The smiliest of them all

We are definitely into toddlerhood, with its fun and not-so-fun.  One of the things that is both fun and not-so-fun sometimes is how going limp is a form of nonviolent protest for Felix.  Sometimes our family looks like this:

But there are lots of positives.  He’s learning lots of new words in both Spanish and English.  He sometimes surprises us with words he knows that we haven’t really worked on teaching him.  He’s even helpful.  He’s learning to put things away and he loves to help us do housework, by handing us the dustpan or putting things in the trash.  He’s making lots of friends in the playgroup at church and at daycare.  He loves to play at the playground and go on walks.

After three years of looking for a job every winter and spring, I (C) finally accepted a tenure-track position.  Since we’ll be here for a while we decided to buy a house.  We have finished negotiations and will be closing in a month.  This is it:

Moving won’t be fun, but it will be great to have our own home.

We have been settling into a new schedule with the start of the fall semester and the job that B started working over the summer. And we found out that GVSU will actually be repeating the job search that was called off last year that turns C’s position into a tenure-track one. So, we’re starting that all over again. Luckily, we’re in Michigan and we love fall here.

Since Felix is the only real news, we’ll just get on to the stuff that matters. A year ago we had our families here for Felix’s blessing. He has changed a lot since then.

Then:

Now:

In some ways, Felix has changed a lot. Here are some things he likes now that he didn’t a year ago:

1. Playing with doors. He will stand at our bedroom door and open and shut it, giggle, open it and shut it again, giggle some more and talk to himself, etc. for a long time.

2. Going on runs in the running stroller. He used to hate being strapped down in the stroller and wasn’t much fun to run with. But now, …

3. Hugging. Felix has entered a new phase that we like a lot. He loves to hug. Hug mom, hug dad, hug teddy bear, hug blankets, he’s a great hugger.

(teddy bear got to be upside-down for this hug)

In many ways, he’s still the same as he was a year ago.

He still loves to look at books and be read to

(by the way, this picture doesn’t come close to doing justice to how cute he looks in his super hero sleeper -C)

He loves to eat

And we still think he’s cutest when he’s asleep.

This sounds cheesy (and you all know our aversion to cheesiness), but being Felix’s parents just keeps getting better and better.

(If you didn’t see the short video of him walking, click on the link in the short post just after this one.)

Felix Walks

Our Oregon Top Ten

(in no particular order)

• Fish tacos from Del Taco.
• The coast. It’s always between 45 and 65 degrees there, regardless of the time of year.  And it’s beautiful.  (See previous posts for evidence.)
• Wayne and Kristie’s house.  Especially their beautifully tiled bathroom.
• Tillamook cheese, ice cream, and yogurt.  Even Felix got a healthy dose.
• Berries.  All of them.
• The Columbia River Gorge (see pics below).
• Trees and green.  The trees cover the hills and mountains.  And they’re really tall, like 5 times as tall as trees in the east.
• Andrew Everett. (He’s a good friend from college.)
• Cooking in Kristie’s kitchen.  Always well stocked with spices.
• Spending time with the Goateseseses.

Now for the important part, pictures.

This is the Columbia River Gorge. Gorgeous.

Felix and Grandpa (and Bessy) at the Tillamook cheese factory.

One of the best surprises about spring was Lily of the Valley growing in our front yard.  The smell in the evening is perfect.  Since you can’t smell online, here’s a picture.

Tulips in our yard (which we certainly didn’t plant) burst open in bright colors and they’re everywhere here. And this isn’t even Holland, MI, where they have the tulip festival every year, with 5 million tulips in one small city near the Lake Michigan shore. We drove out to see it, but were deterred by traffic, so we decided to go to the lake shore.
There were no other cars in the parking lot when we pulled in, and we didn’t see the beach, just a mountain of sand in front of us. To get to the beach, we had to climb about seven flights of stairs to get to the top of the dune, and then go down about ten more to get to the beach.

This is a panoramic view from near the top of the stairs.

But it was worth the climb to have the beach all to ourselves on a perfect spring day.

Felix wrestling the driftwood

We already knew that we liked Michigan, but after having seen the possibility of moving somewhere else and not gotten it, this spring has reminded us that Michigan is such a good fit for us (not to mention that it’s May 17th and didn’t get above 60 degrees. Who could ask for more?)

Our last bit of news after years of deliberation, reminders from family members, etc., is that we bought a kitchen table.

And, now for a few pictures; we just can’t get enough.

In the morning (We think he’s particularly cute after he wakes up)

Ready for a ride

And, finally, looking all grown up, with his Aunt Bryn

Here is something nice that the weather did on our front porch:

We have been keeping Felix warm in the cold with a new hat, made out of pants:

He likes playing with his toys on the floor. Logan gave him a toy that sings songs in English and Spanish when you push buttons. When you turn it on, it says “First Words Radio” in a really enthusiastic voice, but it actually sounds like it’s saying “earthworms radio.” Here he is, doing with it what any sensible person would do with a plastic radio (eat it):

And finally, a few more pictures. First, a couple of Felix waking up from his nap:

And one of him doing one of his favorite things, rolling on the bed:

He has sharp, jagged teeth now (two on top, two on bottom) and is still growing very tall. He went in for his 9-month checkup and has moved up from the 90th percentile for height to the 95th percentile. And yes, he’s still very trim, though he moved up a few percentile points in weight too. If he keeps going like this, he’ll have a great running, cycling, or swimming body, or maybe even volleyball (watch out Logan).

Also, as a reminder, there are more pictures of Felix on our Flickr page.

As most of the people who will read this know, I’m in the middle of a job search. My position (a visiting professorship) was approved to turn into a tenure-track position. That’s great because it means that I can be in a permanent position sooner, but it means that the department is required to do a national search to fill the position, so I’m competing for it with a bunch of other people. I’ve been applying to a bunch of jobs because it would be unwise to just expect to get the tenure-track job here. Well, this week I was informed that the department chair has called off the search. Those of you in academia know how unusual it is for a department to have a position approved by the university and then just call it off. A blog isn’t the right place to go into the reasons, but it has to do with political things in the department unrelated to me (it’s about the position itself, rather than any particular person who might occupy it). They want me to stay in the visiting position. In a way it’s nice, because it’s something dependable and stable for next year in this unstable economic environment, but of course it would be nicer to be in a tenure-track position. In my search, I’ve had a few interviews for tenure-track positions at other schools (and cut my hair short for them), and am quite interested in two of them (SUNY Fredonia (near Buffalo) and the University of New Mexico). I’ve only had a phone interview with UNM (generally, schools do phone interviews with 10 or so candidates, and then bring three finalists to campus for 1- or 2- day interviews, with a bunch of presentations and meetings), but there is some really great stuff going on there in my field and it would be very nice to be in a tenure-track job at a big research school, where my teaching load would be lighter and my own work would be better supported. But we really like Grand Rapids a lot and it would be very hard to leave. We don’t have any decisions to make right now, since nobody else has offered a job.

We like that the days are getting longer and hope the temperatures rise accordingly. Felix is just getting over his first sickness and this week is Spring Break for us, so it will be fun to spend more time together. I’m hoping to get my website up and I’ll post a link to it when I get it up.

Soon after we got back from Oregon, the check engine light in our car came on. Some of you know that we bought a new car that we like a lot, as much for its low cost and fuel efficiency as for anything. But, it was under warranty, so I wasn’t too worried. I took it to the dealership in Illinois and sat there for three hours while the mechanic tried to figure out what was wrong, but he couldn’t figure it out. There was some pressure leak in the fuel system, and he thought it might be a faulty gas cap. After we got to Michigan, I took it to another dealership. After a few more hours, the serviceman came out.

(Approximate conversation)
Serviceman: You had better come take a look at this.
Me: That doesn’t sound good.
Serviceman: Well, sometimes it’s just better for you to see it than for me to try to tell you about it.

So, we went out to the car and the fuel tank was dropped down from under the car. On top of the fuel tank, I saw this (pictures taken with serviceman’s phone):

Me: What in the devil is that?
Serviceman: Well, it’s a mouse nest. The mice have built a nest on top of the fuel tank, under the body of the car, using the fuel lines for structure. After hours of diagnostics and searching, we blew a bunch of smoke into the fuel system and it came pouring out of the bottom of the car. So, we looked, and found this. The mice have eaten through the fuel lines and into the fuel tank.

Yes, mice ate our brand new car.

We drove all over, to Chicago and back, to Grand Rapids and back (from Illinois), all after the light came on, all with a colony of mice living above the fuel tank. It took a week and $700 to get it fixed. All because of mice. Now we have mouse traps in the garage.

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When we were in Oregon over the summer, there were four generations of the Goates family in the house and Wayne wanted to take a picture, so we did. There’s a nice picture of the four sitting nicely on the couch. But this is my favorite one.

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During the fall here, the colors were beautiful.  I loved watching the leaves change day by day on my commute to campus.  Here are some pictures, some of them merges of a few pictures to get a wider shot. This wasn’t at the height of the colors, and it would have been better on a sunny day, but this was the day that I happened to have a camera in my bag with me on my bike.

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And, finally, is this picture from November 4th, Logan’s birthday, and a a day of celebration for more reasons than that.