Everett awoke about 7ish this morning and called us the same way he does at home: “Mama, Dada, I’m awaaaaaaaaake. Come pick me uuuuuuuup.” It’s not possible via text alone to express the intonations of his voice, but it’s pretty funny. What is also funny is that when he sleeps at home we put a gate on his door to keep him from wandering out of his room during the night. He is completely capable of climbing over the gate, and on a couple occasions he has pushed it off the door (it’s only held in place by friction), so it isn’t doing very much as a physical barrier. However, he respects it and even uses improper gate alignment as a procrastination technique before bedtime. At our FHL house there is no barrier on his door at all. Yet when he calls us in the morning he won’t come into our room until we tell him to. I guess he likes having a system, and in that regard he is a lot like his Mom :).

The weather was beautiful today. It was also a pretty productive day with regard to work. Melissa and Chris went for a short hike at lunch.

After school the three of use went for a hike before dinner. We started on the trails leading north, then turned east and went down to the water to explore the rocks.

Dinner was grilled cheese (at Everett’s request). He ate a standard one while Mom and Dad had fancy ones made with bacon, pear slices and strawberry jelly. Surprisingly delicious, but next time we will probably try a different kind of jelly like fig or currant.

Today Everett woke at 7am. This is great progress considering the last few days, and possibly reflects the work we have done at home as well. We recently put a digital clock in his room and taught him that he shouldn’t wake us until it reads 7:00. Somewhat surprisingly this worked after a brief training period, though he did attempt innovative solutions to this problem like changing the time until it read 7:00. Technically we can’t fault him for this because he was still doing what we asked. This is perhaps another example of how we, the parents, put a damper on the seemingly inexhaustible supply of innovative but not-so-good ideas that he comes up with.

After awakening we had a quick breakfast and then walked to the beach. FHL is in a biological preserve, so it’s not surprising that there is a lot of wildlife here. If you can look outside then you can find deer – they are more numerous and less fearful than squirrels at home. On our way to the beach we saw a few deer, followed by jellyfish

and our first seal sighting (or sea lion – we can never tell them apart).

Fantastic, and later we saw at least two of them several times during a post-school rowboat ride. We also saw our first snake today when Chris almost stepped on it. Chris recalls seeing many varieties of small snakes here before and the one today was about two feet long, which is actually large compared to the ones he recalls from a few years ago. The National Park Service reports that every snake on the island is probably some kind of garter snake. Lastly, today we saw our first Pycnopodia since arriving:

This picture is not ideal because of the lighting, but the water has been pretty turbid since we arrived so it has been difficult to see deeper than a few feet below the dock.

This evening the sky was quite clear and we were able to see two snow-capped peaks in the mainland. First was Mt. Baker which is directly east:

Second was possibly Mt. Rainier, though this seems unlikely. We will have to do some research to identify it:

When we were in Everett, Washington we saw the above sign, which seems completely appropriate given our current situation. Everett woke us up before 7, not as disastrously early as our first night here. After breakfast, Chris drove him to the first day at his new preschool. The dropoff was rough. For at least a year now we have had no drama when dropping him off at school. However, in the last few weeks he has started clinging to Chris once we arrive (interestingly he doesn’t do this with Melissa). The same happened at his new school, which is much more understandable given the new environment and the fact that he doesn’t know anyone. We had to peel him off when it was time to say goodbye. Rough for everyone.

Afterward Chris went to his new office for the day and Melissa setup camp at the cottage. At the end of the day both of them rowed to town and then walked to school to pick him up. He was happy to see us, and the teacher said that the morning drama during separation lasted only a minute. She also said he was a talker, which we already knew, and is not a surprise to anyone who has met Melissa, particularly those who knew her in childhood.

On the way back to the boat we stopped at the Friday Harbor Seafood Market and bought some salmon and crab legs for dinner. Rowed home, cooked dinner and then returned to the dock after sunset for Friday Harbor Television, which consists of lowering a bright lamp into the water and seeing who shows up. Tonight we saw a couple species of crab, some shrimp some small eels or seasnakes and some small fish. We also saw Chris’ flashlight go tumbling to the bottom during the first equipment casualty. Looks like we did not attach floats or lanyards soon enough.

Here is a brief video of the trip home from school and Friday Harbor TV:

Everett woke up in the fives, as in before 6am, and it isn’t really possible to sleep in the same room where he is awake. We knew that there was a ferry at 8:30 and another at 9:30, that the ferry terminal was about a half hour away, that we had to be there a minimum of 20 minutes before departure, and that Oyster Run ’11 had taken place the day before, which is why all of the hotels in Anacortes were full. Given our wakeup time we decided to go ahead and have the hotel breakfast and try for the 8:30am ferry to Friday Harbor. We told Everett about the ferry some time ago and he has been talking about it for over a month. He seemed particularly intrigued by the thought that we would drive our car onto a boat.

It was a cold, rainy, extremely windy day. We rode the Elwha, which is one of the largest in the fleet, and during the 90 minute trip Everett encouraged us to explore the entire boat.

The amused looks we got as we passed by some passengers multiple times was one of many bonding experiences we have shared with other parents.

We arrived in Friday Harbor about 9:45. First stop: coffee. Second stop: grocery store to pickup cold items that we couldn’t buy the day before. Third stop: FHL, where we were told that we couldn’t checkin early. So we went to Everett’s new preschool to say hello and drop off some forms, then returned to FHL after lunch and moved in to our cottage. The rest of the day was spent looking around and getting acclimated. Everett took a car nap followed by a long afternoon nap. We woke him up at 5pm to go look at the dock. Linguine with meat sauce for dinner that night followed by games and early bed for everyone.

We left for Friday Harbor on Sunday, September 25. The days leading up this were extremely busy, almost a blur. Fortunately, Everett was at Gabby and Grandaddy’s house for a week beforehand – Melissa drove to Indiana and met them for an exchange on Friday, September 16. A week later they drove to our house to drop him off, and the next day they returned to Cincinnati, just in time to host brunch on Sunday morning before the Bengals game. This was the first time since Everett was born that Chris and Melissa were home together without him, and it was somewhat strange at first. When Everett left he said “I will be gone for a week and you will feel empty”. This was true, but we adapted rather quickly. We went out to dinner the first three or four nights and increased the amount of time spent working. Also, Chris made a whirlwind 40 hour trip to Cleveland to take care of our house on St. Albatross in Cleveland Heights, which we are trying to sell (again). He took the overnight train to Cleveland, worked all day and took an overnight train home. Then back to work immediately followed by a few hours sleep and then a half-day symposium on Saturday. Finally a mad dash to finish getting ready for our airport shuttle at 6:40 Sunday morning. Exhausting.

For the next four weeks we will be living at Friday Harbor Laboratories (FHL). Melissa will be working on her dissertation and Chris will be doing research. Everett will be in a new school full time. He is generally a good traveler and an adaptable kid, though we might be asking a lot of him on this trip in terms of adjusting quickly.

Chris has worked at Friday Harbor before. In 2004 he was here for a month to perform electrophysiology experiments on Hermissenda Crassicornis. It’s a somewhat romantic idea for doing research: go out in the morning and try to catch the animals you will study later that day. Every researcher gets his own tank which is continuously bathed in fresh saltwater to house whatever he catches. FHL has a long and well-deserved history in neuroscience, and is a vibrant environment for marine biology research. That month was one of the best in Chris’ life. In addition to the work and living environment, he brought his bicycle and on the ferry ride to the island met a guy named Mark who wrote books about quantum string theory and who lived a bit off the grid. When Chris mentioned he was looking for a kayak, Mark offered one of his and dropped it off at Chris’ hut the next morning. Each day’s work was punctuated with bike rides, hikes and kayak trips. Melissa and Chris started dating in February of that year and Melissa visited Chris on the island over the long July 4th weekend. This visit was, from Chris’ perspective, The Big Test of compatibility. That weekend was filled with nonstop biking, hiking, kayaking, swimming and other adventures. It seems that Melissa passed the test. We were engaged the next year, married the year after that, and now seven years later we have a house and a 3 year old son. So it worked out pretty well, and now the three of us are returning for a month together.

We left Milwaukee early Sunday morning and flew nonstop to Seattle. Picked up the rental car, ate lunch at Ikea and headed north. As we travelled north we noticed the traffic situation was getting more and more strange. Lots of police cars with flashing lights, especially on the bridges over the interstate. Once we got off the interstate we realized that it was impossible to drive into downtown. That Sunday was the opening game for the Seahawks, and more importantly President Obama was visiting that day. We have never seen anything quite like it: all bridges into downtown were closed to vehicle and pedestrian traffic. We also noticed that there were no cars on the southbound lanes of the interstate and soon found that it was completely closed to traffic. So we gave up on visiting Seattle and drove north, first for coffee and then for a trip to to Trader Joe’s to pickup groceries. Then made a brief stop in Everett to take some pictures and stop at a playground so that we could reward Everett for being such a great traveler, and so that he could get some wiggles out. Drove a bit further north and spent the night in Mt. Vernon after dinner at a Mexican restaurant. Everyone was pretty exhausted so we had an early bedtime.

For the next four weeks we will be in Friday Harbor, Washington. During this time Chris will be doing research, Melissa will be working on her dissertation and Everett will be in pre-school. We hope that this will provide a much needed interruption of our busy lives at home, as well as a chance to reconnect with parts of our lives that, while important, are not urgent and are therefore sometimes overlooked. This visit also provides some continuity for our family. Chris spent a month here in 2004 and Melissa visited for a long weekend over July 4th. This was a turning point in our relationship, and now we are able to reflect on the last seven years (seven years!?! Time goes by so quickly), our marriage and of course Everett.

Today I had to leave for a one day business trip. When I explained this to Everett he gave me a hug and kiss, looked me right in the eyes and said “Ok Daddy. Have a good trip. And tell me all about it when you get back.” It was one of many moments I have had with him that will stay with me for a long time.

Note that the remainder of this blog might sound like it was written by a curmudgeon, and doesn’t have a whole lot to do with Everett, at least until the end.

The amount that we travel provides us plenty of experience with the idiosyncrasies of airlines. In a previous blog entry I discussed a branch of mathematics called Airline Math which is used to show, for example, how 10% of $1000 is $500. Another area where this industry has branched off from the mainstream is Airline English. For about the last 15 years Chris has consistently flown Southwest Airlines, first from Utah, then Cleveland and now MIlwaukee (Southwest came to Milwaukee the year after we did). There are two persistent curiosities about Southwest Airlines. First: all flights are “on time”, at least until they’re not, but even then they might be if you are using the airline definition, which can be translated as “not too terribly late in geological time”. Once it becomes clear that the flight is not on time by anyone’s definition they begin the process of proposing new times, starting with an opening bid, which is similar to an auction in that it will most certainly become a much larger number. Once when I arrived breathless at the gate in Salt Lake City for an “on time” flight I was told that my plane had not yet left its previous stop, and that we had a minimum three hour wait for it to arrive. They do get points for consistency: the same misinformation seems to be provided via their online flight status, the airport monitors and by employees. This suggests that they don’t actually know the location of a very expensive fleet of aircraft, which is possible but highly unlikely. More likely explanations range from disorganization to manipulation, but I don’t want to start any conspiracy theories. Another curiosity about Southwest: almost every flight starts with the announcement “This is a completely full flight”. This is another example where Airline English deviates from Normal English. When I hear a statement like “This flight is full” then I think it is mostly, if not completely full. By extension, I assume that “completely full” means every seat is taken, but I have almost never observed this to be true. On my recent “completely full” fight from Milwaukee to Kansas City there were several empty seats within a couple rows of me.

AirTran has decided that the best model for air travel is to charge fees at every possible moment. Granted they aren’t the only airline moving toward this model but they do seem to be the most extreme. On a recent AirTrain flight the online checkin system informed Chris that he owed an extra $7 and he couldn’t checkin without paying it. No explanation was given, and no one at the airport could explain it, so he had to pay it and get on with life. On our family trip to Seattle we all had to pay fees for luggage (getting to be more the norm) and for our seats (what?!?). During the in-flight service all types of soda (called “pop” in the midwest) were free while milk for Everett cost $2 (obesity epidemic anyone?). What they don’t seem to realize is that for a long time we will associate their airline with significant and gratuitous fees (for our Seattle trip these totaled over $200), most of which are ridiculous and some of which they can’t even explain.

To address this I propose the following, which I am willing to repeat as needed until the situation improves: I will call a meeting of airline executives. The meeting will be scheduled for 3pm, and we will send repeated reminders via phone, text, e-mail and a website with real-time updates. As people enter the meeting room they will be asked if they would like a seat (extra charge), if they would like a seat with extra legroom (another charge), and if they would like to be first in line to enter (another charge). At the start of the meeting the only person in attendance will be my 3 year old son who skipped his nap and is exhausted, sick and screaming. It will be up to them to entertain him until I saunter in two hours later with no explanation but rather an acknowledgement that we are starting “on-time”.

When I hear the word feelings the first thing that comes to mind is the hyperdramatic song by Morris Albert in the 1970s. The next thing that comes to mind is how much Everett shares them with us. If there is one easy thing about spending time with him it is reading his emotions. He is quite transparent, and one of the best experiences we get to have as parents is to witness his sense of joy and wonder about the world. For some time now he has talked about his feelings, which is great because it reduces guesswork for us. Some common phrases:

-“You hurt my feelings”. This usually happens after one of us raises our voice with him after failing all attempts at a peaceful resolution to a problem.

-“That makes my feelings happy.” Self explanatory, but I need to get a picture of how he puts his hands on his chest when he says it.

-“Does that baby feel sad?” He can get pretty concerned when he observes other children who are upset. He wants to know why, and he will sometimes comfort them if he knows them well enough.

-“Angry mandril face.” One time about a year ago he and Luka were at the zoo with Melissa and Maryke. As they were going through the ape house they ducked under the railing and got right up to the glass next to a male mandril who, as it turns out, didn’t like having them that close. The mandril started screaming and they ran. Ever since then any kind of angry face is associated with mandrils. Soon afterward he added a happy mandril face as well.

-“I feel roughhousy! Are you feeling roughhousy?” Also self-explanatory. Note that roughhousing is not the same a lion fighting, which is a term he started using at the beach this past summer with his cousins. Lion fighting and roughhousing seem remarkably similar to us, but sometimes Chris will perform some kind of maneuver during the latter and Everett will stop him and say “Dad, we’re not playing lion fight now.”

-“I feel scared” has become a common phrase when he is dropped off at school in the morning. This is also new -  for a long time he seemed completely comfortable during dropoffs.

The Wisconsin State Fair started on August 4th. As many of our readers know, this is an event that Everett looks forward to all year. And those of you who follow Wisconsin news may have heard about a very disturbing series of events that took place during and after the first day of the fair this year. We weren’t there and don’t know anyone who was, but it appears from witnesses that a large crowd of black youths were engaged in a series of random acts of violence that were directed at each other and at people in general who were leaving he fair. Things really got out of hand after the fair closed, and it sounds like the police were pretty unprepared (it probably doesn’t help that the state fair grounds crosses three separate police jurisdictions). Beyond the obvious concern for the safety of my family there are a lot of things that are disturbing about this: the proximity to our neighborhood, the reports that race was a major factor and the seemingly random nature of the attacks. In my mind this kind of behavior is fundamentally different from the kind of mischief and poor judgement that teenagers sometimes engage in. In particular, why the random violence? Is this a form of self expression? Or is this a reflection of racial tension and anger that they feel there is no other outlet for? I think my reactions are unsurprising for a parent: I want Everett to be safe, and I don’t want him to witness this kind of violence. But even more than that, he is currently at an age of joy, innocence and wonder, and for as long as possible I don’t even want him to know that such behavior exists. At the same time it is painful to think that there are children who have no choice in the matter, and I do wonder what kind of insulated life we are living if this much pent up anger is in our hometown and we aren’t aware of it.

After the attacks the Milwaukee Chief of Police and the Mayor assured the public that precautions had been taken and that this would not occur again. It also helps that the attacks were at night and most families with young children attend the fair during the day, which is not a popular time for teenagers. So we packed up the bikes and rode over on Sunday afternoon for some rides, animals and food.

It was a chance for Chris to eat his annual corn dog and for us to check out the latest array of horrifying yet delicious fair foods.

I never imagined you could get macaroni and cheese or spaghetti and meatballs on a stick! The fair animals are a treat for all of us. This year Melissa and I paid close attention to the many different varieties of chickens.

Recently Milwaukee passed an ordinance that domestic poultry is now permissible, and as a result people are hopeful that Wauwatosa will soon do the same. We are pretty interested in the idea but I should note that despite many (many, many) years of formal education Melissa and I display an astonishing lack of knowledge about farm life. For example: recently we asked Gramsy and Grandpa (lifelong farmers in Iowa) how many ears a corn stalk produces. I was thinking something like 5 or 10, but it turns out the answer is 1 (maybe 2). Now we have a new question for them: do chickens fly? Can we enclose them with a fence, or do they have to be in a pen? We would certainly have to keep them contained and safe from the foxes and coyotes in our neighborhood.

Everett was pretty excited this year about the carnival rides. A couple months ago we attended the Greek Fest (also at the State Fair grounds) where he saw many of the rides and latched onto two of them: the bee ride and the boat ride. At the time they weren’t running, but he has remembered them, and insisted on going on both of them at the State Fair. The boat ride he rode with Mom and again later with Gabby, Granddaddy and Trinity.

The bee ride he rode alone with seemingly no reservations.

There is a black walnut tree in our backyard which is one of several in our immediate neighborhood. Every summer these trees produces hundreds of green walnuts (they smell green too) that are somewhere between a golfball and a tennis ball in size.

As soon as they reach the ground they quickly turn black and the outer shell starts rotting, a process that leaves behind a trail of black goo that will stain almost anything it touches (clothing, wood, concrete, etc). To prevent this, many of us in the neighborhood try to pick them up as soon as they fall. We decided that this would be a great opportunity to introduce the idea of chores to Everett. The walnuts in particular are a good place to start because:

1. It’s outside, which is where he wants to be most of the time.
2. It involves animals, which he enjoys tremendously. We explained to him that after we collect the walnuts we will keep them in a pile in the backyard, so we can almost certainly expect a lot of traffic from squirrels and chipmunks through next winter.
3. Everett is closer to the ground than we are.

We are a couple weeks into this and so far it’s going ok. He certainly doesn’t do his chore without prompting (do any children?), and he wants us to do it with him, but he will do it. One of the men I bicycle with is a family practice physician with four children, and he explained to me that I can’t expect much in the way of help until they reach age 8. So we’ll see what the ratio is of us helping Everett to him helping us. I do note that he is often eager to help me when I work on projects, for example he has his own lawn mower and follows behind me in the yard when I mow the grass.

He is especially interested in helping when tools are involved. If I am stationary and focused on a task then before I know it he will be between my arms, holding the tools and insisting that he can do it. Recently I was using a drill and explained to him that it was dangerous and he couldn’t touch it or get near it, to which he replied “Ok, I will climb on you!”

Interesting note: last year none of these trees produced walnuts. When I asked a neighbor about this I was told that every few years they take a year off and don’t produce. This is interesting in itself, but even more so is the fact that all of the trees seem to be synchronized.

Another note: there are a lot of robins in our neighborhood. Two nests in the front yard (one in the same place as last year), and one in the walnut tree in back. The nests in the front yard each lost an egg (that we know of), the result of which was that one nest was abandoned. The backyard nest seems to be faring better, with two chicks being cared for at the moment.