He's doing okay adapting to both his friends (the lions) and foes (the hippos).
Monday, November 30, 2009
Quick Hendrik Dosage
He's doing okay adapting to both his friends (the lions) and foes (the hippos).
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
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.
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.
Thursday, November 5, 2009
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
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.
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