MN Steve, MN Anders, and KS Jon at OH v. LA

Mr. Money, his trainer, and his mom

Trick or Treating (L to R, Aria, Andrew, Mary, Jack)

new schedule

Anders for the most part has given up the morning and afternoon nap for one midday nap of varying length, usually 1 to 1.5 hours. It is interesting to watch for his signals that he is ready to sleep. He usually starts falling down and doing things that might make him cry. Then I pick him up and rock him, but he fights like hell. We do this a few time over about half an hour until he relents to sleep. Today, he pulled a new move. I was blocking him from getting to the CD player in his room which he likes to monkey with, so he started bashing his head into the wall like a remote control toy truck. The more I get to know Anders, the more I think of him as a future defensive end who will hate roller coasters.

Kindermusic Halloween

Anders' Touchdown Signal and Trip to Kindermusic

Grandma and Grandpa's Visit

We've decided that we need an extra person here to keep things running smoothly at Chez Peterson. We can tread water with two people, but three people for one baby and one house is really the right ratio.

It was nice to have Anna's parents here chipping in. Roger even mowed our lawn today! Roger makes his blog debut in the previous pictures. I even got a chance to go out to Stroud's Run State Park for a hike with Roger yesterday. My last hike with Roger was in late July just before Anna and Anders returned.

Anna and I went out for my birthday to Rhapsody in Nelsonville, which is easily the best restaurant in the area now that Stephen's has lost its mojo. We went out the previous night to China Panda with Anna's parents. We sat right in the middle of a high traffic area, which Anders loved. In fact, today I was at Kroger and our cashier recognized us from the other night. Anders was making eyes at his girlfriend at China Panda on Thursday night.

Greg and Dorene attended Kindermusic as well. They found the set up interesting.

It was another good weekend. It was nice to have a little break.

Anders had his adjusted first birthday yesterday. I had my 31st birthday on Wednesday. This is a short year for Anders, only 9 months long. At two years since bursting on the scene, he will be 2 and that's that. This is the only year when he has 2 birthdays, but we might keep celebrating it for a while until there is a popular uprising against it.

We have more company next week as MN Steve and his lady love travel to Athens for Halloween.

Then, the weekend after that our friend Bill will be staying with us. Finally, Trudy will have a visitor. Trudy made a couple of statement barfs yesterday. In the morning, she barfed on the living room rug where Anders plays. Then, in the afternoon, she barfed on Anna's pillow in our bed. I'm not sure what I've done to stay in Trudy's good graces, but I will try to keep doing it.

Anders has made the switch from formula to whole milk, which is part of the reason we could afford to go to rhapsody. Anders loves adult food, so we have been giving him more and more of it. We can't eat cookies around Anders anymore. He demands a taste.

I'm watching Vikings-Packers. The Vikes may not be a good football team, but they sure are an interesting football team.

I'm drifting into Larry King territory, so I shall sign off.

Go Green

Homecoming and Grandma Visit and Roger

Grandparents Visit

Grandma's Visit

My mom and her friend Paul visited this weekend. They arrived on Thursday afternoon and had to leave unexpectedly on Sunday due to the death of his brother in law back in Decorah. It was just another example of life taking an unexpected twist. We have become very used to this scenario in the last 15 months. Anna and I used to expect life to follow a standard plan, but that has not been the case for us recently.

I have always been a planner. If I do A, B, and C, then the result will be D. That logic now appears inoperable. I think we are doing a pretty good job of going with the flow considering that both of us have type A controlling personalities. It's just that the flow seems to be picking up speed.

I have a lot to do this fall between writing lectures, grading, and applying for jobs along with doing everything we can to sell our house. On top of that, my primary job is raising Anders. I love that job, but sometimes things look overwhelming. I can't even plan a week in advance at this point, so I am literally taking things a day at a time as the old cliche goes. I suppose that is what happens when one has a baby at home. We are living a day at a time because of all the aforementioned things as well. We don't know where we will be in a year. In a way that is exciting, but Anna longs for a boring life. I'm beginning to think that's not so bad either. For example, while the world was gripped with the Chilean miners' rescue, we had neither the time nor the cable to be drawn into that story.

Back to Anders, he loved the homecoming parade. He was quite taken with the Marching 110 and the OU Alumni Band. Both groups danced right in front of our position at the BP in front of Roger's Tie Dye stand on Court Street. We took some good pictures with Mom's camera, but she lacks the plug in to transfer them to a computer so you will have to take my word for it. Mom, Anders, and I took in the football game with Paul, Rose, and Kate--Rose's sister--on the grassy knoll at the south end of Peden Stadium. In between, we went up to Nelsonville for the Ohio Smoked Meat Festival.

So, it's about 4 pm and Anders has not napped all day. He looks to be fading as I feed him on the hill. Instead, Anders wiggles free from me and starts crawling around to visit the college kids sitting on the hill. It's a good thing they already announced the homecoming court, or else they might have had a re vote! One of the most impressive things about this display was that Anders was crawling perpendicular to the steeply slanting hill. He only tumbled once. He made new friends. One guy declared Anders the "coolest baby ever" for his MN Vikings onsie. I replied that I might be guilty of child abuse for pushing him in the direction of Vikings fandom. That line got hearty chuckles. I learned my lesson from the delivery room and quit while ahead. Making fun of the Vikings is a guaranteed punchline, but then stop, don't push your luck.

Anders seems right at home in the collegiate setting. At the parade, he seemed a little too excited about the frat party raging across the street from us. No one knows what the future holds for Anders, but don't be surprised if it's Anders Peterson BMOC. Perhaps he will win the try out to be The Tree.

Anders is talking to himself in his room, so I better go. He took a morning nap today, which is a welcome change from last week's boycott of the morning nap.

new and old

Yesterday Anders produced a blast from the past when he put his arms up in the air at 90 degree angles when he was ready to eat, just like last October in the hospital. It was a signal I had not seen in a while.

I think he is learning about humor. He has a low guttural bear-like growl, which is pretty funny, but also pretty low for a one year old baby. Anyway, the other night at supper, Anders was dinking around with his food, not eating. Anna got mad at him and he growled back at her, which made Anna laugh. Anders picked up on this phenomenon, so he would growl, then look over at her to see if she was laughing. This continued about six times.

Yesterday at Kindermusic, I learned from one of the mothers that her son was inspired by Anders to start clapping. I hope that he is not also inspired to start throwing things. Anders was playing bean ball with the wooden shaker eggs yesterday. No baby was safe from his two handed throwing. The teacher tried to give him a Kleenex to throw, but I decided to just grab his arms to prevent the situation from deteriorating further. Anders crawls right up to her and expects to be held. She has to go around to the other babies and gain their trust to hold them, but not The Mayor.

My students are taking midterms today. We have a busy weekend, some of it planned and some unplanned. No rest for the wicked, as my grandma used to say. Oh, one more funny thing.

So regular readers will know that Anders has not been sleeping as consistently since he returned from MN in August. We had to get him up to go to the babysitter this morning, but he was out like a light. Anna turned on the radio, then turned on the light, we clumped around,but no stirring. He kept his face down and his butt in the air, as he always does when sleeping. Finally, I went to rouse him as Anna looked on.

"Anders. Anders!" (Nudging him) "C'mon, Anders, time to get up buddy," I said.

Nothing happened.

Anna: "Is he breathing?!"

I thought this was a ridiculous question, then I nudged him again, nothing. I started to get worried, so I grabbed him and picked him up. Then his red, mattress-smashed face lit up as he saw us and gave us a shake. He couldn't have been happier. We were relieved. Anna used her dad's line, "Who's happier than Mr. A?!"

These are the brief moments of panic that give parents gray hair.

Reunited

So far today, Anders has been called "a character" at library story time, "a beautiful baby" at Kroger, and he scored us a free cookie at the Kroger Deli (I guess they keep cookies at the deli).

Anders was pretty excited to see me return. He smiled broadly and said "Dad...Dad...Dad" when I appeared. He doesn't say Dada, it's Dad--a really quick "Dad."

Anders also clapped appropriately at the end of Amy's new story at the library. It was nice of Anders to clap for her after reading a story that she had not read before.

We saw Cita again with her granddaughter at the library.

I was glad to be able to share the big day with Ben, Andrea, their families, and some old friends from Decorah, but I'm glad to be back.

While I was away...

Quick Hitter

Like the Paul Kijawa fullback dive into the line that beat Michigan in the Big House 20 years ago on my 11th birthday, this will be short and sweet since I am almost out the door here at Chez Minnesota Steve for our friends Ben and Andrea's wedding.

On Thursday, Anders threw his bottle from his chair in the dining room all the way to the stove in the kitchen, if you are scoring at home (or if you're alone) that's a room and a half!

Later that day at Kindermusic, Miss Krista only allowed the babies to have one sand filled egg to shake because she said they were too big for the babies to grasp two at a time. So Anders throws his egg, which means that Miss Krista comes over to him to let him choose a new egg from the basket. Anders then pulls the bait and switch, baits her over, studies the basket, and pulls out two eggs with his man hands! Classic.

Yesterday, I was nodding off on the plane into Providence until I heard a baby cry. I jolted awake, tensed up and prepared to move, until I remembered where I was...

MN and I drove down to Newport to visit the Gilded Age. We had a seafood lunch and the next table over was a baby girl about Anders' age. I totally tuned out MN Steve, who was droning on about Gophers Football because the game was on in the restaurant, and started making faces at the baby. She was enjoying it, then the mom looked over. I tried to say something witty, but she just looked at me blankly then turned away. I later realized that they were a whole table of French speakers. I don't speak the language of love, but I do speak baby.

Later.