were home in Tiffin I took Amelia out in my parents front drive to walk back and forth to put her to sleep. This wound up taking longer than I had hoped and when I had been walking back and forth for 1/2 an hour I tried to think of something that I could do to pass the time. I decided that I would calculate how far I was walking. So I paced off the drive, estimated how many times I had done walked it and then multiplied. Between 1 mile and 1.5 miles is how much I walked. I suppose that's how I lost my baby weight. 10 pounds so far.

a little bit of crying

Here is real proof that occasionally our wonderful daughter does in fact have some crying spells. Watch this video and then imagine this happening to you at 1am. While wonderful--because you have been blessed with an amazing and active daughter--it is a little tough to take in the middle of the night.

All this said--Amelia is actually getting much better and we feel like when she cries we can actually do something about it. More news soon...

Where are the keys!

Lost Keys and Amelia’s First Airplane Ride

“Damn! I left the car seat base in the back seat of the car.”

I was almost all of the way to the terminal after dropping the car in the lot and jogging back to where I had dropped Heidi and Amelia. Now I had to turn around and run all the way back to the parked car so we could check in and make our flight.

This was the first time we had flown with Amelia and I was a little bit nervous. Coupled with the fact that she had been up much of the night and that we had left the house at 4:00 am I was feeling a little bit out of it. So the day had begun in a daze and that daze and confusion had continued to this point. Amelia and Heidi were waiting on the curb and I had already begun to foul up the trip.

I was jogging back to the car with Heidi’s gigantic set of keys. Her key chain contains nearly every key she has ever used. It has the auto openers for both of our cars, lock keys to doors she opens that I’m not aware of, and a gigantic fake diamond ring that I believe is a sentimental gift. The whole array has several rings joined together giving the whole thing length—it is about 7 inches long and as I ran with it in my hand it lopped over both sides of my hand like a floppy baton.in my hand because a week earlier she had misplaced my keys. It really wasn’t her fault—the baby was crying and we had just driven all the way from NYC—but in the end my keys were gone. And here it must be noted that my keys contain 1 ring, 2 keys and an auto opener and are designed to fit in one’s pocket rather than giant purse.

So I near the car and notice that I had forgotten to close the window of the car. That’s right—the car was sitting there with the window wide open. If I had not forgotten the car seat it would have remained open for the whole week we were in Ohio. So I jumped in put the window up, grabbed the car seat and ran back to the terminal to check in.

Here is where it begins to get interesting. We checked in and had moved over to the security line when I noticed that I no longer had the keys to our car. I asked Heidi if she had them and she said no. I searched through the bag looking for them and then began to go down a bad road. It was early and I was tired but there was little excuse for me saying, “Heidi, if you hadn’t lost my keys this wouldn’t have happened.” Oops! Her look froze me and she was not pleased. Immediately I realized I was wrong but rather than apologizing I continued with my line of reasoning talking about my “system” and how my “key system” of carrying them in my pocket was superior to her gigantic purse key system. We were in the security line, with a baby, arguing about who lost the keys at 5:00 in the morning. Ick!

It was too late to turn back so we went through the security line thinking that we would worry about the keys later. And here a bit of an aside but the security line continues to baffle me. We walked into the line having never done this before and said to the TSA person:
“We have never done this before and want to make sure that we follow the rules, can you tell us how to take our stroller and baby through security?”[1]
And the security people responded with curse demands:
“Put it over there!”
“Not like that! Fold it up and run it on the conveyor.” At the same time that no one had ever mentioned to put the stroller on the conveyor.
“Don’t walk through with the baby until we tell you!” said while Heidi was standing perfectly still.

Of course I understand that the stakes and I understand that security needs to be high at all times into the future. But when people are saying, “I want to comply with whatever you say next,” and then the people are mean and curt and un-helping to those people—well it doesn’t lead to a great deal of mutual trust.

Back to the keys—we made it to Ohio, dumped out all the bags and certainly did not have the keys. Stay tuned (interneted?) for the conclusion to our mystery.


[1] Now I know that you probably know that most of the “quotes” that I include are actually paraphrases of what was probably said but I must say that this is exactly how nice we said it.

Random Ohio Pictures

Amelia in Granville

Sydney thought Amelia needed some flowers behind her ears and Val steadies Amelia in the Elliott's kitchen.

Here Amelia gets close to her first dunk.

Grandma and Grandpa Crumrine

29 July 2008

Our trip to visit Grandma and Grandpa Crumrine began with Amelia's first airplane ride. Proving me totally wrong (I sort of wanted to drive) Amelia was super good on both legs of the flight. The only real problem was how tired Heidi and I were. We left our house at 4am but I was nervous about missing the flight so I was awake at 3am. This left me feeling a little brain dead and I almost lost our boarding passes 3 times just in the process of trying to get coffee and some fruit.

All of the flight attendants were really kind and interested in Amelia. And the passengers seated near us were very understanding that a baby might cry a little on a plane flight. She did fuss a little on both flights but I was able to rock her and she calmed and went right back to sleep.















When we arrived in Columbus we got the rental car and went straight to Chipotle. Chipotle has great burritos and tacos and there is not one near us in NH so we took this opportunity to get some of our favorite food. Then we were on the road to Tiffin.

My parents were puttering around in the front yard so they were right there to see Amelia the moment we drove in. This is the first picture of them with their second granddaughter.

Swimming in the Pool

Well we finally got out to Tiffin to show Amelia to her Grandpa and Grandma Crumrine. They of course were keeping up on the blog, but there is nothing like the real thing.

This little video is of Amelia in a small pool that my Dad got for Katelyn to swim in. Amelia likes it too but she can't quite sit up yet so it is a little back breaking to hold her in it. We were having a great time cooling off with Amelia when a strange look came over her face and she soon filled the pool with one of her special gifts. Let's just say it took longer to clean the pool than it did to fill it up. My dad and I scooped out the water with buckets and then used bleach wipes to do the final cleanup.

I guess we learned our lesson about letting her swim naked. We had this odd notion that for some reason she wouldn't go in the water. Thinking back I don't know where the idea came from--probably a really dumb part of my mind.

Slackers

We have been slacking on entries because we have been fully enjoying vacation. But I think this one will pique your interest.

And here is another one. We were so excited that she is moving towards a stage where she can entertain herself a little bit. Of course it only lasts for 10 minutes and she must be constantly monitored.

Here is a photo from our 2nd anniversary dinner.

Heidi's Victory

This will be short. But I wanted to share that I beat Tom in TWO games of cornhole about two weeks ago. Anyone who has ever played against Tom knows what a major victory this is. It doesn't matter that he was holding Amelia and playing left handed...I STILL WON.

All Fine in Barnstead

This week we were at a conference in NJ and yesterday started receiving calls and emails worried about how we had fared in the storm. We had calls from as far away as Ohio wondering how everything was for us. Needless to say we were pretty suprised and a little bit worried when we went to the local paper site and found:

http://www.concordmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/frontpage

After seeing pictures of our own road with power lines down we called our neighbor to find out the news. But, before calling we said to each other that it might be a good thing if the house was knocked down--then we could gather the insurance money and move to Concord :) When we called however we were very relieved to find that our house was fine and we didn't have to invoke Plan Glass Half Full.

We are travelling home today so if we find any interesting pictures we will put them here.

Thanks to all for your concern. It was really great to get so many calls and emails worrying about us.

Rhode Island with Rosie and Andrew

This weekend we said farewell to our great friends Rosie and Andrew who are going to teach abroad for the next 2 years.

Here are some pictures from their going away party in Rhode Island.

http://picasaweb.google.com/crumlives/RhodeIsland?authkey=AF-r_OxqP6k

Heath and David come to visit

July 2008

Sunday-Tuesday Heath and David came to visit. We went up to the Boulder's on Squam Lake.

We took a tour of Squam in our boat.

And we saw Matt and Heidi. I promise that I am holding Amelia securely in this picture--she really likes this type of head rocking thing.

We also saw Amelia's future godmother, Margie, but I forgot to bring the camera. We were super excited to have her see Amelia for the first time and wish her head well !