Peanut butter is a staple in our house. Chris has eaten prodigious amounts of it for years. Everett has it on his waffles in the morning, and he now eats peanut butter and jelly as often as he can, though he has recently started to branch out a little. Tonight he had a peanut butter and Nutella sandwich for dinner. The other night he added capers to his dinnertime peanut butter and jelly…and he reported that it was delicious. Interestingly, this type of dinner is not enough to fill him up. Last weekend at Ella’s Deli he ordered the peanut butter and jelly platter with french fries, apple sauce and a vanilla shake he shared with Mom. When he was done he reported “I’m full. But my dessert tank is empty!” In lieu of any of the 26 flavors of ice cream, he walked over to the treat section with Mom and picked out some rock candy, which as Chris pointed out comes in a very natural blue color. “Dada, are you using sarcasm?”

Everett has recently been trying to more specifically identify our roles. He know that Chris is a scientist and an engineer. He also knows that Mama is a scientist, though he isn’t quite sure what kind (we have noticed a similar level of confusion about bioethics among adults). Occasionally when Everett is explaining the workings of the world around him he will start sentences with “Well Dada is a scientist and an engineer and he says that…”, and this can be used to explain anything from the laws of physics to why you shouldn’t wear socks at night (or at any other time really – they cut off circulation).

A few months ago Everett got a glimpse of an iPad app that I (Chris) developed at work with the help of some colleagues. It’s a clinical decision support system for physicians who treat Parkinson’s disease. I was moving his finger toward the Home button to switch to a more child-friendly app when Everett said “Woah woah woah!” and asked me to explain what we were looking at and how it works. When I was done describing it he put his arm around my shoulder and said “You are a great scientist.”

Today Everett was conducting experiments with food coloring, salt and suntan lotion. In the midst of his experiments he told Melissa “I’m probably going to grow up to be a scientist.”

Sometime in the last couple years Everett became interested in Jimmy Neutron. One funny part of the original movie is when the alien king’s assistant decides that he will be the one to examine a toaster that has arrived from earth, at which point he announces “I am the official checker of new things to be checked.” Everett mistook “official” for “efficient” and it stuck, which explains the malapropism in the title of today’s blog entry. We have been celebrating Mother’s Day for the last 24 hours with a trip to the Wisconsin Dells. Chris sprung this on Melissa late Saturday afternoon. We spent about 30 minutes getting ready and then left around 5:30pm. First stop: Ella’s Deli in Madison. It’s been our tradition for the past two years to eat there on our way to the Dells for Mother’s Day. This year we took a close look at the menu and realized there are a few items we just aren’t familiar with such as Phosphates (some kind of drink) and Boolkies (presumably some kind of bread since it is listed in the “Bagels or Boolkies” section). Other notable things about Ella’s are: the vast collection of kitschy animatronics including the backlit mechanical aquarium under the glass at our table; the carousel, which we rode after dinner.

This year we decided to change our tradition a bit. The past two years we have gone to the Great Wolf Lodge and have loved it. However, water slides are frowned upon for pregnant women, so the things that Melissa could do in the water were limited. The Great Wolf Lodge has a tiny lazy river for floating, while the neighboring resort to the east has the longest indoor lazy river in the country (or so their website says). So this year we decided to try the Kalahari Resort. We arrived around 9pm, got settled in and everyone went to sleep a little after 10pm. The next morning we had breakfast at the Log Cabin in Baraboo. By about 9:30am we were in the water. Everett is just over 42″ tall, which means he is eligible for many more water slides than in past years. There were only a handful that he couldn’t ride this year. Among them were a couple where you stand in a vertical chute and a trap door opens under you (we didn’t try this). Another was a tube that shoots you into a spiral flume. Once you lose speed and slide toward the center you are dropped several feet into a pool of water, and as Chris demonstrated there is simply no way to do this gracefully. We stayed the day and headed home around 4:30. We adhered to our schedule remarkably well.

It was a lot of fun and definitely worth the trip. However, all three of us independently came to the conclusion that the Great Wolf Lodge edges out Kalahari as our favorite. Melissa and Chris feel that both places take safety seriously, but we also agreed that the employees at the Great Wolf Lodge did so to a greater degree. They were vigilant, bordering on obsessive. Everett liked the fact that the wolf howls before the wave pool starts. Lastly, floating on the lazy river didn’t quite work out the way we imagined. Melissa gets great relief from being in the water, but it turns out to be quite difficult for a woman who is seven months pregnant to get into an inner tube and get comfortable.

As we were leaving the resort tonight Everett announced to us and to Gabby (who was on the phone) that he was NOT tired, but he was very hungry. Chris gave him a cup of yogurt and a spoon, and since this was a long trip he got to watch Finding Nemo in the movie car on the way home. We discovered that movie watching and eating might not be a great combination for the new car. Everett is normally pretty tidy when he eats, but within a few minutes his shirt, carseat and even the car headphones were covered in yogurt. The good news is that this was our first food spill and that the car has now been christened!

Curiously, 30 minutes later Everett was snoring, which continued until we were a few minutes from home.

Here are a few photos and videos from the trip.

Happy Mother’s Day to all of the Moms in our life!

Spring is springing, at least in the halting manner that it does in Wisconsin. Some days are very warm, and some days (like today) the temperatures are back in the 40s. On a distantly related subject, Chris has been growing his hair since last fall, partly in the hopes of joining the Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists (LFHCfS). However, he recently had to get it trimmed for two reasons. First, Matt and Katy are getting married next week (!!!). Chris and Melissa are both in the wedding, and we wanted to make an effort to look presentable. Second, he just gets too hot while bicycling. Yesterday when we rode to school it was in the 50s, but even in shorts, a t-shirt and sandals he was sweating profusely (perhaps this could be an excuse to get a lightweight, custom-made titanium Bakfiets?). How do the Dutch handle this problem? To understand this issue, first note that there are two major differences between cycling in the U.S. and the Netherlands: 1) The Dutch embrace bicycling in everyday life; 2) Americans wear helmets. If you have any doubt about either of these then take a look at this. Only in the Netherlands would someone object to a hill with a 3% grade! The combination of flat terrain and greater ventilation from the absence of helmets might explain why Dutch bicyclists never appear to to be sweating, and why a bike as heavy as the Bakfiets sells so well.

Bicycling to school and work is part of our daily routine. However, this week has been a little rough in that regard. On Monday Everett did not want to get on the bike. He was crying and whining from before we left the house until we were more than halfway to school:
“I hate the bike.”
“I hate riding the bike.”
“I want to go in the car.”
Chris: “Why do you want to go in the car?”
“Because I like my carseat and I want to listen to kid music and I just don’t want to be on the bike!”

So for the rest of the week we made an effort to leave a little earlier each morning and have an adventure on the way to school. On Tuesday we went to the Hippo Playground for the first time in many months. On Wednesday we went by the three ponds with whale spouts (Daddy, Mommy and Baby) and looked for ducks. We didn’t find any ducklings but we did find four adult mallards (we aren’t sure yet where the babies are this year). On Thursday we went geocaching and then fed the geese at a nearby pond.


Since we started riding the cargo bike a couple years ago, Everett has had zero interest in learning to ride his own bike, and to be honest we don’t really blame him. But as we approached school on Thursday morning he asked a question that Chris has been waiting years for: “Dada I want to learn to ride my own bike. Can you teach me?” Yes!

This morning as we passed the village on the way to school there was a strong smell of bacon wafting through the air. They must have been cooking up $1.99 BOB (Baskets of Bacon) at the Chancery, and I am now wondering if we can place a to-go order and share it during our daily commute, and if so why we haven’t been doing this for the past couple years. Anyway, Chris mentioned the smell and Everett immediately said “That smells like the bacon at Gabby’s house!”. And after being asked for details, he went on the clarify that the smell is different from our house. The boy knows his bacon.

This morning was a little rough, perhaps because Everett woke up early (around 6am). He did not want to go to school or ride the bike. Tears were shed when we told him he had to pick up the garbage he left on the stairs. Nonetheless, Chris wanted to reinforce the fact that bicycling encourages adventures and diversions as long as we get to school on time. Everett found a golf ball on each of our last two geocache searches, and this led to two things. First, we cut one of the golf balls in half with a hack saw last night (a bit explosive but fun!). Second, Chris told him the story about Bryon, a friend from graduate school who had amassed a huge collection of golf balls during his daily bike commute and put them in a bowl next to the hors d’oeuvres at his dissertation. So this morning as we were passing Hansen Golf Course Everett asked if we could hop out and look for golf balls. The first thing he wanted to do was satisfy his curiosity about the tee markers. Next we tromped around for a few minutes looking for balls (didn’t find any). Fortunately, by the time we got to school (with one minute to spare!) he was back to his normal self.

Today we bought a new car, the first one we have purchased together since we were married. Some of you may recall that Melissa bought a Honda CR-V in 2002, a couple years before she and Chris first met. At the time they started dating Chris was driving a Montero that had some unusual characteristics. For example, one night when we kissed while sitting in the car the engine started spontaneously without the key in the ignition (!?!). Some time later, after Melissa became Chris’ sugar-mama, Chris stopped driving it altogether and later noticed that a tree had started growing out of the passenger door. This was how he knew it was time to give it up, and since then we have been a one car family.

The color Odyssey we purchased is “smoky topaz”, which sounds much more mysterious than our lives actually are.

The interior is “truffle”, which sounds much more pretentious than our lives actually are. We chose the colors by process of elimination: they didn’t have blue, and white was out of the question. All of the remaining colors are so ambiguous that we would be hard pressed to name them when we fill out our motor vehicle registration. The color we purchased is in fact so nondescript that Melissa accidentally started following another Honda Odyssey on the way home from the dealer. Instead of ending up at our house she found herself at The Chancery in the village.

We chose the Odyssey after going through an extensive process of evaluating different makes and models. We ruled out the Volvo station wagon, as well as a number of “crossover” vehicles (whatever that means). We wanted sliding doors, easy access to all seats and features that would work well for a family. The distinguishing feature of the Odyssey over the Sienna was the flexibility in carseat locations: the Odyssey has LATCH connectors for 5 car seats, enough for the kids and a couple friends. The car is unbelievably deluxe compared to what we had when we were growing up. When Chris was in grade school his Dad bought a Chevy cargo van, built benches in the back and lined the whole thing in yellow and orange shag carpet (you can almost hear Austin Powers saying “Yeah Baby!”). The driver and passenger had lap belts, but there were no other safety features to be found. There was certainly no movie player, climate control, etc. I’ve been thinking about telling Everett how good he has it, but I suspect he would grasp it about as well as I did at his age.

Everett is starting to explore more abstract concepts in language. One day recently Melissa was driving when she thanked another woman for not letting her merge into traffic. “Mommy why did you thank her?” This led to a conversation about sarcasm, and since then Everett pauses from time to time when we are talking and asks questions like:
“Are you using sarcasm?” or
“Are you teasing me?” or
“Are you mocking me?”

The last question is something he learned from his Bible book in the story about Jesus. The books are written for children, but don’t sidestep any of the major events. This has made him intensely curious. “What’s crucifixion? Why were they mocking Jesus?” On a related subject, he has become very interested in church recently is quite impressed with Pastor Chris.

In an effort to get him to read more, Chris started putting signs over the weather station in the kitchen with words like pounce, springy, roughhousy, etc. Everett asked who put the signs up, and Chris told him that the weatherman had come by in the night. 6 months ago this probably would have been an explanation he accepted, but no longer. “Daddy did you put those signs up?” Chris prevaricated for a couple minutes until Everett insisted “Tell me the truth, did you do it?” So Chris confessed. There’s no point in allowing a sense of distrust about something as small as this while we are trying to preserve one of the biggest ongoing conspiracies on earth.

Tonight was the first time that we, as a family, got to go inside Everett’s classroom to see what he does in school everyday. The first 45 minutes was a pot luck dinner with other parents and children. The next 45 minutes were spent in the classroom. It appears that Montessori classrooms are a bit unlike others in that children structure their own time, hence they lack rows of desks. Also, there are a lot of specialized activities that require training before they can be used properly. We learned several things. First, we learned that Everett knows the location of many more countries in Africa than we do. Second, we learned that Everett is entirely capable of cleaning up after himself without being asked. In contrast, it is sometimes a struggle to get him to hang his coat up at home. Third, we learned that the teachers have special powers over children that parents apparently don’t possess. The classroom was abuzz with activity when suddenly all of the children simultaneously went silent. The adults kept talking for a few moments until we realized something important had happened: Ms. Tierra had rung a small bell, signaling that it was time to be quiet to that she could make an announcement. This was truly impressive – several parents mentioned that they should try using bells at home. Lastly, Chris finally met Everett’s friend Mary that we have heard so much about. Everett and Mary are inseparable at school, and have announced they are getting married.

Unfortunately, Mary’s family is moving to Indiana at the end of June, so this will have to be a long-distance relationship until they are old enough.

Everett has enjoyed playing hide and seek with us for some time, and mostly it has been a game of humoring him while we are partly hidden or pretend to look for him in implausible places. However, tonight he hid in a way that I have never experienced before (Chris speaking): I knew he was on the second floor of our house, but it took me about 10 minutes to find him. He found a hiding spot that was so clever that I didn’t notice him, even when (in retrospect) I was looking in precisely the right location. This has happened at the same time that he has realized that he can sneak up on us in the house. Not sure what this means for our future.

Melissa is now known as The Momma Bear. Piggy and Kitty are the baby bears. If Chris makes a reference to “Momma…” then Everett immediately jumps in with “bear”. Recently, Melissa got a Snoogle pregnancy pillow and Everett started laying inside it during roughhousing, and we observed that it kind of felt like a cocoon, and then we started talking about hibernating. This naturally led to a conversation about how bears love bacon, and about how Gramsy and Grandpa used to feed bacon to the bears through the windows of their car at Yellowstone National Park (this was a time with a different sensibility about feeding wild animals). So one morning Everett and Chris were making bacon for breakfast, and Everett joked that the smell of the bacon was wafting upstairs and was going to wake Momma out of hibernation. It seems to have worked.