Chocolate Chip Cookies

This is what happens when Anders wakes up from his nap before Mom has finished baking for the potluck.

- Corinne, Mike, and Anders Rocket

Photos from a Summer Walk

- Mike, Corinne, and Anders Rocket

24 June 2010

Catherine's Birthday

(This is another 'archival' post from summer 2010.)

Our friend Catherine celebrated her 30th birthday recently. At the party, there was a cardboard 'stage' and a box of miscellaneous costume accessories: hats, mustaches, etc. Fun!

- Mike, Corinne, and Anders Rocket

6 June 2010

Spring Walk

During a recent walk, Corinne brought our her Digital SLR (the "fancy" camera) and took some artsy shots of spring's arrival.

Meanwhile, Dad and Anders walked around looking for dandelions.

- Mike, Corinne and Anders Rocket

21 May 21, 2010

First Trip to the Library

Anders is a book-hound. He wants to read books all of the time, sometimes a little too often for Mom and Dad, in fact. So we figured that he would go absolutely crazy at the library.

But for some reason, on his first visit to our local library he spent the majority of his time climbing on the furniture, looking at the computer, and playing with the toys in the kids section. Go figure.

- Mike, Corinne, and Anders Rocket

18 May 2010

Happy Mother's Day 2010

- Mike, Corinne and Anders Rocket

9 May 2010

Hunting Season

Hunting season has officially begun. I'm not talking about the hunting for which you need a license and wear bright orange clothing. No, I'm referring to Max's hunting, of course.

Max has been going outside periodically for the past several months, but we hadn't seen any evidence of any kills until very recently. Sometime last week we found a mostly-headless mouse on the stoop outside the house, but we couldn't attribute it to Max definitively. It wasn't until this past weekend that we had confirmation that he was up to his old habits.

Saturday morning, Anders and I were downstairs while Corinne slept in. I had let Max outside, but hadn't seen him come back in the house yet. Then I heard light footsteps coming down the stairs from upstairs, and Anders had a strange look on his face as he looked in the direction of the footsteps. It was Max coming down the stairs, and he had what at first appeared to be a brown stuffed animal in his mouth. I quickly realized that it wasn't a stuffed animal - it was a squirrel (dead, as they always are). Apparently Max had brought the animal in the front door, and when I didn't give him the recognition and praise that he expected, he decided to go upstairs to see if sleeping Corinne would oblige. It's a good thing that I closed the upstairs door, causing Max to return back down the stairs.

Anders was still very confused by the situation, but once Max dropped the squirrel onto the floor and started batting it around, he was no longer confused. Now he KNEW that he didn't like it. Meanwhile, I'm trying to get the squirrel away from Max while simultaneously making sure that crying Anders doesn't get in the line of fire.

I finally got the squirrel from Max, tossed it outside (where a coyote later found it and presumably had a snack) and returned to clean up the blood and comfort Anders. And so, 2010 hunting season begins.

- Mike, Corinne, and Anders Rocket

8 May 2010

Teenager Already?

(This is an 'archival' post from May 2010.)

Anders has had "selective hearing" for some time now, choosing to pretend that he doesn't hear what his parents are saying. But now it has progressed one step further; he actively expresses that he isn't listening.

"I'm not listening, I'm not listening"

Why do I have the feeling that we can look forward to this for the next, oh, 16 years or so?

- Mike, Corinne, and Anders Rocket

Date: May 1, 2010

Two Moose

When it became clear that Anders had chosen his stuffed moose as a comfort item, we bought a second one as a backup. Since then, we have periodically switched them, and we always had a spare at home in case one didn't make it back from daycare or was temporarily misplaced.

But recently, Anders's universe almost collapsed upon itself when he discovered that there actually ARE two moose. It was unintentional, of course, but somehow he ended up with two moose in his hands at once. He had a huge smile on his face, and that night he slept with both moose in his crib with him.

I don't think the significance of having two has really dawned on him (come to think of it, what IS the significance?) He's still perfectly happy having only one, so I guess there was no harm done.

- Mike, Corinne, Anders Rocket, Moose #1 and Moose #2

Spring Walks

Anders still loves his walks outside; we try to do them as often as we can. He will even request them whenever he thinks of them - which is pretty often, and sometimes at inconvenient times like right before bedtime, or first thing in the morning before work, or when it is pouring rain.

Anders frequently turns the 'walks' into a run. I now have Anders take his ball with him on the walks (not a hard sell) so that if he trips, he has a chance of landing on the ball instead of the ground.

A typical walk involves a loop that starts by heading south and east down our driveway, walking north on Stoller Rd, then heading west at the fence on the north side of our property and walking through the field back home. We haven't measured it, but it's probably less than a quarter mile or so. About half of the time, Anders decides that he's done walking and wants to be carried before we're done with the loop.

- Corinne, Mike and Anders Rocket

Date: April 16, 2010

18 Month Well Baby Checkup

Anders had his 18 month well baby checkup (at closer to 19 months) and has the following stats to report:

• Weight: 25 lb 13 oz
  
• Height: 33 inches long
  
• Head Circumference: 19 inch

He's still tracking to the same percentile as at his previous check-up. But now that his default position is upright (standing/walking), I figure it is appropriate to report his "Height" rather than his "Length". It's pretty amazing that he's 3.5 inches taller than he was just 6 months ago.

The doctor has a list of developmental questions that we answer at each appointment. Questions of note this time:

1. Does he have at least 3 words? Yes, about 30 words.
2. Does he say "Mom" and "Dad"? No.
   

We hadn't really thought about it, but the doctor found it odd that Anders doesn't say Mom or Dad. Most kids say those words first. But overall she wasn't concerned about it since he has so many words in total. He does know who we are; he'll point to the right person or respond appropriately when we say, "Give it to Dad" or "Go show that to Mom". When we do ask him who we are, he'll respond in various ways but often the words of choice are "panda bear", "cat", or "pat".

I guess we have something to work on; here is our first attempt, which wasn't terribly successful.

Watch this video on YouTube
or in the original blog post

- Corinne, Mike, and Anders Rocket

Easter

(This is an 'archival' post from April 2010.)

In addition to delaying our tree-planting by a week, we also delayed our celebration of Easter. Anders doesn't know any better yet, and all of Corinne's family would be present. I guess the Easter Bunny got our message about the postponement, too, since he left several baskets of goodies hidden around our yard.

The Easter Bunny brought some interesting things for Anders this year. First of all, he didn't bring very much candy. Instead, he brought Annie's Cheddar Bunnies inside plastic eggs. Apparently he didn't see the irony of giving out snack crackers shaped like bunnies. Anders loves those crackers, and so do his parents.

His baskets were mostly filled with toys and other play items: Playmobil animal figures; animal magnets; a new set of animal flash cards; a knit frog hat; and the book "Little Blue Truck Paves the Way", the sequel to one of his favorite books.

The Easter Bunny brought deliveries from Seattle containing more treats: chocolate bunny, more books, and a stuffed Westie dog (which he refers to as "cat").

It took some significant coaching on the part of his parents for Anders to actually find any of the baskets - or more accurately, I guess it was more a problem of motivation than anything else. It is a weird concept, after all.

It was great to have so many family members there to enjoy it with us!

- Mike, Corinne and Anders Rocket

Date: April 13, 2010

Fence Fixing

As a "bonus" part of this year's tree-planting extravaganza, we had enough time and help to repair one of our fence posts. The post was originally damaged during an event that we hosted a few years ago, but it managed to stay upright until this past fall when it finally collapsed to the ground during a wind storm. We collected up the pieces and stored them away for the winter.

Reidar spent the better part of a day preparing the new fence post, and the auger that he hooked up for tree planting ended up getting use re-digging the post hole.

Anders was very interested in the whole operation, but he watched from inside.

Success! With any luck, this post will last us another 20 years.

- Mike, Corinne, and Anders Rocket

Date: April 12, 2010