Easter Egg Hunt

Albuquerque

"Ker-kee, ker-kee!" Anders has a new word, the largest city in New Mexico, Albuquerque!

We have a large framed picture of Albuquerque in our living room (long story), which Anders loves. It has many colors and lights that he enjoys. So if we could took him to a Kroger in Albuquerque, then he would be set.

"Let me tell you about a few of my favorite cities...Albuquerque...Lake Tahoe...Cleveland--The Mistake by the Mmm-Lake." Will Ferrell as Robert Goulet, he and Anders share a favorite city.

I think that Anders' allergies are letting up a bit. He's gone from eating next to nothing to eating a little bit. The doctor says that its normal for toddlers to basically stop eating food from time to time. He still guzzles prodigious amounts of milk.

Earlier this week, Anders was coughing too much to sleep well at night or during the day. He seems to have passed that coughing in his sleep thing to me. I hope we have turned a corner. The SEO is punishing us for moving away. Just as we relaxed a bit after our big news, SEO Allergy Season happened. I start taking claratin in February, but this end of April to early May period is just vicious here. I'm hoping that we all will escape our allergies when we move to Houston. That may seem counter intuitive since Houston is subtropical, but I don't think so. It's hard to hear Anders coughing and coughing and coughing, while being unable to sleep. He's taken a 3 hr. nap the past two afternoons. He woke up at 5:30 this morning, but he we back to bed just after Anna left for work and has been sleeping for about 45 minutes.

We have but 29 days left in the SEO, but who's counting?

Mauler

Anders has now scratched Anna's forehead just as he scratched me forehead a couple of weeks ago. My scratch is almost healed, while Anna's scratch is blooming. Anders took a short nap this morning. It could be a long day...

Eventful Easter

Anna made some crescent rolls. We broke them up and gave small pieces to Anders. He started choking on one. Anna was able to flick the roll piece out of his mouth to avert one crisis. He proceeded to shut himself into our bedroom bathroom by closing the door, then opening a drawer, which blocked us from opening the door. I was eventually able to shut the drawer, which allowed me to open the drawer. That all happened BEFORE we had even gone to church. Anders enjoyed the brass quintet, but he wanted Anna and I to stroll with him around the sanctuary. Once we sat Anders down, he headed straight for the door out into the narthex. He has an abundance of energy. Anders is up, gotta go.

Easter Sunday

Cbus Zoo and Sunglasses

Flintstone Vitamin Face and Cbus Zoo

Houston Hello!

I took a job at St. John's, a prep school in Houston......Texas, not Minnesota. Houston is in Houston County, which sits just to the northeast of Winneshiek County where I grew up. St. John's has two claims to fame. First, they denied George W. Bush acceptance, unlike Andover, Yale, and Harvard. Second, it is the setting for the movie "Rushmore," made by St. John's alum Wes Anderson and one of my favorite movies since I saw it in the theatre with my friends Lucas and Mustang in Chicago in 1999.

I'll be teaching three sections of AP US History and one section of TBA (to be announced). Anna is already scouting real estate. We won't buy anything for a while, but house prices in Texas are surprisingly cheap.

I'm ready to become a Rockets fan. Hakeem "The Dream" Olajuwon was the best center of my lifetime. I remember watching Game 5 of the Rockets-Knicks NBA Finals as NBC cut in to show the OJ case. I remember that first the chase was the small box of a picture in picture, then the game was the small box of the p-i-p, then the game went away and it was just the chase. I really enjoyed those Rockets teams. My favorite bench player was Carlos Huerra. Robert Horry was their clutch shooter (Mustang's favorite).

I have no thoughts on the Texans. They are a generic team.

As for baseball, we remain in the NL Central. I have lived my whole life in what is now the NL Central. In KS, the closest NL team was the Cards, in Iowa it was the Cubs then Brewers, in MN it was the Brewers, in OH it was the Reds with the Pirates not much farther away. I can't wait to get orange Astros gear and take Anders to games at Enron Field.

Anders says "Kroger" now. He knows what it means and he loves to go there. They often have food for him, especially at the deli. Anders likes Kroger even more than before.

Anders is currently teething. He is also facing the teeth of allergy season. His medication is helping, but he is sleeping lightly. I'm waiting for the day when everything is covered in a light green film. Once that day happens, then it's all down hill. We need to have a sunny day for that to happen and we've had about one day without rain in the last week. On that day, Thursday, we took Anders to the Columbus Zoo.

Anders was particularly taken with the bears, turtles, monkeys, flamingos, and a wallaby. The wallaby was wallowing and kicking dirt on Anders, which he loved. The flamingos were fighting. The monkeys were also fighting and preening for the camera. Anders got a lot more out of the zoo this time than last August. Thursday was a lot of fun. After the zoo, Anders threw up his fries and spilled water on himself at Culver's. He wasn't phased by the mishaps and wandered all around the restaurant.

We have had a wonderful and eventful week. I have been looking for a job for eighteen months and we have been trying to sell this house for fourteen months, then in less than two days these two enormous tasks have been completed.

We have less than five weeks in our house left. Then we will summer in the Upper Midwest and in August we will move to Houston. I'm looking forward to returning to a sunny climate after 24 years away in predominantly cloudy climates.

A Good Day

"A good day for us is losing $4,000." -Anna, 4-19-11.

We sold our house today and we could not be happier. Over the past 21 months we have had a few great days and this is one of them. I can breathe deeper and better than before. We closed this afternoon. For a while, we were in the teeth of Murphy's Law as we tried to sell this place. We had visions of living a thousand miles away and trying to maintain the house so that it might be sold. Granted, we still do not know where we will be moving, but having sold this house is a relief beyond words. Athens is a town that depends on government funds in a time of cutting government, so I don't think the economy will be getting better here anytime soon.

The creepy looking guy in the Elmo hoodie, he's not our problem anymore. The siding peeling off Ricky Gervais's house, that's not our problem anymore. The hippie down the hill with the "greenhouse" who pees in his backyard, he's not our problem anymore.

But this blog is about Anders, so here are a couple of funny Anders stories.

Yesterday, he was spilling the milk out of his sippy cup. Anna took a tea towel and started to clean it up, then Anders took the towel from her and started cleaning up his own mess. Anna responded by telling Anders that he had missed a spot and pointed to that spot, at which point Anders cleaned that spot as well.

Last weekend, Brad--Anders' Godfather--visited. Anders sneaked his hands in the door by the hinges as Brad closed the door. It left a red line mark and Anders cried. After he cried for a while, he wanted to show Brad that there were no hard feelings so he gave Brad a hug and then took his hand and walked Brad around the living room.

House Sold, Uncle Josh, Reading

picture backlog 2

picture backlog part 1

walking, walking, walking

Anders has became quite adept at walking. He doesn't do much knee walking anymore. He still holds one's hand when walking in an unfamiliar area.

One of the dads at the library today noted Anders' strong left arm as the threw toy train cars. Anders also likes to throw his blocks down the stairs and watch them fall. It would be easier because of the setup to throw right handed, but he usually uses his left arm, especially if he is determined to get it down.

Anders scratched up my face like a tom cat last week. I felt compelled to explain why I was so scratched up on my job interview.

Houston feels a lot more like Florida than other places I've been in Texas. They even have Carnival Cruise ambassadors waiting for people getting off the planes. It's humid with palm trees all over the place. It was 90 down there yesterday, while we were in the 40s with rain all day today. This feels like the spring that will never come to SE Ohio.

Tomorrow should be decent, so that we can get back outside for our walks.

Me next stop on the job quest is Charlottesville, VA. I'm driving across the mountains on Thursday evening.

Getting Booed at Lunch

Yeas ago the MN Twins had a public service campaign whereby they urged listeners to "boo" speeders. Anna took this advice to heart and would "boo" me from the passenger seat. Well, today Anders booed me during lunch. I tried to feed him some vegetables, he swatted it away, broke the cover off his spoon, then he started booing me, and after I reacted he started laughing at me. So now he is just drinking milk and eating a cheese stick.

I'm Walking Away

My friend Mustang and I have argued the worthiness of pop songs over the years. We don't actually like disagreeing. We have more fun sharing guilty pleasure such as Madonna's "Don't Cry for Me Argentina (Dance Remix)." One of our biggest disagreements was over the British pop star Craig David's song "I'm Walking Away." I lived in England when it was popular. Popular isn't a strong enough word, ubiquitous is a better term. It made me want to shout at cars, but Mustang loved it. If anything, he had not heard it enough since C. David was not the sensation in Iowa that he was in the UK.

As of today, put Anders in the Craig David camp because he's walking away. He even out-walked Anna today, which she says is not hard. Anders has walked for some time, but his walking has always come with many caveats. If it's the first Tuesday after the Vernal Equinox and he is on uneven ground of a Kentucky bluegrass mix, then he can take as many as 73 steps. No more. He has realize the benefit of walking. It's really fun to watch him wobble around the house at will, all the time.

We have been waiting for this day for a long time. We have seen other babies who are Anders' contemporaries and younger than him walk while we waited with bated breath. I suppose this is the season of waiting.

We have been waiting for spring as well. The past week has reminded me of "spring" back home. Temperatures in the 40s, gray skies, strong winds, and intermittent rain. In many ways April was the worst month in Iowa because you were so close to spring, but you were not there yet by any means. We have so many buds and flowers queuing to explode that it looks like the doors outside a Best Buy the morning after Thanksgiving. I think tomorrow will be a big day for spring with temps in the 70s and rain.

Tomorrow we will have lived in our house, The Palace of West Hills, for five years. This house has been one of the best parts of our time in Athens. I love grilling on the high deck that blends into the trees. I love seeing the deer sitting in the brush. I like watching the people walk their dogs in the berm in front our house. I have enjoyed living next door to Roger...most of the time. I have enjoyed playing mad botanist by trying to get various flowers to grow in our front yard, a task made much easier by a Jan. 09 ice storm that killed an evergreen tree Anna and I both hated. I also love the spring day when the blooms appear on tree outside our bedroom window.

Back to Anders...His vocabulary grows significantly each day. Now he's saying "Go!" He says: nose, ears, teeth, mouth, two, yellow, blue, doggy, cookie, and a bunch of other new words that I cannot remember.

My crazy theory for his walking is that I dressed him for success last week. Just like the haircut was an impetus to walk more and talk more, putting him in a collared polo shirt really seemed to amp up the walking and talking. So the lesson here is that if your child is not meeting developmental milestones as fast as you would like, give them a haircut and a spiffy outfit.

Anders remains quite a hit around town. Yesterday, a Chinese student remarked as he walked by "very cute." A drunk girl said, "Ohmygawd, he is SOO cute! Awwh!" One of our neighbors up on Elizabeth Street, who has a dog named Lucy that makes Anders go nuts, remarked at how blue his eyes are. And a black lab walked up to Anders and sniffed him on West State Street on our walk home.

It's been nice to have a weekend at home. I was in Dallas last weekend, where I saw that spring is more than a rumor, and I will be in Houston next weekend on my job quest. I went to Texas one time in my first 31 years, but I will have been three times in the past two months.

Dealey Plaza is chilling. It looks just like you expect it to look having seen the Zapruder Film hundreds of times. It's kind of hard to find, even with a map. I guess the chamber of commerce isn't buying a lot of signage that says, "Come to Dallas, we killed Kennedy!"

Uncle Josh visited last week. Anders put him through the paces.

I'm sure I'm forgetting some stuff. I delayed this entry for a while because I hadn't done one in a while, because Dan Seeley hadn't made a harassing phone call, and because I had a feeling that I was close to being able to announce Anders as a walker. I think my next post might discuss Anders the Climber, stay tuned...