Plot preparation

This was the slowest spring that I can remember. Winter lasted f-o-r-e-v-e-r and spring played hard to get. The crummy weather delayed the start of our garden, but the weather is finally getting better so it's time to play catch-up.
The other day I tilled the garden in preparation for veggie planting, and then Elise decided the unplanted plot is a good place to play.

White man dance! Actually, I was asked to "twist" after tilling, so we twisted.

Nice try, disciplinarian.

Here's what happens when you incorrectly assume your 2-year-old has a good grasp of cause-and-effect, a sharp memory and remote interest in listening to what you're saying:
Being a toddler, Elise is prone to flashes of bratty behavior and when she's really in a funk she sometimes will try to kick or pinch. Yeah, it's charming.
Anyway, she did it earlier today while she was in our bedroom and I sent her to her room, where she pouted for a while before returning with a better 'tude.
Later today we were goofing around in the living room when she tried to pinch me. I stopped her immediately and this was the (brief) conversation that transpired:
Me: "Elise, no pinching! Do you remember what happened the last time you pinched? You had to go to your room. That is not OK. Do you understand?"
Elise: "I have toe jam."
Well, I tried.

Happy Mother's Day

Waiting for Mom?

Here's wishing the moms out there a hearty thanks. 

The mom in this house returns late tonight from her vacation in New York. In the four days Anni was gone, Elise did not miss a meal, a nap or an opportunity to test the disciplinary boundaries -- always with a cute look, though. In all seriousness, it was a good few days of just her and I (and some family reinforcements), but it will be good to have Anni home. 

Well, this'll be interesting...

A few weeks ago it was my turn. Now it's Anni's.
I spent five days in Las Vegas last month, while Anni stayed home with Elise. Each seemed to have survived the other's company. At least it looked that way upon my return.
We'll see if that's the case after this weekend. Anni left early Thursday to visit her friend Petra in New York. She returns late Sunday.
So what does that mean? It means that it's Scott and Elise hanging out for four days, without Anni, the maternal glue that pretty much holds this place together. She's the one who makes sure Elise gets fruit and veggies at every meal; she's the one who makes sure the day bag is packed with extra clothes; she's the one who knows which pair of pajamas is clean and which pair is in the wash; she's the one who knows where the cough medicine is and what the dosage is for a 26-month-old. Basically, she's the one.
Considering that, I am willing to accept wagers on who will fall to the ground and cry first this weekend: Elise or me.
Actually, though, so far, so good. Elise seems to understand that she's pretty much stuck with me -- or Anni, when I was gone -- and responds accordingly.
It gets interesting at night, though, because typically I am not the first person to wake if Elise is upset or wide awake at 2 a.m.; that's all Anni.
Given my inability to wake quickly, I'm not sure how long Elise was next to my bed in the middle of the night last night before I woke up to find her standing quietly right next to me. She assumed it was time to get the day rolling, but it was 2 a.m. when I looked at the clock. For all I know she'd been staring at me for 10 minutes -- or a half-hour. She's just 2 and pretty much harmless, and she's obviously no stranger, but it still kind of freaks me out to think that she's staring at me in the middle of the night. Yikes.

Snip

There was only one way to describe Elise's hair after we had let it grow untouched and unsnipped for her first two years, and it's a word that seems to fit this situation perfectly: "ragamuffin."

So, with hair falling across her face and down to her chin we brought Elise in for her first haircut last week. The experience started days earlier, though, as we began to prep her for her first haircut. Basically that means just constantly repeating the same questions: "Where are we going tomorrow?" and "Are you going to get your hair cut?"

We decided to use a woman who cuts my hair.

Anni packed a couple of small snacks (ply 'er with fruit snacks) and Elise was fine until it was time to sit in the swivel chair alone. She wanted none of that. Given the choice of either coddling her and getting her hair cut or insisting she sit alone in the chair for her hair cut and watching her delve into complete meltdown, we opted for the former strategy and Anni sat in the chair with Elise on her lap. 

Deb (the stylist/hair cutter) did a great job cleaning up Elise's sandy-blonde and long locks. I think Anni said Elise had about 3 inches lopped from the back of her hair. It looks much better now.

Entertained with a sucker.

 

Easter '11

It didn't take a lot of teaching for Elise to learn this new skill:
"Go find the Easter eggs with an 'E' on them," we told her as the cousins' Easter egg hunt started at Anni's sister Jenee's house. "Those are yours. Put them in your basket."
And with that she was off, running around the yard and having a blast. We ought to hide stuff in the yard at home more often to wear off her energy.
Anyway, we had a very enjoyable Easter with both families. Elise did great at church, got a kick out of her new camp chair from my parents and did well in her inaugural appearance at the kids' table at dinner with Anni's family. Then she was off to hunt for eggs, hidden by Anni's dad. All in all, a good day.

Elise woke up at 6:30 a.m. Sunday, seemingly knowing there was an Easter basket hiding downstairs for her and apparently unaware it all could have waited at least another half-hour or so.

Discovering there was chocolate in the basket.

Eating said chocolate.

She's got the style of Shirley Temple and the poorly timed look of an orphan. But even I'll admit, she was pretty cute. There is a back story to the coat: Anni's mom wore that when she was 2 years old. Vintage? A wise son-in-law wouldn't suggest such a thing. Classy? Yeah.

Cousins

  

 In pursuit.

She just kept running.

  

Taking a break to crack an egg, discovering that the quiet ones have green paper in them...

Chillin' with cousin Jacob. And, no, this was not posed. They were looking for stars.

Happy Easter

More to come...

Thedutchstudy

Five years ago -- or was it six? -- Anni and I went to Amsterdam to visit Bryan when he was taking classes there during college. It was a memorable trip for two reasons: we got engaged (without Bryan), but almost as importantly, we learned about the Dutch penchant for grammatical brevity.
In other words, the Dutch seemed to prefer to randomly combine words by just eliminating spaces. There did not appear to be any reasoning behind why some words were combined without spaces while others were spaced. The best example of this was a popular tourist stop called "houseboatmuseum." Yes, in addition to the requisite Amsterdam tourist stops (figure those out for yourselves) there is a museum on a houseboat. Our entry ticket actually reads, "Houseboatmuseum," because, apparently, spaces aren't necessary.
To this day we sometimes joke about that silly Dutch eccentricity, and we were reminded of it again recently when we took Elise to hang out with the Dutch for a morning.

.....

Backing up a bit: Several months ago Anni saw that the University of Minnesota was seeking families with young children to volunteer for child development studies. We fit the residency requirements (they wanted Ramsey County residents, for some reason) and Elise fit the age category. I was reluctant to give out our information -- I imagined that telemarketers in lab coats were on the receiving end -- but eventually agreed with Anni that we should offer up Elise for some harmless testing with the hope that it could be kind of interesting. (Plus, she's brilliant, of course, so we might as well get that confirmed in a journal article with footnotes and the whole bit.) We weren't obligated to participate, but who wouldn't want to play lab rat?
A couple of weeks ago Anni got a call from Caas, a University of Minnesota researcher who wondered if we would like to have Elise participate in a "Dutch language study."
Caas was Dutch ("like suitCASE," he told Anni) and very polite, so Anni obliged. He told us to show up at a building on the U campus in Minneapolis. Elise would take part in a brief study and then would be on our merry way.

.....

We showed up and were greeted outside by a research assistant, who led us into the building and to the study lobby, where there were a bunch of toys on the floor. The researchers wanted kids to play for a bit to get comfortable before moving to another room for the actual study.
Before I could even get Elise's jacket off, Caas approached Elise and just started talking to her in Dutch and offering toys for her to play with. It caught me by surprise, but it didn't seem to bother Elise. She was shy, but immediately sat down and started checking out the toys. Caas sat down and started playing with her, the whole time speaking in Dutch. She was not fazed, just focused on the toys.
Then a younger man named Hans sat down next to the two of them and also started in with the Dutch. So there's Elise, playing with toys and listening to two strangers speaking Dutch, I suppose to get her somewhat familiar with them and the unusual sounds.

As Elise played puzzles with grown men speaking words she'd never heard before, I filled out the consent form and Anni and I were briefed on the actual study. Put simply, the researchers are studying how children learn language and, for instance, whether they identify a new word (in a foreign language; hence the Dutch) when spoken by one person, and then by another. It's more complicated than that and involves phrases like the desire to answer questions "about the socio-pragmatic processes of language acquisition," but basically they want to know how kids learn a language.
After about 10 minutes of playing, it was time to start the study. We brought Elise into a small office with Caas. He sat on one side of a table while Anni sat on the other and put Elise in her lap. The dorky guy in the background with the camera was me. (Long blog entries are more palatable with pictures sprinkled in.)
The study went like this: Caas would hold up an object such as a cup and pronounce the word in Dutch several times, all the while talking conversationally to Elise in Dutch. Then he would put the object on a tray, slide it over to Elise and encourage her to pick it up and put it in a box. He spoke the whole time and eventually introduced a second object into the routine, identifying each one and then putting them on the tray. She caught on quickly to the "game," and in short time was picking up the object and putting it in the box.

Then Caas was replaced by Hans, who came in the room, sat down and did the same thing with the objects. Each guy spent about 5 to 10 minutes speaking to Elise in Dutch and asking her to pick up the objects and put them in the box. The researchers used two video cameras to record the session, to later review how Elise responded and whether she started to identify objects by their Dutch name, regardless of which guy was talking to her.
Before long the study was over and we went back to the toy room.

While Elise played, Anni and I talked briefly with the researchers. They are seeking about a dozen children, ages 22 months to 26 months, to participate. They will compile the results within a few months and, assuming a paper or summary is written, we will receive a copy of the conclusion or findings.
At one point while we were talking to Caas he dropped a bombshell on us: The other man who was referred to as Hans wasn't really a Hans.
"His name is Joe," Caas said matter-of-factly. "We just call him Hans because it sounds better for the kids." In other words, "Hans" sounds Dutch, but Hans probably was just a college student helping with the study in part because he could speak Dutch. It was pretty funny, even though I later admitted feeling duped that I did not suspect that Hans wasn't really Hans. Oh, the scandal!
Anyway, at that point the study was over and we packed up to leave. Caas led us toward our car. Elise made fast friends with him and he walked her from the building.

We left with a good story, a glimpse at child development research and a cool T-shirt for Elise with the name of the research center on it. (Unfortunately, the shirt didn't read, "My parents made me a lab rat and all I got was this crummy T-shirt.")
I was trying to teach Elise the words describing what took place. As we drove home, I asked her where we had just been.
"The Dutch study," she said.
Or was it, "thedutchstudy"?

Good thing it's not broth

We took Elise to one of our favorite Vietnamese restaurants, Hoa Bien in St. Paul, on Sunday after a morning of splashin' at the community pool.
The waitress gave Anni and I chopsticks. Anni used them. I tried, but gave up at the first hint of an impending case of carpal tunnel. So they sat on the edge of my plate until Elise asked for them -- and then proceeded to eat the rest of her lunch with relative ease. Sure, it wasn't refined, but how is that possible? The lady still is honing her cutlery skills and now she's moving on to chopsticks? And better than me?!
The waitress noticed her picking up her noodles and vegetables with the chopsticks.
"She could be part Asian," the waitress said.
That's unlikely, but we played along.
As we were leaving the restaurant Elise asked for a fortune cookie. They don't offer them at the restaurant, but Anni told Elise she had one at home that she could have. (Who doesn't have fortune cookies in stock?)
So we got home and what's the first thing Elise asked for? The fortune cookie. I opened it to see the fortune. I kid you not, it actually said:
"You are talented with your hands."

Before the mighty garden...

... there was the official spring seed planting.
Anni and Elise planted some veggie seeds in starter pots today. We may be free of any more snowfall accumulation this spring, but it doesn't mean there still isn't frost just below the muddy topsoil in the garden. Just a few more weeks...

1 and 1

It was the obligatory 20-week ultrasound earlier this week, and we decided to bring Elise along because what kid doesn't like a silent movie in black and white? Actually, it was Anni's idea to bring her; I was opposed on the grounds that it'd be messing up her breakfast routine. (That's the most important meal of the day, you know.) In the end, common sense prevailed, rigidity was defeated and, well, Elise just ate early and then tagged along for the screening.
Since it's Child #2, I'll admit there is a bit of the going-through-the-motions feel to these appointments. At least there is for me, anyway. However, I still get hit with a profound pause-in-awe moment when that monitor turns on and out of nowhere you see a child scooting around in there.
And was that child ever scooting around. The body was floating around, the arms were moving and the legs, those seemingly long legs, were lounging and then kicking, scrunching and then extending.
The nurse (she's probably got a different title, but I haven't the slightest idea what it is) did all of the measurements -- leg bones, arm bones, head circumference and diameter, brain, heart, kidneys, etc. -- and everything checked out fine. Amazing that the little blurb of dark, dark gray you see on the screen is actually the child's aorta.
They weighed the baby -- or estimated the weight, I suppose -- and put it at 1 lb. 1 oz.
"That's like a package of ground beef," I said.
Anni and the nurse weren't amused by the comparison.
Here's what amused us: That child was stubborn enough to keep one of its hands in the way so that the nurse couldn't view one of the legs. You know how you fix that? Apparently you bonk the ultrasound wand on the belly a few times. It worked. The baby moved and the fibula was measured.
The ultrasound lasts about 15 to 20 minutes, and I still think it's the best silent film you could watch.
So what did Elise think? Well, she sat on my lap for a while and watched as the nurse lathered up Anni's belly with ultrasound jelly and then started the ultrasound. After about 5 minutes, though, Elise treated the ultrasound monitor like she does the TV at home -- got bored with it and started looking around for something else to do. Soon she had a new obsession: the hand sanitizer mounted on the wall by the door.
Bottom line: Anni's feeling pretty good, the baby looks to be doing well, I got to watch a great movie and Elise, well, she discovered hand sanitizer.

Well, hello in there.

More on Child #2 soon. For now, a photo from today's ultrasound:

Jet setter

Anni walked into Elise's classroom today at school and saw that she was wearing a hat and carrying a backpack. Anni asked Elise where she was going.
"I'm going to the airport," Elise said.
Of course.

'Bouncy ball'

If you want proof that we don't stage photos for this blog, here it is.

This is a very candid shot of the cheap seats during the recent March Madness tournament. It was so candid, in fact, that I didn't even have a chance to dust the chip crumbs off my shirt or to suggest I not be photographed in pajama pants.

And the seats were so cheap that I did not even get Elise as much as a glass of water to go with her bowl of tortilla chips.

We've figured out that Elise will watch three things on television before (thankfully) getting bored: about 5 minutes of a "Little People" episode; roughly 10 minutes of "This Old House," which really says something about her tolerance level; and about 15 minutes of college "bouncy ball," or as the rest of us call it, basketball.

She has watched enough now to know to announce "He made it!" after someone scores. 

She's not ready to play defense, though, as the behind-the-back dribble still confounds her: "Where's the bouncy ball?" she'll ask.

'Hey, I'm still in here!'

You hear that? That muffled yell? I hear it. Oh, boy, do I hear it.
It's the sound of snubbed Child #2 giving me a big ol' dressing-down for neglecting to blog about him (I still think it's a boy) or to blog about Anni's pregnancy.
Oh, there he goes again:
"Hey, Pops, I get it, you didn't want to start another blog dedicated to me. But how about you at least give me a little pub on the big sis' blog? I'm starting to feel like the third or fourth child, not the second!"
OK, OK, message received, so here's an update on what's going on:
Anni's 5 months pregnant, 20 weeks to be exact. We know this because she saw her baby doc today for her monthly check-up. (The great doctor has spent more than three decades in the profession, delivered hundreds or thousands of children, dedicated his career to obstetrics, and then I go and slight him with the title "baby doc.")
But back to Anni. Everything is going smoothly. Anni's healthy and doing well, save for the nagging sciatic nerve. She's still sleeping through the night (I don't remember when the multiple pit stops per night started when she was pregnant with Elise, but I've got to think she's coming up on that soon.)
The doctor found Child #2's heartbeat right away, and it was pumping at a healthy 136 beats a minute. So according to myth, that means it's a boy. Yeah, because old wives' tales are always accurate...
We didn't have such quick luck finding the heartbeat at last month's visit. I went along for that visit, and we brought Elise with so that Anni's doctor could see her. Well, the doc tried to locate the baby's heart beat with the fetal doppler (I think it's really called that), but it was silent.
"Let's go try the ultrasound," the doctor said.
That was a surprise, because the clinic previously did not have an ultrasound machine, forcing Anni to drive to another clinic for any ultrasound she needed.
Not only was it a surprise, but it also meant "field trip!" for Elise. So we all wandered down the hall to another room with an ultrasound machine. The doc then found Child #2's heartbeat with little problem.
Meantime, Child #1 -- Elise -- was fascinated by the "belly jelly" used with an ultrasound wand.
"What's that?" Elise asked.
Anni told her it was jelly for the ultrasound.
"Can I eat it?" Elise asked.
Uhm, no.

Spring booted

We had spring-like weather last weekend -- sun, temps in the 40s and plenty of melting. You wouldn't know that if you looked outside this morning -- no sun, temps in the lower 20s, strong winds and winter's taunting mixture of sleet, four inches of snow and a bit of ice just to really stick it to us.

So it was nice last weekend to let Elise put on her new mud boots and go out in search of mud in the yard. It made us think of how much we covet summer months.

Until then, photos with oh-so-fleeting glimpses of actual grass -- and mud -- in Minnesota in March:

Are you late for a date or something?

The other night the three of us were eating dinner. Elise was just about done, but still focused on the task at hand. Then suddenly she stopped eating, paused, looked up at us and asked:

"What time is it?"

A dip and a Punch

So you got the low-down on Elise's 2nd birthday party (see below) but I neglected to post about Elise's actual birthday.
Last year Anni and I took the day off on Elise's birthday and the three of us headed to the Children's Museum in St. Paul, as a way to celebrate outside of the traditional birthday party. It was a good time and the start of a tradition -- if two years in a row counts as tradition.
This year, Elise's birthday party was on a Saturday, her actual birthday the following Sunday. We decided to take Elise swimming on her birthday. She loves water -- lakes, bath tubs, spray bottles -- so after breakfast Sunday we hustled over to the Maplewood Community Center, which has an indoor pool with an area for little kids, a water slide, etc. Turns out we had the pool to ourselves for most of the visit. Elise had a blast marching around in the wading pool and splashing and generally being a kid in water. We discovered something new to do in the winter and when the weather's crummy.
After 18 cannonballs and one wild game of Marco Polo, we toweled off and headed for lunch at one of our favorite kid-friendly-yet-not-obnoxious restaurants, Punch Pizza. Elise loves the pizza and so do we.
It was an enjoyable way to spend her birthday.

What can you say other than that the lady loves her Neopolitan pizza with a side of peas.

"Climb that tree..."

If Elise had a list of her all-time Top 5 books, "Go, Dog. Go!" would be assured a spot. So when Anni was trying to figure out what kind of cake to make Elise for her 2nd birthday last weekend, "Go, Dog. Go!" was an obvious theme for the cake. (It was not a "themed" party, however. I'm just fine with stopping at a themed cake.) So Anni used the final scene from the book as the basis for Elise's cake. Gotta admit: I don't know a thing about cake decorating, but that cake looked really good.

It was a good party; thanks to all the family and the Singels for showing up. I used to wonder why people held "parties" for kids so young, but now I get it. (If nothing else, we do it to see how many relatives we can fit in one room -- peaceably!) Elise had a good time, even if she was a bit overwhelmed. After all, the girl just wanted to eat grapes, and we kept pushing presents on her. (See an upcoming blog post about The Grandparent Gifts.)

Here are some photos from the birthday party:

Elise helped Anni make frosting for the cake. 

Kid + bag of sugar  = happy kid.

Watching the magic.

So here's the cake and the picture Anni tried to replicate -- and my left hand. Not a bad cake, huh? She found little toy dogs to put on the cake.

Gift opening. I don't have a camera lens wide enough to include all 17 people who were in our living room. Yes, 17. And there were empty chairs.

One of the gifts we gave Elise were a pair of rubber rain boots for her to use in the garden this summer. She loves hanging out in there, and this is cheaper than going through several pairs of shoes over the course of the summer. Plus, even I'll admit those are some cool boots for the little lady.

Some mornings, I wish I had pull-'em-up-straps like these on my shoes.

If there was a theme to the party, it might have involved gardening. We got Elise the boots, and her cousins Randy and Jacob gave her a children's gardening kit. (Rake, shovel, seeds and, as you can see, an umbrella.) She is set for the summer.

Candle concentration.

Cute, right? Well, what if I told you what Elise usually does is offer to share food -- only to yank it away and give you a devilish "heh, heh" in return? She's discovered playful teasing. This time, though, she was all about sharing with Anni.

We like this picture. I like it because it's as close as we'll get to having Elise hold the fork and give an expression reminiscent of the painting "American Gothic."

She's 2

I'll post more soon, but wanted to get something up here in the meantime.