Game Show Host

Anna often says that Anders would make a good game show host. He loves to smile, has a pleasant disposition, good looks, and loves talking about numbers and letters.  Tonight that came home more than ever as he played "Which Hand?" with Grampy.  Anders puts a plastic toy in his hand and asks Grampy "whishand (which hand)?"  Anders loves "fooling" Grampy and can play this game for long periods.  He has the endurance for repetition and he can make each new interaction seem like the first one, which are both key components in game show hosting.

bouncing around and embarrassed

Anders said he was "embarrassed" when Grampy found him out of bed last night.  Anders pretty much recites his favorite lines out of the books he reads and has read to him.  He is always referencing a book on his mind.  You have to know the books to know what Anders is talking about at any time.
Anders is so much more confident on his feet.  I still have to remind myself that it's only 15 months since he started walking even though he is almost three years old.  He bounces around on his feet.  His running is still arms and legs akimbo, but it has a bit of flow to it.  I feel a lot better about Anders ability to integrate in play at "school" next month.
I've been sick with a cold or allergies, I'm still not sure which for the last week.  I just wanted to get a quick post out there before Dan Seeley sends me a snarky email.
Oh, Anders love arrows.  The loves finding arrows and asking what arrows do, especially on the highway.  He loves traffic signs and rules, like with the yield sign.  I spent 20 minutes out from Rochester teaching him the yield sign and now he can recite the rules for a yield sign, which he will do for anyone if asked.

Pictures, Pool, Etc.

It is a strange feeling for us to miss the place we live.   We used to dread the waning days  of our Upper Midwestern vacations.  The Petersons have enjoyed their time up here, but we are also excited to return to the land of sugar.  I was watching the Twins-Rangers game last night and my mouth started watering as I thought about Texas cuisine.
Much has happened and much will happen before we return, however. 
After returning from Colorado on Saturday (by the way, I cannot stop playing The Marshall Tucker Band's "Fire on the Mountain" since returning), Anders and I drove down to Decorah on Monday.  Anders was excited for the road trip.  I could not believe a two year old could be amped up for a four hour car ride.  Anders, however, busied himself with our USA road atlas, our Garmin or as we call her "Lady," and the alphabet game in the car.  Anders knows J, Q, and Z are particularly hard letters to find on road signs. 
Anders has started eating more like a toddler than a baby. "Not eat like a bird," Anders says to me all the time now whether he's woofing down the Buffet at Ridgewood Bay in Zimmerman or pieces of Mabe's Pizza in Decorah.  He still loves the ice cream cone more than the ice cream.  Anders wowed Grandma Ingrid with his ability to read the signs on the businesses as we walked down Water Street. I kept telling her, he reads.  I've been saying this for weeks now, maybe a couple of months.  Anders doesn't read a few words, he is a reader, he reads.  I know how crazy that sounds for a two year old.  I didn't read until I was in 1st grade, and I don't think Anna read until she reached school age.
I made the joke on Facebook that Anders is taken with geometry, foreign languages, and writing on a typewriter, but it is also the truth.  He loves banging away on Grandma and Grandpa's old typewriter.  When we were changing in the Decorah pool last week, he started counting to 100 in Spanish at the top of his lungs, apropos of nothing.   He likes watching as the pizza changes shape from a circle to a rhombus.  Our biggest goal in getting him into a daycare/school is to socialize him to prevent what we jokingly call his "descent into madness," which is why we couldn't send him the Montessori route since they'd let him do whatever forever. 
Anders' genius is the reason I was so happy that he enjoyed going down the water slide at the Decorah pool with me, the Nordic Noodle.  We went down at least ten times.  Anders we undeterred even though he went under water once, and he must have climbed at least 260 steps (26 steps to the top, 10 times).  He was so happy when he got back on ground that he ran around like a chicken with his head cut off owing to his explosive level of excitement.  Anders had no idea where he was going, but he knew he wanted to go down the slide again!  It was hilarious and heartening to see him having fun with a physical activity.  He also had a great time at Dunning Springs in Decorah, saying that he'd be read to climb to the top of the springs when he turns 18.  Anders has a lot of plans for the coming years.  He'll start school at 3, start gardening at 6, dye his hair blue at 15, drive at 16, wander around at 17, Dunning climb at 18, and stop farting at 100. 
Speaking of farts, we went down to Rogers to get Anders' 3 yr old pictures today.  It was a buggy mess.  The Deer Flies were too thick to take pictures on a bridge, so we settled for an old barn.  Anders was mostly "out" on pictures, but he did pose with an elbow on a board as he looked over his shoulder, sort of like a senior picture.  He even climbed on a rock and sat.  We was about to melt down during a venue change, when I started talking to him about farts and boogers.  That sustained Anders through the rest of the photo shoot.  I think we'll get a few gems out of it. 

I wrote this post on Saturday morning in the Denver Airport.  I'm leaving it unaltered for the sake of historical accuracy...or I'm low on time.  By the way, I did meet up with Dan Seeley at an Irish pub...we had coffee, ah fatherhood.

Sometimes life events conspire to make one grateful for God’s gifts.  When I spent my junior year in England, we had a Luther College professor teaching and minding us.  He and his family lived a block away.  They became like our family that year.  The Faldets had two daughters, Elizabeth was 14 at the time and Pearl was 7.  I had a lot of fun with them, especially Pearl.  They came over to our flat and ate dinner with us every evening, after which we’d socialize for a while.  My motto, particularly as it related to the excitable Pearl, was “wind ‘em up and send ‘em home.”

It was with a heavy heart that I learned this week they the girls along with Elizabeth’s boyfriend, and another family friend were in a car accident in Houston County, MN that killed the family friend and landed Pearl in the ICU.  Early signs are good for Pearl’s recovery, but I can’t imagine how horrifying that car accident must have been.

I have been away from Anders a lot this month with a week in Louisville, then a week of extreme commuting to Minneapolis, and I’m writing this post in the Denver airport after a week at CU for a history seminar.  Anders has not been sleeping well at night.  It has been hard to get him to stay in bed in the evenings and his sleep has been fitful.  I wonder if he is anxious about being away from home?  Me being gone so much?  Thinking about starting “school” (daycare) in August?

Much like the owl babies from the story with the same name, Anders thinks a lot.  He is much more a boy of caution and thoughtfulness than he is a boy of action.  It could be that all three factors are at play.  I’ll be around for all but two nights in July when Anna and I head up to Grand Marais, so that might help a bit.  Or maybe not.  Parenthood is trial and error, mostly error, along with constant and persistent experimentation.

Boulder was memorable.  The Gilder Lehrman Institute on America’s forgotten wars was excellent.  I enjoyed the colleagues I met.  The last couple days I hit my stride, evening hiking to the top of one of the Flat Irons (mountains) west of Boulder.  Things did not start auspiciously, however.  I suffered four days of altitude sickness: dehydration, headaches, no sweating, and fitful sleep—of course the sleep problem could have been the result of the room temperature being well into the 90s in our non-air-conditioned dorm room during the hottest June in Boulder History.  The 3^rd floor sauna had an east-facing window that started baking around 5:30 am when the sun started shinning in the room.             

Then on Tuesday afternoon lightening hit Flagstaff Mountain sparking a wildfire that spread to the east side (our side) of the mountain.  We watched the fire slowly creep down the mountain around supper time.  A constant aerial barrage of red slurry fire retardants stopped the spread of the fire and it was almost half contained by the time I left Boulder this morning.  Seeing a wildfire across a meadow just three miles away is a memory I will not soon forget. 

Well, that’s all for now.  I didn’t sleep well in the Sauna last night.  I’m excited to see the A’s this afternoon and perhaps even a Dan Seeley sighting tonight!  Whatchadointonight?!