1) For about three days in early August, Eleanor was obsessed with the new chair in our bedroom (and who wouldn’t be with that fabulous fabric?!). First, she just wanted to climb onto and sit in the chair. Hence this series of photos. But then she discovered the light. Apologies for the jerkiness in the video. They are the result of me lunging toward the chair in anticipation of her falling.

2) Here is a very small snippet of Eleanor’s signature dance move which looks suspiciously like an old move of mine I liked to call “The show stopper”. This video also features a brief Yiddish lesson courtesy of Abba and Lulu.

3) Finally, Eleanor grooves to Kraftwerk.

“Wir fahr’n fahr’n fahr’n auf der Autobahn” indeed.

Speaking of good friends, we had a 24 hour visit with the Zemensteins. Rebecca was in the Cities for the Uptown Art Fair, so they stopped in Northfield for a night on their way back home. It’s always slightly sad hanging out with Ryan & Rebecca because it makes me think about what might have been: we were only really starting to get to know them when we left Chicago and we get along with them so well, it’s a shame we didn’t cross paths sooner in Chicago.

Perhaps the highlight of the visit was watching Rebecca’s mad toddler-entertaining skills in action. I thought I was pretty good at playing with kids. But wow. This is how you play with a toddler. It never occurred to us to let Eleanor play in her toy box. Genius!

A tete-a-tete in which I break the news to her that she still isn't as smart as the dog

Dan and I had a conversation last week about Eleanor’s intelligence vis a vis a dog’s. He claimed she was approaching the intelligence of a Border Collie. I pointed out that Eleanor couldn’t herd sheep or sort colored objects or do anything so sophisticated. Dan scaled back his claim and stated that maybe Eleanor’s intelligence level was more like Belly’s. I pointed out that Belly, unlike Eleanor, can go down stairs without faceplanting.

So she’s still not as smart as a dog but she does enjoy many canine pleasures. We play a lot of fetch (indoors and out): I toss a ball or pinecone or Cheerio and Eleanor tears after it and brings it back to me for another round. She also enjoys eating the dog’s food, each piece of kibble perfectly sized to occlude a 14-month-old’s esophagus. Like a water-happy Retriever, she enjoys splashing in Belly’s water bowl and making a mess. In fact, Belly’s food and water bowls are so interesting to her that lately she has been seeking to become one with them. With amazing tenacity and focus, she will work to smush her bottom into the food bowl, bring her knees to her chest and hug them and give a smile that can only be compared to that of the cat who ate the canary.

While not as happy-making as a bum in a bowl, the old hand-in-sippy-cup is still pretty thrilling

Ezra & Elle check out Sandy's new iPhone

Sandy, Sarah and Ezra (of baby-zombie fame) are in town. We’re having a wonderful time catching up, watching Eleanor & Ezra together (although they are largely ignoring each other. Eleanor pays attention long enough to take whatever Ezra happens to have in his hand), and generally just chilling out.

On Friday, we spent some time in Carleton’s library digging up information on Sandy’s grandfather and great uncle, both of whom attended Carleton back in the 1940s. We first made our way to the old year books, where Sandy found a picture of his grandfather as a freshman and his uncle as a senior, hanging out with Cab Calloway when the latter visited Carleton, in the 1941 yearbook. We then headed to the archives, where Sandy got a copy of his grandfather’s transcript. Pretty neat.

Sandy pointing out his grandfather in the 1941 Carleton year book.

Sandy's great uncle with Cab Calloway

What were the children doing while this research was going on? Having a total blast in the stacks of course. Who would have guessed that a library would prove to be so much fun for two one-year-olds? Fortunately, the books are packed too tightly for a one-year-old to pull out, so we really let them run free.

In a wonderful Carleton moment, Emily, Sarah, Ezra and Eleanor were sitting outside the archives office on what is supposed to be the super-quiet floor of the library. Not so quiet with Eleanor and Ezra tooling around. A woman came out of her office and said to Emily, “You know, we don’t usually…” Now Emily thought the sentence would end with something like, “…allow children down here.” But what the archivist actually said was, “You know, we don’t usually have so much cuteness down here.”

We tend to split our time between the real pool, where we glide Eleanor through the water or throw her into the air, and the toddler pool with its 1 foot of water. The toddler pool. The safer option, right? Well, as we discovered the other day, 1 ft of water is enough to cover a prone Eleanor. In a sit-turn manoeuver gone horribly awry, Eleanor managed to entirely submerge herself in the toddler pool. Of course, we were right next to her, so we got her out lickety split. She was shocked, and then upset, but a few minutes later she was happily back in the water. No harm done. Until she woke up the next morning, eyes welded shut with yellow goop. Chemical conjunctivitis. Caused by, amongst other things, excessive exposure to chlorine. Amazingly, Eleanor is entirely non-plussed by the yellow effluvia flowing from her eyes and, two days later, it appears to be clearing up of its own accord. But for two days she looked, as Emily put it, like a 19th-century street urchin. I prefer “pus-Zombie” (she kind of walks like a Zombie). Not pretty.

In other developments, Eleanor is clearly developing a will. There was a time not long ago when, if Eleanor had something she shouldn’t have or was playing somewhere she shouldn’t be, we could sub an appropriate object/place with the inappropriate one without so much as a squawk from the babe. No more. Now, if her plans are thwarted, she lets us know, sometimes by collapsing on the floor and, well, kicking and screaming. I assume this is just a phase which will pass in a matter of weeks. I mean, that’s why it’s called the “Terrible 1 & 1/12ths” right?

Summer Knees

We have been transitioning nicely into summer hours around here. To start, the end of all my day-to-day academic responsibilities coincided with the start of the World Cup. With the exception of the odd 30 minutes of Lawrence Welk, prior to last week Eleanor had basically never watched TV. In the past week, she has watched more TV (all of it soccer) than in her entire first year of life. And it seems like it is already having a deleterious effect. Now when she stumbles while walking she clutches her face, throws herself to the ground, rolls over three times and starts to cry with a distinct Italian accent. I’ve warned her that if she does it again, she’s getting a yellow.

Em's aunt DJ picked up the angel wings at a garage sale for $.25.

Three-generation walk

I miss the Chicago pigeons. Northfield does not have pigeons. At least, not wild pigeons. I was thrilled to learn some months ago that there are pigeons in the psychology department and, wouldn’t you know, our babysitter is the student in charge of the pigeon-lab. She very kindly arranged for Emily, Eleanor and I to visit the pigeons.

We all had to wear lab coats

After the pigeon excitement (I even held a pigeon!), we headed off for event number 2: our first CSA pick up from Open Hands Farm, which is located about 2 miles outside of Northfield. Nothing special to report except that our first share of arugula, mustard green, turnips, bok choi and spinach was fabulous.

We rounded off the day back at Carleton, where a group of some 520+ students set a new world record for spooning. Each person needed to lie with his/her arms fully around the person in front of him/her for a full five minutes. We merely spectated, although I thought “Spooned with more than 500+ undergraduates” would look good in my tenure review file. Eleanor had a blast. She waited until everyone was in position before ducking under the yellow “Caution” tape and heading over a pile consisting of keys, shoes and a smart phone someone had set aside. She identified the last as most valuable and was planning to abscond with it while its owner was occupied. Sly little baby.

]]> http://thefamilyroll.com/2010/06/freaky-friday/feed/ 2 http://thefamilyroll.com/2010/06/birthday-the-first/ http://thefamilyroll.com/2010/06/birthday-the-first/#comments Thu, 03 Jun 2010 14:32:27 +0000 dmjg http://thefamilyroll.com/?p=845 Eleanor turned 1 yesterday. We have been doing what it seems is the done thing on such an occassion: reminisicing about this time last year and comparing the small, small baby that we met on June 2nd 2009 to the much larger, personality-filled person we have today. We are having a party this weekend for Eleanor, but we (Emily, Dorothy and I) had a small celebration yesterday involving cake and what I know will be my favorite birthday ritual for the next 30 years: opening up the cards we had people write for Eleanor’s first through thirtieth birthdays at our baby shower last April. We opened up the first one yesterday, which was written by our dear friends T & J. Here is what they wrote (remember: no one knew at that point that we were having a girl, let alone an Eleanor):

“Dear Groll-Carroll baby,

By now, you will be somewhat accustomed to the way of the world, & in particular, the ways of Dan & Emily. We wish you lots of healthy growing & gurgling & laughing & learning, restful nights & days full of new colours, shapes and sounds.

With all our love,

T & J L.”

What a beautiful note for a first birthday.

The central part of yesterday’s celebration was Eleanor’s inaugural experience with chocolate cake. You can peruse the whole series yourself. But here is how things looked at the start:

And then here is how things looked about 20 minutes later:

Happy Birthday Eleanor!

So, did you place your bets? Because we have moved to a gas mower. We were happy with the push mower. It did a great job last summer and it provided some nice exercise. What we didn’t know last August, however, was what our lawn would like come spring. The answer is on offer in the right half of this picture:

Right side: pre-mower. Left-side: post-mower. Worth every penny.

The push mower literally couldn’t cut it. The dandelions glided under the blades unharmed, mockingly jumping up intact behind the mower. We couldn’t bear it. So we caved and bought a gas mower. As you can see from the left half of the picture, it does the job. Next year, we will have the new gas beast in hand before the dandelions turn white and, as their last act, spread their seed far and wide as the mower cuts them down. I should add that pushing a gas mower across our lawn on a Saturday afternoon made me feel more like a dad than anything else I’ve done since Eleanor was born. Strange that.

In other news, Eleanor is adding to her repertoire. She now climbs stairs:

Says “doggy”:

And sits on guitars:

The cheap (not the less cheap) Epiphone.

While we do not yet have a video of it (like some people we know), she also stands on her own (for the first time today actually). Finally, as you can see from the following picture (although it is a touch fuzzy), she has revealed her stripes as an empiricist of the first order, having chosen Hume over both Kant and Berkeley. Smart kid.

Eleanor peruses Hume's *An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding*

]]> http://thefamilyroll.com/2010/05/821/feed/ 6 http://thefamilyroll.com/2010/05/toronto/ http://thefamilyroll.com/2010/05/toronto/#comments Thu, 06 May 2010 13:48:49 +0000 dmjg http://thefamilyroll.com/?p=809 Phew. We’re home after an extended weekend in Toronto. Emily left you with a cliff hanger on her last post: how would Eleanor travel? I am pleased to report that she was awesome. She was happy during all the flights (ecstatic during take-offs) and happy for hours and hours in her car seat as we drove to, from and around Toronto (we have apparently become small city people: we were overwhelmed by the traffic and all the people. So, so many people). She slept like a champ despite the change in scenery, sticking to all her naps and continuing her four-month long habit of sleeping 12 straight hours. She rocks.

We were in Toronto for A&A’s wedding, which was just wonderful. I managed to take seven decent pictures of the wedding  (well, I took 6, Emily took 1) before it became too dark for me take anything at all. Unfortunately, I have 3 pictures of jam, and none of the wedding couple. Apparently, I need to get my priorities straight. But damn, that jam looked fine.

We took a trip to Barrie to see Emily’s Grandmother, who was most pleased to see her only great grandchild. Finally, we were treated to a wonderful party at my sister’s house for family and friends to meet (again, in some cases) Eleanor. It was particularly gratifying to see Eleanor happily playing with her many cousins.

But really the highlight of the trip, as with all trips, was the opportunity to peruse the Skymall magazine during the flights. Gone are the days, sadly, when I could luxuriate for the entirety of the flight over the pages and pages of absurd products; Eleanor’s attempts to crawl over me to get at the passenger in the aisle seat demanded constant vigilance.  I did, however, get a chance to revisit some Skymall classics including “The Zombie of Montclaire Moors” Statue, “Bigfoot, the Garden Yeti” Statue and, perhaps my all time favorite, the personalized memorial bench with the amazingly bad poem (there’s something about the studied low-browedness of the poem that really pleases me). If I were insanely wealthy, I would have a second house that was decorated exlusively with products from Skymall.

This time around, I was particularly tickled to come across the products of a company called “Envirocycle.” They sell composters, watering cans, planters etc. The products are not particularly exciting. What got me is the company’s logo. “We sell earth friendly products in a beautiful design. That’s why our logo contains a personified representation of the earth looking like a hooker.” Ah, mother earth. You old whore.