He Wants Donuts!

We got an oil change today. I promised Anders donuts since a nice salesman at the dealership gave him one last time. You might be wondering why we get our oil change at the dealership? I'll refer those questions to Anna. While there were Chick-fil-a breakfast sandwiches, there were no donuts. So when we arrived home, Anders and I went for a stroll in search of donuts. There are a lot of shops that might sell donuts, but don't in the strip malls near our house. I eventually found donuts at Randall's (a grocery store). We sat at a table, and Anders sat "like a big guy." He was excited for "Anders, one donut, Daddy, one donut!" He likes to share the donut experience. We finally went out for my birthday at our favorite seafood restaurant in downtown Sugar Land. I love their honey-glazed chipotle shrimp tacos. We had birthday dessert at Ben and Jerry's. It has been beautiful here today 68, crips, not a cloud in the sky. I hope we will carve the pumpkin tonight and make it a "funny pumpkin." Anna's trying to get Anders weened off the sippy cup by drinking "big guy milk" out of a cup. This might prove to be another epic battle of wills.

Body Slam!

Anders' cautious nature is well documented. Last night he started doing something a bit reckless and quite funny. I'm not sure how it started, he might have just jumped on me or I might have encouraged him. Regardless, he fell on me while I was lying on the carpet in his room and I told him he'd done a body slam. He liked this idea and repeated it, "Body Slam! Body Slam!"

He just falls on me without trying to hard to catch himself. Sometimes he rolls over me, sometimes he gets me in the face, and other times he catches me in more sensitive areas. I'm just excited that he's having fun in a way that doesn't include singing the ABC Song or counting to thirty. Along with his willingness to go down the slide sometimes, Anders is getting more sure of himself regarding physical activity. I have to keep reminding myself that he only started walking 6 months ago even though he's sort of 2 plus now.

By the way, Saturday is Anders Liberation Day (ALD). I'm hoping that Anna's allergies will be under control enough that we can go out for my birthday/ALD. Fourteen weeks ago, I was living with my in-laws in the north woods, while now I'm settling into the buckle of the Sunbelt. For Fourteen weeks two years ago, we waited and waited, and Anna pumped, and we waited some more. We saw summer turn to fall, and blew through fall to winter.

It was 90 here today, again. It's supposed to be cooling off so that the Floodwater Mosquitoes might start to die tonight. Along with meeting throngs of the Floodwater Mosquitoes at the zoo, they seem to have also found a natural habitat at the bathroom closest to my room at school. My door opens to the out-of-doors (the Rushmore Quad) so I'm lucky they haven't found their way to my room yet. Tomorrow our highs are supposed to be in the 60s, but it's going to take more than a weather forecast to convince me that it won't be 90 tomorrow and for the foreseeable future. This might be too much of a good thing. I do think, however, that all the sunshine has made my disposition more pleasant.

Good night and ...Body Slam!

Divorced Dad Weekend

I have a new found respect for divorced dads who run around with their kids to amusements all weekend. Anna was sick this weekend and rather than canceling the planned fun, I kept up the schedule. On Saturday morning, we drove up to the only Dunkin Donuts in Houston where Anders scarfed down a whole glazed donut. He sat on a chair without a booster seat across the table from me. Then we drove down to Galveston where we waded in the water, walked out to meet the waves, and wrote letters in the sand. Anders fell asleep before we were off the island and slept all the way home.

A quick aside, I've mentioned the native Iowan, Tim Heller, who does the weather on ABC 13. Well, he is obsessed with Galveston, which I also quite like. This had led Anna to many comments about weather-obsessed, land-locked Iowans who can't get enough of Galveston.

Yesterday, I took Anders to the zoo where we met Alan and his parents. Unfortunately for the Bayou City, the mosquitoes hatched late last week. I have spent many summer nights in Minnesota, four years of church summer camp. and summer evenings in Lindsborg, but I cannot remember being attacked by such a swarm of mosquitoes. Theses suckers bit through my shirt! It was maddening. But how did Anders react? By laughing, "Skitoes, funny. Skitoes! Skitoes!" He was laughing himself red in the face as the mosquitoes swarmed around and bit him.

I wondered why the new minor league baseball team we are getting in town next spring will be called the Sugar Land Skeeters, now I know. I would almost be willing to pay for a luxury box to see former Twin Gary Gaetti and putative Skeeters manager slap at Mosquitoes for 9 innings. If you've never seen GG, he looks more like a plumber than a former professional athlete.

We didn't see too much as Zoo Boo, but Anders did enjoy the kids in Halloween costumes, the funny pumpkins, and riding in the wagon with Alan.

I hope Anna feels better soon and I hope this cool down at the end of the week kills some of these pests. While back they they are girding for winter, it was 91, humid, and mosquito-ful today aka July 4th in the Upper Midwest.

Anders asked us to be careful as he went to bed tonight. He is his mother's son. Conversely, we went to HEB to pick out a pumpkin tonight, and when I get separated from Ann and Anders I don't look for them, instead I listen for Anders. He talks, songs, chirps, and announces his way through any and all public venues.

He also noticed Anna's eye color. He looked up and told her, "Mommy, blue eyes." Later, he did the same for me. It wasn't until a few years ago that Anna told me my eye color. It was never something I even thought about.

Breaking news, it sounds like Mizzou will stay in the Big 12 for now. I was really rooting for Houston to get an invite so I could see KU Basketball games in town, but UH is headed to the Big East.

More breaking news, if MN Steve still reads this, the McRib is back.

I can't decide if I'm rooting for St. Louis or Texas in the World Series. I can't stand LaRussa and Pujols, but I love that they have a player named Jon Jay. Perhaps we will negotiate a treaty that effectively gives the World Series to the Rangers (some history humor). Conversely, I'm sick of seeing the awkward high fives between Nolan Ryan and W, but I like Ron Washington. I guess I hope it goes 7 games since I like having sports on TV in the evenings and I'll see what happens then.

Anders at Home and at Children's Museum

Sweatshirt Day

Mark it down, Oct. 18, 2011 as the first sweatshirt day of the year in Sugar Land. I took Anders to the playground at the elementary school near our house. Anders loved playing on the big plastic "allgador," "rIno," and "tuhtle." I even got him to go down the slide next to me a few times. That was the most remarkable event, that he went down the slide and seemed to enjoy it. He was even more interested in playing than reading letters that he incidentally found on the playground.

One of the sweetest things he does, as I am walking and rocking him to sleep at night, is to tell me "long day" at the end of our night time ritual. He also repeats "so much" to me after I tell him I love him " so much." He likes to recap the day with me as I rock him to sleep. He retold our evening on the playground. I love his night time summaries!

We took Anders to the zoo last week with my advisory of 9th graders. It's a great job when you get paid to go to the zoo! We became members of the zoo, which means that we can now go to the zoo and bring a slew of visitors for free through the end of Nov. next year. There is a walking mall of jackolanterns or "funny pumpkins" as Anders says. The zoo is part of a bigger Houston park, Hermann Park, in a nice area of town near Rice and the hotel where Bill Murray's character gets attacked by bees in Rushmore (that one's for you Lucas). The zoo has all the essentials, but is not too big. The Columbus Zoo is the #1 Ranked zoo in the country, and for good reason, it's amazing. The problem is that its too big for a toddler. The Columbus Zoo is perfect for a curious 9 year old. The other nice thing is that parking is free at the Houston Zoo and you can go there year round.

Sugar Land has really come alive in the past couple of weeks. October is like April back home. After a long summer, weather gets better and people come outside. I've been told by more than one person that from now to the end of the year is the best time of year weather-wise in Houston. It's such an odd experience to have 95 degree days in October, and I hope those early Oct. days are a thing of the past. It's interesting just how similar temps in the 70s in Houston's mid October elicits the same reaction that temps in the mid 70s conjure in April in Decorah.

This post has been a bit disjointed as I have been popping up to put Anders back to bed. He climbed out of his crib last week for the first time last Wednesday, the same day we went to the zoo. We asked Anders how he got out of the crib after we put him back in the crib. He responded by wordlessly climbing over the fence and plopping on the floor. He demonstrated his vaulting escape again on Skype for my mom on Saturday.

Anna was totally prepared for this eventuality. She put false door knobs all over the house and turned the crib into a toddler bed that afternoon. It was a decisive, well-planned, and efficient move by Mommy.

The other reason that Anders is up and down is that Anna is out with friends. Anna has become Little Miss Sugar Land. She has a very full social calendar. Anyone who knows Anna is waiting for the joke, but this is no joke. Something just clicked for her down here. She decided to go into Friend-Making Mode and it seems to be working.

When we made friends in Athens, the common thread was commiserating about how much we hated Southeast Ohio. When we meet people down here, a common conversation piece is how much more we like Sugar Land than we thought we would and how much more we like it than the place from whence we moved. It still feels odd to live in a place where people like living and are moving to in droves. I guess that's the last 40 years of US history in a nutshell, the migration from the Rust Belt to the Sun Belt. I'm so excited for this time of year when Sun Belt living pays off big time.

The other reason Anders was up was that his favorite blanket is smelly. I held off on giving it to him, but when he simply refused to sleep, I gave in. Now he finally appears to be down. We might have a bit of a Linus on our hands.

Galveston, Oh Galveston I still hear your sea wind blowin'

14,15 and A,B Song

Anders went to his first football game on Thursday, the big Episcopal game. I'm still not sure entirely why, but they are the despised rival. Anders enjoyed the cheering, but he was also a bit freaked out by it. He liked the scoreboard and the big "M" for Mavericks at midfield. At one point, Anders made a break for the students' section. A number of my students met Anders. He was quite charming, he even got a couple of cheerleaders in trouble with their coach for running over to meet Anders. Anders and I left at halftime because it was bedtime, but he remained awake on the ride home and told Mom all about it. Anders now refers to this experience as 14-15, since he saw St. John's score 14 points, by the way St. John's won the game.

Anders has also had some recent fun feeding the ducks. I should take a picture of the duck pond. There are a bunch of aggressive ducks that waddle up to anyone who appears to have food. These ducks have actually taken food right out of Anders' hand. leading Anders to say "Ducks bite hand!"

Anders knows Lincoln is on the penny. We ask him, "Who is on the penny?" "Lincoln!" he answers. Anders also knows the current president, whom he calls "Oh Bama," much like he would say "Oh Ernie" or "Oh Bert." Obama is like a Muppet to Anders, which puts him in Anders' highest regard. Yesterday, he even said Sirte, after hearing about Libya on the news. Anders still enjoys nuck (milk) and news.

Anna taught him to say, "Oh, no, no, thank you, Sir," which he says over and over. He also picks up Cheerios from the floor, saying "thank you" as he picks up each cheerio from the floor.

We took Anders to the Houston Children's Museum on Saturday. Anders loved the stackable letter blocks best. He also enjoyed playing with my colleague Jason's son, Alan who is a couple months older than Anders. Today Anna and Anders had a play date with a friend of Chris Heine's wife who lives here in Sugar Land. You know who else lives in the Sugar Land area? TV's Bo Duke, yes, John Schneider. I'm not sure if Luke Duke lives in Katy, but I bet Coy and Vance live no closer than Lake Charles. Anyway, Anders had a great time. Anna said he laughed harder than she's ever seen him laugh at the antics of the almost-three-year-old girl on the play date.

I had Columbus Day off. I was working on grades and writing comments, which I turn in with grades. Wednesday, my advisory of 9th graders and my family are all going to the zoo together. Then, Thursday, Anna and Anders are attending Anders' first friend's birthday party.

The weather is much better now. We had a true rainy day with inches of rain yesterday. For the first time since we moved here the high temp was not in the 80s. It smells really good outside now, not cool and crisp like in the Midwest, but it smells sort of like March in Arizona or December in Los Angeles, smells that I love.

Anna and I still talk about Athens, usually at dinner time. We recently had a discussion about when we exactly hit rock bottom in Athens. Anna maintains it was the Sunday morning last fall when we were heading to the emergency vet in West Virginia to treat Trudy for fleas that had reached her via one of Anna's students. For me it was last March when I was hundreds of miles from home interviewing for a job I didn't want and knew I wouldn't get and learned that home inspectors found bogus problems with our basement imperiling our fragile agreement to sell the house, along with the fact that Anders was ill and admitted to that Mickey Mouse hospital in Gallipolis. Those are the nature of our discussions when we remember Athens.

Oh, Anders also loves playing with the football. He enjoys stacking toy pirates from the splash table on the car. Anna forgot about this one time, thus taking the pirates on a joy ride. Later that afternoon, we found the pirates aground on Greenfields Drive half a block away!

Not only does Anders loves Dallas, but he loves the Texas grocery chain, HEB. He loves finding those letters and excitedly shouting out H E B! A new HEB just opened in Sugar Land. Texas is unique because it's the only place I've been in the last three years where they are still building retail outlets and houses. Like Anders, I genuinely like it here.

I almost forgot, Anders know can sing the complete ABC song!

Ashiki Option Again

In 1993, Ashiki Preston, the starting quarterback for the Kansas Jayhawks, ran the option offense. Great, your saying. What does this mean?
Well, first it means that this is an Anders-lite post, but I hope someday he will read this piece knowingly as he looks back on his verbose father and his own wonderful friends.
This morning I'm waking up in Chicago after my friend Lucas's wedding to his wonderful new wife, Sarah. This happy occasion made me think about friendship. One of the best things about weddings of my friends is that they give me a chance to see other friends of mine, so in this case Brad and Styvos (STE-voze), Jason Styve, or as my mom would say Justin Styve. Styvos called my house almost every day from 1991-1997, but it was only a 50/50 bet that my mom would tell me Jason was calling, all the other times it was "Justin." My mom called him Justin because he reminded her of my even earlier friend Justin Myers in Marquette. Anyway, Styvos would almost always be the first person to call the night that I returned from long trips to Kansas in the summer or Christmas.
Styvos, Lucas, Brad, and myself were a package deal, especially in Junior High. If Styvos would invite me over to his house, I would assume rightly that Lucas was already there and there would be a 75% chance that Brad was coming over or was already there as well. We didn't really do that much. I think we used to watch Cubs games and of course hone our offense, the Ashiki Option, which we also worked on at school. I was QB, Voze was fullback, Brad was left halfback, and Lucas was right halfback, and we would just run imaginary plays against an imaginary defense. Yes Anders, your father was a really cool dude in junior high.
I am learning the value of brevity. I gave a speech as I usually do at the weddings of good friends. No, I've never been the best man in a wedding, but I always seem to find my way to the microphone. I was sitting between Styvos and Brad, and we were at Table 2, right next to Lucas and Sarah. We were actually closer to Lucas than his family's table.
I had a ball. I had not seen Styvos since my own wedding over nine years ago. After some initial awkwardness and trips to the bar, we fell in line like old times. I forgot how much Styvos could make me laugh. He still says the most randomly inappropriate things, which get me every time. The great thing about hanging out over 9 years later is that he didn't have to search for the laughter, he knew right where to go. He had me going to the point that Lucas's parents, Stan and Deb, looked over at me and started laughing themselves.
If you've never heard me laugh, my laugh is a hybrid of the laughs of Eddie Murphy and Chewbacca, and I've been told it's infectious. Of course Styvos should be good at this since every day at lunch during 8th and 9th grade, he tried to get me to spit out my banana during lunch, an event that became known as The Banana Laugh.
One of the hardest things about moving to a new place after eight years in another place is trying to make connections with new people who might become friends at some later date. Spending a night like last night with some of my oldest friends was priceless. One of the most refreshing things Styvos did was not ask me a thing about myself or my life. This stilted, awkward conversation is part of what weddings are all about and I did my fair share of that yesterday, but not while next to Styvos. He just started talking in his usual stream of consciousness manner and it was, in the words of Anders, "mazing."
I also want to pay Brad a compliment. Brad is a medical fellow who will be a full fledged pediatric anasteseologist next year. I respect what he has accomplished so much more after teaching for a while at St. John's where they have organic chemistry and other advanced science classes in high school taught by world class faculty, some of whom hold terminal degrees in their fields and are associated with NASA. Brad had to compete with these people to get into medical school and beyond by "relying" on his high school science background. Our high school science department consisted of a diffident hippie, a bio teacher who only talked about nuclear annihilation, and a chemistry teacher so overwhelmed by her subject that Brad essentially taught the class. Don't get me wrong, on the whole Decorah High School was fine, but when your goal is to compete with the best, then it seems insufficient. Brad succeeded anyway, even if he has some crazy ideas about orange juice.
Styvos is self-employed and running two or three businesses. Lucas works for a burgeoning Internet start-up company, and I work at one of the best schools in the country. I'm really proud of my friends. We've come along way since the Ashiki Option.
I guess that since I gave a short speech I had to ramble on the Internet...
Teaching in high school for the first time makes me miss my friends on a daily basis. It's only human nature to compare and contrast my high school experience with that of my students. They have me beat in almost every way, but I doubt they have me beat in the quality of friends I made. I hope Anders can have as good friends as I did growing up. I remember at the end of high school my mom marveling at all my good friends. I didn't really appreciate it then, but she said I would in the future and she is correct.
A night like last evening can tide me over for a good long time.
I go to Decorah a couple of times per year, but Decorah's not home anymore. Home is where your friends are. Home is where your memories reside. Home is with Mama and you, Mr. Bear, in Sugar Land, but home is also at a restaurant in Chicago or a canyon in Colorado or a ridge in Massachusetts or whenever your friends still gather years later to share the best moments of their lives.