Adventures In Babysitting

Now that Hendrik is in his second month of life I feel like we are starting to get into the groove of this whole "baby" thing. We still have very lazy days where I feel like the 2 of us lay around on the couch all day while Kent slaves away at work. However, so far this week I have had 2 1/2 fairly productive days so I'm giving myself (and Hendrik) a pat on the back.

Anyway, Kent has been nagging me about posting on the blog, but I just feel like I don't have anything interesting to post about. Then I read this blog and feel so lame because no matter what Vanessa writes about, it's hilarious or at least interesting to read. Seriously, she could write about hanging Christmas lights and it would be the greatest thing ever.

Speaking of which, we are about to celebrate our first Christmas in our house. Remember: last year we were enjoying 85 degree days in Thailand/Cambodia. Since we'll be here we decided to decorate a little bit. And I do mean a little. See the photo for evidence. Go ahead and guess which side is ours...Our neighbors take holiday decorating seriously. It was the same at Halloween.


We'll go ahead and have a Merry Christmas anyway.

And now a few highlights of the adventures I have with Hendrik:

1. I braved an airplane ride alone with my 5 week old son. I especially loved taking him out of his car seat, folding up the stroller, taking off my shoes and pushing it all through the security x-ray all while holding said baby. I also enjoyed the looks of "Oh, please tell me that lady and her crying baby are not on my flight" from the other passengers waiting at the gate. Eat it people. My baby slept the whole way, both directions, and is ALWAYS adorable. Hendrik and I were traveling to Maryland to visit his cousin Sophia who is 2 days younger than he is. Oh and he also saw his Aunt Christy, Uncle Jonathan, and all of his cousins on my side of the family.

Sophia is not as impressed with Hendrik's smiles as I am.

Uncle Jonathan (my brother) and his daughter, Debbie. His son, Gabriel, was running around with his friends and I wasn't able to capture a picture.

2. I had my 6-week follow up with my doctor and we decided to swing by my office to say hello while we were there (I work right next door to the hospital). Now, when I was pregnant I kept waiting for crazy strangers to try and touch my belly, and luckily it never happened. Now that I actually have the baby, I've been waiting for the crazy strangers to touch/hold him. While he gets lots of oohs and aahs from everyone he passes, no one has tried to actually hold him yet. To the population at large: Thank You. I appreciate your admiration and constraint. However, as we were walking through the hallway toward my office, this lady is approaching us from the opposite direction and calls out, "What a beautiful baby." Two thoughts run through my mind: "Thank you very much, he is quite fabulous" and "Can you even see him from that far away?" Not to worry, as she gets closer and I notice she has a big bandaid over one eye with a hole cut out of it so that she can see (read: CRAZY LOOKING), she says, "May I look at him?" So I say sure, and turn him towards her so that she can look. Then she precedes to hold her hands out and ask my 6 week old if he wants to come to her. Lady, he barely holds his own neck up and you think he can gesture to indicate whom he would like to be held by? Oh yeah, and you're a complete stranger, in a hospital no less, during flu season, but yes, please hold my baby. I just politely turned Hendrik away from her, mumbled no, and bee lined for the end of the hallway. Strangers: Please don't ask to hold my baby. I don't know you. I will have to say no. And I may not be polite about it. It really depends on the day. Basically don't make me be mean to you.

Visiting Auntie Sherri at the office, she's not the crazy lady, we love her.

3. I have realized that shopping during the weekdays puts you out there with all the senior citizen shoppers. Now, I love my seniors as much as the next guy, but they definitely have their quirks. Take today for instance. Being a productive day, Hendrik and I headed out for a little shopping, stopping first at Costco. By the time we got there, I knew I had a half hour before he would need to be fed again, so I shopped as quickly as I could, sticking mainly to my list of items. I was pretty successful and decided that instead of subjecting all the other Costco shoppers to my nursing in the food court area, I would just feed him out in the car. So there I was, minding my own business, nursing my son when I see this little old lady walking up to the driver-side window. Here's how it played out:

Little Old Lady: (knocking on the window) Can you move your car back a little bit?
Me: What?
LOL: I need you to move your car back a little bit. I'm in the space in front of you and I need to move up a little more. Can you do that?
Me: (as I look down at the covered bundle currently enjoying lunch on my lap) Uh...
LOL: What? Can you? You're over the line.
Me: (again glance down) Uh...yeah...I guess so.
LOL: WHAT? (because I've refused to roll down my window and let the 20 degree air in)
Oh, do you have a baby in there?
Me: Yes
LOL: Oh, well, sorry. So can you still move back?

Lady, seriously? The best part is that she had me move back about 3 inches. What did that really do? Not to mention she had already parked her car and turned off the ignition before asking me to move. So we both had to start up our cars just so she could have her Toyota Camry parked in the spot the way she wanted it. I would also like to note that when I had originally parked there was already a car in that spot and they didn't seem to have any issues hanging out a few inches.

Whatever.

On a more positive note:

Our little Teddy Bear bundled up to go pick out a Christmas tree.

With his "token" friend.

Something's GOT to change

I have been considering my relationships to sports and how much time and emotional energy I spend on it. I mean, every year I follow my favorite team and inevitably get disappointed when they don't win it all, which they've only done twice (Cards in '06, Colts a few months later). Was the euphoria from winning it all greater than the sum of all my disappointment? Not even close. So why should I follow sports?

Well, I've realized that it's fun to care about sports. The more things you care about, the more exciting your life is, the more you have to talk about. I don't limit my caring to just sports, I care about important things (family, friends, church, God) and not-so-important things (TV shows, music, gardening, sports). I've realized that apathy is not for me. I liked to consider myself a laid-back person, but does it bug me when my plants die? Yes. Does it bother me when my favorite artist has a disappointing album? Yes. Do I hang onto these things for days, weeks, or months? No.

So I've decided that, yes, it is worth the time and emotional investment to watch sports. Plus, since I have DVR, I don't need to plan my life around watching sports. I watch it when it's on, and if I care enough about it, I'll record it and watch it at my convenience later (usually when I'm holding The Boy).

I also don't understand why anybody would watch sports without caring one way or the other about who wins. What's the point? It's like watching American Idol for the quality karaoke. You don't care about the singing (unless it's atrocious), you care about the winning. In our leisure, we want to watch anything that entertains us more than a substitute activity. To me, that's sports.

That's why college football bothers me so much. A playoff has so much potential! Take March Madness, put it into 3 jam-packed Saturdays, and think about how much entertainment that is! Plus, the timing couldn't be better. You've taken a couple weeks off of work for the holidays, so there's plenty of time to watch football.

Instead, we have 40 meaningless game and one "meaningful" game, although we're never really sure if that game has the right teams in it. As a BYU fan, I barely care about our bowl game, another boring Las Vegas bowl. Even if BYU wasn't in the playoffs, I would find all of the playoff games more interesting than BYU playing the 9th best team in the PAC-10.

Who really wants that? It's getting ridiculous. How can something this unpopular go unchanged for this long? I thought we lived in a capitalist society, where the majority gets what the majority wants?

If we had playoffs this year, how great would the match-ups be? Now, from all playoff scenarios I've heard or read about, I think the best, most-likely one would be the one found here. Although I would prefer 12 or 16 teams, I would settle for 8. Beggars can't be choosers. What I like most about this is that each conference would only be allowed one representative. Say what you will, but frankly, if you're not the champion of your own conference, then you shouldn't be the champion of the nation. The next 2 spots would go to the highest ranked non-BCS conference champions, or an Independent ranked higher. Even though this is still not completely fair, it's a step in the right direction. The difficult thing is getting rid of the pointless bowl games. Once that's done, changing it to 12 or 16 teams will be much easier.

Using that format, what would we have (using the BCS poll)?

1. Bama vs Ga Tech
2. Texas vs Ohio St
3. Cincy vs Oregon
4. TCU vs Boise

Although TCU still plays Boise St (a matchup that nobody wanted except the BCS conferences-do you realize that the only ranked team from a BCS conf that's playing a non-BCS team is Oregon St? More on this below...) at least the winner would go on to the 2nd round to play a BCS team in either Bama or Ga Tech.

But look at the games! Aren't they that much more compelling because each of those teams has a shot? If you're TCU, you have to beat Boise, then maybe Bama and Texas to win it all. I'd watch each one of these games from kickoff to the last down. It's a fantasy every college football fan has.

But the bowls want to keep the monopoly on their money. Did you know that each of the major bowls has a CEO? They generate so much revenue through one game to support an entire company for a year! How hard do you think that CEO works? Maybe 5 days a year? Or does he have a second job to supplement his huge salary? Did you know that the Rose Bowl CEO makes around 250K?

Playoffs will generate more money, but these greedy bowl reps are worried about their shares. If they're so greedy, why can't the NCAA guarantee them their current salary just to make them happy? Instead, they're intent on doing everything to protect the BCS, even scheduling bowls to keep the big conferences happy, so they won't lose their credibility. Of the 5 ranked non-BCS teams, BYU is the only one playing a ranked BCS team. Utah is playing a crappy Cal team, and TCU is playing Boise St, of course. The other team? Central Michigan (ranked 25 in the AP poll) is playing Troy. It's especially suspicious because TCU played Boise last year, too, when both teams were in the top 15, but left out of the BCS. Utah was graciously given Bama, but I think the BCS learned from that mistake.

Well, that's it for my 3rd annual BCS Bashing. See you next year!

Quick Hendrik Dosage

He's doing okay adapting to both his friends (the lions) and foes (the hippos).

Rich vs Poor

Remember judging other kids in elementary school? It's purely based on clothes, toys, stories, and lunches. Because of this, I thought I came from the poorest family ever.

Point 1: T&C Surf Designs.

In 2nd Grade, there was a kid who was liked more by the teachers and other little girls (like I even CARED what they thought) than anybody else. His name was Bryan Dahlberg, and he must've been the richest kid EVER. Why? Well, because he showed up to school in what seemed to be a brand spankin' new T&C Surf Designs t-shirt with matching shorts. I don't know if you remember T&C Surf Designs, but most of the designs had a big cool-lookin' gorilla surfing, lookin' all cool with sweet shades and stuff. The symbol was a yin-yang thing and it was SO COOL you have to believe me. And I was stuck in the back wearing a poop-brown crushed velvetish shirt with a dorky collar much bigger than my neck and my Toughskins jeans probably found in the clearance section of K-mart. 10 years ago. No way I was getting little Aimee McCallister's attention now. I never felt poorer.

This Hobie shirt I'm wearing above is the closet I ever got to a cool surfing t-shirt. I wore this pretty much every day.

Point 2: Dorito's

Not just Dorito's. Your OWN PERSONAL BAG of Dorito's in your brown-bag lunch, or, even better, pulled out of a shiny GI Joe lunchbox. If you were lucky enough to be the kid with your OWN PERSONAL BAG of Dorito's, then you were the envy of the entire table. The whispers would go around the table..."That kid must be rich." "How can his family even afford that?" "Yesterday, he had an ENTIRELY DIFFERENT FLAVOR!"

I'd see that and go home and BEG for Dorito's. "Okay," said my mother, "we'll get you some Dorito's." So I told my friends, teachers, and anyone who would listen. "I'm getting Dorito's in my lunch!" And the next day I'd have Dorito's in my lunch. In a plastic sandwich bag. Not a nice sandwich bag with a ziplock seal at the top, the cheap ones you have to fold over and hope that nothing falls out. In front of everybody, I had to pull this transparent, crappy bag out of my lunch. My lunch that was in a sack that used to contain a loaf of whole wheat Old Home bread, bought a month ago at the day-old store. You know, with the bread crumbs still in the bottom. The bread crumbs that got all over the whole tomato my mom put in. Yes, a tomato. I would've left it in the bag and thrown it away later, but what's the use when you have a transparent bread sack?

Nevermind the fact that my mom was raising 11 kids (at the time, maybe 10 or 9). Nevermind the fact that I always got a healthy, well-cooked meal for breakfast and dinner every day. Nevermind the fact that the tomato was garden-fresh, picked the day before. Nevermind the fact that my mom was so "Green" that she reused everything she possibly could, including Kleenexes, way before it was socially acceptable. Nevermind the fact that I had more Dorito's in my cheap sandwich bag than the Rich Kid with his OWN PERSONAL BAG. Nevermind all that! I'm in elementary school! I have an image to uphold! I don't want to be the poorest kid in the class! I want my OWN PERSONAL BAG OF COOL RANCH DORITO'S!

Point 3: Brick Oven

We never, EVER, went to sit-down restaurants. In fact, one of my greatest anecdotes to tell now is how I won a writing contest in the Orem Geneva Times in the 2nd grade. The contest was for Mother's Day, and my teacher had us all write a short paragraph as to why we love our mothers. I wrote: "I love my mom because after we picked up all the prunings in the yard, she took us to Burger King." This is paraphrasing, I wish I had the original. Maybe it's in the Family History somewhere.

I'm pretty sure I won the sympathy vote on that one, because I took 1st place. Our family got what was probably the best prize ever: 40 dollars worth of Little Caesar's pizza. For one day, we lived like kings.

So imagine my jealousy when I would go to school and hear about the kid whose family went to Brick Oven for his birthday. I didn't even know what Brick Oven was, but from his description, it sounded somewhere between heaven and an amusement park. "They had a guy come make balloon animals! And they gave us free breadsticks! And I got an ice cream sundae afterwards!" Man, that kid must be RICH.

Point 4: Picture Day

There's nothing worse for a poor kid than picture day. You show up, thinking it's just a regular day of school, except every kid in your class except you had an envelope and a check from their parents to give to the photog. They were wearing their coolest surfing t-shirts or whatever girls wear to look good, and discussing what package they were getting.

"I've got package D. There's 1 big picture, 4 medium ones, and 10 small ones."

"Oh, that's too bad. I've got C. 2 big pictures, 8 medium ones, 20 small."

"Really? Seems small. I've got A." A hush falls over the crowd. "10 big pictures, 50 medium ones, 512 small ones. I've got all sorts of people who want pictures of me. It costs 150 bucks."

Wow, I thought. That kid is RICH.

"What about you, Kent? What package are you getting?"

Then I realized that the smallest package, E, still costs more than "Free". I lied, and said, "C" or something believable. But the truth was, I only got the class photo, which was free. I didn't even get in line for the individual photos. Just went back to class after the class photo was taken. Nothing made me feel poorer.

Of course, I know now that Picture Day was just a tremendous racket for the photog. Show up, take a bunch of money from little kids, take a ton of photos, take the next year off. One day of work a year sounds about right.

Point 5: Super Soakers

I'm not sure why I equate supersoakers with wealth, but I was always at a serious disadvantage in waterfights with my small gun that held about 2 squirts' worth of water. There were lots of toys that other kids had that made me envious and think they were rich, but the only one I'm thinking of right now is supersoakers.

Point 6: Skiing

This is the penultimate separation of the haves and the have-nots. The skiers would buy their overpriced ski coats and wear them from September to June, just so you knew that they skied, and for all you knew, they were great at it. This is probably the only point in this list that actually accurately reflected a family's wealth. Skiing ain't cheap. And it's pretty fun. But to hear the skiers talk about it, you'd think that skiing was a day of unimaginable fun. YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW HOW AWESOME SKIING IS. And of course, it's just implied that you're awesome because you ski. The best part about skiing is that nobody really knows if someone's actually good at it or not until you see them on the slopes, which rarely happens. So you could just say that you're awesome, wear your parka year round, and everybody's convinced. Why didn't I try to pull that off? Instead, I wore this coat until my mission, everybody in school knowing full well that my idea of fun was building a half decent snowman at best (I'm on the left):


Now that I'm a parent, I will make sure this little guy has to go through the exact same things I did. I'm going to a thrift store to buy him hand-me-downs. I can't wait until I put that first tomato in his lunch, next to a sandwich bag full of imitation Oreo's.

Ready for My Close Up

**WARNING** This post contains "graphic" pictures. Of the baby, not me. But if you're sensitive like Kent you may want to avert your eyes...

I won't be ready for any close ups for a while, but Hendrik doesn't seem to mind all that much.

After the longest 3 days of my life so far, Hendrik Bryan Hansen decided to make his big debut:

Hendrik Bryan Hansen
November 1, 2009
6:26pm
8lbs, 11oz
21 inches

No, I wasn't in active labor for 3 days, but contractions started late Thursday night and continued at varying degrees until he was born on Sunday evening. We drove into work on Friday and around 4:30pm we went over to the hospital to see if the contractions I was having were actually labor. The short story: they weren't. Well, they kind of were but not enough to make anything happen.

There is really nothing short about this delivery story, so I'll do my best to wrap it up quickly. We saw a movie in the city to see if the labor would progress, it didn't, but because I was so uncomfortable they let me stay overnight. In the morning I was still right where I had been, so they sent us home. Saturday was a not-so-fun day as I tried to sleep in between contractions, take walks, clean the kitchen, etc. Things got a little more exciting Saturday night as the contractions got closer together and much more intense until eventually they were 5 mins apart and really painful. So risking another false labor, we headed to the hospital.

By this point, most of the nurses in labor and delivery knew us since we had been in a few times, so they were almost as excited as we were when they saw that I was in pain. Sounds backwards, doesn't it. Anyway, they determined that I had broken my water and I was slowly progressing. I immediately signed up for an epidural, and I don't care what anyone says - that thing is the greatest discovery in medical science. Especially considering that I had been having contractions for so long, not feeling them for a little while was some welcome relief. Not to mention there is no way I would have survived the 2 hours 45 minutes of pushing without one. I'm not one to stand on a soapbox, so if you prefer natural labor, kudos to you, the epidural was awesome for me and I don't regret it.

All of the doctors and nurses were surprised by Hendrik's size when he was born. He came out and one of them said, "Woah! Where were you hiding that kid? Behind your kidneys?" Honestly, doc, yes, I think I was. That would explain why my ribs have been sore for the past two weeks. But, all in all, I guess he was worth it. And thank goodness he has hair...

Don't judge him for his HUGE conehead. If you were stuck in the birth canal for 3 hours, you'd have one too.

For those of you wondering about the name: Hendrik is Kent's middle name and his great grandfather on his mother's side. He was the ancestor that first came to America and joined the church. Bryan is my dad's name. So our son is named after two of my favorite guys in the whole world. So by default I guess I just have to love him.

In Mine

I've always loved sports. I can remember my older brothers huddled around the TV watching Monday Night Football, BYU football games, Lakers vs Celtics, and the World Series. We had what was probably a 19 inch TV that sat in an unlikely spot in the dining room, next to the cookbooks and piles of sheet music. Watching TV was a crime next to domestic violence in our house, so it was never watched. The few programs that were legal included sports, General Conference, Anne o' Green Goblins, and Sesame Street. Over the years, boundaries were pushed and walls were torn down, leading to the Freedom of TV Act in 1996, which was quickly repealed by Dictator Gary, but that's a whole other post.

The main problem with sports at the Hansens in the 80's and 90's is that there just wasn't near enough of it. If I got to see one game a week, it was a good week. The MLB Playoffs were great because I could watch TV every night, at least until my 8 PM bedtime. However, there was just too much time to kill inside my house, so I started creating my own leagues. At first, I did what the other kids my age did: play a pretend basketball with the nerf ball and hoop in my room where I was the star, winning the championship game. But that was over in like an hour. I needed MORE. So I started to create leagues of my own.

The first league I remember creating was based off of this old, monstrous, large-print Quadruple
Combo that had pictures of every temple in the world and all the prophets, too. It must've been from the 70's, and this Bible/BoM/DC/PoGP was probably 5 inches think and weighed about 20 pounds. It was my book of choice for early morning scriptures, because I could look at the pictures of the temples and prophets when it wasn't my turn to read.

So how did I create a league out of this Quad? Well, one day I looking at Brigham Young's picture and wondered why he had a university named after him but Joseph Smith, or any of the others, didn't. So I decided to create a league with universities from each of the prophets: JSU, BYU, WWU, JFSU, ETBU, SWKU, to name just a few. I also decided that each university should have a home field, based on a temple in the book. BYU's was the Provo Temple, of course, and JSU's was the SLC temple. I can't remember the rest of them, but I'm sure one of them played in Hawaii, and one of them was even at the Swiss temple. Don't worry, I took the distance into account for the home-field advantage.

My favorite part about creating a league was making the composite schedule. Every year, in the BYU Football Media Guide there would be a composite schedule at the back. I loved studying it and found it so fascinating how it all worked. Also, the greatest thing about making schedules is that I could do them during sacrament meetings, holding open the humongous Quad, making it look like I was reading the scriptures. Church and Sundays in general were a great time to work on the admin of my leagues.

Once the composite schedule was made, I played out the games in the backyard by myself. Now, you may ask to yourself, "Doesn't Kent have, like, 100 brothers? Why didn't he just play with them?" Well, I say to you, that playing by myself was always infinitely more fun than playing with my brothers. When you play by yourself, you have complete control of the outcome. If I played with my brothers, do you think I would've thrown for 500 yards a game and also somehow managed to have 200 rushing yards and even 200 receiving yards?

Now, the sports that were hardest to play by yourself were in the following order, from hardest to easiest:
1. Baseball
2. Football
3. Soccer
4. Tennis
5. Basketball

Baseball was hard because I just had to toss it up to myself, hit it, and then go shag it. That never really worked out.

Football was hard because I would go back to pass, throw the ball to an imaginary receiver, and then, depending on the quality of the throw, I would make an amazing catch approximately where the ball landed by tossing it up to a point and running to catch it. That actually got pretty fun, but also looked the most embarrassing. I always made sure that no older brothers or neighbors were around when I was playing football by myself.

Soccer was pretty easy, but there wasn't a whole lot of passing going on. Plus, it wasn't really that fun since I played so much real soccer.

Tennis was at a later age, around 10-13 years. It was easy because we had a cement patio with a brick wall that was just about net size that I could hit it against. I would design these elaborate tennis tournaments. I always loved the concept of double-elimination tourneys, but I felt they were lacking. So I designed these quadruple-elimination tournaments. During church, of course.

Basketball was the best sport to play by myself because I could play it in my room with the Nerf hoop or later downstairs on the Little Tykes hoop that my parents bought for my 3 year old brother, Ralph. That hoop was perfect because you could raise it to about 6 feet high and the ball was easy to dribble, unlike those Nerf hoops where you couldn't dribble at all, so you had to do the fake dribble where you held onto the ball but you motioned a dribble.

I found that playing the entire schedule of the Prophets League got a little tedious, especially because I couldn't be on every team, and where's the fun in that? So then I started thinking that I could make a league with all of these cities I found in the atlas that didn't have professional teams of any kind, but were still kind of big. This league featured about 60 teams from Canada, US, and Mexico, with a conference for each country and it was divided into like 12 divisions. The main reason I created this league was just for the fun of making an elaborate composite schedule during church--I had no intention of playing out these games. I think I killed a good 10 Sundays with that league.

One year, one of my brothers got a Sports Alamanac for Christmas, I think it was the 1988 edition. This was the BEST PRESENT EVER. This Almanac was like having ESPN.com in book form. Of course, this was before Al Gore invented the Internet, so we pretty much lived in that Almanac, studying all the stats and records from that year and years past. The greatest part about it was now I didn't have to rely on the newspaper to get a listing of all the obscure colleges and conferences, which worked wonders. This is when my leagues got so realistic, they almost mirrored the real leagues.

I decided that I wanted to have a whole career, where I worked my way up through the high school basketball ranks and signed on with the crappiest team ever and led them to an NCAA championship. So I looked through the Almanac, and narrowed down the crappy teams. The team I first decided to put myself on was Iowa State. Their 1988 basketball record was something like 1-29, and was one of the worst in Division 1 that year. So I put myself on their team, as a Freshman named Spike Hansen (I thought Spike was the coolest name of all time). I started as a no-name walk-on, who barely made the team that season as the 12th man. Finally, after losing the first 7 games by 30 points a game, Coach finally put me in during garbage time. We were down by 30 with 10 minutes left, but I hit 12 3's and had at least 4 dunks in traffic, scoring around 50 points and leading the team to its first victory in 36 games.

Of course, despite all of that, Coach refused to start me the next few games, not wanting to shake things up with his starting 5. This meant that we were always down 20 to 30 points when Coach would finally put me in, and I would come in and score 40-50 points each game to lead the team to victory. Finally, he swallowed his pride and started me, and our team never looked back, winning every single game for the rest of my college career.

Of course, I would always doctor most of the games to either be close games that went down to the wire, or a ridiculously obscene blowout, like 165-23 or something. I think I ended up averaging around 70 points a game by the end of the season, and we ended up winning it all for each of the 4 years I was there.

By the time I entered the NBA, I was the 1st round draft pick and played on the worst team, which I believe was the Clippers (still are). I probably averaged 70-80 points a game and broke every record (including assists and rebounds). I'm sure we won the title every year until I was retired. The only reason we ever lost a game is if I was injured or something. It was the greatest ever!

One day, I was telling my brothers, Kurt and Brian, that Iowa State had come back from a 30-point deficit to win the game. They were amazed, and wondered how I saw/heard about that game. When I realized that they thought it happened in real life, I had to clarify that it was in "my own league", which was shortened to "in mine." Only then did I discover that Kurt and Brian also had their own leagues going, each with a different plot line, albeit very similar to mine (averaging 70ish points a game, for example). I'm not sure theirs were ever as elaborate as mine, as they spent a lot of time playing Lakers vs. Celtics on the computer. So from then on, we had to differentiate amazing sports stories from real life from the ones "in mine".

For example:

"UConn was down by 16 points with 45 seconds to Clemson, but amazingly got a bunch of steals and hit 6 3-pointers and won the game! In Mine."

"In Mine, I scored 102 points in my best-ever game, as the Clippers beat the Knicks, 182-93."

Most of the "in mine" leagues happened in basketball, as the basketball season started in October (once it got dark after dinner) and went all the way until June. Then I would play Tennis for a few months in the summer, and football would start in August. The tennis In Mine and football In Mine weren't nearly as elaborate or ridiculous as the basketball In Mine.

The funniest thing about In Mine was that I continued to have make-believe leagues and tournaments all the way until I was a Senior in college. I just wouldn't tell anybody about it, but I've still got a pretty vivid imagination.

The riskiest part about playing basketball outside in the driveway was my arch-nemesis and next-door neighbor, Chris Goodwin. He spent an inordinate amount of time in his front driveway belching and doing who-knows-what. He was a pretty big kid, and also 4 years older than me, and delighted in making fun of younger kids, so therefore I hated him and was deathly afraid of him. When I went out to play, I couldn't make too many loud announcer or crowd noises, else he might hear and mock me to no end. The worst was when I thought I was safe outside, got wrapped up in a particularly exciting game, and then turned around to see Chris mocking me. I hated it!

I'm pretty sure that when we get a basketball hoop in our driveway, In Mine will resume. Maybe I'll buy a Little Tykes hoop for my kid and pretend that I got it for him. Mel will know where to find me in the winter: Downstairs, averaging 70 a game, dominating my opponents. In Mine.

Pregnancy thoughts...by Kent

Not a whole lot has been going on around here. We're preparing for the baby by painting the nursery (Mel), having showers (Mel), putting together furniture (Mel), and watching football (me). The nursery is pretty much good to go, although we're still missing a few things like a bassinet, a TV ala Fred Savage's room in "Princess Bride", and a baby. I'm not sure we'll get the TV, but we will DEFINITELY get RBI Baseball. Maybe we'll get a baby, but I'm not sure we can fit it in the room.

Putting together the crib and changing table was easy enough. I do remember some new parents sharing with me their frustrations in putting together those things, so I was dreading it. Turned out that Mel had no trouble at all.

All I know now is that our kid who isn't even ALIVE and hasn't done JACK to deserve all of this brand new stuff has more stuff than me. The nursery is packed with new books, clothes, diapers, bottles, and furniture. I need to have a "Kent Shower" so I can start catching up to my boy.

In the meantime, Mel pretends she's not pregnant by living her life as normal, making meals, doing dishes, and hanging pictures, making me look bad. Burly Steve and wife just had a baby and Steve literally did everything short of going to the bathroom for her. I don't do that much because I don't want to keep Mel from progressing. Who am I to deny her a ticket to the Celestial kingdom all because she has something growing inside of her? (Mel! Make me a sandwich! I have a mild headache!)

Mel spends most of her free time surfing the net looking at cute baby stuff and learning all of the gross parts of the female anatomy and reading all about the process of delivery. She's really into this baby stuff. I pretend not to be bored by it all, but our conversations are like this:

"This week, our baby is developing his lower kneecap!"
"I don't think the Cardinals have what it takes to win the World Series this year."
"My friend said that at 36 weeks she could barely walk, and then she complained about her ankles."
"The thing about hooking up the 240 volt heaters is that I have to buy a ganged circuit, and I don't think we have the space on the panel for it."
"I read today that the chances of having an autistic kid are going up."
"I'm pumped that the grass is really starting to fill in."

Of course, I'm joking (sort of). I'm stoked to have a kid, but I know it's going to be really tiring watching Mel take care of it (stolen joke-name that comedian!). Everybody I know, including you, has been telling me how tired I will be and how everything changes and so on. I know all of this is true, but couldn't we just talk about sports? I don't need to discuss this non-stop, that's what the wife is for. She eats this stuff up, she could talk for hours about the most mundane things, like the baby's sleeping schedule. I'm sure I'll talk about these things soon enough, but for crying out loud let's talk about something else while I can.

In other news, it's getting cold. This is good because Mel has been burning up lately. It gets down to about 60 degrees in our room at night so I put on my flannelest pajamas, crank up the mattress pad heater on my side, pull the covers up over my head and try to survive til morning. When I wake up, I notice that Mel is lying without any covers, sweating buckets. It's working out nicely.

There haven't been nearly as many creepos rubbing my wife's belly as I thought. There's a few people that I wanted to say something to, like, "I'm sorry, we don't like you enough to allow you to do that. What did you give us at the shower again? Oh, I'm sorry, onesies don't qualify for belly rubbing. We have a 20 dollar limit. Better luck next time."

Mel continues to be the envy of her coworkers and ward members, as they think she just swallowed a pumpkin. She hasn't really gained much weight except for at the belly. I also look great, but nobody says anything to me. I don't get near as much attention as I deserve. I think this has less to do with Mel being pregnant and more to do with me being a jerk.

MAJOR catch up

Editor's note: Because Mel started this post a month ago, I had to take it over or it would've never been posted. My comments are in italics.

As Kent mentioned, the two of us have been neglecting this blog lately, but in way of an excuse we have been keeping very busy. Summertime is definitely not a "kick back and relax" time for us, at least not this year. Or last year. Or the year before that.

The week of July 4th Kent's dad happened to be in Providence for a work conference, so we picked him up and he spent the weekend with us. We gave him the "Melanie & Kent" tour of Boston, showing him the places we visit on a regular basis. Then for the big holiday we went down to Cape Cod for dinner and a Summer League baseball game. We had thought they would supply fireworks after the game, but it ran into extra innings and we were all too tired to stick around. We did happen to catch some on the drive home. There were no postable pics from his visit, probably because he doesn't fit in the camera.

For the second weekend in July, I had the Young Women come over and camp out in our backyard as a pre-camp sleepover. They seemed to have some fun. Probably the best was when Kent snuck up behind 3 of the girls sitting around the fire pit and jumped out at them. I don't think I've ever seen people jump that high or that fast. A couple of them almost landed in the fire, so maybe not the safest choice, but hilarious nonetheless. I also had to take off my flips so I could sneak up on them, and ended up stepping on a hot coal, which hurt like the dickens and caused me to walk funny through scout camp and the reunion. Still worth it.

The following week Kent spent a few days at Scout Camp. It wasn't too far away from our house, so he was able to come home every night so I wasn't left completely alone. Scout camp was full of regulations. You couldn't have a fire without permission from the camp director, lights were out at 10 pm (no late night tomfoolery), etc. Those were the only 2 things I liked about scout camp: staying up late and having fires!

Then the last week in July we headed out to Utah for the Hansen Family Reunion. The flight out was fairly uneventful, and when we arrived in Orem we had a BIG surprise for Kent's family.

Our week in Utah was pretty exciting, it was nice to be able to see all the members of the Hansen Herd all in one place. There are SO many kids, it's kind of amazing. Meal time at the reunion was quite the production. Especially when the power goes out while you're cooking assembly-line style with an electric stove and oven...but everyone got fed, I think. After a pretty wet June in Boston, it was almost amazing how consistent the weather was everyday in Utah: dry and sunny during the day with a temperature cool down at night.

Craig's kids getting front row seats for the spectacle that is the Hansen Family Talent Show

Mom looking weary and Bruce looking surprisingly cheerful

Holly holding Lucy, Paula, and Alice with Chuckles

Chuckles!!!

Lana the duck for the Bruces' talent

Max (token black kid) inserted himself in every talent

Oh look! It's Max again! Also, it turns out that Gary CAN fit in the camera

Hurling their challenge to the foe...

About 10 years ago, Brian and Craig came up with these "Air Sports" sketches where they would mimic sports and events in exaggerated form, and in a close space. It's hilarious. Previous mimicries included Baseball, Basketball, the 200m dash, and I know I'm missing others. Anyway, this year Craig had the idea to do a football one. With limited people (me, Kurt, Brian, Craig), you have to play multiple positions. I won't explain the whole thing, but it was a ridiculous option play, involving about 5 pitches going back and forth across the "field". At the end, Brian broke all of the tackles and went into the end zone. I wish I had a video of it, pictures don't do it justice (don't you have a video of it, Heidi?):

Brian as the QB, Kurt the RB, I'm the center, Craig the entire defense (for now)

This was the super slo-mo part of the skit, Kurt and Craig trying to bring Brian down, while I catch up to anticipate the pitch (which didn't come, as Brian wanted to selfishly score himself). Oh, and there's an imaginary ball.

The Bergeson boys rockin out

Chuckles wowing all with his rendition of "Linus and Lucy". Move over, Mozart!

We knew we couldn't compete with the various comedy sketches and numbers, so we appealed to the sensitive side by singing a stirring rendition of "Lucky" by Jason Mraz. Mel nailed it. And hated every second of it.

The female cousins performed a very entertaining and confusing fairy tale, which I am unsure how it ended.

Undokai

Mel showing off her wheels in the bubble-blowing relay. Maw is taking her time blowing her bubble. This is what I get for being too lazy to post the pictures myself...I'm really not that fat, I swear.

The water pouring relay. We took second place, but Paula was cheating, so we would've won.

Scott hurling Thys in the Toddler Toss. He threw him 50 yards and won the gold medal. Thys escaped with minor injuries, if you count a broken femur as minor. The real story: we chose Super Scott to do the Firemen's Relay. He had to carry 4 different team members to safety using 4 different carrying methods - he is truly impressive. I did not participate in this event for obvious reasons.

Maw giving her best effort in the javelin. The javelin is currently orbiting the earth.

Mel in the Croquet hit competition. She lost badly, but for the sake of this post, let's just say she won.

Scott is neck and neck with Thys (broken femur and all!) in the headstand competition. Thys won, getting Scott back for his Toddler Toss. But since they were both on our team we earned MAJOR points in this event.

More Chuckles and Max (above)

I also got to see my little sister, April, whom I haven't seen since our wedding two years ago. Thanks so much for making the drive down April! Hopefully I'll get to see you again soon.

And naturally Max had to insert himself in the photo-op.

We also got to spend some time with the Sam Palmers (including the infamous Turkey Sub) while they passed through Utah on their grand move to the midwest.

Does anyone else see "Christmas Card" with this photo? It's just too cute.

Our trip back home was a little more stressful, what with delays in Dallas, waiting for the bus at Logan, oh yeah, and Kent leaving his wallet at his sister's house that morning. I don't think Kent has EVER left the house without his wallet, but he manages to do it on the day we have a 6am flight with a pretty tight layover and a train schedule to meet in order to make it home at a decent hour. Luckily Paula married Super Scott who, against all odds, managed to drive to the airport and bring Kent's wallet, just in time, to save the day. Thanks, Scott! My bad!

The second week in August I spent up in New Hampshire at Girls' Camp. A few people thought I was crazy for going, but it really wasn't all that bad. A little hot and humid at times, but nothing a bottle of water and some time in front of a fan couldn't fix. I had fun being with the girls and am glad that I stuck it out and went. Kent was very brave, staying at home all by himself for the whole week and I'm happy he was able to survive. I subsisted on grasshoppers, honey, and frozen pizzas.

I was over the 4th year girls, and out here they are responsible for choreographing and performing a light show for the rest of camp. They worked really hard on it and it turned out so well. I was really proud of all the girls.

After an eventful few weeks we don't have any major travel plans in the coming months which is nice. Although we do have plenty of work to do around here...