James R Anderson

12:39 pm: You going to finish that?
This morning Alex and Eric were sitting on the couch almost hip to hip with a medium sized bowl squeezed between them. The other half of the couch was off limits from a vomit cleanup effort which was still drying. Eric is sick with a sore throat and heavy mucus which prompts frequent unproductive coughing.

Poor Eric began a coughing fit, dropped his head towards the bowl, and began filling it with his breakfast. For many seconds Alex curiously watched his brother heave repeatedly into the bowl. Alex glanced up and spotted a scone in my hand as I approached. Alex's "I want that!" drowned out Eric mid-heave.

(I began retching within five feet of the bowl so he got the scone too.)

Tags: kids, possibly entertaining

11:41 pm: Parent titles
I think my hunch about writing because Lorinda was so busy turned out to be correct. As her residency wound down I remember events passing like the last twelve hour weekend shift or Lorinda leaving to present her research and thinking I should write about it but not getting around to it.

There is still plenty to write about.

One of the fun pieces of fallout from Lorinda's trip at the end of residency for presenting her research project was Alex completely swapped our titles. For several weeks I was "Mommy" and Lorinda was "Daddy". Understandably this started to bug Lorinda quite a bit after a few days. Once she began correcting him Alex clued in to how much it bothers her and he is pretty deliberate about mixing up our names now. Alex has improved to using Mom or Dad at random or according to what role he wants filled at the moment. Now Eric is even slipping up a lot because he hears Alex so much. I've even gotten tired of it. I tried coaching Alex to use the right titles, but quickly gave up after a few of these exchanges.

Alex runs to me: "Mommy!"

Me: "No… I'm Daddy."

Alex: "MOMMY!!!"

Me: "No… Daa-dee!"

Alex stares, probably wonders when I'm going to stop being stupid and retrieve the food he wants.

Me *pointing at chest*: "Who am I?"

Alex, big smile: "Mine!"

Tags: kids, possibly entertaining

06:26 pm: Mother's Day Song
Lorinda sent me A Biologist's Mother's Day Song. She was happy to be able to point out the singer's hometown is Corvallis. She knows how to sell me on a town.

Yesterday I discovered "Science Pub" which is a periodic lecture series. Lorinda is going to take the kids so I can check it out. The next talk is on botany so I should try to find babysitters for Eric and Alex so she can go too.

Lorinda seems to be approaching the downhill slope of residency. Every task she finishes removes an item from her queue and nothing major seems to be added anymore.

09:23 pm: Asthma
Eric's doctor listened to his lungs today and concluded he does have asthma. Eric always had a chronic cough on bad air days in Salt Lake which largely went away when we moved to Corvallis. The last three weeks the cough has gradually returned. It was really obvious over the weekend when every time he exerted himself he'd have a coughing fit afterword. He's been coughing really bad for a couple of nights too. Lorinda was first concerned when he couldn't blow out his birthday candles for his third birthday party back in Salt Lake. We hoped moving would be enough to resolve it. Anyway, there is a good chance he'll grow out of it and there is no family history so hopefully it goes away. Still it drives home that getting out of Salt Lake air was definitely the right decision.

I do love living here. I feel very lucky. I always wanted to have a family in a small college town in a gorgeous landscape and here I am. Lorinda was wise to take the opportunity to move us out of Salt Lake when she did. Working from home is psychologically hard but I'm adjusting. Warm months are much easier. Yesterday I rode my bike to pick up the boys for the first time. I think it is five or ten miles. I need to get motivated to find a lab at OSU that will let me have a desk so I can socialize. The problem is I start work and I'm so focused I have a hard time switching to other tasks. Lately I've been doing a lot of computational geometry which totally absorbs my day.

Tags: more towards serious

09:01 pm: Update pace
New entries are slowing down. A few weeks after I started posting again I began working on roughly four big mostly biographical stories. They are increasingly getting my attention. I don't plan to make them public. Lorinda might succeed in convincing me to post the first which wrote for the boys to read in about fifteen years along the lines of "Lessons I had to learn the hard way. I'm hoping you won't have to". The next two cover distinct challenging periods such as transitioning from programming at Microsoft to science and the story of graduate school. Both with the benefit of some hindsight. The last is exploring my life now, but is turning into a big gratitude list. I don't feel talented enough to write about any of these in a way that isn't either obnoxious and/or boring for someone else to read.

My current theory regarding my recent bout of introspection is we achieved a lot of big life goals in a short span of time. I haven't been evaluating potential long-term futures to pick new goals from. This is probably a common dilemma people face. Looking back and understanding what went right and wrong in my past is a way of figuring out what will make me happiest in the future.

The last week or so I've also been getting really focused on a hard work project (for me, someone else would probably have an easier time). I can't stop thinking about it after work and probably won't be able to stop until it is finished. I'm not a multi-tasker and so I tend to focus on one task at a time. This works great when I can finish up projects but if I don't finish them before needing to move on things stack up.

Anyway, I'll try to stay in the habit of writing public posts some evenings. This has been a good outlet and healthy relaxation. There are good stories to share still like Alex's first encounter with ice cream. If I do stop posting I'll be back someday.

Tags: dad, more towards serious

11:36 am: Hiking
Lorinda had two shifts this weekend. Sunday afternoon was gorgeous and I decided to keep a promise made to Eric about climbing Mary's Peak. When I told him we were going to go to Mary's peak he got super excited and started jumping around. Then he got scared. "Is it going to be dangerous?" he asked. "No, it will be perfectly safe. We only need to walk to the top, not climb" I explained. Eric looked suspicious "I have to bring my climbing tools. One is outside and one is inside." he said. In the climbing video the climber had used picks to grab the rocks and snow. On his own Eric had been evaluating things around the house for their climbing utility! Eric looked for his robot claw and to my surprise grabbed a spike sprinkler from the backyard. It took a while to find the robot claw which had gone under the couch. He was worried he'd fall off the mountain without it. "I'm ready! I have my tools!" he said happily when we found it. Adorable.

Water, granola bars, diapers, wipes, and coats were loaded into the baby backpack. Alex loves to go outside and excitedly brings us every shoe, sock, and jacket he can find as we get ready in between bouts of impatient pounding on the front door. Finally we drove away. The drive was really nice. I love the land use laws in Oregon make it so that when you leave the towns you are immediately in the countryside instead of miles of unending sprawl.

Eric started asking how we would get down the mountain. Against my better judgement I have shown him the video of para-gliding off Eiger for the descent. So he spent part of the ride trying to convince me we should fly off the top instead of walking. When I was in Switzerland I did go paragliding and I loved that people could do a short hike up a hill, glide up to 10,000' with a picnic basket, eat lunch on a snowfield, and then fly home. That is how to live and a paraglider is definitely on my list of things to acquire. However I don't have that kind of money or time yet. Eric had to settle for walking.

When we reached Mary's peak Alex was nearly asleep in the back seat. I saw a ranger and this being my first hike in Oregon I chatted with him for a few minutes. Then he gave the kids some toys! The Frisbee Eric got turned out to be the best Frisbee for an almost four-year-old. Unexpectedly Eric can throw it well enough for me to catch it! Alex got a balloon. There were also coloring books and drawing supplies. Sadly this would be the highlight of the trip. The ranger warned us there was snow up top. I considered it a practice run anyway so I figured we'd go as far as we could. The trail is about 2.5 miles with 1700' of elevation gain I think.

I packed a still drowsy Alex in the backpack and set off. However the trail was more of a bog in places and Eric needed to be lifted over every muddy patch. I'm defiantly in better shape because I wasn't tired carrying both kids uphill. When he is on solid ground Eric hikes at the perfect pace. However Alex gradually let his unhappiness become known. He wanted to sleep and couldn't get comfortable in the backpack. Eric also said his hands were tired from holding his climbing tools. We only got about a mile before I set the miserable Alex down, tried to salvage the situation with food and water. I put Alex on the ground to see if he wanted to walk on his own and he just wanted to be carried in my arms. Eric was moping now too "Can we go home? I want to go home..."



I'm trialing a paid account so there may be a picture of the boys at the turnaround point above. Eric's climbing tools are on the ground. Last night Eric saw the picture when I was showing Lorinda and said "That's me being tired!" Alex is doing baby sign language for "All done!" I decided not to take the rebellion personally. We went back to the car and hoped I hadn't made them hate hiking.

The benefit was when I did get them back to the car they both fell asleep so all of us got a nap when we got home! When we woke up Alex was screaming and alternatively pounding on my legs and the door to go outside. I took them to the park this time and they were much happier.

This morning Lorinda wrote a thank you E-mail for watching the kids this weekend. She is only doing project and lecture prep now so she is working late instead of going to work at 6am. She let me sleep in and took the kids to daycare! In the E-mail she said the hike seemed memorable for Eric. He must have been talking about it. So the suffering was worthwhile. That made me happy. She also had some ideas for hiking together over the summer with her carrying Alex in a sling. Alex will like hiking too if it means being carried by Mommy, which is his favorite activity in the entire world right now.

Tags: dad, kids, possibly entertaining

09:27 pm: Not out of the residency woods
Over the weekend we did a great job of forgetting real life, but it was waiting for us when we got home. It was definitely not an ideal time for us to take a break. However that was our first getaway since before Alex was born, the opportunity came when it did, and life is short. Tuesday night I was catching up on work in my office after the kids went to bed and Lorinda came to say goodnight. She preemptively apologized if she got stressed out over the next week and told me that I had a childcare choice to make. "I get a choice!" I joked, pretending to be excited. Lorinda then listed a huge todo list that had to be completed by mid-week next week. "So do you want me to stay at work during the week until I can't stay awake or should I stay at work after my Saturday and Sunday shifts this weekend?" "Uhmm" I really didn't want to say this next part... "Both? Even then I don't see how you are going to make it." "Yea... I need to do both but I just couldn't bring myself to ask that." Lorinda said. She also hates being gone so much.

Update: Lorinda's boss was awesome and negotiated with her rotation to free up a few days so she could wrap things up without Lorinda even asking! The people here are so nice. That is one of the reasons she chose Corvallis. So she's still going to be working hard, but she has a fighting chance now. It wouldn't be so bad except for the lectures she volunteered to give at the university landed right when her project was due.

Tags: mom

09:20 am: Alex is a goat
One of the shows we let Eric watch on Netflix is Shaun the Sheep. One episode features a goat that escapes its tether and eats everything in sight. Including a hole clean through one of the fat sheep (who is unhurt). At a family breakfast a week or two ago Eric was watching his brother eating and had an epiphany. "Alex… is a goat!". We laughed because it is true.

At Thursday's swimming lesson I took Alex with me voluntarily so Lorinda could finish cleaning and packing before we left for the coast that night. I had cleaned for a few hours earlier, but I'm not efficient at the finishing details work. Alex was remarkably well behaved at the pool. After Eric's shower he stayed in the locker room and began to open and explore each locker. "Great!" I thought "He's not trying to run for the pool today." As I made rapid progress on dressing Eric I kept Alex in my peripheral vision as he methodically banged his way down the row of lockers. The banging stopped. Alex was still. I looked up to check on him to notice he was wearing a big smile and chewing. Not a good sign. I put a finger in his mouth and pulled out what maybe was a very stale tortilla chip that had been water logged and dried multiple times? I'm not really sure. Alex got mad I took his found food. He was yelling and swatting my hands away. Eric and I were both so disgusted. Ewww...

Alex is not only indiscriminate about food he is also a fast eater. Thursday Lorinda treated me by taking the kids to daycare. As a treat for getting in the car the kids get a cereal bar when we leave for daycare (From Trader Joe's so not us unhealthy as they could be). Lorinda gave Alex his cereal bar and then realized she forgot her keys in the house. Quickly returning to the car she found Alex had already devoured his cereal bar. He can cram the entire bar into his mouth and swallow it in thirty seconds I swear. I need to tape it because it is amazing to watch. Eric likes to savor his cereal bar and will wait to eat it until we pull on the main highway.

Preparing to leave Lorinda opened Eric's cereal bar and handed it back to him. "More!" Alex chirped. "You already ate yours Alex." "MORE!" Alex yelled. Apparently he'd already forgotten and thought he was being cheated out of his cereal bar this morning? Eric cried "Don't let the goat eat my cereal bar!" Lorinda reassured with "I won't let him eat your cereal bar. I won't let him eat you either." Eric went bug-eyed. The implications of Alex being a goat probably hadn't occurred to him. Until that moment he hadn't realized how much danger he was in of having a hole chewed through him! Lorinda tried to fix it "Don't worry, the sheep only had a hole chewed through it because it wasn't paying attention." "They were paying attention!" he replied. "Well, I don't think the sheep that was chewed through was. If you are paying attention Alex won't be able to eat you." This logic seemed to relax him enough she was able to pull out of the driveway.

As my parents watched the kids this weekend we called to check on them. My Mom remarked that when she mentioned what a chatter-box Alex is Eric replied "No! He's a chatter-goat!"

Tags: dad, kids, mom, possibly entertaining

09:19 am: Trader Joe's
Lorinda and I worked hard to escape to the coast Thursday. After I took the boys to swimming lessons I stopped by Trader Joe's to buy some food for them while we were gone. It was 7:10pm. Five minutes before arriving at the store Lorinda called and reminded me the babysitter was arriving at 7:30pm and we should try to hurry. "Uhmm… I know. With both boys that is unlikely but I'll do my best" I said.

Trader Joe's is the children's favorite grocery store because of the child size shopping carts. Sometimes the kids circle nearby, listen well, and I can toss groceries into the nearest cart as we shop. This was not one of those nights. Lorinda thinks the most effective way to tell this story is to do a play-by-play. Keep in mind this Trader Joe's is a small store with only five aisles.

We walk into the entryway of the store and I set Alex down. Both kids shriek in happiness and grab the nearest child's shopping cart. They sprint into the store. "Slow down! No running!" I call out. They ignore me. Entering the store myself I hear a college girl remark to her friend "Ooohhh!!! That's so cute! Look! There are two of them!" as the kids race past. Eric listens and slows down. Alex follows his lead. I attempt to locate the healthy bread I like for our PB&J's.

Eric grabs my attention and asks if he can have cookies as a treat. With our schedules I've been aware Eric hasn't gotten a treat since Mom baked cupcakes with him and he hasn't gotten a new toy in weeks. He'd been bumped up to Level 3 swimming lessons earlier that night. "OK, let me see if we can find a treat together tonight. I'm proud of all the hard work you did to reach level 3" I said. I pull a bag of chocolate chip cookies off the shelf. Maybe 170 calories, Eric and Alex could have one. Lorinda and I hadn't had dinner yet. The family could eat half tonight and then Eric would have a few for the weekend. "How about these cookies!" I say as I put them in his cart.

"Not THOSE cookies" Eric is upset. I start conversing with Eric to find out what is wrong and glance around for Alex. "Hey! He's down here" I hear the college girls yell. At the opposite end of the produce aisle they are waving their arms in the air and pointing. I wave "Wait here Eric." I jog to Alex and thank the girls as I pass. I catch Alex as he enters the wine section. They always run to the the wine section! It is on the diagonally opposite end of the store from the cookies where I left Eric. In addition to the rows and rows of breakable expensive glass bottles Trader Joe's has freestanding wooden barrels with wine stacked on top. The kids love the natural obstacle course that they can dart and weave through with the carts.

I nudge Alex's cart into a 180 degree turn. He spins around and starts running back to the wine. I turn him around again. He gets mad and turns back. I touch his cart and Alex falls to his knees screaming. I pick up Alex in one hand and the cart in the other and begin trundling back to Eric. Eric comes tearing around the corner. "I found my treat!" he yells. He shows me a box of Carrot Cake sandwiches with cream filling. I look at the box. 400+ calories each. "Uhm… this is more treat than I want to get tonight Eric." "No!" he yells. We debate for a bit. I convince him to put them back and we will go pick a treat together when we are done shopping. Eric runs off.

Alex is crying and trying to escape my arms. I set him and the cart down in produce and give him another chance. Alex takes off running. I put a hand on the cart to slow him down, but let him steer. Alex falls screaming to his knees again as the cart slows to a stop. I try to reassure him i just want him to slow down. We repeat the sequence.

Eric runs back to me. "I found a cake Dad!" Eric indeed has put a small cake in his cart. "Oh Eric…" I say, not sure how to let my excited son down gently. "Here's the deal, Grandma & Grandpa are watching you over Easter weekend. They have huge sweet tooths and I know you are going to get a lot of treats. I just want to buy you a small treat tonight OK? You will get more tomorrow and over the weekend I promise." Eric bursts into tears. Alex is screaming and falling to floor every time I touch his cart to slow his sprinting towards the wine section. "Eric, I really need your help. I'm saying no for this cake. I need you to stay close to me and when we are done we can pick a treat together. If you can't help me shop I'm not going to get a treat." I put Eric's cake in Alex's cart, pick up Alex and the cart, and start walking to the entrance. I drop off Alex's cart and find that Eric got the cake in the bread section where I put it back. Eric winds his way over to me. We can start shopping now!

Except Eric is walking funny. "I need to go potty!" he whines. The bathrooms are back on the diagonally opposite end of the store behind the wine section. "OK" I say and we make our way over there. I find the loaf of bread before we go. We finish that experience which is a matter of convincing Eric he still has to wash his hands even if he doesn't touch anything and preventing Alex from touching everything in the bathroom.

OK, lets go! Eric races out of the bathroom, grabs his cart, and runs off. I call out but he doesn't stop. Alex and I return to produce and start working through the list Lorinda gave me until my arms are full. Alex is squirming, complaining, pushing my chin up to get down and beating on my chest with his tiny hands. Eventually I spot Eric back at the bread/cake section. I dump my load into his cart. "Eric, the deal was you only get a cake if you stay close remember? I'm not sure you should get a treat now." Eric does remember now "I'm sorry Daddy!" I wrap up the shopping as fast as possible and Eric stays close. Reaching the checkout aisle I ask Eric if he likes chocolate. "Yes!" he says. So I put one of the surprisingly decent no-sugar-added bar into our cart for his treat. Eric was happy.

When we climbed into the car the clock read 7:40PM.

Tags: dad, kids, possibly entertaining

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08:24 am: The boys vs. The Birders
One of my methods to staying sane watching the boys all the time is getting out of the house as much as possible. I've always been good at finding fun activities so one recent weekend when a friend sent me a link to a non-profit environmental group touring some privately owned land which had been undergoing a restoration process and touted wetlands with "turtles and frogs" I happily packed the boys in the car and met at the rendezvous.

There were a bunch of strangers and the person who forwarded the E-mail had transportation issues and couldn't make it. I found the assembled group as they were about to leave and asked if it was OK to bring kids. Someone said "yes, we are." and I followed them twenty miles out to the property. Later I discovered they were the only other people bringing kids.

Parking the car it was a bit colder and breezy than I expected. I pulled out the baby backpack for Alex and began strapping him into it. As I completed this process I looked up to see that more than half of the group had pulled out some serious birding equipment: binoculars, scopes, tripods... "Oh dear" I thought "This is a bad combination." The owners of the property were proudly talking about the recovery the flora and fauna had made. I then glanced around for Eric and saw he was forty feet away sprinting towards the little John Deere hauler parked in a field. I hollered and waved until he came him back. "Eric, you need to stay near me. I want you close enough that you can hear me talk without me raising my voice or yelling for you." Eric agreed but in my heart I felt we were doomed.

The first mistake was when the guide was showing us the native flowers which were now growing on the land. He pointed to two odd native sticky flower plants and invited Eric and the other four year old to look at them but cautioned them not to break the fragile stem. Eric did a good job of not touching the stem. He then turned around to walk away and stepped squarely on the second plant. Removing his boot it was clear the stem had snapped clean off. I apologized profusely. "Uh… it's OK." The guide said "The plant will survive it just won't reproduce this year." I felt a little better. He then invited the other four year to look at the remaining plant. The four year looked at the plant and touched it carefully. Hearing the admonitions to be gentle he softly wrapped placed three fingers around the stem and plucked it. Slowly bringing it to his face for closer examination.

Fast forward forty five minutes and I am walking with the slowly advancing birders on a track around a large pond. They were observing many geese who had nested in the site and were laying on their eggs. Visibility is fantastic with only grasses growing. I had managed to keep Eric close to me reasonably well. He was walking a bit ahead, but within earshot. He wasn't moving and I took a moment to put Alex under my fleece since he was too cold even in a jacket. I finished to see Eric had resumed walking while the rest of the group had stopped to observe a goose nest some predators had eaten. I called in a slightly raised voice but he was already out of ear-shot because of the significant breeze. "OK, he's not trying to run off. I'll just wait until he turns around and motion him back" I told myself.

I anxiously stared at Eric trying to will him to turn around. He kept nonchalantly walking the path around the pond. Occasionally he'd stoop down and look at the ground or pick up a rock and throw it, but he wasn't looking back! Finally I was worried he was going to get out of yelling range. If I kept it brief and ramped up the sound maybe I wouldn't disturb the birds. "eeeEERIC!" I bellowed. He turned around! I waved my arms over my head motioning him back to the group. Perfect! I hadn't seen any reaction from the birds.

Then Eric did the unexpected. Apparently he thought we were still right behind him and seeing us farther away was an unpleasant shock. Rather than running back to me he simply lifted his head to the sky and let out this piercing high pitched wail that carried across the wind. Every bird within a couple hundred feet took to the air including two of the nesting geese. Uhm… maybe the birders wouldn't notice? "You should really call him back" one of the birders said "Nesting geese can be dangerous". "I know… I just did and that is why he's screaming." I sheepishly replied. I waved at Eric again and he sprinted back to me.

After that we and the birders went our separate ways. They were nice but I thought it was best to warm the kids up. We completed our walk around the pond with the other family with kids. No turtles or frogs sadly, but the kids enjoyed the caterpillar and dead snake I found. I got to show them how there were lots of insects around the snake compared to the area a few feet away and explained they were probably working to clean it up. It wasn't quite the activity I'd envisioned when I left that morning.

Tags: dad, kids, oregon, possibly entertaining