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.

Elise the berry hunter

That didn't take long.
We weren't in the strawberry fields for five minutes and Elise had figured out how to peek under the leaves to find the berries, which she promptly ripped from the stem and shoved in her mouth, one after another, bright red strawberry juice running down her chin and arms.

We made our annual trek to Afton Apple for strawberries last weekend with friends Dan and Erin and daughter Avery. (The spring berry trip serves as an unofficial kick-off to summer; the fall apple trip is an integral part of the preparations for another long winter.)
Of course, Elise didn't really understand what we were doing, other than picking fruit for her to take from our cardboard tray and eat. (Let's hope they take into account such activity when they set the price per pound.)
You know what Elise didn't like? Getting cut off. When you start tallying the amount of berries a 15-month-old eats as a percentage of her weight, it's probably time for a break.

We'll be back, and next time we might make Elise pick one to bring home for every three she eats.
Meantime, Anni used some of the berries we picked to make a fresh strawberry pie. We cut into it on Sunday, which was Anni's birthday. Might be the best strawberry pie I've ever had.

'She's advanced'

That is Anni's favorite new line -- "She's advanced."
Not surprising that would come from a mom, right? Well, that actually came from Elise's doctor at her 15-month check-up.
More on that, but first a scene-setter:
The three of us are sitting in the doctor's office the other day, waiting to start Elise's check-up. Elise is a little irritable and for all we know she remembers that this is the place where they weigh her like deli meat and then hold her down on butcher paper and stick some sharp thing in her legs. So she's walking around the small office when there is a knock at the door. The doc comes in. Elise takes one look at her, probably has some sort of flashback to the low point of a previous visit and bolts toward me and Anni.
That's a good sign, of course, that she understood the difference between us. That was among the anecdotal development markers that the doctor used -- Elise's ability to somewhat pronounce about a dozen words being another -- to conclude: "She's advanced."
We joke that doctors probably always try to find some way to flatter parents, but Anni said after the visit: As parents you try to do what is best for your child and what you think will help her develop, so it's nice when someone wearing a lab coat and stethoscope validates your efforts.
We had no concerns going into the appointment, and everything checked out just fine. Elise weighed 25.5 pounds and was 33 inches long.
The doc took one look at Elise's length and then looked at Anni and said: "Now, I've told you before that we can't predict how tall she'll be until she's 24 months, but how tall are you?"
Anni told her that she is 5 foot 3 inches.
"She's easily going to be taller than you," the doc replied.
In the past I've referenced the chart used to compare a baby's height and age, and that Elise consistently is well above the 95th percentile. (Let's hope her ACT scores do the same.) Well, she's still up there.
Here's the chart. The "x" marks signify each time she has been measured at the doctor's office.


Do we really care how tall she gets? No, but we get a kick out of seeing that chart at each visit.
There is another chart used to track head size and age. I have no clue why they do that (Note to self: Ask next time they're measuring her melon like it's being fitted for a hat.) but Elise is comfortably in the 75th percentile, for whatever that's worth.
All these numbers and charts can get you sidetracked from the only assessment that really matters: She's healthy.
Well, she's healthy and "advanced."

One random evening

This is a glimpse of what we do after dinner on weekdays when it is nice outside. It's really interesting. Really.
We bum around the yard and teach Elise outdoor chores. Soon, she'll take over and we'll just watch from the hammock.
(A quick word about shiners and blood-red stains. If you look closely, you'll notice a little shiner and mark below Elise's eye. Yeah, it's not that bad, but you should see how the staircase fared. Oh, and the blood-red stains on her shirt? She painted at school. Frankly, I'd be concerned if she didn't have any paint on her clothes. The finest artists never were meticulous types.)

The evening begins for her as it so often does for me: with an assessment of the scattered mess in the garage. But in a reversal of roles, I give up and she remains fascinated. (Note the propane tank next to her toys. Yes, that's how we roll.)

You're not going to get far if you don't fill up first.

I prefer nice straight mowing lines. She wants to get all baseball-diamond-fancy on me.

Because shadows are neat and black-and-white photos hide weeds better.

She is learning to water plants. And to think: I just bought soaker hoses for the garden, when I could have just sent her out there.

Soon she'll learn it's easier to water plants if you don't dump all of your water on your way to the plants. In the meantime, she is perfecting the sign for water.


Refills are on the house. Heh.


Smelling flowers.

She likes the slide.

I'm bracing myself for the day that she doesn't brace herself and goes backward.

You would offer this look, too, if someone kept photographing you.