Mike Rehberg and Donna Mears

After dire predictions of rain, it's been a beautiful weekend. Donna and the boy are taking a nap in his room and Sheida and I are lounging on the deck after a busy morning. Noah's usual Sunday morning includes 8atching Thomas the Tank Engine at 8:30, followed by Signing Time Kids at 9:00. He's really picking up the signs fast, which got us to wondering what foreign language(s) we should start looking into having him learn. He's such an instant sponge for ASL, how remarkable that very small kids have such an aptitude for learning. It must be because their only job right now is to learn, all day all night.
It's amazing where snippets and phrases and comments will pop up when Noah makes a connection between what he's doing now and what he did some time in the past. Kind of a fun riddle for us, actually, as we try to figure out why he said something. It's always logical, but not always in context.

It's not always a good thing to have our little boy being an instant knowledge sponge - there are certain pages in "Hop on Pop" we now skip, because he likes to act them out. Including "Jim Him - Jim is after him," where the boy Jim nips some creature on the tail. It's eye-opening to realize how often we observe violence - pretend and otherwise - or the tools of violence in our society. Last night's walk around the park was wonderful as ever, but I'm not sure what he took away from the big group of children (very nice kids I might add, very friendly to Noah) playing cops and robbers with fake guns, or the (again really nice guy) man around the corner carrying his semiautomatic rifle from his truck to his house. Noah even figured out, just from to our Muppets CD, that the "Muppaphone" consists of a musician hitting various muppets in the head. Once he started hitting his head with a book when we listened to it in the car, we realized what was happening. Are these innocent things? I think so, probably. But it takes a lot of work on our part to ensure Noah puts these images and ideas into proper context.
Of course violent imagery is common on television, incredibly common. A big complaint I have is that violent commercials are very widespread, even during otherwise peaceful programs, and thus very hard to anticipate. A good example is the Toyota Yaris commercial, where an insect made of fuel pumps (you have to see it) screams as it is crushed by a car, which then sucks out the insect's "blood" (gasoline). If Noah sees this, he'll be watching a creature getting crushed (the screaming makes it clear what is happening). Why is this necessary? And this, of course, not even mentioning the horrifying complicity of the news media for showing far and wide - with no warning, the graphic picture of that Iraqi militant we killed recently. Why?

Anyways spending the day getting life organized for the new baby. Laid some new carpet (hooray for the ReStore!) to replace that destroyed by our cats downstairs, cleaning and getting supplies ready, continuing to fall behind on weeding. Veggies from seed are now up, but many covered with chickweed. Our several columbine plants (from seed collected at a sea lion haulout 2 years ago) are now huge and has many flower buds ready to open. Primrose and Sitka rose and bergenia have faded but bleeding hearts are still going strong. Hostas are blooming and all the annuals look great, finally. Many aphids already on the birch trees - will treat selected trees so that our view from the deck doesn't become too depressing in July.

Rainy and in the 60s, some more typical summer days settling in. The Sitka rose has been blooming a pink riot for a week and the first blue flag iris bloomed in the iris patch near the mailbox. Carrots finally emerged but are surrounded by thick chickweed, like the rest of the gardens. Our new gas lawnmower produces nice green mulch to use on the annual beds and try to smother this nasty weed. Alyssum is the best performer of all - forget lobelia next year, we should just use alyssum. So thick and covered with tiny flowers, very fragrant - the perfect bushy low annual. So far no obvious sawfly damage to currants or gooseberries (they can deoliate bushes in less than 2 days) but the thalictrum flower stalk is covered by fuzzy gray potato bugs, yuck. Primrose are still blooming. No mint sightings yet though. Ecinacea didn't appear to make it thru the winter either. Big volunteer lupine in several spots around the yard, and the columbine is very huge and very healthy this year, finally, 3 years after planting! One bunch of flowers on the (whatever that bush is, name escapes me) bush near the front. Tiny hidden flowers on the scrawny apple tree. Ferns are absolutely lush along the north side. Still need to find energy to finish weeding the front native garden, to plant the garden in front of the house and to put nasturtium boxes on the deck. Someday, maybe.

We walked down to our neighborhood lake and visited with all the animals that live there. We saw a big moose, bedded down in the reeds at the edge of the lake, sitting there chewing like a cow with big antlers. Past the moose we visited the baby duck cove, where two widgeon ducklings were puttering around in the grasses near shore. Noah pulled the wagon around the corner and down the peninsula where we could see the grebes swimming around, quietly and alone. (They were swimming around in pairs a few days ago, which makes me suspect the mommies are now sitting on their eggs at nests right now...) A common loon made a special visit to our small lake too. But we both saw through the binoculars lots of BABY GEESE! Way back from where we came. So we went back to the spot, tied off the dog, and snuck up on 3 pairs of goose parents and 14 goslings toddling around with their tiny wings eating scratch on the beach. The geese let Noah sneak up until one goose said "sssssss."

The boy is happy and we went to the park yesterday to see model trains and run like a nut through the big grassy fields. We found the 'springs' of Russian Jack Springs park - an entire rushing, 20 foot wide brook emerges right out of the ground within a 100 foot stretch. Really something. Still hot and sunny.

New perennial blooms this week: bleeding hearts and primroses at the front door, the drift of pink tulips in front yard (but smaller and fewer of them this year than previously), Aleutian speedwell in native garden of front yard. Coming soon: the first flower buds ever are on the lilac near the street. The tiny bulb flowers scattered around are still blooming. Ferns have spread quite a bit around the north side garden. Sticky bud casings from the birches flying everywhere this week, coating the deck and furniture. Lobelia basket sunburned at the yard lamp but otherwise plants looking OK.

Widgeons and red-necked grebes are nesting on the lake. Saw 2 families of babies so far. Steller's jay in a backyard tree this morning, and we can still hear the mourning dove that we heard in a tree down the street. Never heard a dove up here before, the tree's owner thinks it might be an escapee.

High 84 on the deck in the shade today.. nice high pressure over the whole region.. no end in sight!

Here we are 10:30 pm with doors and windows wide open and the fan on high. We're all just enjoying the warm weather in our beautiful yard, with a walk down to the lake for the mutt to swim and for Noah to run like a nut.

Planted all planter boxes - lots of tiny alyssum and lobelia flowers trailing in the front of the boxes, with tall laveteria, marigold and ageratum the main atractions. Two large planters flank the patio on metal stands with upright red begonia surrounded by bushy white ageratum. Two hanging fucshia and two hanging red impatiens on the deck. Red impatiens with white alyssum in the shed window box. Hanging lobelia with marigold on the yard lamp.

New perrenial dianthus and speedwell in the side garden to fill the big ugly blank edge. Garlic is happy, and we planted the brussels sprouts, leeks, sunflowers, red chard, green chard, chiogga beets, short peas, tall peas, dill, anise, sage, rosemary, horseradish, tomatoes, peppers, carrots, salad greens, and a box of strawflower and laveteria for cutting.

As good as it gets:

(From NWS via weather.gov)

YESTERDAY

Sunny
High: 77
Low: 48

TODAY

Sunny
High: 74
Low: 50

FRIDAY

A full day of sunshine
High: 74
Low: 50

SATURDAY

Partly sunny
High: 73
Low: 44

SUNDAY

Partly sunny and pleasant
High: 66
Low: 46

MONDAY

Mostly sunny
High: 68
Low: 46

Just like that, it's spring! All week highs are forecast for the low 70s and lows down to the upper 40s. Just like that. No rain in sight, forest fires here there and everywhere. The ice has been off the lake not 2 weeks and already we saw the mallard mommy trailing 8 tiny babies as she swam through the reeds. Just like that, the leaves are popping out on the trees and the perrenials are coming back.

Noah and I watched 2 Canadair water bombers fly very low northbound directly over the yard today, very cool. I think one was the turbine version, and the really cool loud one had the old-fashioned engines.

The boy has been playing in the backyard and on the deck. His favorite games are throwing the ball for Sheida and digging in the big dirt pile with his trucks. We spent a glorious afternoon sharing a bratwurst at MA's hot dog stand downtown, and then played at the most scenic playground in town - Elderberry Park. Right on the train tracks and view across the inlet to the Alaska Range.

Of course, now that I finally devoted an entire day to planting the carrots and other veggies, the kitchen sink got a clog way back in the wall somewhere. Nasty water everywhere, plumbing apart, nasty chemicals soaking. Joy. At least we got mjuch of the the major flowering things planted on Saturday.

The Homer shorebird festival this weekend was as fun and as cold as ever! Our first night was camping out on the spit - actually, sleeping in the van - because our usual campground was still closed for the season. Pretty windy and cold but Donna made us comfortable with the big inflatable mattress. We stayed the second night at the Eischens - Kevin's family - which was wonderful. Especially because it snowed that night! We returned with our cooler as fully stocked as we left.

We took a cruise on the Rainbow Connection and saw some king and common eiders, emperor geese and lots of other birds. Good day for predation too: we saw a sea otter eating an octopus from very close by, and Donna saw an eagle eating a kittiwake (sort of a cross between a gull and a tern). Noah got a kick out of the boat ride, and took his afternoon nap in a bunk down below. Great boat for small kids.

The Wooden Boat festival on Sunday morning was colder and windier than ever, but we stuck around to take Noah's yearly picture in the little rocking rowboat. At the kids' toy boatbuilding area, Noah also played with Mom, using a hand brace, hammering a nail in a small block of wood, painting it purple and calling it a boat!

It's been a pleasant few weeks as the weather warms up. Our yard is all raked and the driveway swept, and the plants are all starting to emerge from the ground. As usual the bleeding hearts and tulips were first to emerge. The primulas, ferns and forget-me-not followed soon after. Our new garlic patch is coming to life - the Siberians emerged first, but the other varieties started to emerge a week or two later. Donna planted a bunch of tulips and other bulbs near the house which should look really pretty. Hauled a bunch of old fenceposts left from a previous owner, and the last of the debris from the old rotted deck to the compost center using the kit trailer we built.

Noah enjoys playing in the yard with his wagon, dump truck, bulldozer and of course the dog. We walk down to the playground and around the neighborhood now and then. He's a talkative little man and is starting to speak in sentences when we read books together - he'll say most of the words, omitting the articles and conjunctions and such. All those small words are just joiners anyways - we get what he's saying most of the time. Dancing, running around like a nut and playing instruments are very popular with the boy too.

Getting ready for all the visiting and the new baby this summer.

Last week of March we swept the snow off our deck and we've been enjoying outside, now and then, even though the yard was still snow-covered.

On Sunday, I saw the first shoots of the season - our false spirea on the northeast corner of the house stuck its dark red shoots up. Yesterday spotted my first tulips coming up too. Today pulled the straw and leaf mulch up off the gardens but still hemming and hawing about whether to expose the new garlic patch too. Guidance I've read recommends leaving mulch there to conserve moisture. We'll see.

Front yard is mostly melted except a small berm left from the city snowthrower and under the wood pile. Really variable how long that snow berm lasts - this year, it's almost melted already, but last year we had to spend hours digging it out. Alaska is probably one of the only places you will see people using their snowblowers to clear their lawns!

Back yard still has large snow patches (underlain with thick ice), but the big spring puddle in the south corner has dried out already. The east vegetable garden is snow covered too but the south garden is melted out.

Exciting day, working with the boy in the yard!

Next up - dog poop and all the downed tree limbs. Amazing how a 6 foot branch can just appear out of nowhere.

Donna and the boy are back in New Jersey and Maryland for the big family Thanksgiving reunion. I got back Sunday night from our field trip - a few days early, a real treat. We were very successful, catching enough puppies to meet our sampling goals while working at just one site in Prince William Sound. We only had one weather day, during which we sat at anchor in the bay while just around the corner on the outside there were waves over 6 feet high pounding the haulout. After several years focused on capturing older juveniles, I had sort-of forgotten just how quickly we can work when catching the smaller pups. All captures made before noon, in less than 2 hours each day.

I got in plenty of capture skiff driver training with Greg and Jamie helping me, and we were quite pleased with how well the new weed line method worked. I don't know why it's called a "weed line". We had the capture line connected to a spool on the capture skiff all the time. We'd hand over the capture line to the divers, back away slowly and wait. When an animal was leashed by the divers, we already had the capture line in-hand and so avoided the usual nearshore chase to retrieve the capture line. The only trick was learning to lay the line in the current so that it did not drag on the divers too much; lots of experimentation and back-and-forth with the skiff. Lots of fun, and pretty effective, even in the 2-3 foot seas we had one morning. It might be harder in rougher water or with larger animals.. we'll see. Our divers are getting very good at making targeted captures of individual marked sea lions. This is good news for our recapture trip planned in March-April.

Just got home from Thanksgiving and Lance and Cheryl's house, with Carrie, Kevin and Tami. It was a great meal and we enjoyed playing games, cooking and talking. There was football and a dog show on TV too. They roasted a very fine turkey.

Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving.

Today is a holiday at complete peace.

We were supposed to meet a boat in Whittier to take our crew out catching sea lions over the next 1 1/2 weeks. But we get there and... no boat. I turns out that icing and weather slowed their trip over from Kodiak. They'll be a day late.

So now, instead of being on the boat working, I'm here with my family, it's a holiday (Veterans' day), all my stuff is completely packed and ready to go in the car...

What a peaceful way to spend 24 hours.

Cooking, watch, watch, cooking

I walked into our home at 4pm to the meaty clove smell of a pork shoulder slowly cooking in the crock pot. Donna started it earlier that day. Part of the pleasure of cooking is the anticipation felt when a big cut of meat, wrapped in white paper, sits on the counter the evening before, slowly thawing. Another great pleasure is using the pots and utensils that have been used to prepare meals for years and years. Today, Donna used the brown crock pot that I remember my mom using in my childhood to cook stews. When we cook small cuts in the oven, we use my grandmother's aluminum roasting pan. Donna's been using her pots and pans since college, and some of our tupperware still has my faint initials on them from when I shared a house with 6 people in Saranac Lake.
I sometimes wonder if some of the other old cookware in the family is being used.. or if they're in a closet that I could borrow from. My grandmother had a great pressure cooker that said "tshht tshht tshht" every holiday, and a nifty electric rotisserie that grandpa could slice thin samples right off of. Maybe I'll ask around this Christmas to see if any of these old things could use a new home in the family.

Softball season is over

Noah walked up to me and stood on top of the bucket to show me... his little card with a drawing of a mitt and a ball.

He pointed and sait "Mama." Because Mama uses a mitt just like that to catch the ball at her softball games that we attended all summer long. Noah loved to watch his mama and her friends chase the ball, swing the bat and run around the bases! Last year, he could barely hold onto the big softball; this year, it's all we can do to keep him from running out on the field.

And then he said "mitt," and "ball."

And then he threw the card a Papa and wandered off to bang on something in the other room.

Where I find him at the front picture window. Sheida sitting at her usual spot, on the left, in the dark, monitoring the front yard through the window for other dogs or people or moose or Donna. And Noah standing at his spot, on the right, looking around the shadowy trees and lawn and driveway but mostly waiting for his mama. "Ma ma," quietly, then back to Papa to dance and play tamborine.

Piggies cold

It got cold suddenly and it's been below zero the past few nights. We have a dusting of maybe an inch of cold, sugary snow making the yard all pretty and covering up the unraked leaves for the season. Our big patch of garlic is all planted and snug under a thick bed of straw and leaves, and our other tender bits - the hollyhock, the bleeding hearts - are also well covered. It's not so much the cold, they say, it's the heaving on warm days that hurts the perennials. We still have some unplanted tulip bulbs that we can't put into the rock-hard ground, so we'll start them in flats indoors and then set them out under a thick blanket of straw covered with leaves and soil.

Anyways, so it's pretty cold already tonight, -3 at the moment, and Noah decided he wanted to go out and walk around the deck. After a minute or so he said "cold, piggies," but I'm not sure he made the connection to walk back inside to make them warm again. Papa carried him in and we warmed up against papa's warm belly and the piggies are happy again.

Junior just jumped into the laundry tub ("papa, hiding"), and that ended with a "boom" tip over onto the floor. My happy boy warm and joyful in the sunroom on a cold night.

Hi everyone,

I haven't updated the blog in a few months. Sorry about that.

Just wrote a great entry but the software ate it.

I'll get to this when I get motivated.

In the meantime, why not give us a call or drop us an email?

Love,

Donna, Mike and Noah

Grandma Mears is up from New Jersey for two weeks to help out with Noah and let Donna catch up on her studies for the PE exam. Mike is taking advantage of this by camping out at the lab to get work done.

Noah turned one year old on Wednesday, and we celebrated quietly with some cake. He had fun with Mom and Grandma visiting the zoo, and especially liked the goat at the petting zoo. In fact, Junior made the doggie sign (sticking out his tongue and breathing "heh heh heh"). Pretty cool, that means that his little mind is making the generalization from just "dog" (in fact, Sheida) to "animals". His first "word" - can't really pronounce it yet, but he gets the "Da" part - was "dog", naturally. "Ma ma ma ma ma" is usually a plea for mommy. Daddy is standing by to be recognized. Lots of connections are being made in there.

Daddy's been playing a face game with baby at most diaper changes since he was tiny, and now he's starting to respont. When we ask "Where is your nose?", he'll often point to his nose, and then grab ours too! Especially cool, today, was when he responded to "Where is your ear?",spoken from across the room, by grabbing his earlobe (just like Daddy does) and yanking and twisting for a minute. That's a first too!

Donna was pleased to watch him carefully remove all the blocks from his block box, then climb up into the box, sit and be happy, get back out, and then put the blocks back into the box. He can walk for a few steps, when he wants to, and then usually falls down.

Early signs of genuis, we like to think.

He's got a great tray-less high chair that pulls right up to the table at elbow level, so that he gets to eat with us. So far, he's been eating plenty of foods and he's rejected the only jar baby food that anyone has tried to offer him (good boy). Avocado, potato, sweet potato, rice, pickle, lemon, whole apples (small Alaska ones are perfect size for baby hands), homemade applesauce, corn on the cob (mostly gnawing), a raw bell pepper he held in the grocery, chunks of fresh carrot, peas... happy eating boy. Lately we've tried feeding him a vegetable soup and he really liked it. It's nice that he is able to eat many of the foods we have at the table.

Our babyproof area is essential as he's getting into everything these days. Daddy's favorite ficus tree as survived since college (1989) and hopefully it will continue to survive grabby-hands Noah.

In fact, we're using the same old table that his Daddy used to eat from when he was little.

Hi everyone, it's been a month since our last entry, boy what fun we've had... a few days tidepooling and camping out at the Sea Star Cove cabin, Daddy pulling his hair out to get school wrapped up for good, Mommy working hard and helping baby grow, and Noah still at his fun/playful/crabby/happy crawl and play and snuggle with the doggie stage.

And geez, it's snowing today! Not just a little, but it's really snowing! Big surprise. Still right at freezing after our very mild previous week. We have faith that this is temporary, sure hope so - we've got a lot of potatoes and carrots and other tasty things under a white blanket right now...

When we get a chance to sit down and do this there will be a new entry.

The boy has just started making clicking sounds with his tongue. Tsk, tsk, tsk. With a big smile showing that tongue in action. Such an active little man, crawling fast all over the place. Most alarming, yesterday - while playing in a mostly-empty tub - he stood straight up from a sitting position using his legs only, no arms required to "crawl up" to standing. He can hold out for a few seconds standing unassisted. He's an old pro at standing while holding on with just one hand (such as holding onto the bars of his new gate while crying loudly for attention) and side-stepping along furniture while holding on with hands. Seeing Sheida the mutt usually sets of a seriers of "da - da - da - da" sounds.... dog? or just the sound of the month? Planting baby in the far corner of the yard while Mommy mows the lawn is only partially successful... he starts crawling right away and needs to be snatched up at the other side of the yard (near the debris under the deck construction) after only 3 rows mowed.

That's my boy!

Yesterday, Noah threw the ball to the dog Sheida for the first time! He's been getting pretty good holding onto Sheida's slobbery tennis balls, and lately can manage it with one hand - the way adults grapple a volleyball. Usually, the ball heads straight for his mouth, a real icky-poo for his parents. Rarely, if she's in a playful mood, Sheida will snatch the ball right out of his hands and leave him with that startled twitch/expression babies do so well.

So then, yestreday, Sheida was playing ball with Daddy as he sat next to the boy. I gave him the ball and then he reached out and sort of shoved it out toward the dog, dropping it on the floor. Of course she went right for it, and he gave his wonderful happy laugh. (In fact, the first time I noticed that Noah made a real, stacatto laugh - and not a squeal - was when I used to hold him on my knee when he was 3 months old and toss the ball to Sheida.) As a scientist I couldn't be convinced without some replicates, so I kept retrieving the ball from the mutt and handing it back to him, and wouldn't you know, Noah kept thdropping it for her and laughing like crazy when she went for it. Further, to see if he was really intending to throw the ball to Sheida - and wasn't just dropping the ball and making her happy by chance - I made Noah work to give Sheida the ball by blocking him with my legs such that he had to climb up and lean out over my legs to thdrop the ball... and he did! THAT'S my boy.

After months of watching Daddy throw the ball to Sheida, and getting such a kick out of it, I bet Noah was really happy to figure out how to make Sheida play ball all by himself. What a good boy.

Otherwise, Mommy and Daddy fine this week. Daddy working hard to wrap up school, Mommy working hard at home and making runs for her softball team. (In fact, here's a picture of Donna pitching at her last game.)

As I watched my little man looking up, up, up the trunk of a tall cottonwood, it was striking how much he's changed in the past month or so. He explored the deeply furrowed bark with his little hands - using his index finger alone - making quiet noises and concentrating for a long time.

His vocalizations seem to be following a more speech-like pattern, almost like proto-sentences - but of course, without any words. Much fewer "ba-ba-ba-ba" or "da-da-da-da" these days... more a smattering of consonant sounds, "tss", the occasional upward sqeuak, long aaaaaaaaaaaas. Is he trying to express the thoughts in that little head of his? Is he trying to describe what he is seeing? Is it more abstract? I wonder just how far speech lags actual development of thought. Is he able to form complex, abstract opinions without a spoken language? To some extent I'm sure he's aping our speech patterns (we try to speak in complete sentences to him), but some of it may be endogenic.

Noah and Daddy and Sheida went for a walk on the Mize Loop at Kincaid Park this afternoon, and Mommy enjoyed the break for a couple of hours. It's another hot day (80s), so walking along the broad, grassy, shade-dappled ski trails was pleasant. We rested at a beautiful overlook, watching the jets on final approach over Cook Inlet with Denail, Foraker and Mt. Susitna in the background. Baby watched all the planes coming in and clapped for them with a big smile.

My favorite little behavior of his is when he's sitting with me, and I point something out to him while talking.. he'll watch for a little while, and then turn to me and make eye contact with a big smile. Almost like looking for approval or saying "did you see that, Daddy?" So fun.

At the start of vacation in mid-June he was barely crawling; today he's a speed demon on all fours. So amazing. Given a futon or step or leg to hold on to, he'll pull himself right up to standing pose from the floor. He can maitain himself standing using just one hand, and sometimes free-stands for a few seconds before baby goes boom! Of course, he smiles after the boom, unless he bumps his noggin. (Mostly, noggin bumping is caused by Mommy and Daddy).

More later. Baby is great. Deck is finally under repair! We gave up on the contractors and are doing it ourselves. With an extension to boot.

Weeding as therapy after stressing out about schoolwork during the day. Got a good, sharp 3-tined hand-cultivator and dragged it through the massive clover patches in the front yard for hand-pulling. It gets down in there and helps to pull up the knotted mess of tendrils. Pulls up some grass and lots of thatch too, but it'll be worth it. An hour every evening clears about 100 square feet. Four more evenings should do it. In places, there is no grass left once the clover is gone. Over the weekend, need to spread compost over the front lawn, overseed with new grass, and keep it moist for a few weeks. If August is as rainy as usual, germination should work out pretty well. Did some serious thinking about selective herbicides, but just could not bring myself to use them on the lawn. They say that healthy grass will out-compete clover... we'll see...

Next step, the massive chickweed infestations in the back and side yards. At least that's an annual, and we can go after it next spring with a pre-emergent.

Replacing the underperforming heliotrope (planted in really big planters anticipating large plants that never appeared) with 2 upright begonias, which I know to be massive and right-sized for the big planters.

Finally hung up the remaining hanging planters by attaching rope and drilling a couple of new holes in them.

Godetia finally started blooming around the yard lamp. It's a much taller and leggy plant than advertised in the literature - almost 2 feet tall, nearly as tall as the cosmos which were supposed to be their background. Hops vine is starting to pick up steam and really climb up the pole. Dwarf variegated nasturtium is disappointing, appears sunburned all the time. Might replace it with some leftover trailing nasturtium.

Lillies starting to bloom, hollyhock still growing. Cosmos are very massive and growing very well - definite do-again annual.

Can't find a carpenter who will look at our deck for repair. Disappointing.

Baby and Mommy coming home on Saturday, can't wait!

Gardening thoughts

Looks like weeding and watering and projection of happy thoughts has rapidly transformed our garden from lush and green to lush and green and blooming over the past week. Very happy to walk about and wind down from schoolwork in the yard.

Hanging begonias are now blooming up a storm, after consistent watering for a week. This is good, because many of these are replacements for bulbs which dried out over the last winter. Our potted lobelia and alyssum are doing the best yet this year, even in generally shady, small, unfavorable planters. The secret to getting robust lobelia this year, we think, was to buy plugs (20-cent tiny starts) from a local nursery instead of starting from seed. Much cheaper than buying later in cell packs, but much more robust than starting from seed 12 weeks early.

First year for petunias. At first, the plants looked spare and unimpressive. However, after a few weeks, they got established and then became massive multi-flowered 8-inch-high plants in many containers. Worth doing again next year.   Stick to the richer colors; lavenders and light pinks kind of get lost against the background.

Heliotrope has not grown very large at all, but does have small and strongly vanilla-scented flower clusters. Not quite the large plant I expected though.

Fewer fuscshia pots this year; they are hard work to keep watered and, frankly, take a really long time to reach the massive bushy clump of flowers that we hope for.

Onions(from starts) are doing very well our first time trying them in the warm favored south-facing garden against the garage wall.

Finally got good looking garlic this year in the south garden. In fact, we'd left some over the winter by accident - but that was a good accident!  Apparently, you are supposed to plant garlic in the fall, let it overwinter, and then harvest it late summer the second year. Nowhere, in any of the Alaska gardening literature, and in fact nowhere on the net, did I ever find clear instructions for growing garlic. (This is a big problem with many gardening resources; the authors make big assumptions - ie, "people should already know that garlic must overwinter".) And of course, the garden centers sell seed bulbs in the spring, so we assumed that's when they get planted. Imagine our surprise when we pulled most of the garlic after a single summer and it had the appearance of leeks - no bulbs at all.   Learn by doing I guess... This fall, planting seed garlic recommended to me for our climate by a garlic-only mail-order source.

Growing both bush and (for the first time) pole peas this year in the south garden, against a trellis on the garage wall. They never did well in the shady garden. Didn't bother with beans this year after their dismal failure last year.

Planted cucumbers from seed in hills in the south garden - instead of trying to grow starts indoors. By growing from seed outside, the plants are much more robust-appearing and have yet to sunburn at all, even with all the hot weather, the way the transplants burned last year. From now on, cukes outdoors from seed.

Basil is another plant doing much better as a direct-seed vs. a transplant. Last year, transplanted large basil starts from inside, but they were never vigorous and showed signs of sunburn. This year, planted basil seed direct in south garden. Plants are still quite small, but they are much healthier looking specimens. Hoping for good harvest this fall.

Tomatoes doing great this year. Big change - they are all in large pots in the south garden, instead of directly in the planter boxes. Dozens of flowers per plant (Sub-Arctic 25 and Polar Beauty), and I'm happy watching the fat bumble bees fly from flower to flower pollinating them all.

Experimental lemongrass in south garden is just sort-of sitting there. This weekend will move it into a planter box and see if it becomes happier.

Unfortunately, could not start squash from seed outdoors. The pumpkin seeds we saved from our Halloween pumpkin (bought from Guy Lombardo's farm stand) rotted in the ground without sprouting. We finally bought round zuke starts which are now flowering. From now on, start pumpkins inside.

By planting the leeks early, and burying in deep trenches and hilling all the way up to the tops, getting much thicker and satisfying plants than last year. That is, among those 70% that survived the deep transplanting.

By planting the potatoes this year deep in trenches, hilling up after emergence, and increasing plant spacing to 12 inches in all directions, we have much more robust plants this year. Better yet, they have not created the tangled mess that we got last year, which I'm sure reduced our yield. Easier to weed and hill as well, much better looking garden. No support required either due to this increased plant spacing. Sometimes intensive gardening can be too intensive. Mostly Idareds, some Yukon Golds, and 4 experimental varieties (German butterball, all-blue, and a couple of others I don't remember).

Carrot survival poor this year. Probably because they got overtaken by massive chickweed infestation while we were away in late June, and probably were not well watered at that time. Parsnips look OK from seed; brussels sprouts look very vigorous as well.

We're not bothering with cabbage, broccoli or cauliflower - they have never been successful in our relatively shady and moist yard. Ditto lettuce, spinach, other greens. So much can be bought fresh from farmer's market that we now concentrate on what we're good at, and on unusual things that we think would be fun to grow.

After removing a moose-girdled tree in the raspberry patch, and fertilizing well this spring, the raspberries have become a monstrous mass. They're suckering as well, which is good - just need to keep them going in the direction we want. Strawberries continue to be a tangled mess intermixed with weed grass... after harvest, we will build a tiered strawberry planter and move them all into it. With our current messy arrangement, most of our fruits become moldy before they ripen.

One of 3 rhubarb plants didn't make this winter. Not sure why.

Shasta daisy has become a generally unattractive pest plant. We will pull most of it out. It makes massive plants with pretty flowers held on tall - but very weak - stems. The plants bend down under the lawn sprinkler and smother neighboring vegetation. Oh well.

Hollyhocks are not flowering yet but the plants are massive. Currants are doing so-so; our one best producer got partially girdled this spring but is doing well so far. Two have herbicide damage caused by overspray from the neighbor's yard. Sawfly infestations of currants and gooseberries were stopped in their tracks by a spinosad spary. Fantastic results from that natural pesticide.

New perennial climber on the front yard lamp pole - hops "Wilamette".   Slow climbing this year, but then it's getting established. Cosmos planted everywhere and is vigorous; started blooming last week. Godetia is terrible, leggy and still hasn't bloomed. New "Prairie somethingorother" rose is blooming very well on short stems.. I'm sure stems will be much taller next year. Last year's Prairie Dawn is blooming very well also.

Annual iceplant is spectacular, bright low showy flowers increasing in number day by day; close during darkness. They make a very showy, low border which complements the generally pale-colored succulent garden near the front walk. One dianthus just started blooming after the others were spent; one succulent now has tall burgundy blooms; primulas stopped blooming 2 weeks ago but made very nice spring shade color; bleeding hearts stopped 2 weeks ago as well; trollius just started a week ago and has showy tall beautiful yellow-orange blooms that work well in dense, green places. Calendulas blooming all over in the south garden; need to transplant them deeper next year because they were leggy coming out of the house and many are kind of floppy in form.

First year that we've had good lavender; secret was moving it off the ground and into the boxes of the south garden. Oregano, sage rowing fast. Rosemary taking its sweet time as usual. Thyme turned out to be perennial and is now the anchor for our new perennial herb garden: two thyme bushes (spreading like mad right now), peppermint, spearmint, catnip. Experimental perennial for this winter: sage.

Delphinium remains a primadonna when it comes to being watered; they bend over so easily it's frustrating. Starting to think we have a dwarf variety and a tall one; transplants from the neighbor are over 8 feet tall, two transplants from a garden club sale are less than 4 feet tall.

Daddy's time home alone has been extended for another few days.. Plenty of time to work and maybe too much time to think while sitting here or laying in the hammock.

So.. you know what's remarkably difficult? Try counting up from one to ten in pig latin.

There you go.

Daddy's home alone while Mommy and Baby are enjoying a couple more weeks with family in the East. We had a wonderful 2 1/2 weeks with grandparents in Orange County and Long Island. Baby got to discover a seashore that is sandy and warm and inviting. He's been splashed in the face by waves, crawled through the shallows, almost ate a snail, kicks and splashes in the pool, roots around in the soft sand, sweats in the afternoon heat. Noah is becoming quite the fun little person.

He was baptized by Pret on June 26 at Beachwood, just like his Mommy was in 1971.

He's doing lots of fun things these days, besides just being charming like his Daddy.

We're feeding him on his high chair during our meals. At first, we fed him, but now he prefers to grab his food in his little hands and feed himself. It's a good thing, then, that he's mastered the pincer grasp with his thumb and forefinger. (It's actually fun to watch; he'll assume the pincer with both hands, in anticipation, when he's getting ready to do anything which involves grabbing.) Chunks of avocado, sweet potato, fresh peas, cheerios, pineapple, watermelon (he likes to squeeze and juice the chunks before eating them). Other fun foods include gnawing corn off the cob (slowly), sucking on lemons (fun face but he keeps coming back for more). Of course, the fancy pincer grasp is often not sustained for long, and eating is done by mashing the fist into the mouth. The same fist which he uses, of course, to scratch behind his ear. Bright orange sweet potato is easy to spot during post-meal cleanup. So far, we haven't fed him canned food. But with Mommy taking care of the major nutritional needs, we'd rather see if he can learn to eat fresh foods and skip the jar phase.

He has the physique of a baloon animal, and looks very handsome in his blousy tank-top/shorts hot-weather combination. He gets into fits of real laughter these days. Daddy found that hopping up and down with Junior on his shoulders in the pool elicits lots and lots of laughing.

He had great fun playing with cousins Krissa and Katie, who sat with him and played with all sorts of toys. Ditto with cousin Danny.

Now that we've had him with Uncle Corey again, the resemblance is striking. Definitely gets his eyes and his face from Corey. Lucky kid!

He's aggressive with the pets who are tolerant.

Daddy's souvenirs from the vacation were systemic poison ivy (or was it sumac) from weeding at the in-laws, and a hand swollen by a wasp sting for 2 days from weeding at the parents. I should stop weeding. (Of course, the first thing I had to do when returing to Anchorage was spend 2 hours weeding out the very thick chickweed.)

Speaking of weeding, our daisies have become a nuisance. They are massive and tall plants, which even hide a 5-foot tall rose bush, but do not have much strength, so that the thick flower stems fall down onto the rest of the plants. Oy. Most of our garden is green still, not flowering much yet - probably due to the very hot weather and likely low watering.

Our deck-rail replacement project (upgrading the rail to code) has turned into a find-the-rot exercise, with major rot found in a massive timber supporting the deck. Gotta fix that first, THEN move on to the railing, then onto the decking... it's always something.

Daddy looking forward to farmer's market tomorrow where he hears that some new produce is out this week due to all the warm weather. Maybe some nice berries or greens? Very exciting.

The trip was wonderful of course; it's great to just go back East and be there, with no grand plans. Long Island is relaxing as always, Blooming Grove is warm and comfortable. We were glad to see everyone. Had a great hike with Jeff and Donna and Noah to Mohonk, on the Schunemunk Ridge. The perfectly Hudson Valley hike: dramatic topography interlaced with old, old woods roads and lots of history, with rustic gazebos perched out on cliffs or on lilly ponds.

Long, long layover after arriving Chicago from Newburgh let me appreciate that airport more than I had. Unfortunately, now that we tend to take Alaska or American in order to access the smaller airports in metro NY, we have to go through Chicago. (Our usual trip had been via Minneapolis on Northwest, a much more comfortable place to spend a layover. Local coffee roaster, quiet and relaxing corners, an observation lounge...) From earlier flights, my impressions were that ORD was a crowded, mall-like warren with very obtrusive security gumming up the works. But my tour of the adjacent terminals was actually quite fun, with a bit of variety and an artistic underground tunnel connecting the parts of Terminal 3. What really changed my mind was an art exhibit between the American Airlines and United terminals.

It's called "The Material World". If you pass through Chicago sometime soon, take a half-hour to wander over and spend some time there. It was really something.

Another month goes by and no entry. Frankly, Daddy is very, very busy these days and can't keep this going on a very regular basis by himself.

Noah's development continues to be fun. Just today I was noticing that he bit his little tongue with his 4 little teeth.. probably time to stop letting him pull off and gnaw on his socks. He grabs them with his teeth, and then tries to yank them out with his hands. Wheter it's intentional, or because he hasn't realized yet that removing the sock will be more effective if he opens his jaw, it's probably time to stop this.. and move back to his other favorite mouth entertainment, his plain soft yellow plastic teething star.

Lately he's been sucking on his own toes, a feat he will only accomplish in later life with yoga training I suppose. I just noticed this morning that, when he's unable to bring that foot all the way up with one arm on the ankle, he will use the other hand to grab the bottom of his thigh to lever that foot right on in. Pretty cool and complex movement to do a single task.. the arms have to move independently to make it work. Pretty neat and a bit more than just picking up toys off the floor to play with.

He is still cute, and he loves to go for walks with Pop and Pup to see the ducks at the lake or to touch all the trees at the botanical garden. Often he sits on his blanket in the yard watching Mom or Dad doing yard work. He really does like sitting right on the grass, but that's a high-vigilance activity for us because he loves to yank up grass and thatch which, of course, go directly to the mouth.

Noah gets mashed avocado or sweet potato a few times a week, mostly for practice. He gets a great scrunched-up face "icky poo" sometimes, the same face Daddy gets when he feeds him the vitamins. Daddy does a really good job getting baby excited about taking his vitamin drops, theatrically sampling it himself and proclaiming "yummy!", such that Junior grabs for the dropper. Of course, once vitamins make contact with tongue, that scrunched-up face returns.

After a few months of "he looks just like his Daddy", we are just now starting to again get some "he looks just like his Mommy". I wonder if these perceptions by others are real; if so.. he's gone Mommy-Daddy-Mommy since he was born. Of course, when he gets worried or is about to cry, he looks just like his uncle KriS as a boy. It's really something. Uncle Corey gave him the distinguished chin we think. Not sure where Dan fits in but I'm sure Dan's similarity will emerge at some point; hopefully it will be a good one!

Mommy just quit her job Friday (well, OK, she's there today to "wrap up" but we'll call it Friday). Now baby gets her full-time. Daddy gets to devote more time to school now.. or, at the very least, Daddy doesn't have to leave the house so early in the mornings anymore to get the same amount of work done. Donna says her first job will be babyproofing the deck railing. Go Mommy!

Baby's first camping trip in Homer at the Seaside Farm was very nice, it helped us work out the logistics of living outdoors with a little one in a fairly controlled setting. We'll need to figure out just how to deal with picnic tables.. somehow I suspect we'll have to keep baby in a stroller or something; it's hard to eat with him on the lap, now that he grabs for everything within reach (and some things we thought were out of reach). It's probably time for a high chair so that we can start having grown-up meals again.

Hope all is well and thanks for checking in on us.

Hi there, it's been nearly a month since the last update to our journal. But it's been a very good month.

This week, spring appeared in the yard. As soon as snow receeded and revealed part of one garden, the tulips sprang up on that one small bare patch to get going for the summer! Rummaging around in the mulch we found strong shoots coming up from the bleeding hearts along our Arctic entry, delphinium breaking the surface along the back fence, forget-me-nots just roaring to life against the shed, and numerous, generally unsatisfactory unidentified plants emerging from some of those unusual bulbs we planted over the past few years with great hopes. The collection of perrenials and trees which were never planted last summer, still in pots, are starting to reappear where our friends helped us dig them late last fall.

Moose have more or less destroyed both mountain ash trees in the backyard; the one girdled last year finally broke off about 10 feet above the ground, and the shorter, stunted tree got a major chewing. The apple got pretty well chewed up as well, so we don't expect flowers to reappear. One Helen Blanc rose in the backyard was moose trimmed but not too badly.. we hadn't realized it was a target too!

Our seeds are going strong under lights in the front basement window, and most of the yard is now snow-free. We'll have to do some major raking and thatching this year, as Junior's arrival in October put the kibosh on the final lawn raking last Autumn. And while Daddy cleaned up after doggie a few times this winter, there's quite a collection waiting for him to clean out tomorrow evening. Yummy.

Some tulip bulbs which we hadn't planted last fall made it through the winter, and we just planted them out all over the yard to add some more early color. Surprisingly, it's tulips - not crocus or daffodils - that are the earliest flowers in our gardens. Crocus and daffodil just never have flowers. Hopefully, we can find a source for trout lilly and painted trillium this Spring and plant some for early color in the future. Those are great, small woodland plants and we have just the shady spots for them.

I'm not going to report on baby Noah - I'll try and have Donna do that tomorrow. Since it's been a whole month, it will take some thought to recall what happened when and all that. At any rate he's happy, he loves to sit up and play, a second tooth is coming in, and he seems to enjoy riding in his new pack with Mommy or Daddy and the mutt on these wonderful, sunny warm spring days.

Mike

But he was still hungry!

Junior continues to improve his coordination - it looks like very recently he is bringing together all the different small tasks he's been learning into larger, more orchestrated movements. The big event... while sitting in his car-seat stroller on Sunday, he reached up for the retractable hanging spider toy, grasped it, and pulled it down to himself using his left hand. And of course, when he let go, it slowly sprung back upward. Previously, Mommy or Daddy had pulled it down for him to hold.. at least until it pulled itself out of his grasp. Or he'd grabbed it but not pulled down. That's our little higher primate!

At the moment he's in his elastic stand-seat, playing with toys that we couldn't convince him to even grasp just 3 months ago. How fun!

It's really warm this week - highs near 50, lows in the high 20s, and the snow and ice are melting all over. It's also spring break for the high school kiddies, and their unwelcome presence on the roads has been obvious. Haven't started seeds in over 2 weeks and Daddy is very sad about that, but really can't spend time on it. Sigh. School will be over in just a few months.

The DSL setup went really quick (like 10 minutes) and we're now online at high speed - which will make videoconferences with family and working on schoolwork from home much, much easier than before. Very cool. However our poor old 450 Mhz PC isn't doing so well with the load.

Pup up, Brown Down
Mister Brown is out of town!

Baby is on Daddy's hip in the sling, watching him type today's update. Noah's strong arms are moving all over the place these days, and he's holding on strong to lots of things. Big news is that, on Tuesday, Junior held his own baby bottle while Daddy was feeding him! He pulls things off the table and brings them up to his chest for play now too.

We hear lots of proto-consonants this week, as he breaks up his long vocalizations into "ba ba ba ba" or "doo doo doo doo" - not quite there yet but getting close. Amazing how suddenly he's started to pull together all the small skills he's been developing and coordinating them into something more complex and useful.

Of course he's smiley all the time with his little dimples and shining eyes. Crying now and then of course but a pretty happy boy. Cat and dog are grabbed whenever they come into range, and doggie is quite tolerant so far. Except that she loves to lick, lick, lick baby's face until we have to ask her to stop sometimes.

It's really cold out this morning, so we're going to stay in a bit until things warm up.

Sunday and taking some time to get things done around the house. There's a bit of a backlog in the sock-sorting department. Nice to start out the week with a cleaner house that's happier to come home to after a long day.

Noah is starting to do a fun manitpulative thing. We think it's his first tries to get us to do something for him, besides signaling that he's hungry. For some time now baby has made long, steady "mmmmmmmmmmm" noises. Mommy had been, for a little more than a week, twiddling his lips with her finger to make him do a 'bee-ber-bee-ber-bee-ber-bee-ber" sound. Well, a few days later, he actually started to purse his lips when Mommy brought her finger near, and then they made the sound together. Yesterday, he actually started grabbing her finger - then pulling it to his mouth - and then starting his 'bee-ber-bee-ber-bee-ber" sound. Pretty fun! Tool use in primates.

Keep your eyes out for photos...

Goodnight cow jumping over the moon.

Hooray, the weekend, and Mommy got to spend the whole day with the boy. We got the DVD burner installed and figured out how to download video from the camcorder so we are looking forward to sending out some videos for the family at some point. We'll see how well our 1998 state of the art computer will handle the load!

Baby is smiling like always and is bending alllllll the way over to play with his litle feet. Give him a face to play with and he's a happy little boy. Somebody remarked that he has his Daddy's hair curl over the forehead.

Hope all is well with you...

A wonderful, and somewhat chilly but bright and sunny day spent at the Iditarod start downtown yesterday. As usual we met several folks we haven't seen in a while and got to introduce Noah which is always fun. It's pretty exciting watching all the teams getting set up and starting off the trail to Nome.. however, it's usually so crowded that it's tough to be a spectator and, especially, to take pictures. The best bets are to watch the race from a point several blocks east of the start, where the teams round a curve at speed and head down the hill toward Chester Creek.

One of the favorite traditions of our young family is to then head to the Empty Bowl benefit for the local soup kitchen, Bean's Cafe. The Alaska Clay Arts Guild gets together and throws 1500 or so bowls of wonderful variety, which we get to keep, and then we get to fill the bowls with tasty soup and cornbread. Another place to meet people we haven't seen in some time, and quite fun. Noah was a hit with all the girls as usual.

Mommy sent out some photo CDs yesteray as well, which is hopefully exciting news for family.

So we're starting to get excited about Spring, as it warms up and gets very bright and sunny. We had 8 or so inches of snow yesterday to make the rather grey and tired-looking deep snowpack look nice again. Tomorrow the Iditarod start should be a lot of fun for us and baby. Warm and bright day to be wandering downtown. Mommy's got her new digital camera all set up for the big day.

Thinking about spring gets us planning on some of our travel this Summer. We reserved a remote cabin for 4 days at the end of August across Kachemak Bay from Homer. Sea Star Cove - doesn't that just sound evocative? We also rented the yurt (a semi-permanent tent-like structure) high on a bluff above the Eagle River, just outside Anchorage, for a quick getaway in mid-July, once Donna returns from the East. It's a very nice, close and quiet place to go in a very scenic setting. The shorebird festival comes early in the season, first week of May, and we'll probably camp out two nights and treat ourselves to a night in a B&B. It's a little chilly still so early, but the festival is a great motivator to get out and make the 4-hour drive out of town to spend a long weekend on the seaside. Lots of activities, lots of birds migrating through Homer! That'll about do it for cabin rentals.. cabins are nice to get out of the rain and make life easier with regards to cooking and gear storage issues with bears. We'll probably get out for our usual berry picking trip near Denali National Park in mid-August, but maybe stay right in the park this time around. And do some fun hikes or canoe trips as the summer rolls along. Such a fun time of year, March, when we can see Winter drawing to a close and start getting excited about introducing Noah to the forests and ocean and tundra.

Among Junior's new vocalizations are a new noise, a sort of anticipatory two-tone hum, that he seems to make mostly when he looks up at something and it gets him interested. Or it's something he wants. When we hang his favorite bug toy out of reach, the legs squirm and the arms grasp as he does his home. When he was in his sling, walking around the neighborhood with Daddy this morning, he made the sound after turning his head up to see a noisy magpie. I think this might be the start of "I want", a declarative request by baby, and not just an expression of joy or unhappiness. He's managed to use his legs to push himself nearly off the back of his swing, which is fun, because the farther back the center of gravity moves, the farther forward the swing sits, until his legs are pointing upward and his back is parallel to the floor.

Daddy's still falling asleep early and waking up at 5 for some reason, which is great for getting in early and getting work done at the library. It's also nice becase it's easier to make time for our time together in the morning before Mommy wakes up.

On Saturday (up at 5 again, but Junior got to sleep in), we went to Fur Rondy and watched a dogsled race, snow sculptures, a carnival and... Daddy's favorite... model trains! Mommy carried him in his new backpack-carrier from where he got a great view of all the action. His head is higher than ours! The barking dog teams definitely held his attention as they were roped up and prepared for the race. He also craned his neck to watch the ferris wheel at the carnival. The snow sculptures were a little too late in the trip, and it was fussy time. Sadly, he slept through the entire model railroad display. Oh well. While he was bundled up well, his cheeks got pretty chilly and rosy, and Daddy carried him back to the car on his warm chest as he fussed and cried and eventually fell asleep.

One of our favorite new behaviors is when Noah grabs his own feet! He's been noticing his toes for a little while now, but just last week, he grasped and caught his wee feet for the first time! Very fun. He also made is first real laugh this week, on Thursday, when playing ball outside with Doggie. We held baby at Sheida level and tossed the ball for her. His shrieks of delight included a few "ha ha ha" sounds. How fun! Laughung boy.

He's still small though and his life still centers around sleeping, eating and being clean. Mommy takes good care of baby.

Take care.

Daddy's up and eating some breakfast before heading out to the library, while Junior is sleeping peacefully and dreaming about whatever it is he dreams about. Often, we think, it's eating - as he gently makes sucking motions. Last weekend was mostly in a fog as Daddy slept off his bug much of the time. There were no projects this weekend except for recovery and schoolwork. And a visit to a fairly disappointing showcase of cities at the Northern Cities Conference downtown. The nice carryover is that bedtime is still very early now, and allows pleasant mornings like this.

Baby continues to amaze. His favorite vocalization lately is a relatively low, long "heeerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr", interspertes with shrieks of delight as Mommy and Daddy sing songs and play. He's a very aggressive grasper and puller now - Daddy's face, nose, ears, hair, chin are favorite playthings. In the past few weeks he's started to really track objects which are moved around, above, and behind him by turning his eyes, his head, leaning (sometimes falling!) over. Really cool. The pile of diapers on his changing table are no longer safe, and often - after a change - we walk away with 2 clean diapers. One on him, and one in his arms. He doesn't gnaw everyting he grasps, but most things. Really, like the doggie, his mouth seems to still be a big part of his object manipulation capacity. The days of flailing with his arms to touch things appear to be over - he's now making coordinated grasps.

We still need to avoid the television - by now, he cranes his head 1/3 the way around just to see the bright flashing idiot box, before we refocus his attention to something better. Like Daddy's chin. It's a little frightening how attractive it is to him, and says a little something about how hard it is for grownups to avoid television entirely.

A particular stained glass on the front picture window is still the love of his life (after Mommy, of course). Ever since he was tiny and first started to show focus upon objects with his eyes, he's been attracted to this small metal-and-glass hanging. Now he'll grab it if we're not careful. Doggie and Kitty, in the past month or so, are now popular as well - he holds on to their fur very tight and they are very tolerant of him.

He's a champ at tummy time, holding his big head up high - using the muscles in his back and, sometimes, his arms to do it; and even tolerating it for several minutes at a time. His hair is now turning all blonde - not just the roots - and he's looking more and more like Daddy every day. Mommy has been receiving a new set of larger diapers in the mail from her various trading partners around the country, but he's not quite ready for the big ones yet.

Even though it's quite warm now - in the 40s most days - the thaw has made the roads and walks very icy, so we really can't go for walks with baby just yet. We put new pictures of him up on the website: rehbergs.net/mike (or, if you highly value Donna's independence, www.alaska.net/~mears; they both work). Take care.

Noah's had a great week with Mommy or Daddy most days. And this weekend he's lying (or propped up, or on Daddy's shoulder, or Mommy's lap) in the warm sunshine. Lots of play, and he's more and more aggressively grabbing and holding and reaching for things. His favorites lately seem to be a multicolor spider doll and a bee that jingles and crinkles. (Is "crinkling" a new sound feature of toys? Pretty cool and easy for little hands to manipulate - easier than making bells ring and I think it also makes a better connection of action-response for him as well.) His latest favorite is the big, bright team logo on Daddy's Orlando Solar Bears hockey jersey that Uncle Corey gave him last year. Lots and lots of vocalization - we have "conversations" often now. While I know we're supposed to use full sentences usually, it really is fun to respond to his noises by mimicing. Daddy really has fun singing songs to Noah as well. Mom and Dad read books to the little man every night before bed, at about 8pm ish. By the way, I never thought - while preparing for baby's arrival - that pooping would be such a big (and infrequent) event to look forward too. (His, not ours.) We walked outside to get the mail yesterday and Junior was a hit with the neighbors. He's getting blonder by the day.

In fact, this is the first week that the sun has felt warm outside - the inside of our black metal mailbox was even warm to the touch yesterday. We're daydreaming a bit of playing outside with baby this summer. Making our reservations for camping and cabins this weekend as well to avoid disappointment later. Hopefully a nice trip to Denali National Park during our annual berry picking trip, a stay on the south side of Kachemak Bay to enjoy being away from everything, maybe some other trips. Mid-March we'll spend a weekend up at Chena Hot Springs near Fairbanks to get away from life and soak for awhile. And of course in July we bring baby out to Long Island to swim in the warm ocean and be with family at the Mears family bungalows on Peconic Bay. And also spend time in the fragrant Eastern mountains near the Rehberg home.

Major projects around the house this weekend included setting up recycling bins in the garage and straightening out the home office to make it pretty and usable.

Oop - baby is awake and having tummy time on Mommy's elevated lower legs - super baby! Bye.

Happy day with the baby

So baby boy has been doing 6 hours (9-3) of daycare during workdays over the past 3 weeks, now that Mommy has returned to work for a little while. It means we now share a schedule... Daddy gets in to work 7 am-ish so that Mommy can be with baby until she drops him off at 9. Then Daddy returns to pick up Junior at 3 and we have a wonderful afternoon until Mommy comes home.

Baby and Daddy have finally got the bottle technique worked out. I was surprised that he actually has a nipple preference.. and wouldn't you know, it's for the cheapest, non-breast-like, unfancy kind. Good boy! At first, he'd only let Daddy feed him while sitting on his lap, facing away from Pop. But now he prefers to eat while staring at Daddy with his pretty blue eyes. Usually, feedings bring on a brief food coma, and then Daddy gets a little while to get things done.

And it's surprising to me how much lower I had to set my expectations for being productive while caring for Noah! I already assumed that doing any sort of schoolwork while providing child care was really unreasonable, and I was right.. however, I've found that I'm lucky just to get a chance to use the bathroom, start dinner or write bills!

We've been planning out weekday menus over the weekend, which - believe it or not - makes meal preparation much easier. Just knowing what the meal makes Daddy much more efficient and makes cooking much easier. Not just that we can prepare some food ahead of time (pre-chopping, setting out ingredients), but also it eliminates that terrible indecision of what to cook while staring at a pantry with baby on my arm. So far, so good!

This past week, our friend who cares for Noah while we work is off at Disney World, so Mommy and Daddy are sharing responsibilities during the day. Daddy has very much enjoyed the long alone time with Baby - well, except for a few extended bouts of crying. We had lots of fun seeing the plants at the municipal greenhouse the other day; the air smelled good and the birds were singing.

What's new with baby? Well, he's turning into a little blond boy and is starting to look a bit more like Dad than he used to. He is very vocal and loves to "talk" back and forth with Mom and Dad. In the past 2 weeks or so he's really started to agressively reach out and grab things, instead of just grasping at nearby objects. Buttons on our shirts, small toys, our chins and noses, books while we read to him. His neck is noticably stronger when we have tummy time - for a while, we thought "standing up" was his only trick.. but it looks like he'll be a strong crawler too! Mommy just reorganized his clothes again - the second time she's had to put away clothing that's already too small for him. He loves to clasp his hands together, and now has no problem sucking his thumb (or his whole hand).

We've set up a futon in the corner of our sunroom and it's now Noah's place. Just a little bit up off the floor to keep the chill away, and big enough to cuddle and play with Mommy and Daddy. And kitty.. Tigger is now in love with baby and likes to curl up against him. She'll even get in front of us now to be close to Junior; she is being very sweet. Sheida the mutt is tolerant of Noah grabbing and pulling on her fur - and boy he sure holds on tight!

Donna scanned a bunch of photos last weekend and Daddy will put them online as soon as he can!

Hope all is well with you. Please email or call!

Commentary on compact fluorescent lights:

We installed a bunch of them when we moved in, April 2001 or so. Mostly GE, and several off-brand "Lights of America" ones that were cheap at the big-box hardware store.

Impressions so far:
- GE CFL twist-lights are by far the best in the house. Their light is the most similar to regular incandescent light of all the compact fluorescents we have in the house. They're all still working just fine, including those in recessed fixtures. Color temperature is 2700.

- Lights of America: 3 of them have failed within the past 2 weeks, after 2 1/2 years of use. They were supposed to last 5, and the ones which failed were in locations where they got used far less freuqently than the GE lights which are still going strong. They also have an ugly, brighter-white fluorescent look to them. Junk.

- Sylvania: just used 2 of these installed in our home office ceiling fixture (which is not an enclosed fixture). They also have a garish white light, not fluorescent... but "daylight". However, I'm not really looking for daylight in the house from myh lamps. I'm looking for my lamps to give off light like, well.. lamps.

And so GE is the way to go... just like you'd expect of course.

Brrr

Glad to see the East is sharing in our latest cold snap. High today was -4, outside on the deck it's now -15 on its way to -25 they say. Of course this is really nothing to complain about - up near Tok, only about 250 miles by road to the northeast, the high today was -29 and the low is right now -49. My last visit to Tok we were wearing shorts and t-shirts - strange to think about! Oddly, 2000 feet above town at Alpenglow ski area, it's +6 tonight. Pleased to see Saranac Lake, NY was making the record cold spot for several days in the -35s.

When it's cold like this we don't really do much outside. Great excuse to stay home and cook and be a family. It's our first cold winter since we moved into this house; we're finding a few small cold spots but otherwise the house is very cozy. A needle of cold air blows in near the bottom of our sunroom french doors. A little bit of glaciation on the base of a few windows but not bad at all.

Rule of thumb, the plumbers told us when our furnace was installed, is that a properly-sized furnace should run continuously on the coldest day of the year (around here, they consider that to be -19 degrees). Our thermostat shows the older part of the house ran for 3/4 of the day but the newer sunroom (more modern but with warm-roof and pillar construction) ran 9/10 of the day.

Home again

The final week or so of our annual holiday trip to see family back East was wonderful as usual. Christmas, split between the grandparents, very enjoyable. Plenty of photos and some video too. We saw lots of realtives and cousins and got to spend lots of time enjoying just being with family. Some friends managed to make the trip down from Albany and Brattleboro which was great of them. Gifts and hand-me-downs for the boy led us to add 2 cardboard boxes to our checked baggage.

Noah continues to amaze, but he's had a cough for about a week. He's grasping at things more, and by now regularly finds his hand to gnaw of for self-comfort. He continues to grow out of his 0-3 month clothes. We kept his attention by reading books at bedtime last night, and he even looked at the pictures as we turned the pages. Daddy and Noah have good conversations now - since December 8 or so, he is making much longer and regular vocalizations. Especially fun is when we have a nice long speak/response session. Haven't heard a "goo" yet but there's lots of pitch changes now, some "grr"s. Most fun was with Grandpa last week when he made high, regular sounds split by brief gaps - a proto laugh? It would go with his frequent, borad smiles and those cute dimples. Often while smiling Noah turns his head to the side while keeping his eyes on the smilee, such a coy boy.

He "stands" for longer periods, and we can now support him lower on his torso while he does it, but not quite down to his hips. At his appointment Friday he was a good boy about his vaccinations and weighed 14 3/4 pounds. We're carrying him around a bit more as he stays awake longer and is a bit more fussy. Daddy is especially proud of holding him and describing how to prepare coffee - from picking the ingredients out of the fridge to manipulating the coffee maker. We've emptied the dryer, stacked diapers and loaded the dishwasher too. Boy is my left arm tired! Mommy spends lots of time interacting with Noah and eliciting movement, noises and smiles.

Flight back to Anchorage was pleasant but no champagne on New Years Eve like last year. It's nice to be home. New Years Day was spent quietly except for a brief shopping trip for groceries. Our yard and home are blanketed with the 3 feet of snow which fell while we were gone, but the kids we hired to keep the driveway shoveled did an amazing job. Yesterday we finally dug out the walks in the backyard, pretty fun. A 4-foot line of 5-foot icicles partially block the deck where the 2 sections of our house (cold roof and hot roof) come together and make a valley. I think this might be beyond the capability of our ice-melt cable to correct. Temps have been cold since our return, with highs in the low single digits, so a great time to relax and get things done inside the house. Even the dog doesn't want to spend much time in the yard or out on walks. Daddy is having special fun clearing out the miscellaneous stuff from the garage so we can park both cars in there again. His truck is full of recycling and we've moved several large items elsewhere.

Starting to think a little about gardening as the new year begins.. last season's potatoes, dug and stored October 16, are storing very well in the garage, under poplar shavings in a cardboard box at 36-39 degree temps. Carrots were fine until we used all of them for Donna's famous carrot souffle. The coming year's garden will be simpler we think, concentrating on the few vegetables we know how to grow well. Why think about gardening so soon? Blame the weekly gardening columnist in the paper who made his annual list of seed catalogs to order.

Long time no update!

Greetings, it's been a while for an update - about 1 month. If you'd like to know what we've been up to lately, why not give us a call or send an email? We'd love to hear from you!!

Hm, lets' see..

It's the first day of winter, and we're here at Kris and Molan's house with Noah getting to know his cousins Krissa and Katie.

Last week, Donna was out visiting with Dan and Maureen to meet Danny Jr. while daddy was in Greensboro NC for his conference. Talk went OK I'm told. The cost for preparing the talk was still too high in personal time and emotional energy and those factors will be considered before I volunteer to do any other talks in the near future. Very glad to be reunited with the boy afterward.

Noah continues to change with time. He's started using his hands more - lifting them up to suck his thumb, rubbing his eyes, and appearing to "hold on" when Daddy carries him around. Holds his head up for long stretches now, and stays awake, alert and interested in his surroundings for long periods of time. Fixing his gaze and tracking objects with his eyes - such an exciting and new thing just 6 weeks ago - is now totally common behavior. He still has all his (long) hair, so we're starting to think that he's going to be a brunette after all.

The best part are the smiles! Fleeting smiles first appeared over a month ago, but in the past 3 weeks he's become a more expressive person. His face lights up, with twinkling eyes and cute dimples, when he gives us broad happy smiles. So very fun to smile back at him! We also see a more complex worry/unhappy indication on his face than before - it's more than the pouty-face we've seen before. His worry lines remind me of his uncle Kris.

He lets us carry him in different ways now; he especially seems to like being held face-out to see what's going on in front of Daddy. He still does like to also have his head over Daddy's shoulder; especially when Dad lets Junior use his strong legs to push himself up higher. Looking outside the window continues to be a favorite pastime, and Christmas trees and ceiling fans are also interesting now.

Noah is a very good traveler so far.. he slept through his 3- and 4.5-hour flights like a champ, in his cozy car seat next to the window. Only fussed a little, once, just before takeoff - otherwise fine. Surrounding passengers are mostly nice so far. I was impressed that some people hold their children on laps for such long trips.. to me it just sounds tiring and, in case of turbulence, dangerous.

He was at 12 pounds 2 weeks ago.

Looking forward to seeing the rest of the family, and maybe some friends if they can swing it, over the next couple of weeks. Hooray for the holidays!

So Daddy's been working on his school project all day and is ready to take a break with the boy. Noah went with Mommy to her monthly Bunco game.. he was their first male participant ever! Looks like she finally found a contour pad to cradle his little bum while we get changed.

He's holding his head up for long periods lately. At the midwife appointment Friday, he weighed in at over 10 pounds.. really gaining weight quick! He's popular with all the girls and is a real cutie when he's not upset. Noah has outgrown his "newborn" diaper covers and is just about - almost - too big for one of his (our) favorite sleepers. He's smiling at us a lot now, too - we're not sure what he's responding to, but it's great to be interacting with the little man. A bit more fussy and crying then he used to be; it might be due to his recent growth making him hungry a lot. Noah continues to make wonderful small sounds; our favorite is after a long yawn... there will be a small vocalization. We can hold his attention by talking and looking, with a couple of musical wind-up dolls and a set of shiny, rattling bee dolls. He really seems to like resting on Dad's shoulder and looking out the window at the bright outside light.

We took a cute photo of him outside against the snowy boughs of our blue spruce, wearing a wintry holiday outfit. Oh that's right- yesterday it got pretty warm (after a week of teens during the day and below zero at night), and so last night we finally got our first big snow of the season, about 10 inches or so. The kind of light fluffy flakes that stick to everything and make it look like a winter wonderland outside.

New neighbors just moved in today at the house which has sat empty behind us since July. We're glad to see it! Sheida is interested too; they've got a puppy. Tigger and Millie just this week have become much more comfortable around the boy. Tigger snuggles right up now; she never did this. Millie finally approaches, cautiously, sniffs and rubs; she's made a very quick turnaround in her attitude. So our small family is doing well, holiday plans and arrangements for Donna to return to work for a few months this spring are finally coming together, and Daddy's major presentation is rapidly coming together with a draft expected by Sunday night.

As usual, Pop is being a bit too anal in making sure that he understands every nuance of the methods he used, and that his statistical models are legitimate. But hey, that's his job. Just can't forget that the point of this talk is to explain how his sea lions behaved...

Hey,

The boy is sleeping in his swing after a long, long night for Mommy. Daddy went through a 45-minute routine of changing diaper, walking and singing and looking at things, attempting a bottle-feeding and lots of hoppity Pop until the unhappy little man fell asleep. I think he's just overtired and not sure how to deal with it.

Noah is doing a neat new thing this week - he's tracking objects with his head and eyes. Just this morning I saw the strongest evidence of it, as we stood by the front picture window. Junior fixed his gaze on something out the window (a particular contrast, and not necessarily an object, I think). As Daddy swung gently from side to side, Noah's head moved to keep looking at whatever it was that interested him. It's so fun to watch him learn all of these things. And they're all little behaviors that we, as adults, so take for granted that it's a surprise to see them emerge for the first time.

It's still 10 below zero outside as I drink my cold (it was warm before Noah and I started trying to fall asleep) coffee at the desk, looking out our office window onto a bright, clear sky and early-morning sunshine. Island music is on the radio and making me think warm Hawaii thoughts. Here is what this chilly, sunny, lazy Sunday morning looks like.

Our new home office is very comfortable and has nice natural light. It's the last room in the house to still have its original paneling intact, and we decided to keep it that way for a cozy "den" feeling. Desk is under the 6-foot by 3-foot casement windows, which are at ground level along the front walk. A comfy recliner sits in one corner, under a reading lamp from Donna's grandparents' house. It's the first time we've had a workable place set up to actually get schoolwork or work work done at the house, which is really great.

There he goes agian - off to try another feeding...

Mike

Hello everyone,

Life is good with Noah and we enjoy watching him do new things as he grows. He's a sweet boy and, this morning, we just saw him turn to see where Daddy's voice came from for the first time. He's holding his head up longer and longer, and one of his favorite things is to look out the windows as we hold him to our shoulders. He is staying awake for longer stretches now (without crying for food) and seems to enjoy looking and listening and making his small noises. However the only guaranteed spot for a quiet sleepy boy is when he's bundled in the stroller for a walk or in the car seat for a drive. We keep hoping for a true smile; I think we're starting to see happy faces from the boy in the past couple of days. He seems to respond to us more as well. He's a little more roly poly these days too, and his long dark hair grows longer.

Diapering is not nearly as difficult as we expected; mostly it means more laundry loads and a slight stinky aroma (to be remedied with a lidded diaper pail someday). The diapers do often seem too bulky for Noah; his legs are splayed out with them on - a situation we don't notice with disposables. Daddy thinks that our diapers are just a little too large for him right now. They sure do intercept and soak up the occasional changing-table fountain really well, if we're quick enough. Yesterday we finally found a tray to place under our warmer full of Donna's fleecy wipes so that it doesn't condense water all over the place. All to keep Junior's bottom warm and fresh like daisies. Donna and her mom appear to be nearly finished upholstering her glider chair in the nursery. She plans to paint a tree on the nursery (Daddy even geeked out and dug out his Harlow's Textbook of Dendrology as a reference!) Daddy is glad that Junior is not yet moblie enough to require safety improvements around the house, because there just isn't time to do them right now.

Daddy brought his computer speakers back home from school and swiped the microphone out of his stereo so that we can now participate in videoconferences. So the boy can see his cousins. In that special stop-motion kind of way. If you'd like to join us, email to get our usernames on Yahoo Messenger.

Daddy is desperately trying to get school and work responsibilities finished in the next few weeks so that our holidays can be somewhat stress-free. It is not fun at all but Daddy knew it would be like this. Because of his impossible load right now, this journal is not being updated very often.

If you would like to find out what's going on with us, please call! Donna's usually home during the day - which means you East Coast people can call anytime between say 2 pm and 2 am and still catch us awake. Phone calls are just easier for us these days.

As we find motivation and/or time late at night, new photos are uploaded to http://rehbergs.net/mike, and just click on the link for Noah's photos.

Grandma leaves tonight after a 3 week visit which went way too fast. It sure is nice having her here and enjoying the baby with us. We'll see the rest of you back East over the holidays. Please think happy thoughts for Mike so that he can get his life wrapped up so as to let him make a guilt-free family visiting trip in December.

Bye,

Mike

hi,

crying baby on arm so typing one-handed. no pictures or other silly things today, sorry.

in meantime, if you need entertainment, why not go here.

mike

Dear friends and family,

Noah William Rehberg arrived at 1:49pm Monday, October 13 at Providence Hospital in Anchorage. Impatient like his daddy and strong-willed like his mom, Noah decided on Saturday morning that he was ready to see the world and that evening the midwife sent us off to the hospital. He weighed in at 7lb, 13oz and 20" long. Noah has bushy black hair, slate grey eyes (for now) and is a peaceful little boy.

We returned home yesterday afternoon, and now mom and daddy are spending a quiet week getting to know our new little person.

Daddy is pleased that the boys of our household are now outnumbered by only 2 to 1. Our three girl pets are slowly warming to the little one; doggie is protective and concerned when baby cries, kitties are curious and affectionate.

More photos on our website, eventually.

Love to all,

Donna, Mike and Noah

Noah yawns, just shy of 2 days old.

So Mike has an incredibly busy life right now and is desperately trying to wrap up school and work. This is the last weekend he's going to allow himself for baby preparations and it looks like we might make it. So not much time to play around on the journal here, sorry.

Donna is doing well. Contact her for details.

Why, oh ghosts of 1960s developers, do you taunt me so? As you planned and built Indian Hills, Phase 1, on a low, well-drained hill surrounded by the muskeg of Chester Valley?

Your choices to provide zero southern exposure in such a sun-deprived city and yea, thine 30-foot-wide residential streets who prevent any semblance of tree-lined neighborhood have perplexed me.

Yet these minor issues pale in comparison to your decision to spray all these ceilings with that horrible slurry of adhesive and plastery chunks to create the dreaded so-called "popcorn ceiling"?

Popcorn ceilings are the rare perfect evil: maximized surface area attracts dust and dirt far faster than regular flat ceiling finish, while this very chunkiness makes the ceiling impossible to clean. A viscious feedback cycle which actually encourages these awful surfaces to get dirty fast, and then stay that way.

Eventually, the dirt and grime stand out far too obviously once walls are freshly painted. Then, only then, do we begin the excruciating task of painting a vertical surface riddled with blocky chunks up to 1/2 inch deep. Such texture encourages paint to bead and drip all over the applicator, and the friable chunky popcorn material often becomes dislodged stuck to the roller and brush.

Were you trying to save time (and money) by throwing the ceiling drywall up quickly, and then covering the crappy job with this popcorn junk? Because don't tell me you did it for looks (nevermind the sparkly dust I find embedded in the deeper layers of paint). You saved time and money at the expense of the precious time of all the homeowners that followed. And to do this to such an otherwise well-built home.

To be fair, you ghosts, I'll bet there is something people are doing today that will be the popcorn ceiling of the 2020s... Pergo floors.

You heard it here first!