Eleanor is two today.

This really pisses her off.

I’ve been coaching her for several weeks to say “Two!” or at least hold up some fingers (any number) as a response to the question “How old are you?”. For some reason, this question makes her really, really angry. She either ignores the question altogether, says “no!” or becomes really hostile about the whole thing.  I have no idea where this is coming from. She also isn’t into the whole birthday thing, either. When Dan dropped her off at daycare this morning, her friends all descended on her and wished her “Happy Birthday!”. Dan said she shook her head and said a tetchy “No. No.” in response to each good wish.

Kim advised boosting her confidence: “You don’t look a day over 22 months! You’re swimming in those 2Ts!”. Instead, Dan and I like annoying her and asking her out of the blue “Wait: how old are you going to be again?”. Man, does she hate it.

I love her two-year-old-ness. She’s mostly a blast: a whirlwind, a giggler, a dancer/lurcher, a sneak-attack hugger and a generally friendly little girl. She can whine and cry with the best of them but it’s never too much or for too long (it’s her birthday and I’m feeling generous).

Eleanor has taken a real shining to Berkeley, whose face graces my copy of his Principles & Three Dialogues. She carries him around and, the other day, insisted on shoving him between her legs while she was airing out after a diaper change. The poor Bishop! (Except he was an Anglican bishop so it’s Ok. They’re allowed to do that).

“Barkey” gets a louder shout out than either Mama or Dada. We’ll have to try other philosophers. My copy of the First Critique has Kant on the cover. But we probably shouldn’t go there.

But don’t take my word for it. You can watch the video. Except that you can’t, because whenever we turn the camera on, Eleanor stops what she’s doing and just stares. So, the following video not only offers no evidence that Eleanor can sing, but instead offers evidence that she’s a dull-witted zombie (instead of one those incisive, sharp-as-a-tack zombies).

Untitled from Daniel Groll on Vimeo.

Eleanor loves the attention. The minute her investigators arrive at the door, she is instantly refreshed and ready to be adorable, vocal, chipper and, to be honest, pretty manic (See my books! See my shoes! See my dog! See my mom! See my yoga mat! See me do “yoga” (kicks legs and cackles)! See my books again! See my other shoes!). I swear I give her plenty of attention, too, but I suppose she requires the status of sole subject of scientific study to have her attention needs fully sated.

Yesterday, the students brought a microphone to record Eleanor’s chirps. She did not fail them and prattled on for 50 minutes. Our tireless students followed her around the house with the microphone held down at her lip level for optimal recording quality. She loved every minute of it. “Finally!”, she thinks, “someone is getting this down!”.

Eleanor is not the only *roll who is getting some recognition, lately. The Counterfactuals (Daniel and Jason) were voted the Best Band of Northfield for 2010 by the Northfield Guide and Locally Grown Northfield. It was announced on KYMN this morning and the copies of the guide should be out today.

Complete. Rockstar.

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?