Our digital camera has a “movie mode” on it, and we’re finally getting around to putting it to good use.
Here’s Anna in her first movie, cooing, giggling, and really trying to smile. The major Hollywood studios are still in a bidding war over this one, but “Anna vs. Pooh” will probably be released in widespread distribution later in the summer.
Enjoy.
Note: Grandpa Sam brought it to our attention that this movie will not play with QuickTime version 6. You must download version 7 in order to view this. QuickTime is a free download – you do not need QuickTime Pro (which is the version that costs you money).
April 30th, 2006
It’s been a while since our last posting. Anna is now just over six weeks old. I think it’s safe to say it’s been both the longest and the shortest six weeks of our lives. We’ve been pretty frantic. Work is picking back up for me, and Tara’s been feeling better herself, and enjoying her time with Anna. And if April was frantic, then May will be doubly so: We’re planning on taking a trip out to Kansas, my brother and his wife will visit, I’ve a corporate retreat, I’ll be out in New York state at my buddy Sten’s wedding, and we’ll be working to finalize some child care for the wee one before Tara heads back to work part-time in June.
Anna’s doing just great. She’s healthy, happy, and almost ready to smile — something that will make her parents enormously happy (those giant cheeks have been giving her trouble, we think!). We’ve posted some new pictures in the usual spot, including dad’s new favorite.
April 30th, 2006
Anna was one month old yesterday evening. It is incredibly hard for me to believe that so much time has past. I suppose it is probably normal, but I’m having a difficult time remembering life PA (pre-Anna). Currently almost everything I do during the day revolves around taking care of this cute little being! What did I do before? (work, laundry, dishes, to name a few of the things that I used to do but do not do now!)
Anna is growing like a weed! She’s pretty much able to hold her head up on her own, but we still have bouts of the floppy-newborn head. At her 2-week check-up she was 22 inches in length. We were shocked to find out that her cousin Henry is only 24 inches and he’s over 4 months old! As Neal likes to joke, we’re in contact with WNBA recruiters already. I’m anxious to see how much she’s grown by the time we go in for her next doctor’s appointment. One month old brings us to the point where most of her newborn clothing no longer fits! Her 0-3 month clothing just fits and in some cases is getting a little snug. Time for me to go shopping. And for those of you who know me, this is a daunting task.
I’m finally feeling better – not 100%, but decidedly better than before. I have a doctor’s visit coming in the next couple of weeks and hopefully my iron levels will have returned to normal. It is tough being tired and weak all the time – especially with a newborn that doesn’t yet sleep through the night! I think another part of the “feeling better” has to do with my comfort level with Anna. That’s not to say that I understand why she freaks out sometimes and screams bloody murder, but I do understand that those noises she makes while sleeping aren’t anything to worry about, and that the scrunched up face she makes usually indicates that a diaper change is in my future. I guess you could say we’re getting to know one another.
Max is looking skinny these days. We think it is the stress – that or he’s just shedding his winter coat. I like to think it is the latter. He’s supremely interested in Anna and enjoys sniffing her head and car-carrier, but when she starts crying he seeks out quiet hiding places in the basement. He’s certainly missing all the attention he used to get and has begun acting like a small child who misbehaves only to have someone pay attention to him. I often feel like a broken record when it comes to Max – “no, no, no.” We have one chair that will never be the same because he’s taken to scratching the crap out of it – especially in our presence. Luckily the weather is warming up so that we can take Max outside on his lead. This tends to calm the savage beast (actually it wears him out what with all the birds to watch and grass to eat).
So as you can see, life here at the Enssle/Hess house is going well. We’re all a little sleep-deprived (including Max), but enjoying ourselves. Hopefully we’ll have some new pictures soon. I need to upload them from the camera.
April 13th, 2006
(As one of his uncles, I was honored to be able to speak at Ben Steadman’s memorial service yesterday. I’ve posted my remembrances of Ben below. A PDF version is available for download. – Neal)
Once upon a time, in a land not too far away, there lived a little boy named Ben. Ben was a smart and sensitive and charming little boy who loved puppies and dinosaurs and Legos and guinea pigs. Ben lived with his family in a big, colorful house, with lots of stairs and windows and hiding-places, and he had his own room upstairs with lots of toys and pictures of puppies and a light-up rocket ship on the wall. He was a happy little boy who loved to ride his scooter, play with his sister on the jungle-gym his dad had built out in the backyard, and run around and throw the ball for his little poodle, Peaches.
Ben loved his family. Ben’s dad was the biggest and strongest and smartest daddy Ben could imagine, and Ben was happy that his dad was always there to play with him and hold him and protect him when Ben got a little scared. Ben’s mom was soft and beautiful and even smarter than his dad. She knew all kinds of things about animals and plants and dinosaurs and trucks, and Ben loved the songs his mom sang to him when he went to sleep at night. Ben knew that other kids had mommies and daddies, but he thought that he had the best mommy and daddy in the world.
Ben also loved his little sister. Ben had lots of friends but she was his very best friend, even though she was his little sister. Ben loved to laugh and play and chase his sister, and sometimes they would wrestle, but not too rough because she was only little. Even though she was only just a little girl, Ben thought his sister was always very brave. He remembered how one time she was even brave enough to touch a spider with her hand, and another time she petted a giant millipede that was crawling across the floor. Ben liked doing things with his sister, and always wanted to share everything with her.
Ben had lots of friends in his neighborhood. He knew lots of grown-ups, too. His favorite grown-ups were his grandparents. He loved all his grandparents because they knew lots of things about cars and trucks and flowers and always had time to play with him and his sister and let them eat as much ice cream and cookies as they wanted too, but also broccoli because that was Ben’s favorite food next to chocolate.
Ben also loved his grown-up aunts and uncles who always wanted to play with him. Most of the time Ben didn’t like monsters in his house. But it was okay if the monsters were uncles, because then it was fun to run away from them and protect his sister from them, because the monsters were just playing, and really they were only just his uncles anyway. The best thing about seeing his aunts and uncles was when his cousins would come over to play, because they knew how to play best, especially when they played dress-up, or danced, or helped his uncle light sparklers on the Fourth of July.
One day, around the time of his sixth birthday, which was his favorite birthday because he was finally six, Ben didn’t feel quite right. He didn’t know why but he seemed to bump into the walls a little more often, and he needed two hands on the railing to go up the stairs. His mom and dad took him to see some doctors, which was fun but also a little scary. They told him that the doctors said he had a tumor inside his head and that the tumor was making it hard for him to run and play with his sister. But they told him not to worry, and that the doctors were going to do some things to try and make the tumor smaller so that Ben could run and play again and not need two hands on the railing.
After his treatments at the hospital, which weren’t really too bad and everyone said he did a good job but all he did was lay super quiet on the bed really, his mom and dad told him that he could have a wish, and that he could have or do anything he wanted. Ben thought of all the things in the world that he wanted and decided that the very best thing would be a squirt gun to shoot his sister with. Everyone laughed and said that he could have as many squirt guns as he wanted and that he should think of something else, something bigger. Ben thought hard and after a long time he decided he would like to go to the zoo and feed the elephants, which were the biggest things he could think of next to dinosaurs which he knew didn’t exist anymore. His mom and dad smiled and said that was a good wish, and they hugged him and cried a little, which Ben didn’t completely understand.
Ben had a fantastic time at a giant party his school had thrown for him with pizza and spaghetti and ice cream and all his friends and a real band with songs that were sometimes too loud, and he was thrilled to have been made an honorary police officer with a real badge and everything. It was neat to see all his friends from school dancing and playing with his sister, though he still felt a little tired at times. And he had a great time on his trip to Legoland and the zoo in California with all his cousins and the rest of his family, and it was fun and a little scary when he got to feed the elephants.
But he was starting to feel funny again, and once more felt like he needed two hands on the rail to get up the stairs to his room. His mom and dad took him back to see the doctors. They hugged him and told him that the tumor in his head was back again and that he might need to do some more treatments. But Ben was okay with this because although he didn’t like the tumor at all, he remembered how he liked the watermelon-flavored gas the doctors gave him before he went to sleep, and afterward he really liked waking up in the Finding Nemo room too.
* * *
I will always treasure a memory from our family’s Christmas party last year of Ben walking to the table with an entire heaping plate full of broccoli, which he proudly announced was his favorite food. I ask you: How many parents can claim broccoli as one of their children’s favorite foods? Ben and Madie have grown up in the company of devoted, loving parents and family. On the family blog recently, Dean wrote of the importance of “just being dad”. As a new father myself, I am only beginning to learn what the other parents in this room already know: that “just being dad” or “just being mom” is perhaps the greatest challenge of our lives, the most difficult and most rewarding task we will ever undertake. Yet faced with this challenge, Dean and Melinda have excelled beyond measure. Full of patience and perspective, quick to laugh and overflowing with love, I have watched them raise Ben and Madie to be the kind of happy, confident, sensitive, and intelligent people that other people naturally want to be around, that other children follow, and other adults admire.
At one point, at the hospital, when he was first diagnosed, Ben told his mom and dad that he was “a leader in his family”. Hard to forget are the moments when children speak in grown-up voices. At times somewhat shy, I nevertheless I like to think that at that moment, and in his own way, Ben was aware of the challenges that lay ahead of him and his family, and knew that there would be times in the coming days and weeks when he would have to stand in front, to walk ahead, with his family and friends following behind him. I like to think that somehow Ben knew and accepted that he was walking faster down the road that all of us must eventually travel, and that he knew that he now had a lesson to share with all of us about patience, and courage, and accepting the challenges that life puts in front of us with dignity, compassion, and with as much laughter and love as we can muster.
In the last weeks of his life, Ben made frequent requests for Chinese food. I think it took a little while for us to realize that it wasn’t the beef with broccoli, but rather the fortune cookies that Ben was most interested in. Of course, every six-year old likes cookies, but we soon learned that Ben was just as interested in the fortunes as the cookies. Like little treasures, Ben would keep every fortune from every cookie. He told us once that he could give the fortunes away, too, “to people who needed them”. I don’t know if Ben found hope or reassurance for himself in the brief glimpses of the future that those fortune cookies provided. But I do know I that I am grateful for having had the opportunity to know such a kind, sensitive, loving little boy who tried his best to save those treasures, to store up those little bits of hope, and who cared enough to share that hope with anyone who needed it.
Ben’s last days came quickly. He passed from this world without pain, surrounded by his family, in the arms of his mother and father who adored him beyond measure. He was born during an eclipse and he died during an eclipse. That the sun itself was willing to stand aside and make way for both the arrival and the passing away of Ben’s light should tell us something of the kind of spirit he possessed. God has called home one of his own.
And his little sister will forever have an angel watching over her.
April 5th, 2006
Tara’s mother Debbie left for Kansas on Saturday, and we already miss her. She spent three full weeks here in Colorado helping us prepare for and then deal with Anna’s arrival. Without her help our house would be (more of) a disaster, and we probably would have starved without her delicious cooking.
We love her dearly and know that we couldn’t have done it without her. Thanks Mom!
(And yes, we’ve posted new photos!)
April 3rd, 2006
Yesterday we took Anna to the doctor’s for her second week checkup. So far so good — she’s a healthy little kid. Our goal for week two was to make sure she made it back to her birth weight, and on Friday she tipped the scales at 8 lbs. 4 oz. (And yes, she seems to carry most of that weight in her cheeks). She’s also grown another inch, putting her at 22 inches long. We’ll be starting talks with the WNBA soon.
Tara’s making progress as well, though she’s still not quite out of the woods as far as the anemia is concerned. We’ll probably try to get her in for a checkup here in the near future, just to make sure her iron levels are getting back to normal.
April 1st, 2006
