Everett does things from time to time that would be far funnier if he was someone else’s child, like chucking his sippy cup out of the car once the milk is gone, or throwing his snack cup and then commanding one of us to “get it” while it is still in midair. He is now about 21 months old, but it feels like he is already two. We say this based on descriptions from books and other parents about the “terrible twos”. Our perception is that when he first started speaking he marveled at his newfound power to get what he wanted using words alone. But after a while he realized that his ability to describe what he wants can stretch far beyond the boundaries of what is possible and acceptable, and this leads to two results. First, he does not like it. Second, he doesn’t yet have the capacity to handle the flood of emotions that quickly follow. At such times it is tempting for us to treat him as a small adult and to try reasoning with him to calm him down. However, we are slowly overcoming this habit.

Another possible sign of the terrible twos is general bossiness. Everett now stands in the driveway and gives orders to the birds like “Birdie, eat some treats!”. A few days ago Melissa gave him some cooked lentils to eat. He poured them onto the driveway and then marched up to the giant oak tree in our neighbors yard, pointed to where he had dumped them and said “Squirrel, eat some beans!”. We tolerate a certain amount of this kind of behavior, such as when he is playing the music toy in the kitchen and telling us to dance, or ordering everyone to wear their napkins on their heads while eating dinner. So far he doesn’t require a lot of disciplinary action, which is good because it allows us lots of opportunities to enjoy family time. His language has now become detailed enough that we have a window into his inner world, part of which includes imitations of us. Apparently we must say “So” and “Ok” a lot when preparing to do things. Another part of his inner world is his imagination. He recently started telling us facts about The Big Fat Turkey, such as “The big fat turkey is taking a nap” or “The big fat turkey is sitting on the house”. Neither of us is exactly sure who this turkey is, where he came from or what kind of interesting life he leads, but we do feel confident that Everett will keep us informed.

In the fall of 2007 Chris started interviewing for faculty positions at almost exactly the same time we found out Melissa was pregnant. Academic institutions tend to move at the speed of glaciers, and as the interview process dragged on for months, we experienced steadily increasing anxiety about where we would be living during late pregnancy and who would provide medical care for Mom and baby. I grew so frustrated with these institutions that I jokingly suggested that if they did not make a decision soon then my pregnant wife would be contacting them directly for answers, acknowledging the fact that pregnant women are a force of nature that few people want to engage directly, and Melissa in particular can be pretty persuasive when she wants something. In early 2008 we decided that time was up: we would stay in Cleveland until the baby was born. We made this decision to reduce stress, but that year turned out to be pretty wild nonetheless: Chris ruptured a disc in his back in April; Everett was born in June; Melissa made the transition of being a full-time worker to full-time Mom, all the while maintaining her graduate work; Chris had his 40th birthday on August 1; a couple days later we moved to Wisconsin, and a couple days after that he started a new job; we were out of the country for the month of September for a research fellowship in Switzerland.

During the time since then our lives have not slowed down much, and this activity level has amplified the need for refuge, which can come in a variety of big and small ways. For example, we have a Sandra Boynton book called Pajama Time which contains a catchy song by the same name; for some time now when E gets excited he will run around saying “Jamma, Jamma, Jamma!”. So for Valentine’s Day we had a pajama breakfast party with Russ, Lauren, Nora and Virginia. Russ and Lauren whipped up a fantastic meal. Everett and Nora enjoyed breakfast and a movie together.

We also find refuge in the Zoo, the Milwaukee Public Museum and the Audubon Nature Center, which is a quiet, meditative place on Lake Michigan in northeast Milwaukee, shown in the photo at the top of the page and this one:

Our most recent visit to the Audubon Center was with Gabby & Grandaddy on a snowy spring day. We sat by the fire for a while,


then Everett found a wild turkey and finally went for a hike.


Whatever the activity or the place, our inspiration for finding refuge comes mostly from Everett. We want him to grow up in a joyful home, and as parents we want to manage our own lives well enough that we are consistently available to him. The other night at dinner he announced “Mommy happy, Daddy happy, Everett happy. Everybody happy!”, which is certainly a good sign.

Stomping in puddles seems to be a universal source of joy for children. I distinctly remember doing this as a child, and Everett spontaneously started doing it a couple weeks ago. He probably would have done it earlier but the puddles were frozen. He has also developed his own way of self-confidently stomping off into the horizon, especially when one of his parents is following behind.

Another popular activity is shoveling. In time we may be able to teach him how to shovel the snow from the driveway onto the yard instead of vice versa. But right now he likes to stay outside shoveling until his hands turn purple (the shovel cannot be used with gloves on).

Here is some stomping and shoveling, along with one of the first signs of spring: talking to the birds.

One trait that makes us uniquely human is the ability to correlate any two events at will. Most of the time this ability helps us make sense of the world more quickly than classic conditioning methods. Stoves are hot, snow is cold, etc. But a second trait that makes us similar to most other animals is the amount of time it takes to extinguish incorrect correlations once they become established, even if they originated from only a single occurrence. This explains why Everett believes that:

-Fireplaces contain birds: a bird once fell down the chimney into our fireplace, which he noticed right away. Since then he walks up to most fireplaces and says “birdie?”.
-Lizards live in clocks: here I am referring to the Clock Lizard at the pool in the Cayman Islands. Since we returned home he has been looking for lizards behind clocks.
-He can talk to people through shirt pockets: Everett knows that phones are used to make calls, and that my cell phone is usually in the breast pocket of my dress shirt. He put these together and started saying “Hello!” into the pocket.

There are other correlations that are actually correct, but we sometimes wish he would forget, such as the discovery that grocery stores have free cookies for children. As soon as he learned this he suddenly developed the ability to identify any grocery store.

Some correlations clearly come from mimicry. Shoes come in three varieties: Everett’s, Mommy’s and Daddy’s:

And tripods are used to take pictures, although something seems to be missing here:

Lastly, there are some correlations that we hope he never forgets: a few days ago he saw his reflection and said “Everett handsome”. And a few weeks ago he was sitting in his car seat and said “Everett good”.

Everett is the child of two researchers who at times experience him as an ongoing experiment.  However, he is not always a cooperative research subject, and so in many cases we must rely on observations alone to answer two questions that are of great interest to us:

1. How much does he understand?

2. How long can he remember events?

While he continues the bootstrapping process of learning to speak, reason and navigate through the world, we continually watch for clues that might answer these questions.  Here I will try to capture a few vignettes, some related to our research questions and some are future clues about things we would like to remember.

House

First, a clue that has to do with our house rather than Everett.  One day we were looking at the stone above the fireplace and noticed something unusual:

This looks like it might be a fossil, but we never thought about it much until one day at the Milwaukee Public Museum when we saw this:

which seems like a pretty clear match.  So there you have it: our house was most likely built with stone from the nearby Silurian Racine Formation, including a fossil of an extinct cephalopod.

Memory

Getting back to E, last year he learned to say “Dada” and soon afterward he would start screaming it when I came home, sometimes to the point of hyperventilating, which had the side effect of making me feel like some kind of rock star.  One night we were on a Skype call with the Gabbys and I said goodbye early to go pick up dinner.  When I returned home I was greeted with “Pizza!” instead of “Dada!”, indicating that he knew what pizza was, overheard me mention it during our Skype call and remembered for the half hour or so while I was gone.  Similarly, last November I took him to the Audubon Center one day when they happened to be showing one of the resident owls, which he repeatedly and emphatically identified.  We didn’t return for a couple months, mainly because of holiday travel and other commitments, but when we pulled into the parking lot in January he started shouting “owl!” as soon as I opened the car door.

Knowledge

Everett’s continues to amaze us with his language.  We sometimes try to teach him specific words, but most he seems to pull from thin air. Elevators, satellites and asteroids are a small sample of recent arrivals.  Also, some of his names for people are changing: for as long as he has spoken he has called Melissa’s parents Gabby & Gabby.  But over the last few days, in the absence of any correction or encouragement, he has started calling them Gabby & Gandaddy.  We aren’t sure if he remembers this from long ago or heard someone else say it, but it looks like it is here to stay.  Lastly, he has started adapting phrases that he hears from us, such as the time his friend Leo was crying, and he crouched down and asked “What go on baby?”.  When he couldn’t get a satisfactory answer he turned to Melissa and shrugged.

Tools

Everett has a growing interest in tools and instruments.  It’s too soon to say whether he has The Knack, but he is certainly interested in screwdrivers and power supplies (note to the grandparents: the power supply is not plugged in).


Oh yes, the force is strong with this one.

Mother

Melissa’s maternal instincts continue to become stronger, so much so that sometimes they spillover from her son to her husband, such as the times she unconsciously tried to put a bib on Chris, or served him a drink in a sippy cup, or asked him when he was headed to the bathroom whether he was going to pee or poop.

Parents

Finally, there are times when Everett is upset and we can’t gather enough clues to figure out what is bothering him.  At this point we usually attribute his mood to things that each of us experience often: Chris thinks he is overheating, while Melissa thinks that his skin is dry and he “needs lotion”.

For the past week we have been on Grand Cayman island for a family vacation with Gabby & Gabby. Since Everett is not yet able to write, I will attempt to summarize the trip using his words: spaceship (airplane), Horton (Hears a Who), Gabby, swim, lizard, I-GUA-NA, fish, crab, beach, swing, camera, more swim, more fish, more crab, more beach. Judging from his reaction, one of the best features of the island is the large lizard population, and among them the most popular is the clock lizard at the pool, whom he would check on several times a day.

Most of the remaining time was spent exploring the pool and the beach with the Gabbys and Mom and Dad. Melissa and Chris both enjoy tide pools very much – it’s one of those places where you can sit and watch part of the world unfold in front of you. In fact, one of the formative experiences in our relationship was in Friday Harbor, Washington during a long weekend of land, sea and air exploration while Chris was researching Hermissenda. So we were happy to discover that Everett seems similarly interested in tide pools, and after a couple days he became quite adept at finding the many varieties of fish and crabs in them. Everyone seemed happy to stay near home most of the week, which was great and very relaxing although we weren’t sure where all the time went. Photos of the trip are here. A few highlights are in the video below.

The week leading up to this trip was a rough one for Everett.  First he slipped in the tub while Chris was giving him a bath, cracking both of his front teeth and chipping one of them. Two days later he rolled off the bed and hit his head on the dresser, which resulted in a puncture and gash to his forehead. In the former case the dentist said we would have to watch it for a few weeks before deciding exactly what to do. In the latter case we opted for urgent care rather than the emergency room. One illogical but perhaps not surprising development in medical care since we were children is that neither the pediatrician nor the urgent care clinic will provide stitches; this is only done in the emergency room. The urgent care doctor said that Dermabond might work but recommended stitches. At that point we were already two hours past his bedtime and this would have required completely starting over in the ER, then sedating him, then stitching. Also, the stitches would have to be removed in a few days while we would be in the Caymans. So we opted for Dermabond, which seemed to work ok. Everett was amazing while the medical team worked on him.  It took them three attempts before they could clean his wound, approximate the skin and apply the glue, and during this time he was still and mostly quiet. About ten minutes afterward he pointed at the exam bed and said “Ouch”.

The week on Grand Cayman was fantastic, primarily because Everett was surrounded by four doting adults, all of whom seem to experience delight in spending time with him.  His speech has expanded from words to sentences to multiple sentences.  He was able to wish Gabby (Cress) a Happy Birthday, and bless Gabby (Amanda) when she sneezed.  His communication has now progressed to the point where using the same name for both Cress and Amanda has become a bit confusing.  The only time we are able to differentiate is when only one of them is present, during which he calls them Gabby and Other Gabby.  Another reason this trip went so well is because the Gabbys volunteered to serve as our advance travel reconnaissance team.  They got there a few days before us, and by the time we arrived they had already setup the apartment with a crib and a room for Everett (ok, a closet), and had found a car with car seat.  This allowed us to travel lighter than we have for any other family vacation, and with the warm weather we are to lighten our load further by leaving cold weather gear behind.

We will end this blog entry with a piece of information for parents traveling with infants: those of you who have travelled in the last few years know that the airlines have become fond of personless, electronic systems for checking you into you your flights.  Even if you are traveling with an infant they will insist, sometimes even demand, that you use these same systems to check your entire family in for each flight.  We have tried this on multiple airlines for domestic and international travel and have observed the following: electronic checkin with infants is impossible.  What happens is that we struggle with the electronic system for a while, then find the one airline person who is trying to service 20 kiosks, then they struggle with it for a while, and then they direct us to a customer service desk where a human checks us in, and even then it can take a long, long time.  So our advice is to resist their insistence and just find a human as soon as possible. We have also noticed that things move a little faster if your baby is crying, not that we are suggesting you do anything to encourage this, such as turning off the Horton DVD.

When Everett started talking we could almost always figure out what he was saying from context clues, such as “nk!” for milk or “shtaah” for star.  We also learned that he does not often say things randomly – if he says “cow” or “moo” then there is some kind of cow-likeness nearby, even if it takes us a couple minutes of searching to locate.  But his vocabulary is now a flood that we simply cannot keep up with.  It is clear when he is parroting us, and sometimes it is clear that he is re-expressing what he senses, like saying “trouble” when he hears the word “problem”, or saying “no pork chop” after overhearing a conversation between the butcher and a woman at the grocery store.  However, he has recently started expressing ideas and observations that don’t seem to have any immediate relevance or urgency, and because we can’t always understand his pronunciation we have a list of words that have clear meaning to him but which are awaiting identification by us.  One word that we have no trouble understanding is No, which seems to be a significant word for toddlers.  It is one of the easiest to say and most powerful words in their vocabulary, so it’s not a surprise that many of them learn it quickly.  I anticipated that Everett would use this word in the defiant sense that I have seen from other toddlers, i.e. saying “No!” when told to do or not do something.  We haven’t observed this yet, but we have observed several other uses, such as:
1. No, I don’t want this anymore, take it away.
2. I don’t like what you are doing, please stop immediately.
3. I’m doing something I know I’m not supposed to do, so I will say “No, no, no” while I look right at you and do it anyway.

Please is another powerful word.  For some time we have been encouraging Everett to ask for what he wants rather than crying or whining, and we have also started to work on good manners in the form of please and thank you.  He has learned quickly, but now we are sometimes faced with the unfortunate situation that he has done what we asked but he is not going to get what he wants, no matter how irresistible he is.  He seems to sense this, and when he does he replaces “please” with “pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease!”, which among other things tests our resolve as parents.

We are very curious how much Everett remembers about past events.  To do so we have become detectives, mainly to figure out which features of the world are salient to him.  One fun way to do this is to ask him open-ended questions such as new words he learned today or the names of animals at the zoo.  Of course, this requires his participation on his part, and we recently learned that the average boy toddler responds after you call his name five times while girls respond after three.  We have started to experience this and we were initially tempted to believe that he is not listening to us when he does not respond, but instead we have learned that he is just not acknowledging.  This is how we found out that “pizza” has high salience but “put your coat on” does not.

We are thankful that Everett can verbally express ideas and desires, and are now trying to figure out what to do with all this information.

Happy New Year to our friends and family!  We hope this message finds you well.

The first day of the new decade started at about 7:30am for us when Everett decided he had slept enough to recover from the New Year’s Eve party (he went to bed at 7pm).  We managed to stay in bed until about 8, then had Goetta, eggs, bagels and lox for breakfast.  By 9am Chris was on his bike, headed downtown to meet some fellow Tosa Spokesmen for a New Year’s Day bike ride before the polar plunge into Lake Michigan at noon.  The ride was followed by coffee and conversation at Alterra.  Melissa, Everett, Klaus and Meri-Jo also met us there and at about 11:30 we headed over to Bradford Beach for the plunge.  We were expecting a dozen or so crazy people, so we were shocked to find a crowd of well over 1,000 people on the beach without any parking available within a mile.  Even Elvis was there.  See photo above and video below.  None of us took the plunge this year but as soon as Chris saw the event he regretted not bringing his swimsuit and a towel.  Maybe next year.  But it did make us realize something important about Milwaukee that we did not appreciate until we lived here for a while: this place is alive.

Other New Year’s weekend activities…

First, a visit to the Milwaukee Public Museum.  Melissa and Everett have been there many times but this was Chris’ first visit, and it is a truly impressive museum.  There Everett learned about local birds (this photo also contains a nice view of his baby mullet),

while Melissa and Chris learned about members of the weasel population in Wisconsin including pine martens and fishers.  We also learned that Wisconsin is not named the Badger state for badgers, even though they appear prominently on the state flag and as school mascots.  Rather, the state was so named for miners who dug burrows in the ground during the winter.  We read this at the MIlwaukee County Zoo as well as the Public Museum, so it must be true:

Second: Everett’s first time sledding.  Because it happened so quickly we were unable to capture the look of surprise and concern on his face as he and Chris rode a saucer down the hill behind our house.  The single digit temperatures and setting sun made it a short outing, but next time we will try out Everett’s new skis as well.

Lastly: a visit to the zoo.  This was on another cold day, which meant that Everett had to be pretty bundled up, so much so that he could hardly move and we sounded like the parents from the Bill Cosby skit who overdress their child.

One funny thing about his snowsuit is that it’s almost as wide as it is tall.  Poor kid.  Here he and Melissa are watching the otters frolic.

It was a busy weekend but we still had time to reflect on how much our lives have changed over the past year.  At some point Everett transformed from an infant into a person with his own volition, opinions, desires and imagination.  We aren’t sure precisely when this happened even though it was right before our eyes, but we are mindful of and amazed at the rate at which he changes.  And we are looking forward to new family adventures in 2010.

Happy Birthday Sean!!!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all of our friends and family.

We are spending Christmas with family & friends in Cincinnati.  Here are some photos of the trip.

There is an unusual house around the corner from ours.  It’s clear that no one lives there but there are no signs or other indications as to what goes on, aside from the random times when a piece of green posterboard is in the front window with the writing “Yes, We’re Open”.  Out of curiosity Chris stopped by one day and as soon as he opened the door the smell made it clear that this is The Spice House.  It is run by Ruth and her husband, the ones who started the Penzey spice empire before they gave the name to their children.  Ruth is also a neighbor of ours on Kavanaugh who loves children, so we always take Everett with us when we visit.  She has a rather unobtrusive website that advertises spices and the local group that has made them over the years: http://www.kavanaugh-hill-spices.com/.

We purchase spices from Ruth throughout the year but especially around Christmas as Melissa makes batch after batch of rosemary shortbread cookies and Chris prepares our first gingerbread houses since moving to Wisconsin.  This Christmas will be Everett’s first time making gingerbread houses, which has been a tradition of Chris’ for about 20 years, except for last year which was so hectic we ended up just making cookies instead.  We will be in Cincinnati for Christmas and so will be making them there with friends and family.  The tradition of making gingerbread houses was introduced to Chris by the Jacoby family.  The entire enterprise was led by Mr. Jacoby, a fun-loving, gregarious man who made dozens of gingerbread houses each year for each of his three children and their friends and families (Chris was good friends with the second oldest, JT).  He also bought a used fire engine to transport Christmas carolers before and after house construction.  Anyway, Chris picked up the tradition and has introduced it to many other people over the years who have expressed varying levels of enthusiasm, but the Barbers more than anyone else jumped in with both feet and took to it right away.

Chris’ recipe produces gingerbread that is both tasty and meets appropriate engineering standards for sturdy construction (one of the most important points from this report: shortening produces much stronger gingerbread than butter or margarine).  One difference this year was that we used freshly milled spices from the Spice House, which seems like an appropriate way to incorporate our new hometown into this tradition.  Also, this year marks the first time that Chris actually read the baking instructions and subsequently found that they contain some useful information.  We made a village of five houses this year: The Gabbys (Grandad and Grandma Barber), The Butsons (Melissa, Chris, Everett), The Szolwinskis & Birches (Grant, Judy, Matt Jenny, Anna, Adam),The Barbers (Matt, Shawna & Trinity), The Singers (Kirsten, Braden, Bob, Linda).

Everett wasn’t quite old enough to participate in construction, but he was old enough to taste test a lot of the decorations, and candy consumption was certainly one measure of success.  Another was seeing what each family created from the same pool of raw materials.  Plans are already in the works for next year when house pieces will be precision crafted from CAD drawings using an Epilog laser.