The Family *roll

The Garden

July 12th, 2010 by emjcarroll · Garden, House

When we first moved in, one of my priorities was to fix up the front garden, which, at the time, was best described as a thistle patch. I took a great deal of care choosing a handful of perennials and grasses and grandly told people “I’m planting a garden”. Torontonians and Chicagoans would murmur approvingly but Minnesotans would ask “flower or vegetable?”. I felt, somehow, that “flower” was the wrong answer.

This year, we’re doing it right. Dan and I built a 4×5 raised bed vegetable garden and planted arugula, kohlrabi, eggplants, zucchini, bell and hot peppers and cucumber. Then I decided it would be neat to have pumpkins for Eleanor at Halloween so I made a little brick annex to plant a pumpkin and buttercup squash vine. Then we decided we needed a rhubarb patch. Then our first rhubarb patch site became too shady (despite clear warnings on the rhubarb seed package advising us to be mindful of not planting in an area where tree branches will obscure the sun as the summer progresses). So we then relocated the rhubarb to the side of the house. And then a neighbor gave us three tomato plants which we planted next to the house.

So in some ways we’re not really doing it right at all: we have too many plants and we aren’t completely certain of their watering, fertilizing, sun or space needs. I checked out a book from the library but it completely overwhelmed Dan and I by page 5 so we’re being guided by (baseless but firm) instincts, slapdash Google searches (“why do zucchinis die?”, “how do eggplants grow?”) and the patient tutelage of Dan and Bonnie. I won’t bore you with a full crop report but I am happy to report we’ve eaten *roll-grown kohlrabi, arugula and cucumbers. And our cucumber harvest is such that we’re going to try to make pickles. Pickles!

Here is a brief photo tour of the vegetable with thrilling before-and-after shots of the front garden:

: Cucumbers for the pickling. And eating.

: 3 kinds of tomatoes given to us by kindly neighbor.

: Buttercup squash

: Zucchini

: Kohlrabi

The flower box before & after: The first shot is from the day we first saw the house (the box collapsed by the time we moved in) and the second shot is after Dan and Ryan cleared the thistles.I planted all the flowers from seed except for the purple amaranthus. I had no idea they would get so big. Clearly no idea at all.

Before:

After:


The side garden before and after. Note the removal of 2 satellite dishes, one fence and stump. Note also removal of giant baby belly.

Before:

After:

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The Weiszes

July 4th, 2010 by dmjg · Carleton, EDG, Visitors

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 locates his grandfather in a 1941 Carleton College yearbook

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.”

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Of yellow crustiness and other matters infantile

June 29th, 2010 by dmjg · EDG

We have been spending a lot of time at the pool this past week. Eleanor really likes the water, although it’s not clear that that is the main attraction at the pool. She seems equally, perhaps even more, content exercising her new walking chops on the adjacent grass and, more inexplicably, playing with the mulch around the nearby birches. In any case, the whole pool complex causes her to literally squeal with delight when we turn into the pool lot.

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?

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Biostatistics & Bemidji

June 24th, 2010 by emjcarroll · Uncategorized

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 through Biomedical Ethics (look at me! reading philosophy!). Biostatistics, however, stinks. The course is completely on-line and run through Bemidji State University (BSU). I know two things about BSU: 1) it has the inscrutable if not completely meaningless motto “shaping potential, shaping worlds” and 2) a real talent for killing my spirit on a daily basis.

Each exam is a fresh hell of over-thinking and self-doubt. Each homework assignment leaves me hoarse from cursing SPSS (now mysteriously re-named PASW). Every session with a new textbook chapter leads to a list of grievances Dan must listen to through dinner.The radio mentioned some storms in Bemidji last night and I held out hope for the BSU Internet server getting fried by lightning.

No luck.

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World Cup Baby

June 21st, 2010 by dmjg · EDG, Northfield

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

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Talky

June 14th, 2010 by emjcarroll · Uncategorized

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 (lunging at a person or toy with a mouth open like a 14-year-old french kisser’s) and giving high fives (she bats around .777 with this one which makes for some embarrassing un-returned high fives in front of audiences).

This is all to say I like teaching her things. But sometimes I run into questions. Should I teach her the general class of “birdy” first or go straight to “mallard duck”, “chickadee”, “cardinal”? Do I just say “flower” or “marigold” and “daisy”? Does it matter? Probably not. But I’ve come up with the Carroll System of Baby Binomial Nomenclature (CSBBN): baby-talk “genus” first and then common-name “species” second.

For example:

Birdie canada goose

Pretty Flower forget-me-not

Nice Plant karl foerster grass

As we progress, I hope I can abbreviate the genus into a single letter to encourage her to be more specific but still give her a guiding category:

B. great blue heron

PF. fuschia

NP. pumpkin vine.

I’m pretty sure the system will be the Next Big Thing. Until then, you can hear me – and see me pictured above – muttering to my daughter Little Fishy probably-a-newt.

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Freaky Friday

June 7th, 2010 by dmjg · Carleton, EDG

Ok, not freaky. But unusual inasmuch we did three (for us) exciting things. As I’m sure almost none of you know, I’m a particular fan of pigeons. I don’t know why, but I’ve always loved them. When I was a child, my mother took me to Trafalgar Square back when it was covered in pigeons (it is now, sadly, pigeon-free). You could buy a little cup of bird seed and the pigeons would literally flock to you to get at it. I imagine that sounds like a total gross-out nightmare to most of you. But I loved it. There’s a picture of me somewhere with pigeons perched all over me wildly pecking at the food cup in the my hand.

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.

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Cake

June 6th, 2010 by emjcarroll · Uncategorized

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 self and she polished it off. Know also that chocolate cake is a big deal in my family. My mother makes a fantastic cake which is called the chocolate cake; its deliciousness, chocolateness and sheer MacKinnon-ness imparted by the definite article. It is singularly delicious. As an only child, I have been treated to the chocolate cake on a majority of birthdays and my mother and I even made it for my wedding. We had the chocolate cake at Ellie’s party yesterday. She’s cake-savvy enough now to recognize quality and didn’t offer myself or her Granny D. a single bite but rather ungraciously accepted forkful after forkful.

Smart girl.

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Birthday the first

June 3rd, 2010 by dmjg · EDG

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!

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Baby on the move

May 28th, 2010 by emjcarroll · Uncategorized

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 on the way to her goal which usually serves as sufficient warning to me or the dog to avert disaster.

She has learned that push toys offer speed and entertainment. We inherited a toy lawnmower that plays a catchy little mower-themed song when you push a button. She likes to push the button, dance to the little 12-second song, pause and repeat.

Her desire for motion and new horizons (also known as “getting into shit”) is not unique. At baby playgroup this week, a friend left the front screen door open. Ellie and two other babies made a bee line for the open door like chubby hairless lemmings.

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Above average & good looking: living in Northfield, MN