Don’t put anything past bone-breaking younger siblings

As a young boy of 3 or so, I broke my left wrist. According to my mother, I was climbing on the back of the couch and fell off. According to me, my younger sister, a newborn at the time, pushed me off. I’ll continue to use my version, despite its unlikeliness, as it comforts me to think my sister was messing with my life right from the get-go of hers.

I’ve managed to avoid my sister’s bone-breaking ways for the past 35 years, despite some of her best efforts during childhood. My fortune may have come to an end earlier this week, because while watering plants around my home, I tripped over the base to my son’s basketball hoop as I walked backwards to straighten out a garden house. To break the fall, I used my left wrist and in turn may have fractured a bone near my thumb.

I’m using the word “may” because the fracture that could be there can’t be detected by x-rays immediately. I’ll have to wait another week to find out if it’s broken. I was told, “If it still hurts, it’s broke.”

My wife’s cousin, an athletic trainer, put it in better terms:

“That lovely bone that takes a week to show up on x-rays happens to be the scaphoid bone. Which is located in the snuffbox, which is found on the radial dorsal aspect of hand. This fracture is usually the result of falling on an outstretched hand, or as we athletic trainers love to call it the FOOSH! Very common injury in such sports as: basketball, baseball, football and softball. Or in Scott’s case, tripping over basketball hoop and bracing the fall with an outstretched hand. Which one usually learns soon after bracing a fall with hands is not a good idea in most cases.”

I didn’t mean to trip over the basketball hoop. In fact, I may argue my sister moved it on me. She secretly came to my house from Ripon, moved it a few feet away from its normal location, and then patiently waited for me to walk backwards at that location.

And as I tripped, she knew my reflexes would cause me to use my left hand to break my fall, and then she could finish what she started nearly 35 years ago: damnation to my left wrist/hand/thumb.

Anyone with younger siblings probably understands this. They were put on this earth to mess with our lives.

My son, the owner of the basketball hoop my sister secretly moved on me, will soon understand this, too. His baby brother, born almost two weeks ago, hasn’t done anything to ruin his life, yet. But I’m guessing the baby will be blamed for something pretty quickly.

When that happens, I’ll have to tell him about my sister’s evil ways, just as his mother will tell him about her younger sisters’ malicious attempts to ruin her life. We older siblings all have to stick together.

****

Originally published in The Portage County Gazette on Friday, July 27, 2012.

Early and small, second child does well thanks to many caring people

In last Friday’s paper, I talked about the trouble my wife, Jenny, and I were having in coming up with a name for our son, who was due to arrive Aug. 23. I asked readers for suggestions, hoping someone might offer one we’d like and use. I thought we had a little time to get some suggestions. Boy, was I wrong.

Declan James Steuck arrived in the later evening hours of Saturday, July 14, almost six weeks early and weighing 4 lbs., 3 oz., which is just a little more than half the weight of our other son, Braden, when he was born seven years ago.

He’s early and small, but we’re thankful he’s alive. If he remained in his mother much longer, I probably wouldn’t be writing about a joyous event in our lives.

Declan’s journey to his birth began Friday night when Jenny mentioned to me that he didn’t seem like he was being very active, something he’d been for quite some time. As time passed, his mother’s observation turned into worry, which turned into insomnia. She stayed awake half the night, playing solitaire on the computer and looking up information about babies not moving during pregnancy.

The next morning she asked me if she should call the doctor, sort of afraid the doctor might think she’s foolishly worrying about something she shouldn’t worry about. I told her the doctor won’t think that, and if it makes her worry less, she should call.

When she called, a nurse told her to eat or drink something with some sugar, as this might jumpstart the baby. I thought her advice was perfect, as I’ve seen sugar’s effect on Braden.

An hour after drinking a sugary latte from McDonald’s to no results, we went into Ministry St. Michael’s Hospital. Nurse Bette, looking at Jenny, found the baby’s heartbeat, making it appear as though we were needlessly worrying about a healthy baby. But after monitoring my wife for a while, Bette determined the heartbeat was in sync with my wife’s heartbeat, which was cause for concern.

After conducting an ultrasound, Dr. Pavel Petkov determined Jenny needed to stay for a while and the baby needed to be monitored. It was at this time we realized our household may be getting larger sooner than we had expected.

Hours later, after watching the baby’s heart rate, he told us they would induce labor on Sunday, and if the stress was too much for the baby, they would take it by cesarean section.

A few hours later, at 10:15 p.m., he said they weren’t going to wait and they weren’t going to put the baby through the stress of a delivery. He needed to come out, Dr. Petkov said. The delivery team was being assembled, he said, and would be ready in half an hour. I wonder if The Avengers could be ready that quickly during a comic-book world emergency.

While Jenny was being prepared for the surgery, I waited in the hallway, suited up for the delivery room. Jenny’s mom arrived at this time, and she told me how she got pulled over in Plainfield going 70 miles an hour in a 35 mph zone. She dumped the contents of the purse on her car seat when the officer asked for her license, which was cause enough to let her go with a verbal warning. It’s probably the only time anyone I know will get off going double the speed limit.

I’m not someone who likes anything surgical. I once passed out in a hospital visiting my grandfather when he showed me x-rays of his heart surgery. I also nearly passed out several years ago when doctors were preparing Jenny for a surgery to have an ovary removed. Last year when I was being prepared for a colonoscopy, I nearly passed out.

The delivery room was no exception. While I held Jenny’s hand during the caesarian, I had to be wheeled out after I started getting light headed. All had started well, as the doctors and nurses in the delivery room enjoyed my telling about her mother’s speeding exploits, but when Jenny said them “pulling” her innards kind of hurt, all the blood went out of my head. I kept thinking about the last scene in “Braveheart” where William Wallace was vivisected.

Outside the delivery room, I drank juice and talked to my mother-in-law, which allowed the blood to return to my head, and when I heard Declan’s little kitten-like cry, I was quickly back in the delivery room.

He was crying and looked healthy, albeit smaller than all the babies I’ve ever handled. Dr. Ralph Locher, the pediatrician who came in for the delivery, said he looked healthy, despite being so early. In attempting to take a photo, I started to get light-headed again and had to be wheeled away a second time.

After recovering and after the doctors and nurses finished with Jenny, we had an opportunity to see little Declan for a few minutes before he was taken to the Marshfield Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at Ministry St. Joseph’s Hospital, for strictly precautionary reasons as Dr. Locher nicely explained to us.

Declan is doing well in Marshfield. After losing a little weight, as they expect babies to do, he’s gained an ounce in four days. He’s breathing and feeding well, and hopefully will come home soon. We were told premature babies can sometimes be in the NICU until their expected due date, but all we’ve talked to think it’ll be much sooner than that.

Dr. Petkov told us Jenny’s motherly instinct to come in was essential to him being in the good condition he is in now. Her placenta was failing, and his umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck. If she hadn’t, it’s likely he would not have survived.

Of course, we’re thankful for the incredible care we received at St. Michael’s. All the nurses and doctors have been extraordinary. At one point, between nearly passing out, I remember seeing the dozen or so people in the delivery room and thinking most of them had to be called in to help us. They were taking time out of their weekend schedule to do something very heroic. I can’t write anything that would thank them enough for their service. Thank you.

As for the name, Declan, it’s one I discovered at the hospital Saturday. I was reading some back issues of Rolling Stone magazine, and in an article about Danny McBride, an actor who plays Kenny Powers on HBO’s “Eastbound & Down,” it talked about his newborn son Declan. I suggested it to Jenny, and she said maybe.

After looking the name up, it became a definite. A Gaelic name that means “full of goodness,” it was the name of an Irish saint who immediately preceded St. Patrick. Half Irish, and with another son with an Irish name, it was a no-brainer. In addition, it’s not common, unlike Braden which seemed like every fourth kid was named after we chose that one.

My wife and I aren’t planning on having any more children. So if you have a name suggestion, send it to someone else you know who is expecting. Make sure you make the suggestion as soon as possible, as we discovered we needed one earlier than we had anticipated.
****
Originally published in The Portage County Gazette on Friday, July 20, 2012.

Coming up with child’s name could be perfect Christmas present

A conversation with my 7-year-old son, Braden, this morning:


Braden: I want a Wii U for Christmas. Do you think Santa will bring it for me?

Me (changing the subject a little bit): I don’t know. What do you think your baby brother will want?

Braden: A name.

While Braden’s baby brother is still a month or so away from being born, coming up with a name for the child seems to be a longer distance away. Every time my wife, Jenny, and I think we have one, we find a reason not to use it.

My suggestions – Thor, Conan, Kreese, Kurgan, Vader and Bruce – have all been rejected by Jenny. She doesn’t care much for superheroes, movie villains and musicians, apparently.

In turn, I’ve rejected some of her suggestions – Evan, Ethan, Owen, Ian and Andrew. I guess I’m not a fan of names starting with vowels.

Some names we’ve both liked we’ve secretly tested out with others – others being mainly Braden – didn’t pass muster. One name, which I’m not going to reveal due to the possibility we may still go with it, he quickly said was a “girl’s name,” although neither of us had thought so.

A few names are on our “strong possibility” list, but they haven’t made the “definite” list. This is worrisome because Braden’s name made that list early in our selection process, and it never came off it. While we like some of the names on the “strong possibility” list, the fact they haven’t made the “definite” list, yet, makes us think another name is out there waiting for us to find it.

Finding names is pretty easy, as they are all around us. Just browse through the pages of this paper and you’re sure to see dozens of different names, with a wide variety of spellings.

I’m a sucker for using names from movie characters or musicians, while Jenny is big on classic-sounding names that aren’t too popular, yet. Using these criteria, how we came up with Braden is anyone’s guess? It became popular, of course, as soon as we used it, but at the time we didn’t know any other Bradens.

At the time, we combined her father’s name, Brad, and my father’s name, Dennis, and liked the end result. I suppose we could combine our mothers’ names, Karen and Linda, for the new baby and come up with Kalin, Linren or Kada, but those names don’t seem to work as well as Braden did.

If we became desperate for a name, I could hold a contest and ask readers to submit suggestions. The prize simply being the honor of naming a newborn child. It’s not money, but it’s kind of cool.

Just don’t suggest Biff, Ringo, Chucky or Orson. They’re likely to get rejected.
****
Originally published in The Portage County Gazette on Friday, Jul y 13, 2012.

Improved Gazette website takes paper into the future

The new and much improved Portage County Gazette website debuted to the public Sunday, July 1, one day earlier than we promised in last week’s paper. It’s a site that’s been long in the works, as the staff debated about what it should include, not include and how it can be relevant in today’s digital world.


Associate Editor Matthew Brown, whose technology geekery far surpasses my own (I’m no slouch in that department, but I feel like an amateur next to him), has spent the past several months using our ideas to develop the website, and the end result is something we all like and hope you will like, too.

The new website offers headlines and the first few paragraphs of a large selection of news stories, features, columns and sports stories in the current edition of the paper, and once in a while it will feature an article in its entirety.

It also offers plenty of opportunities for users to interact with The Gazette. People can share headlines, stories and photos on various social media sites, including Facebook and Twitter. They can also submit articles, obituaries, announcements, story ideas and, most importantly, “What did you expect for a buck?” submissions.

The staff here, while usually a funny bunch, sometimes has trouble coming up with those tidbits, and we know the stories about a “7-year-old son of a staffer” can get a bit old sometimes, so we definitely welcome your funny thoughts and comments for one of our most popular pages.

People can also purchase or renew a subscription online, submit a classified ad (which in most cases are still free in our paper) and contact the various staff members at the paper.

The new website is still in its infancy, and Matthew is in the process of teaching the others how to update it. Once we’re all up to speed, it will be a place Gazette readers can go to see some of the material in the paper, the latest obituaries, photos from events we didn’t have room to publish in the print edition, and breaking stories as they happen.

We plan on sharing some of those stories on our Facebook page, so plan on “liking” us to receive updates to your newsfeed to make it convenient to access them.

We consider this new website a marvelous leap forward for The Gazette, and it’s coming at the 13th anniversary of the paper. While the print edition will continue to be our flagship, the website and our Facebook page will act as great supplements to it for our readers. We know those supplements are the future, and this website is our way of getting there.
****
Originally published in The Portage County Gazette on Friday, July 6, 2012.

Newly cut lawn provides refreshing smell

I love the smell of freshly cut lawn in the morning. It’s a smell I haven’t enjoyed for four years, until this past Tuesday morning after I mowed my lawn at my new house for the first time ever the previous evening.


When my wife, Jenny, and I sold our home in Wautoma four years ago, we rented an apartment in Plover while we decided whether to buy another home or build a new one. We went with the second option, and last summer moved into it after three years of apartment life.

Because the house wasn’t ready until June, we waited on installing a lawn, figuring the summer sun would bake any attempts to do so. Initially, we were going to wait until the fall, but the fall became spring because that’s what happens when you don’t plan right.

In April, a lawn guy installed one for us, and after some early downpours in the days after it was planted, the weather decided it didn’t want to cooperate. The sprinkler system, set to twice a day, didn’t provide enough water to make it grow as quickly as we wanted. So last week Jenny called the lawn guy and asked if there was anything we could do.

He showed up, changed the sprinkler system settings, and poked a bunch of holes in our yard. I’m not sure what the holes were for, but it worked wonders. Within a week, we went from having a yard with more dirt patches than grass patches to one primarily covered in grass.

It grew so quickly that I realized my four years of lawn-mowing freedom was about to come to an end. I wasn’t all that sad to see it end, though, as I’ve always enjoyed the exercise that comes with pushing a lawnmower around and around a yard. Unlike a treadmill, this exercise seems to serve a purpose and have an end goal.

After firing up the mower, I hoped to find some snakes in the grass as I was cutting it. I had found one the night before, and capturing one could make for a nice pet for our son, Braden. He got a gerbil over the weekend, and with the two cats we already have, a snake would help make for the start of the Steuck Zoo.

Jenny told me she would not appreciate a pet snake, though, and I know his grandmother would probably never visit if we had one. I’m not sure what the aversion is to such a harmless creature, but I’m not going to risk putting myself in the doghouse with both Jenny and my mother-in-law over a reptile that would rather be outdoors anyway.

We’ve got a big lawn, and I expected it to take a couple of hours to finish with a push mower. To my surprise, it only took an hour. The only trouble I had occurred after a break in which I restarted the mower. In pulling the drawstring back, I started the mower but also pulled the string right off the mower. I was able to finish the lawn, but I’ll need to fix this problem before I mow a second time, probably early next week.

I have no clue how to fix it, but that’s what YouTube is for. Google a question, “How to put drawstring back on lawnmower,” and you’ll find dozens of videos showing you how to do it. It’s nice living in an age where everyone can be a handyman.

Learning to solve this problem will enable me to fix another problem. The same thing happened to me with my snow blower during the final snowfall this winter.

I should probably try to keep my strength in check. Or else I won’t be able to enjoy the smell of freshly cut lawn in the morning, afternoon or evening.
****
Originally published in The Portage County Gazette on Friday, June 29, 2012.

Coming up with more nicknames is only reason to attend college reunion

I graduated from college 15 years ago, but I won’t be going to my class reunion next week. Why not? Because the only people I’d care to see are people I have regular contact with anyway.


My freshman year roommate, Jon Granberg, and I discussed this last Friday, when we met in Stevens Point for dinner when he was in town for a wedding the next day. He jokingly asked whether or not I’d be attending the reunion in Ripon, already knowing the answer. “That’s as likely as you going,” I answered, strongly suspecting he hadn’t made plans to attend.

Both of us agreed attending the reunion would be a waste of time because the college friends we’d want to see are people we already have contact with regularly, and the others there would just be people we’d struggle to remember. I’m terrible with names, so most likely I’d have to rely on having my wife introduce herself and asking for their names – a technique that has worked wonders for me over the years.

The only way I’d remember any of these people would be if my friends and I would have had nicknames for them. We amused ourselves greatly by coming up with nicknames for people. Those nicknames, and some of the stories behind them, include:

“Zeus,” who actually nicknamed himself. A senior when I was a freshman in 1993, Zeus didn’t receive his diploma until 1997, when I received mine. A self-proclaimed Greek god, Zeus had a mullet, wore neon shoes and wrote short stories about war machines pulled by giant teams of elephants. Once, I called him, proclaiming myself Apollo and telling him the campus wasn’t big enough for two gods. Even today, my friends and I can spend hours talking about him.

“I Brought This Sign Because I Like Miller,” who lived on my floor my freshman year. He received this nickname because, in introducing himself to the rest of the floor during an orientation exercise in which each guy had to bring an item describing him, he brought a Miller High Life sign and said those words, and nothing else. It fit him perfectly, as he really did like Miller and he was a man of few words. This was especially evident in history class, when he received a failing grade for plagiarizing a paper. He may have gotten away with it, but the professor noted it’s hard to do when you plagiarize the wrong assignment and hand it in.

“Pimp Daddy,” who liked to hang out with the ladies, despite them being completely oblivious to his presence. Pimp Daddy had a big head, which seemed twice the size of a normal person’s head, and he enjoyed running around in his pajamas. The group of girls he hung out with – which we dubbed “The Goodie Goodie Girls” for being, well, rather wholesome – didn’t even know he was there, despite our claims he enjoyed their company on a regular basis.

“Tinted,” who wore tinted glasses, thus earning him the nickname. Tinted was a really nice guy, but his tinted glasses made him appear as though he was always wearing sunglasses all the time. He was tragically killed in a farm accident a few years ago, but my friends and I will always remember him for his glasses.

“Triangle Circle Square,” who was in an art history class with me and several other friends. We had to sign in every class, and he signed in using a triangle, circle and square. We never understood why, and although I remember little else about him, he forever became known as the three-shape guy.

“Dad Woman,” who shared a dorm room with a much older guy. He was most likely her boyfriend, but we theorized it could have been her homeless dad.

The king of all nicknames, though, was Granberg himself. A little guy who liked to make fun of himself, we came up with nicknames for him on practically a daily basis, most of which he laughed at, making him one of the best sports I’ve ever known. Some of them, which I’m not going to bother explaining, included “Hey Sterling,” “The Little Red Guy in the Back of the Class,” “Heather Speaks of Eating Granberg,” “Granny,” “Graaaaaaaaaaaanbeeeeeeeeeeeeerg,” “Granberg Standing Outside in His Underwear,” “The Hamburglar” and a host of others I can’t print in a newspaper.

Granberg was smart enough to know we came up with nicknames for him because we liked him, and to protest would only take away from our fun with him. So he went along with the nicknames, as well as the practical jokes we pulled on him – most of which included late-night prank calls to him pretending to be characters spoofing on his various nicknames, such as Sterling Sharpe, an officer from the Milwaukee Police Department and the girl named Heather.

He was absolutely correct to realize the nicknames were sort of terms of endearment, as the people we didn’t like didn’t have nicknames or were simply known as jerks. For example, a guy from Minnesota was simply known as the biggest jerk on campus, and this guy’s girlfriend was known as the girl who dated the biggest jerk on campus.

Fifteen years after graduation, my friends and I still love talking about the nicknames we came up with in college. Going to a reunion may give us more fodder, but I’m more than happy to keep the memories as they were.
****
Originally published in The Portage County Gazette on Friday, June 22, 2012.

Even if everything was in black and white, some things never change

My 7-year-old son, Braden, went to Noah’s Ark in Wisconsin Dells for the first time in his young life earlier this week. His trip, taken with his daycare classmates, inspired plenty of chatter upon his return, and made me realize how old I’m getting.


My wife, Jenny, and I expected him to be worn out after the nine-hour trip there and back, as often is the case with little boys who spend the entire day playing in the sun. To our surprise, he was more energetic than he was before leaving that morning.

“Dad, have you ever been to Wisconsin Dells?” he asked after picking him up.

“I’ve been there a couple of times,” I replied, ready to ask him how he liked it. I didn’t have an opportunity to do so, as he fired a barrage of questions at me as though he were the host of a quiz show in which speed was a factor.

“How old were you? Did they have the giant snake slide? Did they have mini-golf? Did you go in the wave pool?”

The last time I went to Noah’s Ark was when I was in eighth grade, in 1989 – 23 years ago for people doing the math. Astonished it had been that long since I was last there, especially since the memory of the experience is so vivid in my mind, I tried to explain that many of those slides, rides and fun opportunities weren’t there when I was younger.

“Was everything in black and white then?” he asked.

I hesitated, and then laughed. It was the same question I asked my mother when I was a kid. Assuming color was a modern invention, as distinguished between old television shows and films that were black and white in the “olden days” and “modern era” shows and films that are in color, I thought, like he must have also, that cameras caught everything as it was.

My mom laughed at my question, which I repeated on many occasions later not because I didn’t genuinely know the answer but to elicit a laugh and also make fun of her being “old.” Hearing the same question from Braden made me realize history has a knack for repeating itself, even if the players change a little bit. Because I laughed at the question and because he’s smart enough to figure out he can tease me for being “old’ by asking it, I’m sure I will hear it again.

I told Braden about my last trip to Noah’s Ark 23 years ago. It had wave pools then, but they were pretty new at the time. It also had lots of slides and the lazy river, which it still has, although I’m sure many of the slides have been upgraded since then. I heard they had a slide that has a loop, although Braden didn’t know anything about it.

It cost about $12 back then to spend a day at the water park. We paid $19 for Braden to go, but both these costs are difficult to compare because one or both of them may have come with a group discount, and one of them may have been an adult price. The park’s website lists its undiscounted adult price as being $33.99. Regardless, inflation is definitely present at Noah’s Ark. I don’t even want to guess what food and beverage costs there are now.

For hours after picking him up, we heard about the greatness of Noah’s Ark. Thinking back, I’m sure I did the same. Some things never change.
****
Originally published in The Portage County Gazette on Friday, June 15, 2012, .