Friday, October 31, 2008

Spaced!

On Friday, October 24th, we "officially" opened our new Wild Goose Creative space. We signed the lease on September 1st and took about 3 weeks to fit it out with help and generous donations of our friends and family. We have also had about 7 events in it so far, but we decided to open it to the public in style!

Because we want our space to be used for a variety of arts and events (both our events and other groups'), the majority of our furniture is on casters and can be moved very easily. We took our two giant craft tables into an 'L' shaped bar/food area. We also projected our logo on our sexy brick wall!

We were also fortunate to have six Columbus artists display their art in our new gallery!

We were able to see so many familiar faces and meet tons of new people, which was so wonderful - people seemed to have a great time!

We ended up having over 160 people come and hang out!

And here's the whole...I can't resist...Gaggle! - From left to right, Karl Boettcher, Will!, Me, Jacqui Hoke, Jessie Boettcher, Ryan Hoke, Nick, Andy and Amanda Anderson, Andy Taylor, Abbey Meyer, and Caitlin Foley. Of course, our extended family is much larger, but this is the main planning group. Thank you all who came out - it was such a blessing to us and we can't wait to see you at our next event! wildgoosecreative.com

Sunday, October 26, 2008

Swing time!

I promise pictures to come of our weekend with Kim and Kurt, but, until then, I give you, WILL IN A SWING!

Will has always been very active, kicking and reaching and wanting to sit and stand up. Recently, he has been making motions to try and sit up from laying down, but his little ab muscles aren't strong enough yet, obviously. But we thought the baby swing would be a good activity to keep him busy.

It's a bit big for him, but we stuffed the sides with a blanket to keep him upright, and he had a good time tapping his feet on the ground and spinning around to stare at the toilet. He seemed pretty happy with it, and cried when we took him out of it!

This little device just might allow me to get some dinner cooked for once!

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Fall Fun with Will Photo Shoot


This weekend we were visited by our dear friends Kim and Kurt and Maddie Olmsted, and had a great time apple picking, at the punkin show, and just hanging out! More pics to come of everyone, but here are a few of Will for his 4 month pics!





Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Gratuitous Children's Clothing: Part 1

There is no point for the baby bathrobe...but, gosh darn it, it's so cute it hurts a little bit.

Monday, October 13, 2008

That's Dr. Squirrel to you!

So this quarter at Ohio State I teach two lectures every Monday and Wednesday morning, back to back. They're for two sections of the same class, Intro to Theatre, but are split up because of the large number of students: roughly 350 in my first one (at 10:30) and about 275 in my second (at 11:30).

These lectures are the part of Intro to Theatre in which I lay out some of the big concepts of the class, and then on alternating days the TA's meet the students in smaller sections to discuss the concepts, plays, and other topics. This quarter I've been using a revamped set of lectures, ones I've been re-tooling for the past few months. As part of this, I'm trying to add something fun and memorable for each lecture - something to amuse the students (and mostly myself) while giving them something to remember each lecture by. So far I've performed some Shakespeare for them, made my TA's act like a Greek chorus by speaking choruses in praise of me (I had a good laugh over that), showing some video clips, or actually having the students do some exercises.

Today, however, I didn't really have anything worked up for our lecture on Realism & The Modern World. I figured that today could just be a regular lecture with nothing out of the ordinary happening.

But I got a little unexpected help.

About 3/4 of the way through my first lecture (the 10:30 class), while I was waxing poetic about the playwright Eugene O'Neill, a couple students in the front rows suddenly started saying things to me. I thought at first they were asking a question, or that I was talking too fast, but when I asked them to repeat what they had said, they all said, "Squirrel" and pointed. I turned around, and sure enough, there was a squirrel up on stage behind me. The poor guy - he looked pretty small, probably a baby - was running back and forth along the back wall trying to find some cover.

After staring at him and wondering for a moment what to do (how are students going to pay attention to me now?), I approached the squirrel and calmly tried to chase him off the stage. You see, off to the side, behind the stage, is a short hallway leading outside. My goal was to chase him down the hallway and hopefully out of the building. I didn't know exactly who to turn to, to get a squirrel out of the building, so I told one of my TA's to call Classroom Services.

Ohio State prepares their teachers very well. They give us seminars on everything from leading discussions, dealing with unruly students, learning the technology - they even have an emergency alert system that works by text messaging. But nothing really prepares you to deal with wildlife in the classroom (outside of a zoology class, that is). So my first instinct is to call Classroom Services. This department is run by the Office of Information Technology, and these are the folks you call in an emergency when the classroom computer crashes or the projector bulb burns out. Chris, my TA, told me at first that they were sending someone, only to revise the statement when they called him back and said that they didn't know what to do, so they weren't going to send someone. (He later said that OIT told him that, if they were to send someone, they would send an exterminator who would kill the squirrel; they wisely decided not to do this in front of 350 students. Wise choice.)

So back to Mr. Squirrel... he was still on the stage and I wanted him out there. I approached him, and what ensued was a bizarre dance of dashes and chases. He and I both ran around a bit - he started to head towards the students, and fortunately one quick-thinking student stood up and scared the squirrel back towards me. However, he darted around me, behind the curtain at the back of the stage, and hid behind some flats back there. I poked around a bit, but couldn't find him. So I settled the class down (they were pretty excited... I mean, how often do you get visits from nature during a Theatre class?), and continued on with the lecture. Everything went smoothly from there on out, and I dismissed everyone.

Here are a couple pictures to help you imagine the scene. Above is my view of the students.


And here's their view of me. To the left of the picture is the corner where Mr. Squirrel hid out.

During the 12 minute break between lectures, some of the TA's and I poked around the curtain and flats, but we couldn't find Mr. Squirrel. We presumed he had a secret hiding place or had run out the back door.

That is, until 5 minutes before my second lecture started, when I noticed a group of students all staring strangely in one place in the seating bank to the far right of the classroom. Fearing the worst, I jogged on over, only to be told that, yes, indeed, there was a squirrel running up and down the rows. And I mean up and down the rows. He darted underneath seats, running from the front of the auditorium all the way to the back. Unsuspecting students, casually sitting in their seats waiting for class to start, were startled by a squirrel dashing underneath their seats, around their bags, and back again. I tried to get students to help corrale him and chase him out the back door, but I think too many of them were too dumbfounded to really do anything. I kinda don't blame them.

Mr. Squirrel kept running up and down the auditorium, underneath everyone's seats. People jumped up when he passed, or they swatted at him, or stomped their feet, or tried to shoo him in one direction or another. He made a couple dashes up onto the stage. He hid in another corner behind my podium until I basically pushed him out. He almost went out another back door. He even started running up the back hallway toward the door, only to double back and race back under the seats. Pretty soon I noticed that we were nearly 10 minutes into class time, so I asked another of my TA's, Darius, to call Classroom Services again to see if they could recommend someone else to call. He called them and was told that help was on the way.

By this point, Mr. Squirrel had again disappeared behind the flats in his favorite corner, so I jumped into the lecture to get as far as I could. About 10 minutes into my lecture, I noticed a group of three pretty burly guys standing awkwardly at one of the entrances to the classroom. I waved them down, and one timidly approached me. "I'm sorry," he said, "We were told you have a squirrel in the classroom?" I pointed him toward the curtain, and the three of them began digging around, shining flashlights, and, yes, calling for the squirrel.

At this point, I told my students that we were taking a big Time Out for lecture. I've studied and practiced theatre, so I'm well aware that when there's something interesting happening in one corner of the stage, you can't draw the audience's attention anywhere else, no matter how loud you speak. I even pointed this out to my students, wistfully hoping this could be some bizarre teaching moment in which they would learn about the power of live performance.

Anyway, so these three guys from OIT were searching for Mr. Squirrel. Mind you, these guys are employed to service the University's technology needs. And here they are, flushing a squirrel out of a lecture hall.

After a few minutes of rooting around, one of the OIT guys suddenly exclaimed "There he is!" The three men, along with myself and a couple other students, managed to flush Mr. Squirrel from his hiding place. Whereupon he began running up and down the room again, underneath students' seats, around their feet, and all over the place. All the way to the very back row of the classroom, where a female student began screaming as the squirrel ran around underneath her.

Fortunately, she was seated close to the doors to the classroom. One of the OIT guys quickly propped it open, and after a few more seconds of dashing in and out of aisles, Mr. Squirrel ran, with the three OIT men in hot pursuit, through the oper door, out of the classroom, and into the lobby. As the door quietly shut behind them, a couple students applauded, but most of us just stared in dumbfounded wonder. All of this had taken place in the space of a couple minutes.

Suddenly the doors opened and one of the OIT guys poked his head in. "All taken care of," he called out, "he's out of the building." Apparently they had chased Mr. Squirrel across the lobby, out the doors, and back into the arms of Mother Nature. As the OIT guy left, the classroom erupted in applause and laughter.

"Well," I told my students, "I don't really know how to follow that."

Things eventually settled down, and I continued with my lecture, completely winded and exhiliarated. I really felt very calm, and couldn't believe everything that had transpired. Hopefully, though, my students won't forget the lecture.

The best part about the day? I still finished both lectures on time, with a few minutes to spare. We even had a lecture quiz in my 10:30.

Thursday, October 09, 2008

Having a conversation with Mom



Our last post was about Will beginning to jabber away, and last night we tried to catch it on video. But, of course, the second I whip out the camera he clams up. Tonight, though, we caught it on video! In the first segment he's half talking, half munching on his hands, but in the second bit we caught him "ohhhing" to Beth. Enjoy!

Wednesday, October 08, 2008

Noshing on Mom

Is Will giving his mother a kiss, or is he chewing on her face? It's hard to tell at this point, although it's pretty slobbery and cute either way.

Will has been diving in for some kisses/noshing this week. Our little guy has also started making more deliberate noise lately. This morning he shouted while Beth was getting him up. Just these short little "Ahs!" Almost like he just wanted to hear his own voice. And tonight after dinner he kept staring at Beth and basically talking to her. It sounded like a conversation! (Although it was a bit unintelligible on his end.) He kept making an "Oh" sound at her in particular.

Monday, October 06, 2008

Tagged!

My friend Kim tagged me in her recent post. I've never been tagged before, but secretly dreamed of it. HA! The rules are that I have to write 7 little known facts about myself and then tag 7 other people to do the same. Here goes:

1. I adore being a mom...and I never thought I would ever say that.

2. One of my greatest regrets is not having followed Phish on tour for one whole summer during college.

3. When I was little, I had a whole host of imaginary friends that lived in the woods behind my house, including a giant dragon named Foo Foo and a tiny little mouse-like creature named Peep.

4. I am an adrenaline junkie, and will learn how to fly, skydive, and scuba dive some day...but I sometimes have an irrational fear of heights, deep water, and take offs and landings.

5. I have taken 7 years of ballet, 2 of pointe, 4 of jazz, 7 of tap, and grace still alludes me.

6. Even though I love to travel, I don't enjoy being out of my comfort zone and usually, as a somewhat subconscious defense mechanism, develop almost crippling germaphobia. Especially with beds. Even at home, I always fold down the sheet over the edge of the comforter "to keep the germs out." (I have no idea what that means.)

7. I'm pretty sure my top favorite album is Meat Loaf's Bat out of Hell. Deal with THAT. :)

I tag Becky H., Jessie, Kate, Marcia, Beth L., Suzanne, and Ryan. You're it!

Friday, October 03, 2008

THREE MONTHS?

I know it's a cliche, but where does the time go?

I cannot believe how much Will has changed in 90 days! He was such a chubby peanut when he was born, and now he is our little laughing man!

Here he is with Maeby, who he has really started to notice lately. He likes it when she is around him so he can see her up close...in this picture, she took our attention to mean she could climb up on the couch with him, where she's not supposed to be. Will thought it was HILARIOUS!

And for the three-month update, Will loves looking around at everything, especially when we're in a new environment or space. He is a great sleeper, and has been sleeping through the night (knock on wood) for a month and a half now! He eats and goes down for naps like a champ! He's very intense with his emotions, and laughs with his whole body or kicks his legs and arms around when he's excited to see someone or something. If he doesn't like something, he lets us know...but he doesn't cry for no reason at all anymore, unless he's hungry, tired, or wet...which are all understandable! :)

We love every minute with this little boy, and are so blessed to know him. And, yes, I know it's a cliche. :)