The Family *roll

When Eleanor started daycare in January, we referred to her daycare provider as “New Mommy”. Back then, she was waking up at 5:45, wasn’t sleeping through the night and still required a lot of cajoling, bouncing, feeding and parental patience to keep her happy. I was more than happy to bundle her off to New [...]

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Eleanor, Dan, Cati (and baby F-H in utero) and I visited the Rice County Fair last Friday in Faribault, our County Seat (home to the best high kick dance team ever). There was a petting zoo filled with miniature, baby (and even some miniature baby) animals. Baby human and baby animals – together at last! [...]

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Eleanor has fears that come and go. For a while, she was extremely afraid of the vaccuum cleaner, hand blender, hair dryer and coffee grinder. Then she wasn’t. Then she was. Now she isn’t. She actually pats the vaccuum cleaner and follows it around like a dear friend when I get my act together to [...]

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This summer I am taking 3 courses: social, political and historical considerations of nursing, advanced practice nursing ethics and (gag, cough, whine, cry, stamp feet, stab fork into left eye) biostatistics. The first two courses are lovely and I have enjoyed lying in the couch and leisurely reading articles in Victorian Studies or carefully wading [...]

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Eleanor’s word count is up to 5: “Doggie”, “Duck”, “Mama”, “Dada” and “Hi”. She may also have said “Leo” on Sunday. I am also trying to teach her to turn her mysterious “mnumnussss” sound into an intelligible “numb nuts”. I love the idea of a baby saying “numb nuts”. Other baby tricks include giving kisses [...]

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Birthday cake. Eleanor offers. Emily graciously accepts from Daniel Groll on Vimeo. In case the stills from Eleanor eating chocolate cake weren”t enough for you, please enjoy the live action video of her first forays into chocolate. Know that after she finished feeding me several bites, she decided cake is better eaten by one’s own [...]

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Eleanor is now a half a stumble away from walking and she lives to move: if she sees or hears something that catches her attention (dog, dishwasher loading, stair gate left open), she will crawl maniacally and surprisingly speedily to the object of interest with joyful intensity. She often emits a type of war cry [...]

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I had my haircut last week. Well, more like I had my hair shorn. My hair is a somewhat unruly beast. I have had very good haircuts in the past (including one $60 haircut in Chicago that was just awesome), but I’ve learned it’s just not worth the money: my hair looks stylish for about [...]

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I’ve been pretty good at avoiding the whole my-child-is-a-genius trap, haven’t I? So you owe me this: Eleanor has rhythm. She has really tuned into music lately and will beat her drumstick (or wooden spoon, as shown) in a fairly good approximation of whatever beat is playing. Eleanor and I have been getting together with [...]

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