The Family *roll

I was reluctant to post this video I took last night since it doesn’t reflect well on any of us. I look bad: I allow my kid to drink the dregs of the dog’s water and I sound really annoying. Why do I have to say inane things when I am taking a video? It makes Ellie look bad: she pinches the dog’s ear and makes the dog cry without showing any concern (and even a little delight). Dan even looks bad, too (listen for his exasperated thoughts about his students halfway through).

But hey, the cuteness of a girl and her dog eating and drinking together is something that deserves to be shared. In all its ugliness.

I often feel compelled to defend Northfield (it’s so much more than a typical small town! it smells like waffles! ) and Minnesota (it’s not that cold! it’s more cosmopolitan than you think! nature is beautiful! they don’t all talk like that!). January, however, is not a great time of year for these cheerful assertions.

I just had a strangely melancholy experience on my walk home from studying: after 6 hours away from the house, I re-traced my own boot prints in the 1/4″ of snow that fell last night. No one had obscured my footprints on the sidewalk of Division Street (our main street) all the time I was away. I then took the dog for a walk and then encountered Dan and Belly’s footprints from their morning walk. Again, no one had stepped over their foot and paw prints the entire morning. I’m not sure if it’s just too cold today (9F now, forecasted low of -9F) or if Northfield really is so small. Is no one leaving their houses to walk in the cold or are there simply so few people around? Either explanation is depressing: Minnesota is that cold and/or Northfield is that small.

But the family *roll is making their own fun and heat. Dan is playing hockey in an informal league in Faribault and at the Northfield rink. I’m running a hole in the Carleton gym treadmills and lugging around 1200-page pathophysiology and pharmacology textbooks. Eleanor is busy as all get out. I give you a 10-minute excerpt from her daily agenda:

7:10 Allow self to be retrieved from crib after saying elaborate good-bye to beloved stuffed rabbit to hang out with parents in their bed. Take 3 sips of milk.

7:12: Descend from parents’ bed, collect books from own bedroom to deposit in parent’s bedroom closet, bathroom, bath tub, and one under each guestroom bed.

7:14 Demand one book be read to her. Get bored of book after 2 pages. Descend from bed in terrifying, near-death-causing fashion.

7:15 Drag step stool from bedroom to bathroom. Turn on tap and suck water off toothbrush.

7:17 Decide it’s Cheerio time. Grind 20 Cheerios into parent’s sheets. Eat 5. Turn bedside lamp on and off. Repeat x 10. Stare in disconcerting fashion into mother’s super bright LED reading light, partially blinding self. Descend from bed in terrifying, near-death-causing fashion

7:18 Torture dog by throwing herself onto the dog’s sleeping form under the covers. Cause dog to barf.

7:19 Identify location of mother’s eyes. Insert unclipped nails [ed.'s note: my fault] into mother’s eyes to make sure she knows exactly where they are.

7:20 Fall off bed.

We’re very festive in December. The family *roll doesn’t subscribe completely to any one religion or its end-of-year festival; instead, we dedicate ourselves to celebrating all of them.

Hey gimmel gimmel hey!

1) Hannukah. We did the cultural Jewish thing and had a last-minute latke party with Tam and Mike. We did the religious thing and attended a menorah-lighting at Northfield’s beit midrash. We did the community Jewish thing and went to Northfield’s Hanukkah party. Lucille sent us the greatest hits from the Kingston synagogue gift shop so we decorated the house with metallic dreidel ornaments, dreidel party lights and lots of gelt that I really shouldn’t have eaten.

The breakfast splendors of Norway

2) Christmas. We went to the Sons of Norway Christmas brunch as well as a carol sing at St. Peter’s Lutheran Church. We also have, of course, a Christmas tree and are planning a wonderful Christmas Eve party and dinner the following day.

3) North American Gluttony. My mother and I have baked an enormous amount of Christmas cookies. We have all bought too many presents for each other and the baby.

4) Kwanzaa. Uh. Actually, I’ve got nothing.

5) Solstice. The usual: nothing much besides our annual naked Druidic dance circle beneath the boughs of the sacred Elm in the Arboretum.

Eleanor taking some quiet time before her feats of strength

6) Festivus. Daniel and I will be heading to northern Wisconsin after Christmas (my mother is taking care of Ellie, thank Jebus) for a couple of days of relaxation, good food, feats of strength (cross country skiing) and airing of grievances.

Eleanor is in daycare 4 days a week. This means she spends a great deal of time with her own friends and carrying out her own business. At home, Eleanor spends a lot of time being read to or pushing around her dolly in a stroller or making and destroying a tower of blocks with us. She spends virtually no time staying still or focusing on a single thing for any one period of time. She is no great cuddler and has no interest in nuzzling us on the couch or in bed (and she lets you know that you’re a real fool if you even try those moves on her; she is, however, a big fan of sneak attack “uggs!”, which I relish).

Imagine Daniel’s surprise, then, when he had to pop back to daycare after leaving Eleanor to drop off some diapers on Wednesday. She didn’t see him come in so Daniel was able to witness our daughter playing quietly on a living room carpet with a single toy, completely alone. This is sort of like seeing an Armadillo sunbathing. Or Daniel listening to Mumford and Sons. It does not happen. And yet for Bizarro Eleanor – alternaEleanor, daycare Eleanor – it is completely commonplace. Who is this child? Apparently this child was taken to her daycare provider’s son’s Christmas concert at school along with a 3-year-old, a 14-month-old and a 5-month-old. Bizarro Eleanor ate donut holes and danced to music and posed no behavioral challenges. I do not know this child. Bizarro Eleanor let Bonnie read books to her last Friday and rested her head against Bonnie’s chest on a couch. Normal Eleanor only rested her head on my chest – briefly – after her third vomiting episode last weekend.

I know this is normal and reassuring and it doesn’t bother me at all (Honest. Honest!). I do, however, find it fascinating that such a small creature can possess such a vast range of behaviors. And that she is sufficiently aware of her surroundings and the resources of her caretakers that she knows when she can and cannot lose all self control over a stubborn sippy cup lid. Of course, I take it as a huge compliment that she thinks I have the stuff it takes to listen to her express her simultaneous desire and distaste for opposite courses of action (wanting and not wanting Cheerios, both needing and hating putting on of boots, etc.) and all the attendant whining. Oh the whining. I am just that awesome.

Sorry for the slow posting. We have been painting the kitchen (done), shoveling snow (ongoing) and battling a norwalk virus (hopefeully done. At one point three nights ago, Eleanor’s bathtub, the toilet, the bathtub and the sink were all barf-filled in a matter of about two minutes. TMI?). Moreover, we’ve misplaced the cable that connects the camera to the computer, so we have no pictures to show you either.

Well, no pictures of ours anyway. Enter the incomparable Lisa Beth Anderson, our dear friend who, as you may recall, was our unofficial doula in the late stages of Em’s labor and unofficial photographer post-partum. Many people, ourselves included, take nice pictures with their semi-fancy cameras and basic camera knowledge. Lisa takes beautiful pictures with her extensive camera knowledge and super awesome eye for awesomeness. She just posted a series of pictures from a wedding she photographed this summer in Minnesota, which offers a glimpse of MN at its summer best. I have no idea who these people are, but I still loved looking at the photos. (And, Minnesotans, now that you know she travels (from Chicago), you might consider having her up to photograph your events for you. You don’t need to pay for her accommodation because she’ll be staying with us!).

Eleanor is starting to string some words together. This really jazzes her up. Her two favorite words in the English language are “Bye Dada” (no “cellar door” for her). She says these two words with complete delight since she knows that they often mean Daniel is going to sneak up on her and tickle her or do something else similarly wonderful. She also likes saying “Hi” to her dog and all babies, plastic and human alike (this is a picture of her saying “Hi Baby” over and over again to baby P. in her crib). There is an infant at her daycare and Eleanor is skilled in basic infant care: she can retrieve a dropped pacifier and replace it (i.e. shove it in a baby’s mouth), she can put a diaper under a rear end (after that, she is apparently stumped) and enthusiastically rock a carseat to “soothe” a baby.

She identifies pictures of herself as “baby” but seems reluctant to label herself with a name. With a lot of coaching (bullying), I can sometimes convince her to call herself “nEleanor” (she can’t starts words with vowels and so says “mUp” or “mElmo”. I would say she is batting .900 on the mama v. dada business.

My favorite turn of phrase she is using these days is “thankee”. Since I tell her “thank you” when she gives me something, she has inferred that you say these words when she, nEleanor, gives something to someone, rather than when receiving it (her natural toddler self-centeredness even extends to language acquisition! amazing!). This means she spends a lot of time giving me treasures (sorting block, diaper, etc.) and saying a jaunty “thankee.” I like the “thankee”. It sounds rather quaint and even Pilgrim-ish: “Thankee, brother Johanne”, “Oh no, thankee, sister Hester”. You can imagine the “thankee”s that emerge from the kitchen when Eleanor unloads the dishwasher (spoon by spoon, fork by painful fork).

As for my own (written) language, it is thankfully winding down. My semester ends tomorrow and I am off of school until the first week of January. I will continue to work at the job but I am really looking forward to a break from school. Most excitingly, I have completed the theoretical component of my program. Everything from here on in is clinically- or science-based classes (pathophysiology, pharmacology, etc.). My goal is to get through the rest of the 5 semesters without using the words “conceptual model” or “nurse theorist” ever again. With you all as my witness, I will never suffer through graduate nursing theory again.

Dan’s semester is also over and he has finished his marking. However, he has 2 papers to write and next semester’s courses to prepare for. He uses the words “hockey”, “I deserve a break”, “Settlers” and “latkes” a lot. It is really cute.

Eleanor doesn’t have much hair. This means that over 75% of everyone she encounters assumes she is a boy. This frequent misunderstanding is becoming more and more awkward the older she gets. It was easy when she was tiny and bald and people could laugh it off that they thought she was a he. These days, however, Eleanor can be dressed head-to-toe in pink or purple and people seem to be unable to get past the lack of hair to realize how absolutely bizarre – if not cruel – it would be to dress a boy this way. I’m not sure what to do in these situations. Dan immediately corrects people; he usually says something like “he is a she” in a friendly, smiling way. I usually let the person continue to call her a “he” and hope that the person doesn’t ask his name. When the person does inevitably ask for Ellie’s name, I tell it to them and then immediately follow up with a bright and friendly but frankly apologetic “oh, she’s dressed in hand-me-downs” or “today was a blue day!”. I take all the blame.

However, on days when she is wearing her pink coat, hat and shoes, I’m not sure how to explain away the person’s phenomenal lack of observation skills. Again, it must be the (lack of) hair. I don’t have any gender-ego at stake here. It doesn’t bother me at all if people think she is a boy. I am just amazed at how much short hair screams “BOY BOY BOY BOY BOY” to passersby.

So imagine my surprise when I took a look at Eleanor and realized her hair is too long! Her fetching side-swept bangs were becoming straggly and falling into her eyes. She had little wisps growing over her ears, too. So I watched 2 YouTube videos on how to cut children’s hair and went at it. She was a very patient and didn’t balk at the scissors at all. If anything, she seemed to have an amazing awareness that my needle-nosed scissors (taken from a suture removal kit two jobs ago) were very sharp and she better sit still. I’m quite pleased with the results: