Wednesday, January 30, 2008

We Can Dance if We Want To

Soren is singing the Safety Dance.

"Ess-ess-ess-ess! Ay-ay-ay! Eff-efff-eff-eff!"

He is the best.

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Soren is a Big Boy

Soren finally got his first haircut! He didn't want me to take his picture this morning, so this is the best I could do:



He was a very good boy throughout the whole experience, probably because we kept plying him with lollipops. When the hair started sticking to the lollipop juice that was all over his hands and face, it was time to go.

This momentous step toward big-boyness took place in Jacksonville, where we met up with Chelsea and Brady at Erica and Michael-Paul's house. It was so much fun! I haven't been able to spend that much time with Erica and Chelsea since I left home (and I didn't really want to hang out with them back then anyway), so it was really nice to hang out, play Wii and let the cousins get acquainted. I don't have any photos, since I didn't have my camera with me, but Erica and Chels took plenty, so I'll post copies of theirs.

I was worried about flying alone with Soren, especially since he was sitting on my lap the whole way, but he was a complete angel 99% of the time. We sat next to a couple different women who were very gracious about playing with him (which mainly involves saying "Bless you" after each of his fake sneezes), and nothing untoward happened when we ended up sitting in the same row as the guy who informed us that A) he was on his way to detox; and B) he had been drinking whiskey and Coke for the past six hours. Gotta love those Southwest flight attendants! They'll serve anyone!

Anyway, the flights were fine. However, we almost hit a major snag last night, during our connection in Philadelphia. We had a layover of less than an hour, and we had to go to a different terminal to catch our next flight -- and, because there was construction going on, we had to go through another security line to reach said terminal. Of course, since one really only plans on going through security once per travel day, I had already celebrated our entry into the secure area by tying my shoes extra tight with triple knots, buying three gallons of expensive water, and opening up my quart-size Ziploc bag in order to spread the various liquid containers throughout my luggage. I hate you, Terminal E of the Philadelphia airport. Anyway, we made it just fine, since our flight to Providence was delayed-- they'd had to drop off an unruly passenger in Baltimore en route to Philly (so THAT'S why Baltimore is full of unruly people!).

Next time: fun stories about our time in Florida!

Monday, January 21, 2008

Zhiboo Bauws

Stupid people make me mad, so I should really never drive, but I'm occasionally forced to. I know that every region of the country, except possibly the midwest, claims to have the worst drivers in the nation, but the northeast really does have the worst drivers. Is the line of cars at the stop light too long? Just pull up along the right-hand side and zoom to the front when the light turns green! Need to make a left turn? Just go! Don't worry about the oncoming traffic! Traffic jam on the freeway? That's what the shoulder is for! Etc.

Slightly less dangerous, I suppose, but no less annoying, are the psychos on the highway who ride my bumper in the middle lane, waiting for the slow lane to clear out so they can pass me on the right. Meanwhile, the left lane is completely deserted. This is in accordance with the apparently widespread belief that you can drive as fast as you want on the highway, but as long as you never go into the leftmost lane, you will never be pulled over. Why would cops look in the slow lane for speeders? Only SLOW people drive there! It's the perfect hiding spot!

So, anyway, there are lots of things that raise my blood pressure when I'm driving, but it's a lot easier to deal with all of it when there's a sweet little boy in the back seat, chattering away to himself about all the things he'd done earlier in the day and singing little songs. Last night, I could hear him back there saying "Margot. House. Baby. Toys. Truck. Baby truck. Train. Thomas." And then he started saying this, over and over:

Zhiboo Bauws
Zhiboo Bauws
Zhiboo Bauws
Zhiboo Bauws
Zhiboo Bauws
Awww-wayyyy


He was singing Jingle Bells. He is so freaking cute! I can't stand it!

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

HI! I'M ON THE TRAIN!

Well, it's happened. Chris and I have become those people. Some of you might be those people too, in which case we used to scorn you, but now we have joined you in your thosepeopleness, so we can't look down on you any longer. It happened this way:

Chris was planning on coming home at 5:30 this evening, and informed me of this fact before he left for work. So I was fully aware of the plan. At 5:00, I get a call on my cell phone, and it's Chris, calling from HIS cell phone.

Chris: "Hi dear -- I just wanted to let you know that I'm leaving now, so I should be home at 5:30 --"
Me: "Wait, are you calling me to tell me that everything is going exactly according to plan?"

That's right, we are now those people who plan for a certain thing to happen at a certain time, and then call each other to announce that everything is going exactly according to plan. I was exposed to heavy doses of this back when I used to commute to Boston on the train -- on the way home, I would get to hear 500 people say into their cell phones, "HI! I'M ON THE TRAIN!" and then proceed to relate that the train is on time and that they should be arriving right on schedule.

OK, so really I'm just making fun of Chris, because I didn't do anything. But he'll understand!

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Oh, THAT'S Why People Have Kids!

Slave labor! I'm getting Soren trained early. He picked up his first snow shovel today, and was thrilled to help Mama pick up snow and throw it (although his method was more like "push snow and drop it"). We did some token shoveling, and then went for a walk, but didn't get very far before he started saying "mall shuvva" ("small shovel" -- he was using the little retractable shovel that usually lives in the car), so we turned around and did some more shoveling.

I'll try to get some pictures tomorrow. He's a funny boy.

Monday, January 14, 2008

Thought Jambalaya

I am stealing this link from alaskanmama because it is awesome.

Here's an idea for the organizers of the Super Bowl: keep an eye on the nationwide weather reports for a week before the big game, and then play in the stadium that will have the crappiest weather. Football - snow = boring. Especially when the Patriots are going to be in the Super Bowl, so we obviously know how the game will turn out.

Can I tell you why the internet is a beautiful, wondrous thing? It is because there was this milk commercial from 1993 that I used to LOVE, and I figured that I would never see it again after the ad stopped running, but then I thought of it again a little while ago and looked on YouTube, and behold: it lives.

Another wonder of the internet: I can be watching Scrubs and think, "Man, that Janitor seems to be a tall fellow," and then the internet will tell me just how tall he is. What? Look it up yourself, if you really want to know.

Soren's squid hat has been passed on to his friend Margot, since it doesn't fit over his huge head any more. It looks pretty good on Margot, and the squid seems happy to have a new baby to feast upon.

Margot:

And Soren:

Tuesday, January 8, 2008

If You Live in Alaska, Don't Read This

It's over 60 degrees right now, and I have the French doors open in the living room. So nice.

On a related note, Chris and I are finally going to watch An Inconvenient Truth tonight. We've already replaced most of our incandescent bulbs with CFLs at this point, so I'm hoping that will alleviate some of the horrible, horrible guilt.

Santa Picture 2007

Here, at long last, is Soren's Santa picture (taken on the Holiday Train)!

Monday, January 7, 2008

Schmanderblog

I have decided to go with Anderblog. I may change my mind later on. I'm sure you're sitting on the edge of your seat, waiting to see what I'll finally settle on.

Wednesday, January 2, 2008

Happy New Blog Title

OK, since we're not in Anchorage any more, as Erica pointed out, I need to come up with a new blog title, and I can't think of anything good besides Janitor Rivalry, which is my answer to every naming dilemma. Janitor Rivalry is technically already a blog, with its own domain and everything, which I undertook as a joint venture with my old pal Brian and only posted in once. And then neither of us wrote in it any more after 9/10/2001, so it looks like we tragically perished or something. Anyway, the upshot is that I can't think of a new name for this blog, and I want to use something more clever than "The Andersons' East Greenwich Adventure Extravaganza". So don't propose that.

Old deceptive blog name notwithstanding, we all had a wonderful Christmas! Grammy, Grampy, Aunt Rachel and Uncle Dude came to stay with us, and a good time was had by all. It's so nice to have a house with room for guests, even if two of them had to sleep in the same room as a printing press. We drank lots of espresso, ate lots of amazing cookies (baked by Grammy), took two days to open our presents, had beef Wellington for Christmas dinner (prepared by Chris), and went to Newport (much to the displeasure of Soren, who hated being wrested from his metric ton of new toys).



Oh, and there were martinis.



The day after Christmas, we were joined by Grandpa and Nana, who presented Soren with a Radio Flyer fire truck!




Grandpa (I prefer to call him Dad) also gave us two great pictures: one of him riding his own Radio Flyer fire truck when he was a young lad, and one of his dad (my Grandpa, obviously) and his brother in a Radio Flyer wagon in 1929!

In the interest of actually publishing this post at some point, I'll leave the rest of the tales for the next post. Happy new year!