The before/after pictures above illustrate a significant milestone in the amount of freedom that Everett is allowed, at least during naps and at night. Never mind that most of our friends and family made this step at a much younger age. Usually this occurs because the crib railing becomes irrelevant, perhaps even dangerous, once the child learns how to climb over it. Everett never did climb out of his crib though we are certain he could have if he wanted to (he was able to climb into it), and we have avoided removing his crib rails for as long as we could. Seriously, who wants a two year old loose in the house? It doesn’t make us bad people – if anything it has made us slightly more sane because the crib has consistently contained him during time-outs and sleeping. We decided to make the change in the hope that when he wakes up in the morning he can entertain himself in his room for a while before waking us up. So on Sunday afternoon we asked him if he would like to have his crib rails removed, and he said “Yes! Can we do that right now?”. His first night in the “big boy bed” went reasonably well. We put a gate up at his door and he only got out of bed a couple times before settling down for the night. After Melissa put him down at his normal bedtime he stood at the gate and called me for a while. When I finally came upstairs he said “Dad, now it’s your turn to put me to bed.” This was a new tactic in a seemingly boundless amount of creativity that he puts into procrastination at bedtime.

On the subject of freedom, Everett now has considerable amounts of it during waking hours, and with the exception of the basement he wanders around the house as he pleases. As his freedom has grown so has his imagination. For example, Big Bird came to our front door this morning and hung out with us for a while after breakfast. Another example is the large number of monsters that live in the house. Interestingly, most of them are benevolent but there are a few bad ones like the goat that screamed at him in the office about a year ago. He remembers this, which is why the office is now called “the monster room”. Lastly, when we stayed with Tina, Dennis and Zach at their house after our trip to Europe last year we made a nest for him to sleep in the closet. In the back of the closet was a small access door for utilities, and he informed us that this was “where the monsters live”, but he didn’t give any indication of fear – if anything he seemed curious about it. We will keep watch on the monster situation and keep everyone informed.

Over the last few months two things have happened that have reduced the amount of activity on the website. First, Chris has been extremely busy. Second, Chris developed grand plans for revamping the entire website, primarily to address the problem that we have outgrown iWeb (and probably iPhoto as well). However, it’s going to take a couple days of focused effort to get everything deployed, and it’s rare that this much time is available. When time does become available it is consumed with other activities like igloo building (see above), an activity that we try to do at least once a winter. Nonetheless I remain optimistic that it will happen very soon, and in the meantime I have updated a couple blog entries and added some recent photos.

Some time ago I talked about the many ways that Everett used the word “no”, and speculated on when we might hear the defiant “No!” that is common for children his age.  Our speculation is over.  He now says no defiantly several times a day. Sometimes he even starts throwing in a few preventative “No!”s as soon as me or Melissa start talking, which can be both amusing and exasperating. At the same time he is becoming quite particular with regard to just about everything. For example: we went through a brief phase where he only wanted Mom to put him to bed or get him from his crib; he got pretty angry with Chris the other day for putting peanut butter on the wrong side of his waffle (flipping the waffle over was not a satisfactory solution). As tempting as it may be to try to reason with him during these times, we have been able to keep in mind that the issue is mostly about control rather than the specific details of what is going on. Everett sees his parents as omnipotent, which we think he finds both reassuring and infuriating. Until now our primary disciplinary technique has been timouts, which have been pretty effective, but during our trip to Rehoboth last summer he set a record of 6 timeouts just to get one diaper on in the morning. Ouch.

Everett has also recently become the rule enforcer. By this we mean that he has been assembling a list of rules, and he takes the time and energy to ensure that everyone is following them. For example, when we visited Carrie and Armin last fall he learned that you do not wear shoes in the house. Ever since we returned he reminds Melissa of this (Chris does not need to be reminded to take his shoes off): “Mom, we do not wear shoes in the house.” He has also become aware that certain words such as “stupid” are not nice, and he points out whenever we or a character on television uses it: “We don’t say stupid.” In short, Everett has become pretty bossy. We don’t have the authority that we once did with him, but thank goodness for other authority figures in his life to help out, especially his teachers at school.

In the last few weeks the word “roughhousing” has entered Everett’s vocabulary. As in “can we roughhouse?”, “can I roughhouse you?”, “can you roughhouse me?”. We have successfully taught him that roughhousing involves direct contact but shouldn’t hurt, so no hitting. And head-bonking is something we actively discourage now that his cranium has fully hardened, although discouragement alone has not been enough to keep Chris from thinking about wearing protective gear – a cup and a helmet with face mask could do a lot to cut down on collateral parent damage. Beyond that there are few rules other than “Please don’t draw any blood”. Of course Everett has little regard for these rules because the fun of roughhousing outweighs the perceived risks of parents who have made more than a couple emergency room visit in their lifetimes.

Roughhousing is one of those activities that is so fun that there is no such thing as enough, so we have had to devise ways to bring it to an end without too much drama. Everett listens to a lot of orders and admonitions from us (he recently said to Melissa something to the effect “You say no all the time”). As a result our opinion about when roughousing should end doesn’t carry much weight. But he does believe the timer, and he is willing to accept that that roughhousing will end once the timer beeps. The baby monitor in his room happens to look a lot like a timer. So he will often pick it up, point it toward me and say “Couple more minutes of roughhousing!”

Amanda & Cress visited us over the holiday from just before Christmas to just after New Year’s Day, and it was a great visit in many ways. Everett is now fully engaged with Santa and left out snacks for him and his reindeer:

He also sprinkled reindeer dust in the snow in front of the house to help them find us. It’s a little hard to make out, but reindeer can see it, and that’s the important thing:

One gift that Everett received from Noni and took to right away was the puppet stage. Ever since it arrived he will announce from time to time that “The puppet show is open!”, then hand out tickets which must be held high in the air by all audience members throughout the performance:

The weather during their visit was odd. Cold, then freakishly warm, then bitterly cold. New Year’s Eve dinner was held partly outside on the patio – that’s how warm it was. The visit was also pretty eventful, though not always in the way we hoped. Beforehand we didn’t know the exact location of the emergency room at Froedtert, but in a two week period including the days after they left we had to make visits there for Chris, Amanda and Everett. The experience with Everett was particularly worrisome because he started making an unearthly sound in his sleep one night which alarmed us and woke him. After a little while he said “I need to go to the doctor”. He does not make idle comments, and we had no idea what was going on, so we packed up and went to the ER. They saw him pretty quickly and diagnosed him with croup. Chalk that one up to inexperienced parents perhaps. Would that have happened with a second kid? As one of my colleagues who has 10 children puts it: “No blood, no emergency room.”

With regard to the blog title: Like many urban areas, our city picks up our trash and recycling on a semi-regular basis. The schedule for these pickups is an implausibly complicated calendar that is published on the city website. We consider ourselves to be fairly well-educated people, but even after reading carefully we are never confident that we understand it correctly, and I can tell you that the neighbors don’t either. Everyday when Chris rides to work he sees entire neighborhoods of households who put out their trash/recycling guessing that it might be picked up, only to wheel full bins of refuse back into their garages at the end of the day. Anyway, in early December it seemed like the city stopped picking up recycling altogether. Things really started to pile up, and in response our neighborhood stopped wheeling their recycling bins back to their garages, all together. It was the kind of brazen yet cautious, non-confrontational act of civil disobedience you might expect from midwesterners. This is what it looked like:

In the midst of this Chris called the city and asked why recycling wasn’t being picked up and was told “Because they don’t follow our schedule”, and at that moment all became clear: the recycling problem is one thing that unites us, regardless of the wide-ranging political beliefs that exist in Wauwatosa, and our reaction to it allows us to think that in some small way we still have the spirit of the 1960s, similar to why one of Melissa’s committee members was almost gleeful over a public nuisance citation he received for not mowing his lawn often enough. It’s a spirit we can use more of these days and something we want to start teaching Everett as well.

Today we walked to the village with Everett for his second haircut.  During his first haircut he sat in the chair alone, but this time he wanted to sit in one of our laps, so he and Melissa were in the barber chair together.  He was great the whole time, but problems started to appear around time to leave.  First he refused to put on his jacket, snow pants, hat, gloves or shoes.  It’s a good thing we walked to the barber shop, because by the time the stroller reached the sidewalk he was having a full-blown temper tantrum, and we know from experience that it is virtually impossible to get him into his car seat at moments like this.  We tried everything to calm him down but nothing worked.  So by the time we got to the bridge in Tosa Village we were the parents with a screaming, uncooperative toddler standing in the snow in his socks with no winter clothing on.  This brought amused smiles from other parents, and some shared stories of their own experiences, so it was more of a source of camaraderie than judgement, but it certainly wasn’t enjoyable.  After about two and a half years I would say that learning to parent is not a gentle process.  Everett is now in a phase that we describe as lovable but sometimes infuriating, largely due to how bossy and particular he is.  Still, it’s impossible to stay angry with him, partly because his infuriating behavior is interspersed with open compassion for me and Melissa, and partly because he is so funny (and he knows it).  I talked about this with one of the Tosa Spokesmen that I ride with, a man with four children whose ages range from four to fifteen years.  He acknowledged what I was saying, then mentioned that someday our behavior would be equally infuriating to Everett, though I assured him that in my case this isn’t possible.

Everett is capable of a wide range of emotions, but he seems to have very limited control over the transitions from one emotion to the next, and the amazing thing is that as a result, sometimes neither do we.  I won’t speak for Melissa but I will say that my emotions often mimic his.  When we are both at our best I secretly have thoughts of winning some kind of excellence in parenting award.  And we are both at our worst I wonder how any parent maintains their composure, and I am astounded that anyone would intentionally have more than one child. I sometimes expect to hear sympathy from other parents that my child will not behave in a logical, reasonable manner. But it’s clear that at this point in his life being in control is a much higher priority than being reasonable, so I expect to receive amused expressions more than sympathy when I tell such stories.

Discipline has now become a common discussion topic between me and Melissa.  Timeouts have usually been effective in the past but compliance has become an issue (he keeps getting up before the timeout is over) so we will be considering new approaches.  I think I can summarize by saying that discipline is not fun, but having an undisciplined child is worse.

Everett’s ability to speak continues to develop in new and sometimes unexpected ways.  In June we suspected his two year molars were coming in.  We say this partly because he was drooling and sucking on his hands and fingers, and also because he pointed at his mouth and said “I got a new tooth!”.  The latter is a great example of how much easier it has become to figure out what is going on with him.  More language = less guesswork on our part.  And he generally does not say things unless he means it.

If Everett had a native American name it might be “Talks to Ducks” or “Talks to Goats”.  He tries to have conversations with many animals, but especially ducks and goats.  After he fell off a picnic bench at the zoo and bumped his head, he walked over to the Family Farm and asked a goat to kiss it:

We have wondered for some time if and when Everett would start correcting us in way that some children do, such as for incorrectly naming a dinosaur or some other animal.  Well apparently those days have now begun.  When Melissa asked him if the baby ducks were born at the state fair he replied “No, they were hatched.”  And when Chris saw some unusual fish in a pond at the Renaissance Faire and wondered aloud what they were, Everett replied “Um, those are fish Dad”.

He does not like it when either of us is gone, even for very brief periods of time.  One time when Melissa had to step away for a moment recently Everett said:

“Mommy, where are you?”

“I’m in the bathroom.”

“Are you having some privacy?”

“Well, I was.”

Lastly, his ability to speak now enables him to ask borderline existential questions. Today he asked “Is Mommy love?  Daddy, are you love?”.  Clearly the only correct answer to these questions is yes.  We just hadn’t thought about it that way before.

There is a surprising amount of wildlife around us, at least for an urban/suburban environment: rabbits, chipmunks, squirrels, ducks, deer, frogs (more likely toads, we’re not entirely sure), mice.  A couple weeks ago we found a vole in our basement.  That’s right, a vole.  We had never seen one before and it looked like a mouse until its front legs and claws were closely examined.  But by far the most commonly viewed example of wildlife this summer has not been an animal but rather an insect: the mosquito. There have been thick swarms of them in our backyard, so much so that even spending 10 minutes watching the July 4th fireworks from our backyard was impossible. We have been building a patio in the backyard, which has been pretty tricky with the mosquitos because Chris has to swat at them like a madman between each brick placement. Chris even contemplated building a DIY laser system to shoot the mosquitos out of the air:
http://spectrum.ieee.org/consumer-electronics/gadgets/backyard-star-wars/1
though this could be a bit dicey with small children around.  In spite of this we were able to get the patio (mostly) finished in time to still use it this summer. Here is some footage of Everett helping Dad with gravel leveling:

Other forms of wildlife:

-There was a huge outdoor dinosaur exhibit at the zoo this summer. Lots of mechatronics and sound, and several life-sized specimens, to which Everett exclaimed “That’s ridiculous!”

-One sign of affection from Everett: gathering imaginary rabbits off the top rim of his milk cup and handing them to people. Upon receiving a rabbit you are expected to hold it in your hand, put it in your pocket, or put it on your shoulder.

-One significant event that caused a lot of discussion was when Morritz the cat caught a mouse at Sophie and Anna’s house (photo above). “Morritz caught a mouse, and then the blood, and then the mouse died.”

One way that we learn Everett’s perceptions of what is happening around him is when he makes imaginary phone calls. He will pick up a phone or an acorn or a strap or almost any object, hold it to his hear and give the person on the other end a synopsis of what is going on in his life at the moment. From this we know that he flew over the ocean to Swintzerland, then took a train to Austria to see Carrie and Anna and Sophie and Armin, which was the next leg of the trip. This was the first time we had seen Carrie since Everett was born and the first time Everett had been introduced to her family.

It was fantastic to see him and the girls together, and it was great to see him get his first taste of alpine adventures. The weather over the weekend was sunny and warm, so on Saturday night we drove to Hintersee and hiked for about an hour and a half, followed by meat, cheese, beer and pofosen at zer Reithütte. The next afternoon we drove to Gosausee and hiked around the lake. Everett walked a fair amount of it and only got in the stroller for brief periods after registering major complaints about it, while the adults wanted to have a nice walk and have him in bed at a reasonable hour. The only way we could get him to stay in the stroller was if Sophie pushed it. This is a perfect example of the dynamic we have observed between Everett, Sophie and Anna. He wants to do everything they are doing, including hiking around the lake, walking up hills, climbing rocks, etc. If they are ahead on the trail he wants to catch up, and if they are behind then he wants to wait for them. At these times it is best for parents to adopt a style more common to grandparents: try not to have any particular goals or destinations. Just go with it for a while and then switch activities. After the hike, Everett managed to stay awake for the entire drive home, finally getting to bed around 9pm and waking up at about 5:30am, which is not good behavior for keeping parents happy. I recall many times as a child telling my parents that I was not tired at bedtime, and feeling some sense of injustice that I had to go to bed under those circumstances. But now I realize that it’s not about whether the child is tired or not, it’s that the parents have had enough for one day and are ready for some time to themselves. Everett, like most children, seems to have a lot of excess energy to burn off:

The rest of the week flew by, as time seems to when caring for children. One day everyone went to Salzburg for the afternoon. Armin, Sophie and Anna went to the Haus der Nature, Melissa and Carrie went shopping, Chris and Everett went for a walk through old town. Then everyone met up at about 5 for dinner at the Augustiner, which happened to be delicious. Everett began getting exhausted and manic around 6. By 7 he was falling asleep in the car and by 8 he was home and asleep in bed.

From listening to Everett’s subsequent phone calls we learned the following:

-Sophie was hurt when she was stung by a bee.

-He and Sophie and Anna got a ride on the Bedtime Party Bus, which refers to the evening when Melissa and Chris put all the kids to bed while Carrie and Armin went to a school meeting.

-Morritz the cat caught and killed a mouse.

No, that’s not a typo – it’s how Everett pronounces Switzerland.  Our flight left Dulles airport on time on Saturday evening.  We even managed to sit together 3 in a row in the middle of the plane, which was quite a relief because according to the United website (and customer service for that matter) they didn’t even have seats for us.

Sunday: Upon arrival we breezed through the Zurich airport.  The combined time required for passport control, baggage, customs and car rental was less than time required to get through the airport on most domestic flights.  We put our bags in the car, had breakfast in the airport, went to the grocery store (also in the airport – transportation hubs in Europe are quite different from the US) and left for Ascona.  Everett slept most of the flight and woke up immediately upon landing.  “Are we in Swintzerland?!?”.  He also slept in the car for most of the three hour trip through some beautiful snow-capped mountains, which we thoroughly enjoyed even though we were struggling to stay awake.  During the last hour or so of the drive we descended from the high mountains to the more mediterranean climate around Lake Maggiore.

The first hiccup in this trip occurred when we arrived in Ascona: the owner had double booked our house for Sunday night and instead offered to put us up in a hotel.  I was pretty irritated but Melissa was livid.  We had specifically planned the trip this way so that we could unpack, relax and cook dinner after a long overnight flight with little sleep and a six hour time change.  Also, one big factor in choosing this house was that Everett could have his own room.  This was a lesson we learned when Chris gave a talk at the University of Chicago a few months ago during which the three of us stayed in a hotel room together – Everett would not stay in the crib without screaming, perhaps because we were in sight a few feet away.  So we put him in bed with us, where he was a miniature tornado until settling down at 5:15am, which allowed Chris to get 45 minutes of sleep before getting up for his talk at 6am.  Ouch.  Anyway, after talking with the owner of the rental house we looked into family housing at Monte Verità (the conference center).  No one seemed to know how this might work so we checked into the hotel, tried to rest while Everett bounced around the room, and then went for a walk.  Everett promptly fell into a deep sleep so we returned to the hotel for more rest and to get cleaned up for dinner on the waterfront.  Everyone went to bed about 8 or 8:30.

Monday: Amazingly, Everett slept through the night despite being in the room with us, and even required significant amounts of encouragement to wake up.  Melissa took him out of the crib, sat him up and rubbed his back while saying “Good morning Everett, we’re in Switzerland,” to which he replied “Thank you!”.  We had a fantastic breakfast at the hotel during which Everett was absolutely exuberant.  “Are we in Swintzerland?  I’m having chocolate for breakfast!  Hi birdie!  Where’s the cat?  Mmmmmmm, gnkn!”  Gnkn is the word Everett invented for milk, though he hasn’t used it for many months.  It’s pronounced just as it’s spelled.

After breakfast Melissa tried driving the car for the first time when she dropped Chris off at Monte Verità for the conference.  Chris sat through a day of lectures while Melissa and Everett went on adventures including walking the maze and hiking paths at the conference center, exploring the grocery store and checking into our house.

Monday evening: Melissa picked Chris up at about 5pm from the conference and we had a lovely dinner outside.  The house where we stayed was part of a property with several houses around a common courtyard that was flush with grapes, figs and other fruits that we couldn’t quite identify.  The figs were the best fruit I have ever eaten in my life.  We taught Everett to hunt for them and managed to snack on them repeatedly before leaving. As a side note, this is where Everett started sleeping with the door to his room open and the light on.

The weather on Tuesday and Wednesday was very rainy, which made the days seem long and very unlike our expectations from the final scene in the Sound of Music.  Tuesday evening we went with everyone from the conference on a boat to Isole Di Brissago for a guided tour of the botanical gardens in the rain.  It turned out that Danny, a friend of Chris’ from graduate school, was also attending the conference and the guided tour, so Melissa and Everett finally got to meet him. The tour was too much talking and too little walking for Everett, who took his shoes off and led us on his own tour.  In order to make it back within several hours of his bedtime we had to take the early boat so we missed dinner on the island and instead went to a restaurant by the waterfront where we learned some peculiarities about language in Switzerland.  On prior trips to Europe I have always tried to learn some local language, at least enough to function as a tourist.  This was partly to be a good international citizen, and to do my small part to overcome the image that Americans are as inept and self-absorbed as a certain Texan who lived on Pennsylvania Avenue until recently.  I usually give up when virtually all of my attempts at local language were answered in English.  However, in this region of Switzerland English is at best a third or fourth language for most people.  Melissa does fine with French.  And fortunately most people seem to understand the vocabulary I’ve cobbled together from French, German, Italian and English.  Anyway, the waiter at this restaurant only seemed to speak Italian, which is probably why he brought iced tea when we tried to order milk for Everett in English, French and German.  Perhaps Italian babies drink a lot of iced tea at bedtime?

The next morning Chris got up early to give his talk, then took Danny to the train station, stopping along the way at four different ATMs in an attempt to get money to pay for our house.  Each time he received my card back with the message “No transactions are permitted with this card.”  Finally he gave up and after dropping Danny off went back to the house to pick up Melissa and E.  Fortunately Melissa was able to figure out the ATM problem (make several small withdrawals). That evening we were able to spend some time at a beautiful beach and playground at the east end of the lake. Chris noted that this part of Switzerland smells like his maternal grandmother’s house. Or maybe it was the smell blowing north over the lake from Italy.

Thursday morning was absolutely beautiful outside.  We left the house at 9am and drove back to Zurich, stopping in Seelisburg to see the hotels on the cliff overlooking Lake Lucerne (Vierwaldstättersee). It’s always interesting to observe the peculiarities and customs that are used in other countries.  One favorite of the Barber family is the signs that are posted in France as you enter each town, often containing one arrow with the label “Toutes Directions” and an opposite arrow with the label “Autres Directions”. For some reason “other” directions are not included in “all” directions. In this region there are roadway signs that have a number with a circle around it like this one:

and it’s a sensible assumption that this is the speed limit in km/hr.  It is less clear what this sign means:

and it’s possible that Chris’ misinterpretation led to a speeding ticket that was received in the mail several months later.

We arrived in Zurich, returned the rental car and took the train from the airport to the downtown station for our trip to Salzburg.  Melissa and I had high expectations for this train ride.  Trains are a symbol of our love for travel as well as a great way to see the countryside.  And train rides are always preceded by a trip to the grocery store to stock up for a train picnic, in this case lots of meat and bread and local delicacies.  Oh yeah, and lots of stinky cheeses. When mold grows on cheese in the US we throw it out, but in this part of the world they charge extra for it.  Who knew mold and fungus could be so tasty? Anyway, on this trip we were particularly excited about exposing Everett to the whole experience.  We also chose an itinerary that went the longer, southern route to Salzburg through the mountains in Switzerland and Austria, rather than the flatter northern through Munich.  The first thing we noticed was that we had too much stuff to get on and off the train smoothly.  This was not a surprise to us – we had talked about it often while planning the trip, along with the stereotype of Americans who travel with too much stuff, and had even reduced our load by two suitcases before we left home.  After struggling to get our stuff on the train, folding and stowing the stroller, etc, we discovered that the train agent sold us two tickets in adjacent, airline-like seats at one end of the train, which required Everett to sit on our laps.  This person is probably not a parent or he would have mentioned that the car at the opposite end of the train had a “KinderKino”, which is an open play area for kids with stairs leading up to a picture window:

Seriously?!? Chris figured this out while scouting for better seats.  So we moved ourselves and all of our stuff and settled in for the rest of the trip, which was not quite as romantic as we had imagined.  Everett had not napped that day and was turning into a maniac rather than joining us in the blissful reverie of rolling through a foreign land.  Eventually we had to strap him into his stroller until he cried himself to sleep:

which is where he stayed until we arrived that evening in…