Eighteen months and counting

Yesterday's post also coincided with Andrew turning 18 months, so today we took him in for his routine doctor's visit. We already knew that Andrew was big for his age, but this morning's visit confirmed this. For those of you who are interested in such things, here are Andrew's latest stats: weight: 29 lbs 6 oz.; height 34 3/4 inches; head circumference: 50.1 cm. He's 95th percentile for height and head size, and 90th percentile for weight. Pretty much a healthy, happy, herculean little boy.

The Age of Innocence

Those of you who follow our blog faithfully (and you know who you are) will be glad to know that this week we actually have real events to narrate (not mundane details magnified into unmerited glory).

Our week began fairly innocuously with a visit to a park that we don’t often go to, although Andrew was more interested in the dogs who were there with their owner (but while he was fascinated by the dogs and kept following them, he would rapidly retreat if they appeared to return his interest). I don’t think this particular park is very Andrew friendly, though—the climbing gym has too many openings that are hard for me to cover, and I don’t trust Andrew (yet) not to step through one of them.

That evening, as usual, I had appointments at the writing center. Normally, this is not so remarkable, but this evening something unusual happened. I should probably provide a little back story. A few times in the last couple weeks I and one of the women in a neighboring office (who often works into the evening) have observed an older man lingering in the lobby area of the building after hours. Since there was recently a meeting on building security, and we were told to report anything suspicious, this gentleman’s repeat visits were all the more noticeable (in fact, it was my neighbor who first drew my attention to him). He told me on one occasion that he was waiting to meet someone (who never showed up), but he didn’t appear to be a student or a faculty member. On this particular evening, I was a little nervous about this loitering—on the surface, he didn’t appear to be doing anything threatening, but I realized that everyone else on the ground level had left the building except for me and this man. So, I did what we were told to do: I called the campus police. I explained that he appeared relatively harmless, but that he didn’t appear to have any reason for loitering in the lobby that he was; they said they’d come by and check it out—which they did, about an hour later, and escorted him from the building. Apparently, this particular gentleman has been reported before for the same thing (although not recently)—and appears to have a fondness for our building). They also discovered that he had stored a couple of bags in some lockers reserved for graduate students. I’m still not sure how I feel about what I did—on the one hand, the university is concerned about people being in buildings after hours who don’t belong there; on the other hand, he clearly wasn’t hurting anyone or anything. And it also seems particularly ironic that this incident should occur just after I finished reading a book by Susan Ruddick (for my dissertation), called Young and Homeless in Hollywood, that describes, among other things, some of the ways that society dictates social hierarchies in place—in other words, how we recognize who belongs and who does not belong in a particular place. I’ve been trying to recall what exactly made me sure that this man did not *belong* and I’m not sure that I have any clear conclusions—this has also made me think, generally, about the social cues that help us recognize belonging in particular places: mostly dress, I think, but also behavior. Ruddick’s book also describes the ways that homeless youth in Hollywood attempt to blend in to particular places—to make themselves in effect invisible, so that they won’t also be driven out of those places. In Monday night’s case, apparently this man’s attempts at invisibility failed, and again, I’m still trying to puzzle out why—he was dressed reasonably nicely (khakis and a button-down shirt), and he was acting as though he was waiting for someone—a reasonable reason for lingering in an area. Perhaps it was because he seemed uneasy; perhaps because the papers that he always had with him did not appear to be related to any academic subject I’m familiar with. Anyway, for me it was a curious reminder about the significance of place—and, perhaps not so coincidentally, one of the topics I’m working on in my dissertation!

Tuesday morning began with a bit of excitement: I couldn’t find my keys. Since I needed to drive Andrew to the babysitters before heading up to campus to meet with students, this presented a bit of a problem. Dan and I both searched all over our apartment, looking in all the random places I (or Andrew) might have put them. Meanwhile, Andrew wandered around repeating delightedly, “key, key.” I finally found them—in my purse (but not in the pocket where I normally put them). Later that morning, Dan picked up Andrew from the babysitter’s, because he needed the car that afternoon to drive up to Zion’s Camp (the youth equivalent here of scout camp—as Dan puts it, “it’s girl’s camp, basically, for the boys”), where he stayed into the evening. (Not to imply that he left Andrew home—I got home just before he came back with Andrew, but if Dan had waited for me to get home, go pick up Andrew, and come back, it would have been later than he wanted). Andrew and I had a quiet—and warm!—afternoon, playing out in the yard with a bucket of water and then wandering over to the neighborhood park. Just after I put Andrew down to bed, the skies opened up—I imagine the boys were pretty excited about the sudden downpour on their camp! Dan came home around 9:15 to report another adventure—due to the slippery roads, he had slid into a guardrail and knocked out the front left light and tore off part of the car frame. We’re just glad that he made it home in one piece, even if the car didn’t.

On Wednesday, because we couldn’t drive the car until the insurance agency had sent someone to look at the car (and even then, the car had to be towed to the repair shop), Andrew and I spent a lot of time at home. After his morning nap, we walked up to campus, to return some library books, visit Dan, and go downtown to cash a check and have some ice cream. The weather was beautiful for so late in the spring—not too hot, with a cool breeze. We had a nice, leisurely outing and returned home in time to feed Andrew and put him down for a nap. Only there was a catch. For the second time in two days, I couldn’t find my keys. Luckily, our landlady lives just down the street, and I saw from her car parked out front that she was home. She was gracious enough to let us in, so I didn’t have to resort to calling Dan to come home from work to let us in.

Our car adventures continued on Thursday: in the late morning, Dan met with someone from the insurance agency, who then okayed the repairs. Dan called a tow-truck to take our car to the repair shop, and went back up to campus. Because we were car-less, Steph had kindly agreed to pick up Andrew at our house. After I finished my hours at the writing center, she brought him home, where he promptly went down for a nap. Shortly after his nap, Steph returned with Gaby in tow (I had offered to watch Gaby while her mom had an appointment on campus). Although she and Andrew can play together nicely on occasion, Andrew was quite territorial, as it turns out, and very jealous of his mommy’s attention. Gaby, however, would have none of his shenanigans, and screeched loudly whenever Andrew tried to gainsay her. However, there were a few quite sweet moments, as when Andrew gave a somewhat reluctant Gaby a hug.

Perhaps the most interesting incident on Thursday was the email I received from my sister-in-law (Justin’s wife, Lia), explaining that they would be driving past State College Friday afternoon, and could they stop by? Normally, I would have been thrilled by this—in this particular case, it seemed like some kind of fate was conspiring against us, as they were coming by the *only* weekend all summer (well, at least until we move at the end of July) when I wasn’t going to be home! I was planning to attend a weekend workshop on “Rhetorics of Place,” part of the Rhetoric Society of America’s biennial Summer Institute, in Troy, NY (at Rensselaer Polytechnic).

Friday morning was an early one for us: I left just before 7 a.m. for my workshop. Some alumni from Penn State’s rhetoric program (Jess Enoch and Scott Wible), were kind enough to pick me up enroute to Troy (they were driving from Pittsburgh). I said good-bye to Andrew (not without a pang, as he, not unnaturally, protested my leaving). Dan didn’t seem quite as moved by my departure, although I’m not sure how excited he was at a weekend one-on-one with Andrew. Our drive was pretty uneventful, and we arrived in Troy about 12:30, with just enough time to check into the dorms, find lunch, and attend the opening of the workshop at 2 p.m. As far as dormitories go, these are pretty classic old, beat up, dingy looking dorm rooms. As someone put it, they look like a bunch of 18-year-old males have been living in them for a while. At least my stay wasn’t supposed to be long!

The workshop itself was pretty interesting, if a little less organized than I would like: the organizer asked each of us to present on our current research for half an hour. And while it has been interesting (sometimes fascinating) to hear what other people are working on, I would have liked a little more general discussion about the topic. Since this topic is directly related to my dissertation topic, I want to hear more about how people are thinking generally about theories of rhetorical space. On the upside, I’ve met some wonderful people (including a fellow Dorothy Sayers fan—always a good thing!), and I’ve had a chance to renew my acquaintance with a few people, like Greg Clark, a former English department head and current assistant dean in the Humanities college at BYU (and a potentially useful contact for the future!).

Meanwhile, back on the home-front, Dan was attempting to keep Andrew interested and pacified until his cousins arrived. For said arrival, they waited with nearly bated breath … and waited … and waited … Finally, Dan decided that they weren’t coming and put Andrew to bed for the night. Nearly an hour later (around 7:30 p.m.), the Collings clan finally put in their long-awaited appearance. Unfortunately, at this point, the only member of the Eves family who was there to greet them was Dan. However, he played the gracious host and even got out some of Andrew’s big toys for his cousins to play with. (From his description, it sounds like Julia and Eli were more interested in Andrew’s toys than they would have been in Andrew himself—in any case, Andrew has an alarming tendency to frighten older children by his sheer lack of any sense of personal boundaries and his inability to understand that simply because he sees something he wants does not automatically grant him ownership of said object).

Saturday morning found me back at the grindstone … er, workshop. After a couple more presentation, we headed down the famous (infamous?) Rensselaer steps (they remind me just a little of the famous Spanish steps in Rome—nearly as steep, though not quite so grandiose. The lower part of the stairs is in some disrepair, as apparently the university thinks it’s the city’s responsibility and the city thinks it’s the university). Since our workshop was on rhetorics of *place* the organizers not unnaturally thought it might interest us to learn something more about the particular place we found ourselves in, so we went down to the County Historical Society for a walking tour of downtown Troy. The weather could not have been better—the weather was in the mid 70s (not too cool, not too hot) and the sun was shining brightly. Even the curator who led our tour commented on the weather, suggesting that we were seeing Troy at its best. I had heard that Troy was not that pretty—and I imagine that the majority of the city is not, but the university is a pretty campus built mostly out of red brick, and the downtown area that we saw had some beautifully restored examples of early nineteenth-century architecture. (In fact, we were told that downtown Troy was where parts of The Age of Innocence were filmed). We also got to see the site of Emma Willard’s seminary, one of the first American educators who believed that women were capable of learning academic subjects as rigorously as men. Although Willard herself didn’t believe in woman’s suffrage, several of her students were among the power-houses of the nineteenth-century suffrage movement, including Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

Back in State College, one of Dan's lab mates, Kelly, brought her dog Glenn-Coco to visit Andrew. In typical Andrew fashion, Andrew was alternately fascinated and frightened of the dog--even one of such diminutive status.

After lunch at RSA, we had still more presentations, and then an hour break before dinner—a river cruise on the Hudson. When the shuttles dropped us off at the loading dock we ran into a wedding part—apparently they were to have the top two decks of the ship and we were to have the lower decks. But I’m sure the wedding party initially wondered what this group of dressed down, disparate looking folks was doing trying to crash their wedding. At any rate, the food on the cruise was pretty decent, and although the scenery was not as spectacular as some I’ve seen (I couldn’t help mentally comparing it to a similar cruise down the Rhine river in Germany, where we spotted castles on the hills every few miles), it was still nice and we saw some pretty views of downtown Albany. (However, as you can probably tell, Dan had the camera, so I don't have any pictures. You'll have to use your imagination).

brief update

Although it's been less than twenty-four hours since we posted last, we've already realized a number of Andrew vocabulary words that we omitted from our list. (This is probably of interest only to Andrew's grandparents--maybe other relatives--but if you aren't interested, feel no obligation to read further!). These omitted words include:

bow (bowl)
boo (book)
buh (bye, when accompanied by a wave)
da (dog)
ka (keys)
poo (spoon--although we realize we should probably do something about this one, or it might have unintended consequences!)
puh (puzzle--not to be confused with puff! Usually he's pointing at what he wants, so the distinction is pretty clear)
yeah (yes)
no (self-explanatory!)
toe (toast)

You realize, of course, that this list is as much for us (in two months, when Andrew's chattering up a storm, we'll have forgotten his limited vocabulary at this point), so please excuse us if we spend a lot of time recording this kind of trivia!

our budding rhetor

Nothing particularly of moment happened this week--no trips out of town, no unusual occurences. But Andrew has been babbling up a storm as he nears eighteen months (or two--he's beginning to have alarmingly toddler-like tantrum eruptions). We thought it only fitting to celebrate his new linguistic acquisitions by listing his new word acquisitions (most of them manifesting within the last week or two). So, with no further fanfare, we present the sum total of Andrew's vocabulary (or very nearly; there are probably some words we've forgotten):

bah (ball or bottle, depending on context)
ba (as in the first sound of "bath")
beh (bird)
bubb (bubbles--not Bubby, sorry! Although we have tried.)
ca (car)
cake
cu (cup)
da (dad)
dow (down)
go
mama
mo (more)
pa (puppy)
pah (park)
puh (puff)
shoe
tru (truck)




As for the rest of our activities this week, we will present them (as usual) chronologically, mundane though they be. Monday: Must have been Andrew's day for messes this week. In an unattended moment, Andrew figured out how to open a container of baby peas (he hasn't eaten baby food in some time, but we still have a few leftovers). Before we could stop him, he had shaken the entire contents all over the floor, leaving our kitchen looking like some sort of swamp monster had just been there. Later that evening, Dan watched Andrew while I went to the Writing Center. While I was gone, Andrew discovered the salt shaker on the table, and proceeded to shake salt all over the table and himself. Dan spent much of the remainder of the evening brushing salt out of Andrew's hair. As for me, I either neglected to tell Dan that I was doing a class visit after my appointments, or he forgot that I'd mentioned it--in any case, when I called him at 8:15 to say that I was late coming home, he was beginning to think something serious had happened to me, as he had expected me home an hour previously.



Tuesday evening, Dan went again to Huntingdon, where the youth played water volleyball until the skies opened up, and then they proceeded to throw the water balloons at each other. Needless to say, Dan came home soaked.

Wednesday, Dan went to the DC temple with the Huntingdon youth to do baptisms; meanwhile, Andrew and I went with our friends Stephanie and Gaby to Belleville, where they run a large farmer's market/auction every Wednesday during the summer. We walked around the stalls for a while, bought some fresh produce (the two toddlers, meanwhile, stared avidly around at all the people and the occasional animals). Belleville is also near local Amish country, which meant that among the cars and trucks assembled for the market were also a series of horses and carriages (Andrew was particularly excited by the horse). Afterwards, we had fried chicken and french fries at a local restaurant. By the time we left, both children (who had missed their morning naps in the excitement) were exhausted--by the time we'd driven more than a couple of miles both of them were sound asleep in their carseats in the back, sucking loudly on their pasifiers (it was rather cute). That evening, I was supposed to do a presentation on academic writing for a group of undergraduates at Penn State for a summer research program at 6 pm. Dan was intending to be back by 5:30, but since we all know what happens to the best of intentions, he called at 5 saying he was just leaving Huntingdon (nearly an hour's drive away). That meant I had approximately twenty minutes or so to find someone to take Andrew for half an hour and then get to campus. I begged one of our acquaintances to take him (who agreed rather reluctantly--she'd had a hard day and her house was a mess--not a good choice for Andrew!), but there wasn't anyone else who was close enough. Our closest neighbors weren't home, and by this time I was running short on options. Luckily, I ran into our neighbors at the end of the street on my way to Andrew's potential sitter, and one of them agreed to go back to the house and watch Andrew for a bit--so it all worked out for everyone concerned.



Not much happened on Thursday; I took Andrew to the park after his afternoon nap, where he ran around for a while. He was somewhat limited in his climbing abilities, though, because he insisted on carrying a small container of bubble solution everywhere with him. (I made the mistake of getting him a little spill-proof container that is now his new favorite toy--he wants to take it with him literally everywhere!). This made it rather hard for him to climb stairs.

Friday morning, Andrew and I set off on a round of yard sales. Not surprisingly, we ran into Stephanie and Gaby at the first yard sale we went to (if anything, Stephanie is more avid about yardsales than I am!). We then joined forces to visit the next couple, partly because Andrew protested everytime they walked away from us, perhaps believing that he was somehow going to get left behind. It's pretty funny to watch him and Gaby interact together--because they've spent so much time with each other, they have no self-consciousness and they're actually, on occasion, pretty good about sharing. That evening, because Steph's husband was out of town, we had them over for dinner as well--which meant more face-time for Andrew and Gaby, who spent the first several minutes of dinner staring fixedly at each other (and egging each other on subsequently in terms of who could eat more--and then who could throw more food on the ground).

Saturday: more yard sales! I found some really wonderful ones, including one where a couple was selling nice toddler boy clothes for a quarter a piece, and a reversible Eddie Bauer coat (scarcely worn) for $1. I have to confess that I was a little grumpy that morning because Andrew woke up just before 5 and wouldn't go back to sleep (unfortunately, this was probably my fault--when I'd adjusted the thermostat before going to bed I adjusted it way too high and the room was sweltering). But when I asked Andrew if he wanted to go to work with his dad, he said emphatically "no." So I asked, do you want to go to some yard sales? And he responded enthusiastically, "yeah, yeah!" Apparently my addiction is beginning to affect Andrew too . . . After his morning nap, we went to the library to get new books and fortuitously ran into Dan there (great minds think alike . . .). Andrew loves running around in the children's section, where they have a table with an elaborate train set, and a little puppet theater for kids. After his afternoon nap, we went to visit the park behind our house. On a previous visit, I had watched a precocious little girl (three months younger than Andrew) tackle the slides virtually on her own, with her father standing vigilantly by to give her support. At the time, I thought her father was quite brave! But on Saturday, after experience Andrew's vigorous protests every time I tried to go down the slide with him (he definitely did not want my help), I reluctantly decided to let him try the slides alone--I stood by to offer balance as needed, and I caught him on the way down, but he mastered even the big slide alone. He, needless to say, was thrilled--he went down the same slide five times in rapid succession--but I had my heart in my throat the whole time. My baby is getting so independent . . .

And that brings us today. Last night, Dan made cupcakes for the young men (the president is moving this week to Utah, where he will be married in August). I frosted them (well, most of them--after I teased Dan about his inferior frosting technique he let me do the rest of them!). We, rather unwisely, left the cupcakes on the table (in a cake carrier) . . . and you can probably guess the rest. This morning, Andrew climbed up on the table and, almost before we realized what he was doing, had upended the whole carrier so all 20+ cupcakes were smashed together on one end of the carrier. I had to refrost all of them and wash the container before we left for church at 8. Then, this afternoon, we had Megan Baylis over for dinner (Steve is out of town, so she was temporarily alone with their new baby). Sophie, who is six weeks old, was fussing during dinner, so I offered to hold her so Megan could actually eat something. This, however, had unexpected consequences--Andrew had a severe case of mommy envy--he began to cry, and when I would get close to him to try to calm him down, he would grab at any available part of my (my clothes, my arms). Clearly, he didn't like having to share his mom--something we'll need to cure him of if we ever want a second child!

Dr. Livingston, I presume?

We can't remember a whole lot about the beginning of the week, from which we deduce that not much of interest occured. Dan went to work, I had hours at the writing center, Andrew generally wrecked havoc. Life goes on. Tuesday evening was a bit of an adventure for us. Dan had a Young Men's activity in Huntingdon, at the same time I had a presentation for the writing center (on the exciting topic of "Writing Literature Reviews"--a necessary but potentially dull topic for graduate students). This meant that we had to figure out something to do with Andrew. Initially, we had thought that Dan might stay home this week (after all, he's been going solo for the last month, so it seemed only fair that one of his fellow leaders take the boys this week). Instead, however, the wife of our young men's president (and former Provo High graduate), Megan Kramer Collins, offered to watch Andrew for the evening and put him down to bed for us. When my workshop was over, I picked him up and transferred him to his own bed.

Midweek was coldish and rainy--I remember this because there were only a few people at the day in the park. (We only went because it was the park right behind our house, and so I figured that if it started raining we could come right home).

The highlight of the week, not surprisingly, was the weekend--and I think we spent most of the latter part of the week gearing up for our brief trip to Washington D.C. Friday morning, I went to a couple of garage sales (I wasn't going to be able to go on Saturday, so I had to get my weekly fix somehow!). I found a Little Tikes drum for Andrew, and some barnyard style pop-ons to go with the set Bubby and Poppy bought him for Christmas. We also went grocery shopping for our *long* roadtrip. At 2 pm, we went to pick Dan up from campus, and headed out. For some reason, we had this bright idea that, since 2 is Andrew's normal naptime, he would go right to sleep in the car. And he did eventually sleep--at 4:15, after screaming on and off for forty minutes. We stopped at the Cracker Barrel in Frederick, MD, for dinner (Andrew's new favorite restaurant). But things didn't really start getting interesting until we neared the DC area. The weather forecast had predicted scattered showers in the region--what we didn't realize was that scattered "showers" really meant intermittant downpours that resembled nothing so much as driving through a carwash. There were a few minutes where literally we could barely see the white lines between lanes--people slowed down to about half their usual speed. This lasted for about twenty minutes, and the rain lasted until after we got to the hotel. Because the rain made traffic so much slower, we were later getting in than we had planned, which meant Dan had to scramble to make it to the temple (we were afraid that the last session was at 8; Dan didn't leave the hotel until quarter to! Luckily, the last session was actually at 8:30). Andrew, up much later than usual, proceeded to fight sleep for nearly an hour before dropping off at 9. And I, in a teeth-gritting effort that I'm rather proud of, proceeded to actually work on my dissertation for an hour, rather than crashing on the bed (which was what I would have preferred to do).

In the morning, I headed out bright and early to the temple (well, I left around 7 am), fondly believing that DC, like most of the temples in Utah, opened as early as 5:30 a.m. However, my brief detour not withstanding (I got lost, despite--or perhaps because of--my trusty Mapquest directions), I still managed to arrive at the temple before they actually opened to patrons (7:30)--the first session wasn't until 8. Still, it was wonderful to be at the temple again. After I returned to the hotel, we loaded everything into the car and headed 3 blocks down the street to the metro station. We boarded the metro and headed into the heart of DC, our destination: the Smithsonian National Zoo. Not only is the zoo itself extensive and well-kept, but, even better, it's free to the public. It's hard to say who was more excited about the zoo--me, or Andrew. (Probably me, because Andrew wasn't quite sure what was going on some of the time). I had fully intended to have pictures to post to our illustrious blog, but, after carefully packing the camera in our bags, I then left it in the car at the metro station, and didn't remember until we were about to board the train. So, you'll have to use your imagination and picture wide asphalt pathways crowded with men, women, children, and strollers. We tried to weave our way around the crowds to see the different animals, but it didn't always work. We had a great view of the sloth-bear, who conveniently got up and walked right by the window where we were standing, but we were less successful in viewing some of the other wildlife--the leopard wasn't moving, so Andrew couldn't see it, and Dan and I both got quite irritated trying to show Andrew a red panda; some lady was yakking on her cell phone, right in front of the viewing platform, and when I said "excuse me" (we were trying to move around her), she responded by stepping into the opening that I was aiming for, and proceeded to gab away about something totally irrelevant to what she was doing. I don't think she noticed us, or anything else in her immediate surroundings (including her son, who was trying to get her attention), or the gorgeous red panda draped over a tree branch directly in front of her. (I think this incident was partly responsible for Dan's subsequent observation that people who talk on cell phones while doing other things ought to be shot. Not that we really think that, but we do think that people like this are responsible for giving cell phones a bad rap!) We also liked the bird house which, while not as exciting as some exhibits, made Andrew pretty excited (he kept pointing and saying "buh," "buh.") Dan reminds me that Andrew did particularly like the distant glimpse he caught of a panda, and he also seemed to like the elephants. (Although I should note that the key ingredient for pleasing Andrew seemed to be obvious movement--he liked anything that moved and he could point at).

We also ran into some old friends from State College, the Naluais, and their children, who were also in DC for the weekend, and, obviously, visiting the zoo. (For those of our readers who know the Naluais, you may be interested in knowing that Jamie is expecting another boy, in October. She confessed that, although she had thought she was done with her third, it was pretty clear that God had other plans for them!).

Wonderful as the zoo was, it was also a little overwhelming. After nearly two hours, we hit saturation point--even though we'd only seen about half of the exhibits--and headed toward the exit (well, more specifically, we headed for the restrooms near the exit, with the intent of changing Andrew before we left). Unfortunately, we weren't quite fast enough. As we neared the exit, we also ran into Kent and Elizabeth Hulet (also formerly of the State College/University Wards), who were meeting the Naluais. While we were chatting, I felt a suspicious warmth around my midsection (I was carrying Andrew at the time). I held Andrew away from me, and, sure enough, liquid was trickling down his legs. Since I had been clever enough to pack spare clothes for Andrew and leave those in the car, too, this meant that we came away from the zoo with an unintended souvenir--a new shirt, which was the closest we could come to replacing his now soaked outfit. So, Andrew made the rest of the way to our car in the fashionable combination of a red panda shirt and his diaper. (Dan reassured me that this lapse into white trash fashions did not mean I was a bad parent!)

Our drive home was relatively uneventful--after lunch at Chick-fil-a (Andrew really liked the chicken nuggets and fries), and a nice mint cookies and cream milk shake (well, Dan and I split this--Andrew, poor kid, didn't get any), we proceeded on our way. Andrew fell asleep after a short crying jag, and slept for nearly an hour, and the rest of the trip was pretty uneventful. (Well, aside from a horrifying stop at McDonalds about forty five minutes from home--we thought Andrew had been fussing because he was hungry and wanted out of the car, so we stopped to feed him and let him play. Only, this McDonalds didn't have a playground, and Andrew's handy alternative to the playground--climbing on all the tables and attempting to upend the salt and pepper shakers--didn't really seem suitable to us. He was also more interested in throwing his food than eating. S0, we were on the road again pretty quickly.)

And thus ends our brief jaunt into the wilds of DC. Although we didn't exactly return with Dr. Livingstone, we returned a little older, a little wiser, and a lot tireder.

In lieu of pictures of the zoo, we offer as a paltry replacement the only other shots we took of Andrew all week. Here, we have Andrew trying to pull off his dad's socks (Dan was trying to set a new fashion trend, but Andrew disapproved).



Andrew modelling his trendy Hawaiian shirt.



Last weekend, I picked up some Fisher-Price trucks for Andrew (a front-end loader--I think that's what it's called! I'm sure Jacob could correct me--and a dump truck). Andrew spent what for him constitutes hours (about forty minutes at one stretch) trying to carefully lift up the loader and deposit the plastic rocks in the dump truck without losing the rocks. The funniest part about the whole process was that he cried whether he was successful or not. I'm not sure what he was trying to accomplish, but we've also included a short video for your delectation!

Developmental Milestones

They say that a picture is worth a thousand words--and also that a word is worth a thousand pictures. We figure that, if this is true, why don't we hedge our bets with both? We might just as well have called this post the one with the thousand (slight exaggeration) pictures. So consider yourselves duly warned.

This week has been, for us, an eventful one. The week dawned sunny and bright--perfect Memorial Day weather. While Dan set off early to lab, Andrew and I headed just south of State College to Boalsburg Village, one of several locations in America that claim to have originated the Memorial Day holiday. Although our arrival fell between the two staged reenactments of civil war battle, we were able to walk down the main street where several vendors were set up, and found, to Andrew's great delight, a petting zoo at the end of the street. It took Andrew a few minutes to realize that none of the baby animals were in any way dangerous (initially, he hung close to me and wouldn't touch anything). Gradually, when he realized that none of the animals would hurt him, he ventured close enough to touch several of them. He seemed to particularly like the baby calf--he would crouch down next to it, carefully reach his hand out to touch the calf's flank, and then spring up looking inordinately pleased with himself.

(We thought Booty might be jealous of Andrew's proximity to the goats).

After Andrew's nap, we picked Dan up on campus and proceeded on to the first of our two Memorial Day barbeques. (Although technically the first one, at our friends Adam and Lauren Christensen's, was a "Barbanosh.") Although someone had thoughtfully provided a croquet set, in the actual event, none of the adults got to play (at least, not while we were there). Andrew and another toddler between them monopolized all of the mallets and pulled up most of the wickets. At one point, Andrew was trying to carry four or five of the mallets. When this palled, he discovered the croquet balls, but, to his dismay, he couldn't carry more than three at time.

Following our stop at the Christensen's, we proceeded through Bellefonte and up Purdue Mountain Road to Gerry and Celie Hanscom's. After enjoying some quality burgers, I put Andrew down in his pack 'n play in the Mountain Man room (it only took half an hour to get him to sleep--and then he woke up the instant I set him down so I had to let him cry himself to sleep after all!). Dan enjoyed his traditional couple rounds of hearts with Bishop, Michael Higley, and Mike Olivetti, while I hung out with the other guests. We got home a little late, tired but replete and looking forward to a good night's sleep. Of course, we should have known better. After waking up at 5:30 (Sunday), 5:00 (Monday--are you noticing a trend?), Andrew woke up at 4:40 a.m. the morning after our latest night in weeks, and refused to go back to bed.

The croquet theme continued the next day. Andrew and I went to target to pick up a monster croquet set for Dan, who was planning on playing croquet with the young men. (It turns out one of the young men brought his own set, but as he was missing the wickets, it's just as well that Dan had some spares). The boys were pleasantly surprised to find that croquet was actually fun (once they discovered that you got bonus points for hitting opponents' balls out of the way). Dan won, but more from luck than technical artistry, as Brother Knosp was a better player.

Wednesday also dawned bright and warm--a perfect day (finally) for the scheduled Day in the Park. This week's outing was planned for Spring Creek Park, a park known primarily (as may be guessed from it's name) for the creek that runs through the park. (Incidentally, for those of you who may remember seeing our engagement pictures, this is also the park where we took the pictures--it boasts, among other things, a romantic-looking covered bridge). I prepared Andrew by putting him in a swim diaper and swim suit and lathering him with sunscreen. Given the amount of time our preparations took, I was privately thinking Andrew probably wouldn't even want to get in the water. I was quickly disabused of this notion! Shortly after our arrival, Andrew waded into the stream. It was pretty cold, so he quickly waded out again. But then, entranced by the sight of older kids splashing through the stream, he gave a joyful shout and raced after them. He was several feet out (and several inches in), when he realized, again, how cold the water was and started crying.

Luckily (or unluckily, as the case may be), one quickly grows used to the coldness of the water (more likely, numbness sets in), so it wasn't long before Andrew was acclimated and splashing in the water like the best of them. His only problem was that his footing wasn't always sure--a couple of times he stumbled foward, catching his hands on the bottom of the creek but getting a face full of water at the same time. (If you look closely at the next picture, you'll see drops of water all across Andrew's face--this was taken seconds after his first stumble).

It also didn't take long before Andrew was completely soaked--of course, dumping a nearly full bucket of water (which he found unattended on the shore) down his front didn't help.

After we'd had enough fun in the water, I dried him off, put him in a clean onesie, and we played for a bit in the sandbox (another prime attraction of the park, I'm told--it's quite nice, unlike the nasty ones you often find) before heading home for a much-needed nap.

Thursday was also eventful for Andrew. At babysitting that morning, Andrew finally met his match. According to Stephanie, Gaby's mom, Gaby was particularly agressive--agressive enough that she sent Andrew running out of the room, and, when she started to follow him, he started crying. (I record this so that all of you whose children were terrorized by Andrew at Christmas can feel vindicated that Andrew, too, has experienced those same feelings of terror at the hands of a smaller child. Gaby may only be three weeks younger than Andrew, but she's a good six or seven pounds lighter than he is). That afternoon, I dragged Andrew with me on a visiting teaching visit. We have--more or less--successfully baby proofed our house, so I'd forgotten the kinds of hazards a childless home can prevent to inquisitive little fingers! Andrew was constantly on the move from the moment we entered the house--he took DVDs out of their cases (and managed to get one stuck in the VCR!); he took all the shoes off the top rack of their shoe rack and took them one at a time to Anita, repeating, "shoe, shoe" (one of his newest word acquisitions) over and over again. I think Anita found it funny, but I was pretty relieved when we left, b/c then Andrew couldn't do any more damage!

The first Friday of every month, the local library offers a free developmental screening for children 0-5. I've been meaning to take Andrew for a while, but somehow I always forget when the first Friday rolls around. Not this time, though. I admit, it wasn't quite what I expected (mostly, we just filled out a form that asked questions about different milestones children were expected to reach by a certain age). But the women running the screening session were really nice--they complimented Andrew (which always helps!) and talked about some activities that we could do with Andrew to help him work on fine motor skills (the only area where his development was not well above the potential problem area--although, as it turns out, the only reason I thought Andrew couldn't yet do some of the things--like throwing a ball overhand--was simply because we hadn't tried it with Andrew). But this week has been a good developmental one for Andrew--he's added several more words to his vocabulary (shoe, car, puff, book--although they sound more like "ca" "pu" and "boh"), and learned how to climb into his high chair, on the table, etc.

Here's Andrew looking snazzy in his new church duds. (There's something irresistable about little boys with ties on!)

Andrew's long-lost twin-sister, Andrea (love the head-band!)

Andrew also cleared out one of the cupboards and then almost managed to close himself up in the cupboard.

Andrew helping out in the kitchen while I was cooking.

Sliding down his little tykes slide in the living room (he's almost mastered climbing on the slide independently, but he still gets stuck trying to get his feet out from under him at the top of the slide).

Playing with the pop-ons Bubby and Poppy gave him for Christmas (he's discovered that they're good for something besides just dumping out of the bag).