The Calm Before the Storm

Since September 12, Lars has been in Europe--first Belgium for a conference, then Oxford for an intense two weeks of employment-logistics-managing, house-hunting, and visa-activating. Fortunately, his dad accompanied him there. And both fortunately and unfortunately, Tor is really missing his dad.

We hit some sort of threshold around two weeks of DaDa absence. Before that, Tor enjoyed Skyping with Lars but didn't ask about him much. After that, he started waking up in the middle of the night crying, "I want my dad." At every meal, he's now asking, "Can we Skype with DaDa?" While he painted a picture, he mentioned three times that "I need to show it to my dad before he gets back."

And in what is bizarrely the most heart-wrenching manifestation of dad desire, he has dubbed large Superman and Batman action figures the fathers of smaller Superman and Batman action figures. These superdads look for their sons when they're missing ("Where's my boy?"), assist them in fixing things ("Dad, this truck is broken." "Okay, sweetie, I will help you."), and generally play random imagination games with them ("Dad, how do I go underground?" "Follow me, little buddy.")

Maybe this is the beginning of a dad phase, and honestly it'd be pretty timely, given that Baby Brother is set to arrive exactly two weeks from tomorrow. Somehow, it's all going to work out, but I'm definitely enjoying the calm before the storm.

Wet 'n' wild

Intro to origami

"My berries are gone. May I please have yours?"

Chicken coop designer

Christina has watched Tor and kept me company many times over the summer, sometimes with Caleb, sometimes solo. She's also volunteered to be on bedtime patrol for two of the six night classes I teach this term. (Holy Names gave me an accelerated course so that I'll finish up October 8.) Last time, they made oobleck together, to Tor's everlasting delight. We'll see what tomorrow holds.

Pressing a sound button that doesn't match the sound indicated = HILARITY

Dicing up the triceratops his aunt so lovingly crafted

First happy meal (followed by obligatory PlayPlace experience)

The way we walk

This is a real dog

Only two weeks to go!

Enjoying some new-to-him books from Christina and Caleb's current hosts

Thought about keeping the bowl cut . . .

. . . for about a second

Aunt Judi came to visit from Oregon, and she charmed Tor by playing Toot-Toot Guy before sharing a bowl of popcorn with him.

Showing Judi how it's done

"Your turn!"

Playing American football with DaDa

I'll miss you most of all, maternity nightgown

This about sums it up

Grating the cheese for risotto

I was blessed to have my mom down for ten days while Lars was gone (she took several night shifts!), and she'll be back right before the baby comes. She and Christina put together an epic baby shower with all the Bay Area-proximate women from the Andersen and Karplus families, hosted by Aunt Heather in Orinda. I'm gathering pictures to post--the (homemade!) cake pop and flowers below are remnants that do the party no justice. Dad also drove down for the weekend and helped hugely with wrangling Tor, during the shower itself but also in the wee hours of the morning.

Jumping superfriends on the trampoline with Opa

CAKE POP

"Take a picture of me with the pretty flowers from Oma!"