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[Yet another in a series of posts I started long before I finished...]

There’s been an awful lot here lately about the girls, especially in the QOTD category.  When I’m at home and the girls are around (as they usually are), Rique doesn’t get a word in edgewise very often.  This may contribute to his default volume setting, which is very high.

The words he does say are often a little sloppy in the consonants; this means that, while our first two children were on the advanced side of the curve with their vocabulary and pronunciation, we are now getting to know what it’s like when a child has certain tonal grunts that are instantly intelligible to the immediate family but completely opaque to everyone else.

In any case, it’ll be some time before he gets a real QOTD entry on here.  But he is making great progress in the area of self-expression (and also in the area of fork usage, but that’s another story for another post).  And after an action-packed three-day weekend, I’ve got a bunch of his words fresh in my head, so I’d like to try to publish some of his current pronunciation accomplishments here…

Emily will probably laugh at me when she sees that I’ve missed this one or that one, since she gets a lot more alone time with him than I do, but I’m going to publish this anyway.  I can always do another installment later.  In the mean time, here’s a partial list of words Rique says (not counting things he will repeat in order to receive food, or if he happens to be in performance mode) in his first 9 months or so in the U.S.:

Na-na-na = Narnia (This was his first intelligible word in English, sorta)

Ah-boo = Up, please

Mah = Más/More

Ley-ley = Leche (milk)

Car = Car  (There isn’t a really clear word for ‘train’, but he’s trying.  Also, there is definitely some “ch-ch-ch-oo-oo”-ing going on once in a while.)

Car = Dar

Cargo = Margo

DADDY! = Daddy (Or Mommy, or other adult…but usually Daddy.  Volume and repetition increase if I’m walking in the door after work.)

Eee = Eat

Re-ey? = Ready?  (This may also mean, “Are you going to ask me if I’m ready?”)

Ya-yaii? = You all right?  (Often accompanied by head-tilt and attempted eye contact.  To be repeated, at a comically high volume, after each and every cough, sneeze, throat-clearing, etc. by anyone within earshot.)

Dallat = Chocolate

Bye-bye = Bye-bye (Also, “I notice someone is putting on shoes or a coat, opening a door, etc.; you may take your leave of me.”)

Beagle = Beagle (This is what we call Moxie when we’re shouting at her.  cf Bill Cosby)

Pee-pee = Pee-pee (This may refer to anything having to do with pottying, be it past, present, future, or imagined.)

Oh, and there’s one more:

No!

Sunday
In honor of a quirky holiday that honors an unusual patriot (and expatriate, for that matter), here are the lyrics to my personal favorite song in the whole Sufjan Stevens oeuvre, which has nothing to do with Poland or the U.S. Revolutionary War:

Casimir Pulaski Day

Golden rod and the 4-H stone
The things I brought you
When I found out you had cancer of the bone

Your father cried on the telephone
And he drove his car to the Navy yard
Just to prove that he was sorry

In the morning through the window shade
When the light pressed up against your shoulder blade
I could see what you were reading

Oh the glory that the Lord has made
And the complications you could do without
When I kissed you on the mouth

Tuesday night at the Bible study
We lift our hands and pray over your body
But nothing ever happens

I remember at Michael’s house
In the living room when you kissed my neck
And I almost touched your blouse

In the morning at the top of the stairs
When your father found out what we did that night
And you told me you were scared

Oh the glory when you ran outside
With your shirt tucked in and your shoes untied
And you told me not to follow you

Sunday night when I cleaned the house
I find the card where you wrote it out
With the pictures of your mother

On the floor at the great divide
With my shirt tucked in and my shoes untied
I am crying in the bathroom

In the morning when you finally go
And the nurse runs in with her head hung low
And the cardinal hits the window

In the morning in the winter shade
On the first of March on the holiday
I thought I saw you breathing

Oh the glory that the Lord has made
And the complications when I see his face
In the morning in the window

Oh the glory when he took our place
But he took my shoulders and he shook my face
And he takes and he takes and he takes

[Sadly, reading the lyrics alone doesn't do this justice.  The genius of this song, to me, is in the rhythm and tone of the repeated phrase by the horns, which picks up beautifully on a hint left by the lyrics.  In case you haven't heard it or don't know what I mean, I'll leave it at that and let you listen for yourself sometime.  Along the same lines, I recommend Melvin Dixon's poem "Heartbeats" from about 20 years ago...which as it turns out, has apparently been made into a song.]

Monday
Dar (out of the blue, from the back seat, during the drive home from Lake Geneva):  “Mom, will you sing The Star-Spangled Banner?  Because I don’t really know the words very well yet.”

[I don't think she was making any conscious reference to the Revolutionary War theme of her day off.  She does seem to dig her teacher's habit of encouraging the learning of traditional patriotic songs, and it's not unlike her to want to do some of her regular school activities on non-school days.  It should be noted, though, that American history seems to be her favorite subject of late.  Stay tuned for QOTDs from our upcoming Spring Break histravaganza.]

Another Star Wars dilemma

I’m going to try to make this quick.  An ordered list will have to do.

  1. After we finally sat down to watch Episode IV, Dar wanted to watch the next movie right away.
  2. I suspect that she will be the only kid at the party this weekend who has NOT seen Episode V.
  3. She has made it this far without anybody ruining one of the most famous surprises in film history.
  4. I distinctly remember my cousin ruining it for me while we were standing in line to go into the theater in May of 1980. (Fortunately, said cousin wasn’t around when I was getting ready to watch Citizen Kane or The Crying Game.)
  5. The only chance I have to watch it with her before the party is Saturday night, which would keep us both awake and unproductive longer than is reasonable on Oscar Eve (a night that I usually dedicate to decluttering the basement).
  6. Last night, while I was thinking this over, Dar said, “You know what a boy in my class told me about the next Star Wars movie?”
    (I should probably not admit the degree of panic that I felt at this moment.)
    “What?”
    “Princess Leia and Han Solo kiss a lot.”

That was a close call.  Too close, methinks.

I was going to ask your opinion, but the more I think about this, the less it feels like a dilemma and the more it feels like a moral imperative.  Search your feelings.  You know it to be true…

I guess I’m going to have to get the basement decluttered tonight.

Quote of the Day, 2009 Feb 12

Dar:  “I wish The Force was real!”

About a month ago, I asked you for your opinions on whether Dar was ready for Star Wars. I never got around to posting any kind of a decision, but it became clear that one of the only reasons I was hesitating was that I felt kind of weird about excluding Margo.  And that’s not really a very good reason.  (More on that in a minute.)

Then, a good friend of ours, who has a son who’s about to turn 10, let us know that Dar had made the invitee list for the birthday party…and that the party would be held at this store…and that the party’s theme would be, well, you guessed it.

On the upside, the timing is perfect; now we have a deadline, and that means it’ll actually happen.  On the downside, Dar is fully aware that this means it has to happen soon, and she’s not exactly shying away from asking me about it.

The weekend evenings between now and the birthday party are all booked.  But this Friday is a half day at school, and we figure she can be a little tired.  So Thursday night is the big event.

I think I can sell it to Margo by reminding her that she’s got a big day on Friday afternoon:  going to another branded toy store and picking up this year’s sole present from Mom and me.  We wouldn’t want her to be too tired to enjoy the day…

Margo (at about 7am on her golden birthday):  “THIS IS THE WORST BIRTHDAY EVER!!

Margo (at about 9am on her golden birthday):  “Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful day!”

[Sometimes it's a little spooky how much she's already begun to resemble her namesake.]

Margo (apparently very concerned that I might not be intending to follow the directions on the orange juice bottle):  “Papa, it says ‘Shake well’!”

[This from the girl who competes with the beagle for least reliable direction-follower in the household.]

Forty-two years!

About a week ago, Emily and Mae (a longtime across-the-street neighbor) threw a going-away party for our two favorite neighbors emeritus, Al & Rita.  Al & Rita lived in the unit at the other end of our three-unit building (basically a mirror image floorplan of our place — their place had the other bay window).  They have always been gracious and generous hosts — the kind of people who have never minded when our various toddlers have played with their decorative items.  In January, after something like 42 years in the same home, they moved into a retirement hotel just a couple of miles away.  (No Florida for these two.  They are Chicagoans to the bone.)

The party was a rousing success, thanks in large part to Mae’s enthusiastic hostessing and extensive party-throwing experience.  The specialty of the day was a specific request from Rita when she found out that Mae would be hosting:  German chocolate cake.  I had not previously been a huge fan of German chocolate cake, but I had never had Mae’s recipe before; now I know why Rita made such a specific request.  Wendell brought some outstanding wings; the only problem with these wings was that I couldn’t eat them very well and also hold my paper plate so as to catch the juices and bones while still managing to wrangle Rique.  I could go on, but it’d just make me hungry.

Besides eating ourselves silly, everyone really seemed to have a great time — everyone had a chance to catch up with current/former neighbors (some of whom hadn’t met Rique), people swapped stories of changes in the neighborhood and the city in general, and we all got to say a heartfelt farewell to Al & Rita, who are two of the most energetic and patient people in their age bracket.

Get this:  after we brought them home, we went upstairs with them to carry their leftovers and peek in at their new place…and they invited us to sit down and hang out!  Seven o’clock on a Sunday night, with three kids at the edge of exhaustion hepped up on several kinds of sugary treats, and these two are offering us something to drink, cool as cucumbers.  They’re letting the kids draw on their notepad, play with their flashlights, and peek in their bathroom…it was just as if they were back in their old place and nothing had changed.

I’m telling you, everyone should have neighbors like Al & Rita.

Anyway, I promised the partygoers I’d post some pictures, and I finally put them up on our flickr page.

—–

(Update, as of Monday the 2nd:  Al told us today that Rita has been in the hospital for a few days; her cancer symptoms are acting up again.  In addition, Al’s come down with a cold and didn’t want to visit today, in order to keep his germs to himself.  Long story short:  they’re both quite lonely without each other.  We’re going to visit each of them tomorrow.  Friends/neighbors of Al & Rita, if you’re reading this, feel free to call us to get their contact info.  They would really love to hear from you.)

Saturday

Margo:  “I’m exciteder than anyone in the whole wide world!”

[Margo turns 4 on Wednesday.]

Sunday

Margo (as the excitement mounted during the last drive of the first half):  “Are the Colonels going to win?!”

[Margo was also the one who had, quite recently, spent a good chunk of the dinner hour in front of the TV begging to watch something else.  Despite the fact that the three children witnessed one of the biggest and most exciting defensive plays in Super Bowl history, they were all a lot more entertained by The Boss.  The highlight of Rique's first Super Bowl was unquestionably "Glory Days", which inspired such vigorous dancing that he almost fell off my lap.]

[Note: I wrote this on several occasions over the course of the past month. I've tried to fix all the verb tenses and date references to make sense. Really, I've tried.

Also, please know that the timing of finally publishing this today is entirely coincidental. The following has nothing to do with our new President.]

Happy New Year to one and all, and Happy Anniversary to us! Let’s begin with a pop quiz, to make sure you’re all paying attention:

On January 2, 2009, we celebrated 11 years of marriage by

a) Having my parents over to take care of the kids so we could go out all day

b) Going to a fancy restaurant to use a coupon-thingy for a flight of wine

c) Seeing a couple of possible Oscar contenders at matinee prices

d) Cancelling all of the above

While you’re passing your papers up to the front of the class, I’m going to tell you everything we’re going to cover in today’s “2008 – The Year in Review” post. As I mentioned earlier, we haven’t done a “The Year in Review” newsletter in several years (and by “we” I mean all two/five/seven of us, but mostly “the writer in the family, who’s typically too much of a perfectionist to finish anything…at all…ever…such as this parenthetical remark…”). So the challenge before us (and by “us” I mean “me”) is to catch all of you up at once, no matter how long it’s been since you heard from us, while disguising the whole thing as a Year in Review for a SINGLE year.

Thus, we have two topics before us for today:

I. Things that did not change for the Andersons in 2008
and

II. Things that changed for the Andersons in 2008

Any questions? Good. On to Part I:

Things that did not change for the Andersons in 2008

Well, the first one I already gave away. We are still married. Our house still has no front or back door, but two side doors, and a bay window that faces north onto one of the awesomest blocks of Madison Street, where all different kinds of families live and walk and play and bike and skateboard and drive by and honk and wave and sometimes even stop by and say hello, and where we are neither the old-timers nor the new kids after NINE years in the same domicile. I am still five months older and one grade ahead, and also the sole breadwinner, although sometimes it seems less like winning anything and more like they’re just handing out bread. My bread comes mostly from Breakthrough Technologies, a software consulting firm that’s about two miles away, as the bike rides; the owners are still very cool people, and they still buy lunch on Fridays, even for the English/Spanish major in the corner who has no background whatsoever in software. Emily is still richly and abundantly blessed to spend most of her waking hours in the gloriously trouble-free and comforting enclosure of our palatial abode, in which the 60-year-old drains never clog, the bathroom and dining room are each big enough to hold ballet auditions, and nobody ever runs out of places to store toys and clothes. (Do I need to tell you I’m kidding?) She still cares faithfully for the children, dogs, husband, neighbors, and friends, through such unsung heroics as cooking, cleaning, picking up, dropping off, planning playdates, refereeing playdates, packing, unpacking, laundering, and shopping. In the few remaining minutes of her day, she still likes to TiVo PBS’s Mystery!.

We still have two dogs: Narnia, aka Girl Number One, is older than our bonds of holy matrimony and spends her time being regal, tolerant, and sleepy, often all at once; Moxie, aka Girl Number Four, is not yet two and is mostly beagle, which means she has about four primary interests: cuddling with people, escaping from the back yard, eating garbage (including used diapers), and climbing on Narnia’s head.

We still have two beautiful daughters: Dorothy/Dar, aka Girl Number Two, spends more time reading and writing than sleeping, is in charge of feeding the dogs every night, and likes to teach just about everything she learns each day in first grade to her younger sister. Margo, aka Girl Number Three, is already reading (thanks primarily to you-know-who), has an excruciating 19 months left until kindergarten, and spends more time changing her clothes and fixing her hair than she does playing with baby dolls or stuffed animals.

We still have an annual Oscar party and cram the house full of just about everyone we know. We see family out in Wheaton just about every month or so. We camp at least one night every fall and go ice skating downtown at least once every winter. We still go to church in a movie theater (mostly because real estate in Evanston still ain’t cheap), and our kids are still getting used to the idea.

We still look the same, mostly (see for yourself—we try to dump all our phamily fotos on flickr, but we still haven’t gone through and really cleaned ‘em all up).

Now, lots of you were probably up to speed on all that anyway, so you might’ve been skimming up to this point to get to the first item coming up here in Part II:

Things that changed for the Andersons in 2008

WE HAVE A SON!

There. That’s about it. It was a great year. Thanks for all your prayers, support, friendship, dogsitting, emails, generosity, love, and …

Wait, you’re still here?

You want me to ‘splain? There is too much; let me sum up. Here, in no particular order, are some other things that happened this year:

  • Margo finally agreed to potty-train herself, cold turkey, per Dr. Shana’s orders at her 3-year checkup.
  • Margo started pre-school two days a week, at the park district building next to Dar’s school. Emily had a few months of two mornings a week all to herself!!
  • Moxie settled down and started sleeping through the night without whining to go into the back yard.
  • Narnia got more tolerant of Moxie, to the point that they occasionally fall asleep together on the same cushion or blanket, sometimes even snuggled against each other!
  • Dar got glasses. Luke & Emily learned that kid glasses have gotten a LOT cooler since the early ‘80s.
  • Dar started piano lessons in October…and learned to play “Joy to the World” by Christmas!
  • Emily joined Facebook, reconnected with old friends, and had a lot of fun with status updates.
  • Emily spent much of the ridiculously long political cycle (especially on nights when I was working late on one thing or another) by laughing at it all with Stewart/Colbert and learning from American Experience.
  • Luke gave up on trying to do freelance editing work on the side, switched to a 40-hour schedule at work, and started to treat his day job more like a day job. For the first time since we got married, Luke is officially not doing any work in Spanish.
  • For the first time ever, Luke snowshoed to work.

And speaking of firsts, and of Spanish, and of joy, and of the world, and of snuggling, and of sleeping through the night, and of checkups with Dr. Shana…

On June 10, 2008, a little boy entered a hotel room in Guatemala City. He was being carried by a very quiet and gentle caregiver and a young law-school student, her boss’s son. And when he went to sleep that night in that hotel room, he had a Mamá and a Papá.

The little boy had just started walking and just finished drinking formula. We said, “Hola”, and he said it right back. A few days later, we brought him home.

If you’d like to read more but don’t have (or don’t remember) the password to get to the content on our other site, let us know. If you’d like to start back at the beginning, go ahead.

As for Rique in 2008, here are some things that were different for him, in his own words:

  • At my new home, there’s only two other kids. Sometimes they’re not even around. That’s a little weird. At least we all still sleep in the same room.
  • These other two spend a lot of their time hugging me, talking to me, squeezing me, trying to pick me up, trying to teach me things, and holding me.
  • I learned about a type of four-legged kid called a “Narnia”. They don’t touch me quite as much, but they let me touch them, and they’re fuzzy. There are two of them here!
  • Reluctantly, I learned to chew, but it turns out to be really useful! Also, you wouldn’t believe how many different kinds of food there are! I learned that I like almost everything there is to eat. Whatever I don’t like, I try to share with the Narnias.
  • People here wear more clothes at one time than anyone I’ve ever seen, especially in the last couple of months. I think it has something to do with the way the air outside gets really prickly and sharp. Sometimes they even put clothes on their hands! I’m not a big fan of those, but I also hate it when the prickly air makes my fingers feel all funny. I must admit, I can get pretty unhappy about the whole thing sometimes.
  • Speaking of being unhappy, after being in my new home for a while I came up with a new strategy: when you get unhappy about something —anything at all, really— high-pitched screaming at full volume is the only response that makes any sense. This is true for serious bodily injuries, most diaper changes, not being picked up by the nearest adult, and everything in between.
  • I learned that running and jumping are almost as fun as dancing. Sometimes I combine all three.
  • I learned about strollers. Like everything with wheels, they’re awesome. The best thing about strollers is that you can usually lean over to see —and sometimes even touch— the wheels while they’re turning. The worst thing about strollers is that they have straps that keep you from getting out to play with the wheels.
  • Sitting still is a big thing around here, especially at meal time. I usually go along with it for a while, because it makes their feeding routine a lot smoother.
  • Speaking of sitting, the two grown-ups here want me to sit on a little bowl, half-naked, for what seems like hours. Eventually I decide to pee, because that makes them clap. They seem to enjoy clapping. I usually clap also, to encourage them.
  • I have grown quite used to riding in cars, getting buckled and unbuckled, and so on. Nothing to it. Those little metal toy cars, on the other hand, will never get old. You can pretend they make noise, and you can roll them along the floor or on your head, and there’s even this one toy that makes them go around in circles all by itself! You might also think that throwing them is a great way to express frustration, but it usually just makes the little metal cars disappear up onto the top of some tall piece of furniture. (See high-pitched screaming, above.)
  • Also, “car” is relatively easy to say, although sometimes I think one of the other two kids thinks that’s her name.
  • I don’t even remember what it used to be like when I took a bath, but the way they do it here is awesome: you get to sit in the water and play, which is about as much fun as anything can be. Usually you do it at home, naked, with soap and toys. Sometimes you do it in someone’s backyard, only there’s a lot more water, and the grown-ups don’t let go of you. And there’s this one kind of bath that you have to go through sand to get to. It’s so big that you can do it with a whole bunch of strangers, all at once, and the water moves all by itself, without anybody splashing in it!

OK…you get the idea: we really like having a son, and we are also really outnumbered. There’s always more to say, but I need to just publish this and be done; I’m having entirely too much fun instead of doing other things I should be doing, and this newsy-update-thing is already really late AGAIN.

First, I need to check with my first mate (ha ha) and make sure I’m not veering too far off course on any of this. And then I’ll send out this link to all kinds of people we haven’t seen in years, and that’ll kind of be like the nationwide release of our little corner of the interwebs…so when you get to this point, if you want to forward this around, go ahead.

Thanks for reading. Happy New Year, give or take a couple of weeks!

[The answer to the quiz was D.]

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