Thanksgiving

We have much for which to be thankful. We are not quarantined on West Hills Drive as we were last year for Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Anna had a long break, but not long enough to go home so we did the next best thing and visited our friends the Gearys in the DC metro area of Northern Virginia. Renee is convinced that Anders is a genius because he doesn't watch cartoons and more importantly she maintains that he can tell colors apart. Anna and I remain unconvinced, but it's a nice thing to hear. Renee's best friend Missy described Anders as the best behaved baby she has ever met, noting in particular how mellow he is.

Anders was in heaven at the Geary's home with two kids and two dogs bouncing around. Ryan and Finn were really good with Anders, Ryan--the older brother--in particular took an interest in Anders. Anders had such a great time on Thanksgiving Day that he refused to nap, other than briefly resting on Anna for a few minutes in the morning.

Anders has been saying "baby" a lot more than "Mama" or "Daddy" this week. He has been playing a game with Anna where he opens and closes his room door on her and alternately says "hi" and "bye." They took turns today feeding each other orange slices. Anna also said that he was saying "kitty" when he was in the pet food aisle yesterday. Tonight on Skype, he was doing his Ando Shake upon request. He calls all kids "baby," and even notices kids on TV and calls them "baby."

Anders has little interest in walking or standing on his own, much like his mother who didn't walk until 14 months of age. Cita got him to stand for a few seconds on his own on Tuesday at the library. Other than that, the closest he comes to standing is occupying both his hands while he leans on the Ottoman (That's Ottoman the furniture, not the empire from days of yore. We don't have some guy named Emek who comes here to help Anders work on posture or anything like that). He continues to like messing with our lamps and changing the channels on the TV both manually and with the remote control. He can do some pretty amazing things with the remote control, things I've never seen before on a remote control.

We took Anders to have his picture taken with Santa at Easton in Columbus today. He met Santa with the same amount of accepting detachment with which he greeted the Easter Bunny last spring. He didn't put up a fight after I deposited him on Santa's lap, but he didn't smile either. We was more interested in the props on the Santa set than Santa himself. I do have to say, though, the Santa was really good. He had good girth, a real beard, and an appropriate but not overdone amount of jolliness. It was Anders first visit to Santa since, again, last year we were in seclusion. Anders wore his new Peterson #28 Minnesota Vikings jersey. It must have been good luck as the Purple won, but bad luck for Adrian as Peterson left the game with a sprained ankle.

I don't think we will be attending church again during advent. With the students gone for our 6 week quarter break, our church went down to one 10:00 am service. 10 is smack dab in the middle of nap time. We forced the issue today, much to our dismay. We all suffered the entire day for our prideful choice. We shall return again in January when we have either an 8:30 or 11 am option.

Well, when I start rambling about the worship schedule, I know it's time to sign off. I'll try to be more regular about the updates, but I say that pretty often so I'll try to keep the updates at least at once a week. Perhaps if I get ambitious and Anders is sleepy some day, I'll try to load a video on Facebook again for the firs time in months...

Yes, Dan Seeley, That's an Peterson Jersey for Christmas Pictures w Santa

Gearys for Thanksgiving, Clarksburg Panera Napkin Hat (on the way home)

Hoodie, Clarksburg Panera, Thanksgiving Car Ride, Brent and Anders

Happy Food, Sunday Best, Hoodie

Bump on the Head

These things always happen on evenings I drive to Chillicothe to teach. Anders refused an afternoon nap so he was drunk-acting when Anna came home. He hit his head square on the floor board where two walls meet in the corner. He took a solid little chunk out and he was bleeding. It always looks worse when you cut your head open with just bone and blood vessels up there. So, the back of his head had a congealing blood spot and some of his wavy blond hair turned maroon. We discussed taking him into the emergency room, but Anna deferred to my expert opinion as a doctor that Anders was okay. (Btw, this joke will NEVER get old, so get used to it.) Anna wasn't sold, so I looked at it again before I left. I thought it was a coin flip. It looked like there might have been a gash along with the cut open chunk, so Anna decided to take him in.
I received a call half way to Chillicothe. It was Anna in the parking lot asking me if it was okay not to take Anders to Urgent Care. Why? Have you ever seen Appalachian Emergency Room on Saturday Night Live? Well, Anna did a walk-by and it looked to her like Anders would be worse off by merely sitting in the waiting room the chance that his cut would get infected.
I'm proctoring an exam and I hope to get some Anders pictures up from Roger. It's my final final exam of the quarter. I'm pretty excited.

Talkie Talkie

I imagine that Anders will wake at any minute. He usually does when I sit down to write one of these as he did this morning.

Well, it's been another eventful week around here. We had our 5th straight weekend of house guests as Renee Geary stayed with us on her way to and from visiting her family in Indiana on Wednesday and Saturday nights of last week. She even convinced us to go to a movie. Anna chose "Megamind," which I suppose partly made up for the last movie we saw together, which I picked, "Bruno." We both fell asleep in the movie.

I finished teaching for the quarter last night. We celebrated on Friday at America's Favorite Neighbor. Anders is more confident and prolific with his language. There was a tall, stout, sandy blond, goateed waiter who walked by our table. Anders kept calling him "Dad-dee." I asked Anna if she had been ordering off the menu. There was also a college aged waitress who walked by a few times, who Anders called "BA-bee," repeatedly.

On Sunday, we went with Renee and her librarian friends to the Village Bakery, a toddler hotspot. Renee was walking Anders around when a little 2 or 3 year old girl came up to Anders and kissed him on the lips and then walked away. Anders didn't know how to respond to such an aggressive woman!

I also took Anders to Roger's tie dye studio for Anders' first painting session. Roger and I put Anders' hands and feet in watercolors. Roger made two paintings, one of hand and one of feet. Anders was okay with things at first, but then got impatient. Roger suggested that we let him rest for a couple of minutes and then do a third painting. I told Roger that things were only going to get worse. Roger seemed skeptical, but I was too tired to keep Anders away from all the hazards and grime on Roger's floor. I have some pictures of Anders that Roger emailed me from his phone that I hope to load soon.

Anders has been changing stations on the TV a lot recently as you can see in the pictures. He is developing more on the talking front than on the walking front. Anders has also been getting a couple of molars on the bottom, so he has been a bit ill-tempered (but that's relative since he's so even tempered).

Anders still eats his waffle and banana for breakfast. He continues to love burrito ingredients ground up for him. Yogurt is also a favorite. He had about a third of my cinnamon twist at the Village Bakery and half of my potatoes at Applebee's. Anders loves people food. He has also rediscovered the second nap of the day. I realize this could end tomorrow, but here he is already waking up. Better go.

Channel Surfer

Big Baby

Anders has started saying "baby" a lot at home. Yesterday, after Anna came home, she was carrying Anders around and he was saying "Mama." She walked him over to me and said, "Anders, can you say Dada? Dad?"

(Now, keep in mind, Anders has said "Dad" in reference to me on many occasions.)

Anders points at me, looks me in the eye and says, "BA-by."

Anna starts laughing, and he says it again, "BA-by."

This goes on for about two minutes. It's a wonder Anna didn't fall over she was laughing so hard.

I love the fact that Big Lebowski Era Kenny Rogers introduces this song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C53QAuOoSgc

Busy Week

Anders said kitty kat at the babysitter's place on Friday. Anders is much more verbal there than here. He also ate eggs, waffles, oatmeal and a rack of lamb (okay, I made up the last one). Pam also said that Anders looked like he was considering steps. Today, he took a step, but it was accidental. He took an independent step between holding on to my leg and a dining room chair. Anders is having a growth spurt. We are now adding waffles, eggs, and oatmeal to the rotation. We went out to eat at Lui Lui last night and he had about half our dinner rolls when he wasn't too busy flirting with college girls.

On Wednesday, we had a challenging day. Anders did not nap all day. Anna was finishing her first day without caffeine. We were both pretty ragged, but we knew it so we were able to avoid a meltdown. Monday and Wednesday are particularly challenging days since there is about an hour between when Anna gets home from teaching and I leave to teach. So anyway, we are in a pretty dark place that gets darker as the lights go out! So we hurry up to feed Anders before nightfall and as Anna tries to shovel food in, Anders points to the light, looks at Anna and babbles as if to say, "Mom, turn on the light please. This would be a lot easier if you would please turn on the light." It was hilarious. We forgot about how tired we were and just laughed. One of the challenges of living in this part of the country is that when you are already having a bad day you can almost count on something like the power going out for no reason to make things worse.

Anders is really starting to pay much more attention to his grandparents on Skype than before.

I had so much to write in my mind, but now that I'm typing I seem to have forgotten it. Perhaps it is the dull headache I have.

The headlines are that Anders now has an insatiable appetite, he is a step closer to walking or at least standing on his own, and the Vikings won...somehow...as did Iowa, again, somehow. Our friend Bill is visiting this weekend and he has brought us the finest meats and cheeses from Wisconsin. Bill was our 4th consecutive week of company. It's so nice to have visitors down here. We wish we lived closer to friends and family, but it's so nice when they drop by for visits. I think we have company lined up for the next two weekends as well.

Skoal Vikings!