Duluth

Last weekend we went to Duluth for a short vacation with the other half of the Wente-Singel Four -- our friends Dan and Erin, along with their daughter, Avery.

We got a discounted Canal Park hotel hook-up, thanks to Anni's cousin Greta. There are worse places to spend a weekend than at a hotel with Lake Superior out the back door. 

With two toddlers in tow, we mainly bummed around Canal Park, but did manage to get out to Park Point, a local swimming landmark that somehow has eluded me after 14 years of visiting Duluth with Anni. (Yes, it's been 14 years.)

It was an enjoyable weekend, even if I did not take a dip in the very chilly Superior. (Just because Duluthians can treat the lake water temperature like it's bath water doesn't mean a water wimp like myself can tolerate it.)

As for Elise, she did pretty well. The inner-toddler reared its volatile head from time to time, gently reminding me that just when you think to yourself, 'Self, you've got this toddler under control,' she flops down on the pavement and wails, fists pounding and feet kicking.

All in all, though, a great mini-vacay. And I think the trip ended with the Wentes and Singels still buds. Although, we haven't talked since. Huh...

Little girl, big lake.

'Sir, I'm going to have to ask you to step out of the car, hold a toddler and walk a straight line across these slippery stepping stones.'

This impromptu mini-tantrum led to ...

... this.

Duluth is so cool it makes bubbling sewer water appealing.

Predictably, Elise was pawing at the bottom shelf, not the one labeled "sugar-free."

Weighing the options outside a vintage candy shop.

Avery was nice enough to share her candy with Elise. I'm not sure Elise returned the gesture.

Not even a smiling, hat-clad toddler could lure Elise into that chilly water.

'This, Elise, is a zebra mussel. Let's tuck it under your hat and transport it to another lake.'

A kayaker was worth 50 points, if you know what I mean. Ore boats 100 points.

Something worth remembering

We're in the backyard. Elise hears an airplane. She looks up in the sky. She sees that there actually are two planes flying by. She pauses, then says: "Whoah!"

Dach day

Spain may have the running of the bulls, but Woodbury has the dashing of the Dachshunds.

Each August there is a Dachshund Dash, where a few dozen well-groomed wiener dogs compete in what amounts to a 30-yard sprint, which I suppose is quite the jaunt if you're only 14 inches long with 3-inch legs.

Anni's sister Jenee and her soon-to-be-hub Greg entered their Dachshund Rainie in the dash, which Elise really got a kick out of watching. (Anni had prepped Elise by making a shirt that read: "Go, Dach. Go!" Sound familiar? It's one of Elise's favorite books right now.)

A lot of people turned out for the event. Now, if only one of those pint-sized pups had jumped the barrier, a la Pamplona. Maybe next year.

Anni, Jenee and the cousins. And the contestant.

We popped for the pricey trackside seats.

A little appreciation for a fan.

Snapper stalker

Elise likes lawnmowers. So much so, in fact, that she will stop whatever she is doing and rush to the nearest window if she hears our next-door neighbor Marty mowing his lawn. Usually that is followed by a trip outside to watch him from our driveway.
It's pretty funny, really, and our neighbor is a good sport about it.

You couldn't nuke these cukes

Just a sampling

About this time last year I wrote about how we grow two things: a child and a garden. The child, unlike the garden, insists on having water daily.
This is Garden III at our house and overall it's been the most successful yet. That is more a result of a hot summer with plenty of rain than it is a product of our gardening knowledge, which is scant. We planted seeds. We watered, occasionally weeded and then waited. Wouldn't you know, everything grew: potatoes, tomatoes, peas, pea pods, beans, peppers (orange and red), carrots, onion, lettuce and cucumber.
Oh, the cucumber. Anni planted a total of six plants, hoping at least some of them would take. Well, they all did, and 80 -- yes, 80 -- cucumbers later, we're still finding them in varying stages of growth. These are the toughest plants; you cut them back and they grow twice as big. I like a good cucumber, as do the ladies here, but we haven't eaten 80 of them. Most have been given away -- at this point we plead for people to take them -- and Anni brings many to school, for the kids and the teachers.
We cut back to just three tomato plants this year, but no worries. We've got bushels of tomatoes, enough that I'm going to master the art of making tomato sauce. (If you're Italian, I'll trade you a cucumber for any sauce tips.)
Elise, as you can imagine, is perfectly content to stand in the middle of the garden and treat it like a salad bar.
The other day we were digging potatoes. I dug up a spud the size of a softball, handed it to her to put in a bowl. She took one look at it, her eyes got big and she said, "Wow."
A few minutes later I looked in the bowl and one of the potatoes had suspicious little teeth marks.
Elise played innocent, but the dirt all around her mouth suggested otherwise.

This sums it up

No, this isn't Elise's drawing.
This drawing actually belongs to Anni, who did it while drawing with Elise at the cabin last month. That was the trip that included a stop at the blueberry patch.
Now, some of you know my theory that people who grew up with a pool at their house always are annoyingly splashing or dunking or spraying water from between their teeth. It drives the rest of us -- OK, me -- nuts.
Anyway, this picture pretty much sums up everybody's mindset at the cabin.

Cabin weekend II

Breaking with tradition, Anni and I decided to take a second trip to her family's cabin this year. Our first weekend there, in July, was a great time. Lots of relaxation, good food and plenty of time in the water for Elise.

Last weekend was no different, except for the water time. The temperature dropped to the mid-70s and it got windy, so our time dunking in Dunn Lake was limited. Interestingly, it wasn't Elise who was complaining about the water and cold air, nor was it Anni...

Because it's so quiet and relaxing and Elise seems to do well there, we're thinking about one more trip to the cabin yet this year. Until then, some photos from last weekend:

Eyes.

Sometimes you just want to sit and play with a shoe...

... or enjoy the breeze off the lake.

Keeping the cabin clean. Elise really likes her spray bottle.

Too cold to swim, so we took a walk.

She likes pine cones. We've finally taught her not to eat them.

 She found the dinner bell.

 A good view.

 Child monster or monster child?

 I'm convinced my uneven squint makes it look like I have a glass eye. Anni says nobody will notice. Too late. So, glass eye or not?

 I tried to be stealthy, but she spotted me from a distance.

Impromptu shot of unplanned color coordination.

On the way home.

Holy crap! (Well, pee, actually.)

I've realized that when you have a child, you are so consumed by rearing and providing life's essentials during the first year or so (Does she need to eat? Is she warm enough? Maybe she's too hot. She just grimaced -- does that mean she has a rare illness or is just filling her diaper?) that you don't do much looking ahead.
It helps to be aware of what growth stage is coming up, what significant development is on the horizon -- or at least to have a wife who can multi-task and, therefore, rear and plan simultaneously.
Admittedly, I don't do much looking ahead, at least in terms of child phases and development. I would like to think that is because of my focus on the present, but someone I live with could easily suggest that focus should be strengthened.

----

Apparently, one of the milestones of toddlerism (my word, but you can use it) is potty training. I say "apparently" because that is the latest rearing activity that I had not considered, planned for or even realized was just around the corner.
Well, we reached the corner this week.
I was called into Anni's (and Elise's) school for a parent-teacher conference. I thought these begin at kindergarten and involve report cards, but they start earlier.
The question of the conference: Should we try potty training Elise, who is now 17 months old? It was Anni's idea.
The answer as we left the conference was, yes, let's try. But here are the conditions, which came from Elise's very capable teacher: Let's be on the same page at school and at home. Also, we will start by just putting her on the toilet every two hours, just to get her familiar with the, uh, experience of sitting up there. If she happens to time things well and understands enough to make use of the hopper while she's aboard, then we'll move to the next step.
That next step involves her wearing what I'll call "diaper-wear," which sort of resembles the underwear you would put a toddler in if you sent the kid to space. But we're not there yet.
So, the next question was, When should we start? Let's start this week, we decided, because what better time to start potty training than when you're headed to the cabin for three days? (That's our weekend plan.)
I'll spare you the potty-training logistics we settled on, but suffice it to say the lady might be working on a puzzle while she works on something else. Or reading a book. Or watching one of us watch her. (No privacy here, kiddo.)

----

Today was the first day the school staff introduced Elise to Princess Porcelain. Every two hours she climbed aboard. She was a little nervous at first, but let her guard down as the day progressed.
Late this afternoon one of the teachers (They all remain nameless on the blog because while some of them read the blog, I doubt any of them want to be identified.) rushed into Anni's office and said she had good news.
"Elise went pee on the potty!" she said.
Apparently, Elise's fellow toddlers approved of her accomplishment.
"When she went potty, the kids were standing by the door and they were all clapping for her," Anni told me later.
(Again, no privacy here, kiddo.)
So, there you have it. We're off to a good start, though I take no credit for this.
Now, we're fully prepared for this experiment to quickly go down the proverbial crapper, which would be fine. For all we know today was about coincidence. If that was the case, and she has a complete meltdown the next time we try to put her on the porcelain perch, we'll give it a rest and try again later.
In the meantime, I'm still trying to get used to using the word "potty." I would rather we had started this whole experiment by using "toilet" instead.
Of course, I could have worked on that had I been thinking ahead.

Note: For any of you who didn't want this much information, well, it's a little late now, isn't it?

Something worth remembering #1

I'm thinking of starting a new blog feature for fleeting-yet-notable observations of the parenting sort. 

I suppose it is a way to mark the oh-how-cute little things that I see (The word "cute" is only acceptable in the male vernacular if it is used to describe one's own daughter.) and which make me think to myself, "Self, you really should remember that for years from now when you're fed up with her curfew violations and regrettable piercings," and then promptly forget.

This is probably a good idea because my memory is horrible, details especially. It's a personality trait I leave off of job applications.

Also, consider these entries a favor to those of you with a short attention span.

Let's kick it off with this item from earlier today:

Watching Elise properly (and rather tidily) use a spoon to polish off two bowls of Anni's broccoli soup, without reminders to not scoop with both toddler talons. It was the first time she really got the hang of eating soup that has not been doctored to make it easier for her to eat. 

If you don't think that's a big deal, try cleaning soup puree from every nook and cranny of a high chair.

Dunn deal

Lathered in sunscreen and bug dope, topped with her white sun hat and sporting new water shoes, Elise was guided slowly from the dock into the shallow water of Dunn Lake.

As palm-sized sunfish lingered, gentle waves rolled into the cove and her parents stood by hoping for a positive reaction, Elise wanted only one thing: to go farther into the lake.

We took that to mean her introduction to Dunn Lake was a success.

We spent last weekend at Anni's grandparents' lake cabin near Spooner, Wis. With the exception of the past few years, Anni and I have visited the cabin nearly every year we've been together. Of course, I showed up very late in the game; her grandparents built the current cabin when Anni was crawling. 

It's a comfortable cabin, on a nice lake where you see boaters but usually from a distance. The water is clean, the views from the cabin windows peaceful. It's quiet there, except for when the loons call.

So you can understand our desire to get Elise there, even if she doesn't remember a darned thing from her inaugural cabin weekend.

She may not remember anything from the trip, but she enjoyed it at the time. She made herself comfortable, learning that the two recliner chairs are great to stand on (until the buzzkill parents tell you to sit down), the $4.99 alarm clock in the bedroom is the best toy you could have and there are worse ways to eat your meals than to look outside at a lake.

We left the cabin once during the weekend, in pursuit of fruit. We were drawn to a farm just outside Spooner that grows organic blueberries and raspberries -- and you pick 'em. 

Well, Elise certainly had no trouble hanging out there. We picked about four or five pounds of blueberries -- not counting the pound or so she inhaled when we were not trying to teach her to drop them in the bucket.

The berries that haven't been eaten yet will be used for a homemade blueberry pie.

This being July in the upper Midwest, the weather can be uncertain. It could be windy and cloudy, making swimming less desirable to some of us (me), or it could be stifling and humid, making anything other than swimming undesirable. For the most part, the weather cooperated for us. We got Elise into the water early Saturday afternoon, just before a storm rolled in. The timing was good. She'd been in the water for an hour and her lips were turning blue. I guess that is fairly common for little kids, but it still will cut short one's lollygagging in the lake.

Besides swimming and eating, there are two things Anni and I do well when we visit the cabin: reading and sleeping. Our efforts in those areas were impressive during this trip, especially considering we were sharing the cabin with a 16-month-old not prone to sedentary activity.

We hit the water with Elise a second time on Sunday morning, when the air was a bit cooler but the lake still was warm enough to lure even a water wuss like myself. Again, Elise seemed to enjoy the water. Anni and I took turns holding her, each of us noticing that, hey, she doesn't get heavy when you're standing in water.

We packed up for home relaxed, recharged and thankful the first family cabin trip went off without a hitch. It was easier to leave this time, too, knowing that we already booked a second weekend at the cabin, about a month from now.

Bench warmer

She's not big on family pictures lately.

Berries for dessert

We're playing catch-up

Give me a big, fat 'F' for my recent blogging efforts, but we've been pretty busy. We've had out-of-town guests and a squatter for at least 10 of the past 14 days. I like visitors, and frankly would take more if people want to crash here, but it leaves little time for blogging.
So, time to catch up. But before I start, I'm reminded of something somebody told me recently: "You know, that blog. Sometimes I start reading and wonder: When is he going to be done? Some of the blogs go on forever. I just stop reading."
It's a shame people are so passive these days. 
Anyway, seeing as I've probably already lost that person, let's get into it. To the update!
Trucks. Water. Crowds.
Since I last posted, we had family in town to help boost attendance at the "first-annual" Stillwater Fire Muster, organized by my Dad, who for the first time I can remember held a clipboard and had to worry about being on time because police escorts don't dilly dally when they close intersections. He pulled it off without a hitch. As it turned out, he didn't need family to fill empty spots in the park because a healthy crowd of a few hundred people showed up to watch 10 or 12 antique, retired fire trucks pump river water and blast it into the air on a steamy summer afternoon. We had a good time. It was a success for many reasons. Next year's muster already is on our calendar. It should be on yours. 

The trucks lined the street near the levee in Lowell Park.

That's Dad, in case you didn't recognize him with a clipboard. Those other guys own fire trucks and were nice enough to take orders from somebody doing this for the first time. 

Elise, who as you can see doesn't just give smiles away for nothing, didn't know quite what to think of the fire engines, but did point to them and say "truck." Oh, and my red shirt? I was assigned muster staff duties -- I'm still not sure what my actual duties were -- and proved to be the least knowledgeable person in a "staff" shirt. Everything went fine until I started having flashbacks to my days working for the Bull's Eye.

A post-muster nap.

Hot in the heat
So the muster was good fun, but Anni and I dropped the ball that day. Elise had slept unusual hours and was a bit sluggish for part of the day. We didn't think much of it -- until later that day when we (OK, Anni) realized that Elise was roastin'. We checked her temperature and the thermometer hit 101 degrees with no sign of stopping. Yikes. She kicked whatever bug she had after a good night's sleep and a day home from school.
He's back

One of our recent visitors has been my brother, Bryan, who's in town from Vegas. Elise had not seen him since Christmas, but they reconnected pretty quick. Of course, he leaves soon and somehow has once again avoided diaper duty.

She seems chipper, right? Funny, because this photo was taken right about the time her temperature was climbing past 101. Go figure.

Fireworks, no photos

Last weekend we celebrated July 4th by having family and friends over to our house. Good times, but Anni and I decided we need to add an element of excitement to next year's gathering. She suggested three-legged races or a pinata. I think we're doing both unless I come up with something better. Please, send suggestions.
I would have posted a photo of Elise on July 4th, or even a picture of her with our friends Petra and Lee, who were visiting from New York for the weekend, but as the weekend ended I realized that I had taken no photos.
Free, but busy
This weekend is the first since before Memorial Day that we had nothing scheduled -- thankfully. Time to relax, pick backyard raspberries with our pint-sized berry addict and enjoy a summer weekend.