Sometimes being at home with Everett is like being on the set of a musical. He sings constantly, recites lines from movies and acts them out. Recently he has expressed a lot of interest in pirates, which has been reinforced by the pirate costume he received for Christmas and the pirate exhibit at the Milwaukee Public Museum. The latter featured the Whydah, a pirate ship that sank off Cape Cod in 1717 and was recently located. A fair amount of treasure and other artifacts were recovered and are now part of a traveling exhibit which we thoroughly enjoyed. It explained a lot about pirates that we didn’t know, including the contrast between their reputation as ruthless outlaws and the apparently democratic way in which they ran their ships and freed slaves. Unfortunately, photography was not allowed in the exhibit, and there were several live pirates with swords who were present to enforce the rules, so we didn’t try our luck. The only photo we have is Everett and Mom at the front of the museum.

Everett has become even more interested in pirates since seeing the exhibit.

He often wears his costume, and recently made a map of treasure that is buried in our house. “Instead of an X, we’ll mark it with a Y, so no one will ever find it!”

Chris was wondering how pirates felt about roughhousing. Not surprisingly, they seem to like it as much as anyone else. This prompted Chris to ask “When is it not roughhousing time?” Everett provided the most accurate answer we can imagine: “After roughhousing.” After one recent roughhousing session Chris remarked “I feel like I’m training someone who is going to defeat me one day.” Melissa responded “I think you just summarized parenting in a nutshell.”

This weekend Everett agreed that it’s time for the toddler potty to go away, and from now on he will use the regular toilet with a child seat cover. High fives all around! We also note that the next day he started wiping his own bottom. So things are looking up around here, and just in time. On Saturday he and Chris were driving to the store to get a toilet seat cover, and for some reason Chris told a short story about the times he had travelled to certain areas in California and came across a group of sea lions. The unexpected part of those experiences is that when you are getting near sea lions, often you first smell them, then hear them and finally see them. And man are they stinky! Everett thought this was a funny story, so he asked to hear it again and again. And as always, Chris started expanding the story and adding embellishments. He added the part about how the sea lions took over the docks at Pier 39 in San Francisco after the earthquake in 1989, and about how when sea lions want to go to the other end of the dock they don’t swim or walk around, they walk over every other sea lion in their path, waking everyone up and causing an incredible commotion. You can see for yourself here:

Everett thought each new version was funnier than the last. By the time we got to the store, this is what the people in cars around us might have seen at stop lights: a father in the front seat telling an animated story and gesturing like a madman; a boy in the back seat who was laughing so hard he could barely breathe. Apparently Chris is hilarious in the 4-year old boy demographic. From experience it appears that the key elements for humor in this age group are:

1. An element of surprise in the story.

2. Exaggerated histrionics while story telling. For example, “Those seals were stinky!” has potential. However, “Great GUNGA MUNGA were those seals stinky!!!” gets some serious laughs, and you get extra points if you gesture so wildly that you knock over people sitting nearby.

3. It must be somehow related to poop or bottoms.

Last Sunday we told Everett that Melissa is pregnant with two babies. He was extremely excited and he immediately started talking about all of the things he will teach them. Among them, “The most important thing I have to teach them is talking.” He also informed us that he wants their cribs around his bed.

On Monday he told them all about the Great Wolf Lodge, and he rearranged the dining room chairs for them. He also asked if they are going to be born that day.

As we have told friends and family the news, they have offered a variety of name suggestions:
Rocky and Bullwinkle
Ben and Jerry
Control-C and Control-V
Frick and Frack
Hall and Oates
Itchy and Scratchy
Bert and Ernie
Thelma and Louise
Heat Miser and Cold Miser
Shake and Bake

On Tuesday Everett named them Kitty and Piggy. For the time being Chris and Melissa have decided to call them the Twinkies.

On Friday Melissa said that the babies wanted Greek food for dinner. Everett seemed perplexed by this and asked how she knew. We explained to him that Mothers have special powers to identify what foods their babies want to eat. He seemed partly satisfied by this, though not totally convinced.

He later told Melissa “Whenever you open your mouth then the light can get in.”

As researchers we have decided to practice Evidence-Based Parenting. By way of explanation, any researcher will tell you that a sample size of 1 is anecdotal evidence, and the plural of anecdote is not data. We have reported a fair number of findings about Everett on this website, and in the world of evidence-based practices these case reports are among the weakest forms of evidence, second only to expert opinion. By increasing our sample size we could strengthen our conclusions, and as a result better substantiate the degree to which our parenting approach influences our children. Of course this experimental design is based on two assumptions:

1. Stationarity, i.e. that we are the same people now that we were when Everett was born.

2. Independence, i.e. that successive study participants do not interact and have no effect on each other.

However, we cannot even remotely substantiate either of these assumptions, and I am loathe to think what reviewers might say, but we are sticking with this study design anyway and will deal with the consequences later. Fortunately, we have received news that our sample size will soon be increased, and if things go well then we will reach the minimum threshold for a t-test. Melissa is pregnant.

Chris and Everett just returned from a winter camping trip with the Y-Tribe. This is the first overnight adventure we have had while Mom stayed home. It’s also the first time that Melissa has stayed in the house alone since we moved to Wauwatosa.

The trip logistics worked out perfectly. While Everett was in drama class on Saturday morning, Chris rented a car for a day so that Melissa wouldn’t be without one. Chris picked up Everett from class and we went straight to the YMCA camp near Burlington, Wisconsin.

We were told ahead of time that camp is a Mom-free zone, and that there would be essentially no restrictions on junk food. We were also informed that there would be a “meat attack” in the hours between dinner and bedtime. So we came prepared for both. Everett had a bag of treats (chocolate, lebkuchen, gummy bears, grinilla bars, etc). We also made one stop along the way for snacks (sausages and shelled peanuts), and for extra propane for the grill.

We arrived just in time for lunch on Saturday. After lunch we moved into our cabin, which is the most deluxe accommodations Chris has ever seen for camping. The cabin had three bathrooms with showers, a large kitchen and three separate bedrooms with bunk beds. Everett immediately chose a top bunk even though as recently as our Christmas trip to Cincinnati he informed us that he was rolling out of bed as often as three times a night. Chris tried to address this by putting an extra mattress vertically on the open side of  Everett’s bed.

Saturday afternoon we explored camp. A few kids were playing gaga ball, but Everett was far more interested in the giant ropes course, and since that wasn’t open we went for a hike around the lake. Then we rested for a bit in the cabin, and then went to arts and crafts. We made a tie-dyed t-shirt and beaded heart for Mom.

Next was The Big Event: the snow snake competition! This is something we have never heard of before, but apparently it is a tradition started by Native Americans as a winter bonding activity. A brief description is here: http://www.ganondagan.org/articles/SnowSnake.html. Basically you make a snow snake out of wood and launch it down a snow trough to see who can throw the farthest. Chris & Everett have been working on their snow snake for about a week. We went to Home Depot and chose a wood dowel after testing about a dozen of them for straightness and speed. Then we carved it into shape with a plane and a utility knife, sanded it smooth, and applied a coat of polyurethane each night for the next four nights. Finally we gave it a top-secret coating which we cannot divulge but will say that it causes a very high contact angle with water.

Unfortunately, we are currently in the midst of the non-winter of 2012-2013. We did get a little snow recently but then temperatures rose so much that all of it melted. So we found the steepest hill we could locate in camp and held a grass snake competition. Everett was in the 4K-5K group, and each child got three throws. We noted that the change in conditions from snow to grass heavily favored more of a javelin toss than a sliding technique. Nonetheless, it was a lot of fun.

After the snow snake we had some more play time and then turkey dinner at the lodge. Then we went back to the cabin and built a bonfire. I should pause here and make two observations. First, boys of all ages are commonly fascinated by fire, and this is the first time I have observed this behavior in Everett. He spent over an hour catching sticks on fire, making smoke signals, hitting the hot coals to create sparks, etc. It was really difficult to pull him away. Second, the minimal supervision that Dads usually provide under these types of circumstances was reduced even further because the Packers were playing a playoff game. Two televisions were setup in the kitchen, and while the Dads watched the game the kids were outside by the fire.

We were just thinking about pajamas and bedtime when Everett asked “What does invade mean?” Apparently he had heard other kids talk about invading another cabin. “Well I want to go on an invasion!” So we put our hats and jackets on once more and went on an invasion hike around camp on the wooden boardwalks in the dark and the rain.

Everett finally got to sleep around 9pm. The Packers lost to the 49ers a couple hours later. Then the Dads played with fire for a while (it turns out that a styrofoam cup of water in a campfire doesn’t melt) during a mixture of rain, sleet and hail.

Sunday night there was some heavy snoring in our room, and at one point during the night Everett told Chris that he couldn’t sleep and to be quiet! For the record: it wasn’t Chris snoring.

Sunday morning we got up around 7:15, had chocolate for breakfast (Cocoa Puffs) and made one last visit to the sledding hill before returning home. We went straight to the airport so that Chris could catch a flight to the Mayo Clinic for work. Melissa met us at the airport and took Everett home.

A few thoughts about the trip:

-The Y-Tribe is a great group of Dads and kids. We thoroughly enjoyed our time with them and are excited to be part of the group!

-Chris does not often get to see Everett around other groups of kids, and he is probably the youngest member of the Y-Tribe group. Everett didn’t seem so interested in playing the big kid games, but he did enjoy exploring, doing art projects and playing with the snow snake.

-Everett seemed to love the experience and said multiple times that he wanted to do it again.

We spent Christmas this year in Cincinnati with Melissa’s extended family. Everett received several costumes for Christmas including a knight and a pirate. Since then he has been running around the house saying things like “Avast ye scallywags! That booty shall be mine!”, a la B.O.B. in Night of the Living Carrots. Other funny quotes:
-Everett looked closely at Chris and said “Dada, let me see something. Oh yeah, you’ve got that pouncy look in your eyes!”
-He received an eyeball for Christmas, the kind that you can throw at the floor or a wall and it sticks and squishes flat and then slowly oozes back into its normal shape. He picked it up and asked “Grandaddy, does this terrify you?”

One special treat this year was the snow that fell in the days after Christmas. It snowed enough that Everett and Trinity spent a fair amount of time playing outside in it, and Grandaddy took Everett sledding with Trinity and Braden on Saturday. Everett was exhausted when he got home. We also heard that he ate every single crumb of his lunch, which almost never happens. Our view is that a tired, happy kid is a win for everyone. Good work Grandaddy!

Gingerbread houses this year were made on December 28th by the following teams:
-Amanda and Cress made a Hobbit house, partly because they recently visited New Zealand and partly because the movie just came out.

-Bob and Linda made the Orange Bowl stadium because their Alma Mater, Northern Illinois University, is going to the Orange Bowl this year.

-Terry decorated a gingerbread cookie.

-Chris, Melissa and Everett made a rather eclectic house. As soon as we started talking about preparations, Everett exclaimed that he wanted to make a gingerbread house from Zebblor 7, which as almost no one knows is the planet of tired chickens and orbits nearby Zebblor 8, planet of the annoying ducks. See Amazing Cows for details. Chris wanted to incorporate some kind of electricity, but wanted to avoid using batteries or any artificial power source. So he created a planetary power plant from two oranges, two potatoes, an apple and a tomato. This was able to power three LEDs.

-Trinity made a gingerbread house and a sugarplum fairy.

-Kirsten and Braden made a house that was carefully decorated with Fruit Loops and other circular decorations.

Note about fruit/vegetable LEDs: there are videos on the internet that show LED illumination by simply using a lime as a pincushion. Chris was highly skeptical about this for several reasons. First, a single fruit or vegetable does not produce much power, and the voltage produced is generally not enough to overcome the forward voltage of the LED. Second, LED pins are usually made of some ordinary conductor like silver, rather than combinations of metals that can act as electron donors and recipients. Nonetheless, Chris decided to give it a try. The results were disappointing but not unexpected.

Curiously, with multiple fruits and vegetable it did not seem to matter whether they were connected in series (adding voltage) or parallel (adding current). Maybe next year we will try a more traditional voltaic pile.

Photos from the trip are here.

One type of word that we have written about in the past is collective nouns. These are fun because they often combine clever wordplay (a catastrophe of debt), behavior (an exaltation of larks), attributes (a pride of lions) or onomatopoeia (a flush of plumbers). But our new favorite collective noun is “binders of women”, which as many of us know was a gaffe by Romney during one of the presidential debates. What’s funny about this is that it lacks the attractive attributes of other collective nouns, and yet is just as amusing. Let’s pause for a few moments to imagine a few connotative meanings. Actually, never mind. We don’t envy political candidates who have to speak on the fly in front of live audiences on a daily basis for several months at a time. All of us, no matter how polished we may be at public speaking, are going to trip up sooner or later and say something foolish. And when this happens the media inevitably pounces on it.

Fortunately there are people protecting us from these kinds of missteps. One of them is Philip B. Corbett, a deputy news editor at the New York Times. He is part curmudgeon and part stickler, a person who helps the rest of us avoid impure grammatical thoughts. He has a blog called After Deadline where he tackles thorny language issues that are frankly so obscure that they are difficult for us mortals to get our minds around. He recently wrote about an outbreak of subjunctivitis, which is similar to conjunctivitis, except that it gets under your skin instead of your eyelids. Readers who enjoy this material should also check out Lingua Franca, a blog on the Chronicle of Higher Education. In one recent entry Ben Yagoda writes about the “preposition-possessive-pronoun combo—PPPC for short” and how it “speaks to my geeky heart.” There’s nothing geeky about good communication, though there may be something geeky about taking such apparent delight in arcane usage details.

This may seem rather far afield from the focus of this blog, which is Everett and his entourage. I think the link is his rapidly developing language abilities. He is now able to create grammatically correct sentences and string them together into complex stories. As listeners, we get to observe cognitive leaps and the phrases he uses to segue between them. One common example is “…speaking of X, can we do Y?” He is at a period in his life where creativity and language are freely intermingled without adherence to a strict set of rules. We are looking forward to hearing more language experiments and we will of course report any collective nouns that he invents.

It has not snowed in a long time in Milwaukee, and it seems that our local weather reporters have a lot of pent up energy for predicting winter storms. For a couple days before December 22 they have been bubbling over about a snowstorm which largely failed to materialize, at least in Milwaukee. Thank you, Chicken Little. Perhaps the weather team could improve their ratings by providing updates on the end of the world according to the Mayan calendar?

While waiting for winter to arrive we have been preparing for Christmas. Melissa has done virtually all of our Christmas shopping and shipping. She also sent our annual holiday cards, though we should note that Chris helped by modernizing our system for printing address labels. Goodbye mail merge in Word, hello Mac Contacts. This reduced the amount of time required to print labels by an order of magnitude.

Everett has been involved in his own preparations. One night when Chris got home from work there was a sink full of sharks and whales in the downstairs bathroom sink. Later he found our Christmas nativity scene in the freezer. Mmmkay. The night we left for Gabby and Granddaddy’s house Everett put a note out for Santa. Originally this was going to include detailed instructions on where to deliver gifts, but in the end he decided that this was unnecessary due to Santa’s all-knowing powers. Instead he left a drawing of himself along with a cup of water and a homemade cookie. Kyra promptly ate the cookie, which Everett seemed momentarily upset about but he quickly recovered and we found another cookie for Santa.

On Christmas Eve Everett carefully put out snacks for Santa and the reindeer, along with reindeer dust in the front yard.



Chris reread The Santaland Diaries. Marital tip: do not attempt to read David Sedaris in bed while your spouse is trying to sleep. Unless of course you don’t like David Sedaris in the first place, but in that case you might have other problems.

When cyclists in Milwaukee hear the word “rampage” they normally think of the Santa Rampage, an annual semi-organized bike ride that takes place each December. This year it was on the 15th. However, the tragic events on the 14th made us aware of a different kind of rampage. What took place in Connecticut wasn’t discussed during the ride but was certainly felt, especially considering the fact that the Spokesmen are almost all fathers. Nonetheless we don’t know anyone who considered canceling. Instead we persevered in our primary mission: spreading holiday cheer. Photos from the ride are here.

Everett has been talking about the Santa Rampage for weeks, especially about getting dressed as Rudolph and having a doughnut first thing in the morning. We got up around normal time (7am) and got dressed.

It started raining the moment we stepped out the door at 8am. As an aside, this appears to be another non-winter in Wisconsin, similar to the non-winter of 2011-2012. This is a big disappointment for us. To make an analogy to The Year Without a Santa Claus, we are Snow Misers (but note that Chris sometimes has Heat Miser hair).

Our first stop was Cranky Al’s for doughnuts.

Next stop: Cafe Hollander.

Third stop: Lakefront Brewery. It was extraordinarily difficult to take any photos there because Chris’ camera got nice and cold on the bike, and then he stepped into a room filled with sweaty Santas. The lens fogged up immediately and there was no hope of defogging it inside. This is the only picture that came out. It appears that the fog created a warm holiday glow.

Subsequent stops included Conejito’s, where the Santas took over the party room and washed down paper plate after paper plate of tostadas with pitchers of margaritas. Doug (one of the Spokesmen) got a lot of grief for ordering chicken mole off the menu and for being served on actual ceramic dish. Fourth stop: Kochanski’s Concertina Beer Hall where they were serving shot ski’s (literally), while a woman and her young daughter were in the rain out back selling a beer from the former Soviet Union called Old Bobby (note the poodle on the label, and feel free to offer translations). As always there was a polka band playing Christmas tunes. Last stop: Cafe Hollander again and then home.

The weather for the rampage was cold and rainy this year, but this did not seem to dampen participation. In fact, attendance might have increased over last year, and the way that people on the street responded to the Santas was a stark contrast to the gloomy skies. Lots of laughter, waving, cell phone pictures and general Christmas cheer. We also made the local news: http://www.jsonline.com/multimedia/photos/183640041.html.

Each year the Spokesmen tow the Santa trailer, which blasts edgy Christmas songs by Ozzie Osbourne, Twisted Sister and Elvis via a built-in sound system. The original trailer weighed about 130 lbs, and in later years the people who towed it expressed a desire to reduce weight. Chris noticed that they were using sealed-lead acid batteries so he put together a new power system using lithium-ion batteries with much higher energy density. This year we had plenty of power but intermittent problems with the sound, which was likely caused by the constant rain (the trailer is not exactly waterproof). In the days after the rampage we tried to diagnose the power problems by towing the trailer around behind the Bakfiets, providing additional opportunities to spread cheer. Adding the trailer to the Bakfiets was noticeable but not a major change from normal. Everett loved the idea of taking the trailer to school. Watch closely for the cameo appearance by Melissa.

It seems that all of us take great comfort in the sounds that we make when we are around each other. I think I speak for all parents when I say that we want to hear just the right amount of sound coming from our children: too much sound means things might be getting out of control; too little sound is strange and at the very least in need of investigation. But when Everett is closeby and we can hear him making regular noises then we usually sense that things are ok. Similarly, Everett has started asking us to work in the kitchen (underneath his bedroom) at bedtime so that he can fall asleep.