Lunar Eclipse and Moon Madness

Tonight we witnessed a lunar eclipse. As with many 3-year-olds, Erika is very interested in the moon, so this was quite an event! As the moon turned to red, Erika exclaimed, "The moon looks like Jupiter!" which I think is a pretty insightful observation!
We don't have a telescope...yet, so we made due with binoculars as best we could.

After we got cold and came in, (notice that mommy needs no jacket since her oven is cooking along at about 400F. Just try sleeping near her!) Erika wanted to watch a "Cosmos" DVD. This must be where she picked up the idea of what Jupiter looks like! Indeed, while we had the stomach flu the week before last, we watched the whole 13 episode series of Cosmos from 1980.

In this final picture, Erika is showing signs of moon madness: she has pants on her head, is chattering about rockets, and is expressing desire for more Carl Sagan and the planet Jupiter. Who says the Wetzels don't know how to party?

As a side note, this "Cosmos phase" in her viewing habits has been going on for about two weeks so far. I'm sure it will pass like the other phases have, but just in case something sticks, I'm saving this picture to show at her doctoral dissertation.

Band-aids, Skittles, and drawing thing.

Erika loves band-aids.  This is what happens when you leave the box unattended. Whoever thought of putting cartoon characters on band-aids has cost us a lot of money.  Below is Erika lazily watching Saturday morning cartoons and putting band-aids wherever she can.  

Uncle Mark joined us for our Sunday ritual of going to cross-roads mall in Bellevue for Thai food.  Afterwards, Erika is rewarded with a handful of Skittles candies.

Grandma Kathy sent Erika this lovely drawing thing.  It's the kind where you paint with plain water, but the picture magically appears.  I don't know exactly what these things are called, but Erika simply loves them.

Rotavirus: 3; Wetzels: 0

This past week was brought to us by the letter V for Virus.
It was ugly, but here's what I have learned about projectile vomiting:

3) You get an instant abdominal workout without the hastle of going to the gym.
2) It's a quick way to loose 5 pounds overnight
1) Eat applesauce, it's good the second time too.


Figure 1. Microscopic Evil.

The good news: Erika took 5 days to recover, but recover she has. She laid down Monday morning and vomited every 20 minutes for several hours. She did not get up on her own until just this morning (Friday). She asked for Pizza.
Jackie is tired, but this is a huge improvement from the earlier explosive action from both ends which is a joy while pregnant I'm told.
The Twins, still in there and ticking away. Jackie had another ultrasound visit today and little A and B are in excellent shape having missed all the fireworks.
As for me: I missed 3 days of work.. well, I tried, but people kept calling me. It's good to feel needed, but I'll admit during the darkest 8 hours of this virus, I could not have possibly cared less. Lying motionless and cursing repeatedly seemed to be the only thing I was capable of doing. Yes, I know, that's not much different than a typical day at the office.

Stomach virus. Again with the snow?

Last week it snowed again! ..for a day. Erika looked out the window and excalimed "What a great day to stay inside"

But this week Erika is one hurtin' cowpoke. She has her first really impressive stomach virus. She was throwing up about every 20 minutes for several hours. She could only tolerate the tiniest sip of water or Pedialyte. As of tonight, she has turned the barfy corner but has no energy whatsoever. She just lays there and dozes. So sad!
Last night, she was looking particularly pathetic and I asked if she needed some loving. There has never been a tinier, sadder "yeah" uttered. I picked her up and she cuddled into a ball in my arms. Now *this* is the sweet part about being a dad! Then she barfed impressively all over me and I had to take a shower. You gotta be ready with the towels at all times.

From the Archives: Kruses past

And now for a little romp through the photo archives. This is from grandpa Doug's genealogy collection here we have the William Henry Kruse family. From what we can tell, Great Grandpa George is not yet born when this photo was taken.
There is just something about this scene. The six of them peering out at us from a hundred years ago. Clearly they take raising a family very seriously!
Recently I've heard some idle chit-chat around the office by people saying that they could never have children right now given the state of the world. Consider our ancestors at the turn of the last century, WWI has not started yet, there has yet been no flu pandemic, the Great Depression was not even imaginable, and certainly anything as all-encompassing as WWII was beyond speculation. 100Million people were killed in conflict in the 20th century. Is the world now too dangerous for babies? Good thing those pictured above didn't think that way. It's one thing to be stoic, but quite another to be a cynic.

Bed-time Stories

Story time is crucial. Since Erika has turned three, she can express lots of preferences for books, and will correct me if I miss a word on her favorites. The hard part is keeping story time on track and not off on a tangent. In this picture, Erika is in her bed. Note that she is using her insane cuteness to manipulate me (her father) into reading an extra book, or really just about anything to stall for time. I got the camera out to document what I'm up against! Nonetheless, we do not deviate from the routine. 15 minutes of books and a brief poem from a German story book and lights out. Schlafenzeit! There is no better way to end the day.

Another half day of snow in a year!

Twin update

We finally know the gender of the twins: female.
So, we are expecting identical twin girls in late May. For those keeping score at home, I'm told that the chance of having identical twins is 1 in 285.
Erika was informed of the news, but responded angrily. She insists that those are not girls in mommy's tummy but babies! I asked her if she is a girl, and she denied that as well. I found that no matter how you finish this sentence: "Erika, are you a ____?" she will emphatically deny it, turn away and become very agitated. I'm not sure what that is, but there you have the psychology of our 3-year-old.

Conclusion of 2007

Aunt Jayne had our main family Christmas dinner on the 26th at her home on Vashon Island. Here Erika enjoys the easy lifestyle afforded by the magical combination of a minivan on a passenger ferry. A lovely banana is prescribed for just this situation.

How we really spent the holidays... This is us playing a video game. We are playing Jak and Daxter on our old Sony PS2. Erika gives me advice on where to go in the game and what to do.

It is clear why the Seattle area is a major player in the video game realm. It gets dark by 4:30 in the winter. Anyway, have been playing everyday for the past few weeks from 60 to 90 minutes at a sitting. We could quit at any time....I kinda hope. In case there are some amateur child psychologists out there poised to condemn our fun, I'm saving for therapy already, so there is nothing to worry about. After a good session, Erika bursts into a creative mode in which she interacts with imaginary characters taken from the game. She also runs around activating eco vents which only makes sense if you know this game.

Christmas Eve 2007

No sign of sleigh nor reindeer yet; the full moon shining over our blurry neighborhood.

Inside, Erika has put milk and cookies out for Santa. The carrots are for the reindeer. She had to have one herself to assure quality control.

Erika's new guitar

Dance Like a Penguin

Sure, grandma and grandpa are smiling now.

They have just started on the "dance like a penguin" marathon.
It's easy to forget the toddler rule #291: Never do anything unless you are prepared to do it 100 more times.

Gingerbread House Construction

Obviously Grandma Kathy and Grandpa Keith are visiting. Their gingerbread house construction skills are in high demand right away.

Video from the snow day.

Sorry for the sounds quality. Wind was blowing, but you get the idea.

Golden Curls

I finally snapped a shot of Erika's curls. This is what we are up against with a brush every morning!


She actually posed for this photo! Afterwards, no more. Just this.

Bothell wetlands

The flood waters subsided and here are pictures from the wetland next to our office park in Bothell today. This is supposed to be a meandering creek, but you can still see that there is a lot of water. It's designed to soak up run off from the office park and create an environment for nature to do its thing.

This last picture was unintentional. I must have gripped the camera while I was falling flat on my back. That is my pant leg and brown shoe up in the air. Notice in the lower left is my left foot slipping on a black plastic tarp. At least I didn't go into the drink! That's the corner of our building which lost power during the flood, by the way.

A Surprise of Flood

The thing about living close to nature, is that occasionally it tries to rub you out. The odd snowstorm I wrote about lasted one single day. Then the snow turned to rain and it kept raining until just now. The result being that we have had some serious flooding around here. I didn't expect to be sandbagging at work today, but that's what I did. At least for a little bit. There is this lovely creek and wetland that winds its way lazily through our office park in Bothell. It's a place for birds to nest (I saw a bald eagle last week!) and a place for salmon to spawn. It's also a channel for run-off. The berm around it is high enough so that the water never nears its top which is a delightful paved trail- until today.

We were told to evacuate our buildings around 10am and volunteers were asked to stay and help with the sandbags. I had a project to complete, so after a few sandbags I got wet enough and I went home to work. At first I wished that I could have stayed and helped, but it's just as well. Around 4:30 the battle to keep the lights on at our datacenter in Bothell was lost and it went dark. Utility power failed, and our diesel generator was swamped as its transformers blew- many millions upon millions of dollars of equipment, which should never sleep, fell silent. The 40 guys who remained on site put up a valiant effort, but there they fought a losing battle. In case you don't know what a data center is, it's a very expensive building with hundreds if not thousands of computers in it. It takes two days to turn it back on properly because of the complexity of the technology involved. Thankfully, we have a handful of these sprinkled in secret places across the country so that no more than one ever fails due to some catastrophic event.

The city of Bothell has no more "road closed" signs to deploy. The flooding is too wide-spread. I don't know the entire extent of the damage since it's advised to not go out. I'm anxious to find out how the guys got out of there tonight, or if they are still fighting to keep water out of our building. At least it's a pleasant 55F out, so it's not as bad as it could be! That really is the perfect temperature to bag sand.

A Surprise of Snow

This sort of thing is something of a treat for us - snow! They say it will only be here until tomorrow evening, but at least for now, there is nothing more fun. Erika is finally learning what it means to be uncomfortable. All this time she would just be cold or hot and never admit a thing. Now she can tell us what she's feeling. We played outside for a whole hour, then Jackie made some hot cocoa and it was time to come in.

Volvo say bye-bye

It was inevitable.

Please welcome our new transportation device. It is alarmingly large.
Toyota Sienna LE (all-wheel drive)

Happy Thanksgiving!

We attended two Thanksgiving feasts this year. The first was with Wetzel cousins and the second with the Hayatsus.

My cousins Maria and Rose with Uncle Ed and Aunt Marian.
Ed and Marian are the last of the 8(?) of my father's generation.

Here Erika sticks out her tongue.

At the Hayatsu festivities, we see Ilene and Erika sharing a special bonding moment.
Whatever game they could possibly be playing is beyond all conjecture.

Strategic Milkshake

Once again, Erika did not want her picture taken, but she will allow me to photograph the back of her head all I want; not what our blog readers want to see! She had just gotten her hair cut for the holidays, so I wanted to get that documented before the little hair clip went flying.
Anyway, here we see Erika sharing some of mommy's new diet. Jackie is eating a lot these days, as the twins seem to be sucking down the calories at an amazing rate. A large Jack-in-the-Box milk shake is deployed strategically here. The novelty of two straws has lasting appeal.

Twins?

I don't usually post internal pictures, but this one is quite interesting.

Jackie had her first ultrasound this evening, and behold, two tiny Wetzels. Yes, two. One, two.
Hearts are beating and all that, so that is a good sign! They took my (Jason's) blood so they can compare genetic markers to Jackie. Since we are old (over 35) and having twins, we are high risk. The genetic counsellors are standing by.... Have your insurance card handy.

Jackie is on a strict protein and haagen dazs diet now. Steak and ice cream! She's eating for herself and 2 very hungry little peanuts.

Video games, anyone?

It's never too early to start with the playstation.... is it?

Halloween - take it or leave it, apparently.

What was Erika for Halloween? Not interested that's what.

I'm wondering if Jackie and I didn't really sell it properly. Despite the "news" reporting that Halloween is the new Christmas, we spent less than $10 this year including candy. Besides our lack-luster approach, having just returned from our Boston trip yesterday, Erika is still short on emotional resilience, enthusiasm for novelty, and tolerance of any inconvenience.

I can't blame her since I don't really have much enthusiasm for the holiday myself. This is not because of an affected piety like that sported by the neighborhood evangelicals in the face of a decidedly non-Jesus-y holiday, but more of a realization that it's cold and dark outside and there is plenty of candy already within reach. Why dress up for it? I think this sentiment is well captured in the photo above.

The one thing about Halloween that Erika does enjoy is the cat imagery. Thanks to all of you who sent her Halloween cards! As a side note, be assured that no card goes unnoticed. They are discussed often and recycled- recycled as just about anything. Standing on them is big right now. Some favorite cards are considered as books and need to be read and re-read aloud. One particular "Happy 1st Birthday" featuring the Care Bears is still going strong after nearly 2 years of use.

Visiting Aunt Kimi

Hard to believe we made it all the way to Boston this weekend. Aunt Kimi showed us a density of things you don't get to see in our usual suburban environment

We got a chance to visit with Jackie's long-time friend, Juliette, who happens to have a daughter also named Erica. The East Coast Erica and the West Coast Erika finally meet!

Uncle Chris played a key role in the fun on Monday night. Kim, delirious from pharmaceuticals after her hand surgery, shows Erika art someone gave her.



Getting around Boston is easy if you master the "T". Erika is not much for the noises, so it will take a bit more practice.

Halloween fun?

Erika has yet to enjoy a pumpkin patch. We are 0 for 3. However this year there was a giant, inflatable cat at least.

20-20-21

Mommy was measuring herself and Erika wanted to be part of the action. For those interested, Erika's measuremeents are 20-20-21.

Autumn Sun

This photo has a very 1960s feel to me. I played with the color focus for dramatic effect. I wish the weed bucket and other stuff was not behind there, but oh well. It's hard to plan photo ops!

Pensive in the park

Trying on Dresses

It's certainly autumn now; best to stay in and try on summer dresses.

Erika's wings

The theme for today is wings!
And magic wands if you have such a thing handy.

As often happens, Erika is not interested in being photographed right now; being discovered after the first flash, I received a rather harsh wand pummeling.

In fact, if you have never had an angry 2-year-old try to beat the snot out of you with a magic wand then you, my friend, are missing something.

She has blue wings too. I only watch about 15 minutes of TV regularly. Here Erika is as fascinated as I am with uncle Jimbo and his Mad Money show on CNBC. Dow 14,000! Wow! Again.

Who wants cupcakes?

It's finally Autumn! Time to stay inside and bake cupcakes! This is the first time that she is truly helping in the kitchen. She dumped the ingredients in (she's an expert at dumping things) and mixed everything together as best she could. Licking the spatula followed.

I would also like to record here one of our many seemingly random conversations with Erika. While we were eating dinner on Saturday, the below conversation transpired:

Erika: Mommy, mommy, mommy!
Jackie: What is it, Erika!?
Erika: When is my birthday!?
Jackie: Your birthday is in December.
*pause*
Erika: I want a candy cane.
End conversation.