For Abby, 2009 comes with a roof

Abby loves a good birthday party. Well, let me say that her Mommy has taught her that birthday parties mean one thing for sure...CAKE! We spent the first weekend of 2009 in Iowa for Ethan's birthday party. Joel is my cousin, and Abby and Ethan are our kids. I have no idea what that makes them to each other, so I'm going with cousin. Joel is cash money, just read his blog and he'll tell you (http://ethanrobert.blogspot.com/). We're a lot alike, hilarious, good looking, good at everything, full of crap, you get the idea. Joel is the reason I have created this blog. He started writing one for Ethan and I finally find out about it almost two years later. Great idea bro!

So, back to CAKE. As noted in a previous post, Abby now fully grasps the idea of helping with something the adults do so it gets done quicker and we can move on to something she wants. Well, I like to think we still have an intellectual edge over our two and a half year-old daughter. So, we ate lunch at Ethan's party and Abby found out cake was next. But, we told her she had to help clear all the plates. I'm not sure whose idea it was, but it was brilliant. Abbers gathered up every plate she could, one at a time, and brought them over to the garbage bin. She even asked for a few plates from people who weren't finished eating. That's my girl! It was awfully cute and took much longer than if she had just sat there and we cleaned up the plates. Elmo cake was served. Amazingly, especially with Joel present, the facial portion of Elmo's cake was never eaten. It did look like there were two or three dozen stab wounds from a fork, but that may have been an illusion.

That day finished with a trip to the frigid hotel pool. The equator line had to be breached with a jump, a slow trip down the stairs would not work for this swimmer. So, you know how the water is cold right away but then your body adjusts and everything is peachy? Not so much with this pool. I never warmed up, neither did Abby. So, what should have been a nice leisurely play session in the pool turned into Daddy carrying Abby around the giant tub of room temperature water...most times in a hovering position. Abby finally had enough and plopped herself down on the side of the pool, not even her toes touching the water. She stayed there and played with her cousin's cousins (or something like that) for a long time. She had a blast. It was a good trip and an important one since we won't be seeing Joel, Kari or Ethan until next Christmas. They are moving to Australia for a year...wild!

We all got back into our normal routine the following week. More snow, more cold and the beginning of our Fitness Challenge. As a family (including the Polzins) we've decided to make this the year that we turn our exercise and eating habits around. My goals are running and doing sit ups and push ups, eating healthier and cutting down on soda. Also, Fred, the father-in-law, Johnny K and I are going to take on and destroy the 26th Annual Elysian Rookie's Triathlon. "Rookie" in this sense means it's a mini-triathlon. I'm currently at a loss for how I will train for the swimming portion of the event, but JK does have a pond in his backyard. It's not the CUBE, but the water will probably be warmer than the aforementioned pool. And if I get into any trouble I can imagine my daughter opening presents on Christmas Eve and go to the backstroke.

I decided I could run outside easy enough. Day one, wake up at 6:30, run on the street, in the dark. Day two, run on the street, in the evening, in the dark. Day three, run on the street in the daylight. They all sucked. Day four, watch PTI while using the elliptical, IN MY HOUSE. The elliptical wins, and Tony Kornhesier & Michael Wilbon have awesome jobs. NOTE: I hope to make myself sound like less of a weenie by saying the running conditions were downright dreadful. Every step was on slush, snow or ice. No me gusta.

Abby continues to use her creativity skills to surprise us. One evening a couple weeks back she decided to help her friend Ella up on the couch by lifting/pulling her up...by her hair. She also now hears noises when going to bed. The heat coming out of the ceiling diffuser, the faint sound of the TV in the next room and, of course, "the choo-choo train behind my curtains". She is, no doubt, referring to the trains that come by at every hour of the day and night, on the tracks which flank the Minnesota river, a mere stones throw from our back yard. Her imagination and awareness has necessitated a new crib apparatus every time she goes nuh-night...a roof. The roof is constructed out of the finest materials we could find, the Dora blanket Kjelsey and Uncle Nick made her for Christmas. This all started in the hotel room in Iowa. The friggen heater in the room short cycled itself all night. It would stay off for 30-45 seconds and then come back on for a minute and a half. So, Abby got spooked and needed a lid on her pack 'n play. I can't really fault her since I've been thinking of a way to build myself a fort that surrounds my bed ever since, no girls allowed.

Hearkening back to the days of our youth with that tree fort 'no girls allowed' reference is the perfect segue to the next topic...pond hockey. We may never know if the rink that now sits in the Konrad backyard was part of a secret, diabolical plan by the man of the house. And now that it's been brought up, Melissa will find out. Truth is, the only ones who care to know probably are missing a Y chromosome. Ironically, their distaste for pond hockey does not translate to the very popular (in my home) dome hockey. Maybe it's because "Super Chexx" contains the double XX that makes them feel at one with the arcade game?

As if our boot hockey dominance wasn't enough without a rink to hone our skills on. The Konrad Ice Basin is magnificent. It's roughly 95' x 55', equipped with two regulation size nets, shin high boards, minimal frozen goose dung and soon to come...snow fence and a custom ice logo. It's obvious this is a labor of love. How else could you explain how, one recent night, the rink's owner/superintendent shoveling the snow off all while battling a splitting headache, crappy gloves and 20+ below zero temps? Ok, it's probably just his fancy new shovel.

Yes it's a beautiful thing but a frozen pond doesn't need mere shoveling to turn it into a rink. I'm sure every Minnesotan knows how to get an outdoor ice surface in the best shape possible...flood. JK figured luke warm water was his best bet. So, I knew his plan was to run a hose from his laundry tub out the window and into the back yard...simple enough. Then my phone rings. "Guy, you should see my laundry room right now," speaks the panting voice. He goes on to explain that he got the hose hooked up to the faucet, threaded through the window and was standing on the ice, hose in hand when the water stopped flowing. Well, if you get the chance to take a look at either of our laundry tub faucets, they are a bit different than standard. Both JK and I went with the upgraded model in which the faucet is connected to a hose that pulls out and retracts, much like many kitchen faucets. [Seriously, look into getting one, they're made by Glacier Bay and you can get them at the depot. There's really nothing better than these faucets for cleaning out 5 gallon buckets and just your general all purpose laundry tub usage.] But, I digress. Leave it to Konrad to find the one fault in these faucets. I now know the story first hand as it happened again a couple nights later as I was there helping him flood...

The water starts out flowing like the drool on a teething toddler. Then the hose loses it's air and seizes up, causing it to go flat, stopping the water flow, annoying right? Especially when you're out in the cold standing on a frozen pond. Now, the other feature of this faucet is that it has both a stream and spray option. The stream comes out of the threaded spigot area, the part that is connected to the hose. But, the tiny spray holes are outside of the threaded area. Well, guess where the water goes once the hose seizes up? You got it, shooting right out of the tiny spray holes, mind you, at a pretty solid clip. Imagine this happening in your laundry room while you are standing outside on your homemade hockey rink, 200 feet from the sink, and without a clue as to what's going on. It was only after he had soaked Lord knows how many towels, trying to dry the floor, that Johnny boy called me to fill me in on this latest of our follies. What can you say besides, "Awesome"?

Remember how Abby likes a good birthday party? Well, Ella's birthday is coming up. So when the Konrails were over one night, Abby got involved in a conversation between Missy and Anna about said party. They were talking decorations, guest list, menu options, you know...drilling home these party planning basics into my Abbers. She'll be glad she gets that lesson repeated to her from those gals and not this guy. Anywho, what we didn't realize until John, Missy and Ella were leaving is that Abby thought Ella's party was that night. When she found out we weren't going home with them she started crying. Poor little thing thought she wasn't going to get to go her friend's party. So now she's on the lookout everyday for her invitation in the mail. Sometimes she's so cute I can barely stand it. Let's just hope she doesn't again re-write the lyrics of the oh so famous song to, "It's Ella's party and I'll cry if I want to."