Bobcat love

Over the weekend James had to do snow removal from our own building so I bundled the little guy up so we could head outside to watch. He was so excited but when it came time for loading the trucks he stood perfectly still on the front porch watching his dad make the bobcat dance. I was worried I would have to hold him back while we watched but he stood like a statue while the machines were running. Then, once James stepped out of the bobcat Logan yelled: "Dad! Bob!" - as in 'bobcat', not the name :) I guess that's the first clear almost phrase he's said so far. Not surprising it was about his two favourite fun things!

He really is speaking a lot these days. I'm pretty sure he said "push the button" the other day (something he loves to do and we instruct him to do quite a bit in certain contexts) and along with a growing vocabulary he is speaking gibberish all the time (and quite expressively). He has come to the point where he will verbalize when he's on the phone with another person (before he wouldn't speak but would smile when he heard someone on the phone. He would only speak when he was playing with the phone). He's turning into quite the verbal little guy. Also just the past couple days if he wants something from, say, the counter I will hold an object up and if it isn't the one he means he will shake his head 'no'. So funny! He hasn't said anything that sounds like 'no' yet but he certainly has the concept down! It's just so much fun getting to know my little man's character (it's mostly good so far...) as it develops.

Pink Swirl

I guess he must have dipped the marker in the milk.

Ads and Art

After writing that it was easier than it has been in too long to write again I have failed to write on here again until now. This is because I am busy catching up on writing everywhere else that I had been neglecting. Also, strangely, I have not taken very many pictures this past week. Not entirely sure why but it is possible that some of it comes from spending a lot of the days out visiting people without the camera along. Stemming from this, when we are home the house is not in great shape so potential pictures are sometimes stalled until the place can be tidied a little. Logan is also getting a little less co-operative with posing. At least he is not at the point yet where he deliberately poses when he sees a camera but his attitude of oblivion towards it is also disappearing because he likes to see the pictures on the screen and push the flash down any time it pops up. You can only take so many blurry photos of his chin and hand reaching for the camera before it gets a little old. But life has been happening so that is all that really matters.

Yesterday I watched a documentary on advertising called Art & Copy. I for the most part hate ads in general and commercials in particular. I hate how they interrupt; I hate how they blare at the audience; I hate how they are played repetitively or placed ubiquitously; I hate how badly done so many of them are. But there is a different class of ad campaigns (of which I have been aware in the past but never looked at in this detail or perspective). This documentary seems almost to be an homage to the great ad campaigns released over the past several decades. It was interesting and quite visually captivating (it is about ads, after all). However I almost felt there was not enough balance and, strangely--considering my reasons for disliking ads--, I was under-whelmed by the contemplative spots (used as vehicles for the various stats cited) that were thrust throughout the stories. Concerning the balance issue I suppose I felt that there would be more contrast drawn between either art and commercialism or the effect of capitalism on creativity or even comparing good and bad campaigns. I suppose I watched it with the expectation of the more confrontational approach taken with many documentaries today. Instead I felt myself drawn into the stories of the minds behind the ads and I actually enjoyed the ride. It did not really revolutionalize the way I think of ads but it was an interesting and beautiful presentation. I would recommend it.

All this talk about the need to be enthusiastic about the product and how these campaigns can change the way one views the world made me pause this morning to contemplate how I would set up to advertise motherhood (my life right now). Somehow I would bring in a play on words and concepts of gifts and the present and perhaps display little vignettes that evoke the bits of joy scattered through the day. But the real trick is how to do this without being sentimental or corny. To find the truth behind it to which everyone can connect. Ha, well thinking about it brought me through the task of doing the dishes so it was at least a partially useful exercise.

Meet me at the space-bar

Mere hours ago a phrase like this post's title would have been excruciating for me to type up on this computer. Over the past two-and-a-half months I have been crippled in so many ways by a malfunctioning keyboard. Not even by an entire keyboard; two key keys on the keyboard have wreaked my ruin: the space-bar and the 'm' (along with a few other keys of much lesser importance such as the left cursor and 'control'). It is astonishing how the loss of such a small thing has brought my communication with the outside world to its' knees.

How did my keyboard get to such a state, you ask? Logan was sick early in December and happened to be sitting on my lap not once but twice (possibly thrice) while my laptop innocently sat at my feet (I'm sure dethroned from its titular origin at the point when he insisted on sitting there) only to be covered with a great portion of the contents of Logan's stomach. The keys were a mess but because I had more important sicknesses to handle at the time, the mess got a chance to dry on. So I was unable (and unwilling) to use the keyboard in any way until I found the time to clean it up. However, even once I cleaned it up - going so far as to remove the keys and clean beneath - the aforementioned keys would not work.

Thus I entered my second stage of broken communication. I entertained hopes of attaching a separate keyboard and even raised my sights to the idea of a new computer. When these items were not forthcoming and when I found the need to communicate with the outside world becoming pressing I decided to improvise. I cannot give myself much credit for brilliancy but I certainly will say the efforts I made were impressive. I found that I could use underscore for spaces in some of my messages (although this would mess up formatting depending on the program). I also found it interesting to look for synonyms for words with the letter 'm' in them (which themselves had to remain m-less). If all else failed (or if the search was becoming ridiculous) I would copy and past an 'm' from text elsewhere on the page (often from the .com of the URL). By the time that I was getting better at this and realizing that I would not be out of my predicament any time soon I started writing short sentences without underscore by copying and pasting phrases from space-ful sections of text and swapping out the original words for mine while preserving the spaces.

The one exception to this predicament was blogger. Apparently if you write words and hit 'enter' between them, within the compositional box it may look like an experimental poem but once the post is published nothing appears amiss. It is still difficult to write lengthy posts (hence the brevity displayed in the past few months around here) but it does hide the larger half of the handicap.

All this to explain my joy upon hooking up a real keyboard that really works. Strangely enough I have had to re-train my fingers to hit the space-bar... Can't say it took long, however! This time the computer and keyboard are, despite the moniker of 'laptop', remaining decided on top of the table. There they will hopefully be (mostly) out of reach of our electronics monster.

A cup of muffin

I had a bit of banana-chocolate-chip muffin batter left over after filling tins and trays and was debating how best to bake that quantity (not enough for a loaf pan, too much time/effort involved in waiting for the muffins to bake and cool to re-use the tin) when what to my wondering eyes should appear but the already flour-dusted one-cup metal measuring cup. It worked exactly as I had hoped and turned out a beautiful shape and size (not to mention how cute it looks in the cup). A visiting friend suggested a series of muffins in various size cups would be even better. I think it'll have to happen next baking session whether there is left-over batter to use or not!

Looking at these pictures now I realize that I should have taken them with the regular-sized muffins in view for a better perspective of the scale. Unfortunately the cup of muffin is no longer with us (well, it is still with me in the sense of becoming part of who I am after I devoured it... with ice cream) so you will have to imagine the scale guided by your no doubt extensive experience of a standard one-cup measurement.

Park

Unseasonably warm weather drew us to spend part of our afternoon at the local park a few days ago. It was gorgeous and fun to get out of our hole and bask. What a difference a little sunshine can work!

Tiny brown boots are adorable in my opinion! Unfortunately this family outing was one short but we're looking forward to a point when we will have opportunity to have outings all together. Until then we enjoy what time we do spend together all the more!

Puppy

caught with gorgeous light

Sleeping

squishy face

monkey

With getting good at walking comes new goals and challenges for my boy.

Exploring vertically is the new walking, apparently. Anything he can climb into or onto or through is fair game. This new territory brings a few more bumps and tears with it but over all I am impressed by his ability to try his limits without foolishly exceeding them. Let's hope this early wisdom turns out to be a character trait.

Trains

It amazes me every time he learns new skills so quickly and well through playing. I only showed him once how to put the blocks on the pegs and away he went.

This train is another aesthetically (and sentimentally and educationally) pleasing toy. Not to be a snob but it is definitely preferable in my eyes to the piles of junk so readily available these days...

techy

He likes the computer

and has the typing thing down.

He'd even be great with a touch-screen model.

I guess all that's left is spelling, then.

Ears

"What was that?"

This would likely look better in black and white (love the chair, hate the pattern/colour) and possibly cropped and/or background blurred but I so rarely edit photos I often forget about the possibilities. Or we could just take a second to visualize how cute these pictures could be were they properly edited...

Cowlick

Why isn't my bead-head ever this cute?

Cheeks

Stopping in at a Salvation Army I picked up a nice plain wood toy box today. I couldn't be happier to get toys off the floor and potentially out of sight. I also donated a little pile of his toys (yes, he already has extra) so am happy with the improvement!

Logan's been crazy about hats for a while now and often will walk around wearing one he's found around the house. This one of mine fits his head a bit better than his dad's hats. Don't you just want to squeeze those cheeks!

Blocks

These things are a great idea until stepped upon.

ouch.

2012

Happy New Year! Having various issues with the laptop, I have posted very little in the past while but life has by no means slowed down. I hope to have things to say once I can say it better. For now just another picture to fill the gap...

Wrapped-up

The second greatest gift of all...

merry Christmas

-Nooner

reasonable?

Is it strange that a good part of my incentive to keep a clean house derives from a desire always to have a decent background for my baby pictures? Perhaps I should research depth-of-field settings and save myself all this work...

marker

un-capped? uh-oh!

Snoozing

super boy

Our boy has never appreciated wearing bibs that are anything more than fabric (and he hasn't always enjoyed those for any length of time). He's always tried to get anything that crinkles or is stiff off from around his neck and I can sympathise with him in this remembering my deep-set aversion to turtle-neck shirts and the like. But yesterday he brought to me one of these pristine bibs with a plastic backing and wanted me to put it on him backwards (don't ask me how I knew this was what he wanted, writing it out now I'm wondering that myself). So I did, wondering what would happen. He then walked around (with a bit of a strut, perhaps?) with his cape-bib for the next half-hour at least. I can't think that he has seen anything with a cape that he is attempting to imitate yet so I wonder where this new idea originated.

Our little super hero!

Just don't tell him it looks like a cute peter-pan collar from the front...

Leaves

We've now had our first snow fall of the year. I don't think it's going to stay for long (the weather is supposed to warm quite a bit in the next couple days) but it's fun to see and gives a bit of a practice run for those who make a living getting it out of other peoples' way. Despite the late date, Fall clean-ups have been going strong and just yesterday we took these pictures of the littlest member of our crew enjoying one of the piles of leaves.

One Year

He's grown so much so quickly! It seems like there is no way he could be happier, more loving or smarter than he is. I can't wait to see how he develops this coming year. God bless you, my boy.

Decisions, decisions

A bit over a week ago I stumbled across an interesting opportunity for our family and we've been researching how feasible it would be. Until we know if we're actually pursuing it for some reason I really don't want to let too many people know about the details. I'm not sure from whence the reticence springs but it's possible that it's just too close to my dreams to want to go through the disappointment with others watching. Now before everyone starts guessing amazing and huge steps for us, it really isn't anything that significant (we're not moving to another country or adopting or something) but it would be great if we could swing it. The one problem with not letting anyone know about it is that I would like advice as I research options in this decision and it might be hard to solicit without giving sufficient background. I would like to be able to tell people once I am more sure that the process will go through but I guess I don't want to have to explain how we gave up if it doesn't pan out. Maybe I'll go around asking people a pile of crazy hypothetical questions as a smoke-screen with the one real question buried somewhere in the middle.

What to do, what to do...

first steps

Our little guy has been pulling himself from hand-hold to hand-hold for several months now and walking when his hands are held but he has taken a while to venture out on his own. This touch of timidity (perhaps tinged with laziness or comfort in old habits) has been fine with me because it means I know the exact extent of his reach for the few moments I cannot keep both eyes on him. I can trust that if I leave him holding onto the chair he will not be any further than the couch at the opposite end of the room by the time I come back. But all that is about to fly out the window because he took his first few independent steps yesterday. At present he still reverts to the easy way most of the time but more and more (even within the past few hours) I have found him venturing beyond his earlier comfort zone. These are interesting times...

Walking with his walking stick (perhaps it's a bit too pointy for safety. Might have to fix that. Hmm).

knight errant

We have had an incredible Autumn weather-wise with plenty of sunshine and highs almost doubling seasonal averages. Despite being sick we've been attempting to take advantage of the weather as much as possible. It would be much easier had we our own yard but making do with what is available is part of what makes life interesting, I believe. So we go for walks to the park or visit friends with yards of their own. Over all we've been able to enjoy quite our share of fresh air.

We were passed this sweater (and vest) and I love the colour combination. In these pictures the line in the knitting and the shape against his head reminds me of a suit of mail. A knight in training, I suppose.

The past couple days I have noticed a change in how he walks, too. For several months, now, he has been cruising from object to object but just these past two days he has been consistently letting go of one hand-hold before taking a step towards the next spot. He also was holding a stick while we were outside yesterday and took a couple steps with it (not holding anything else). He knows how to walk it'll just take a bit more confidence, I think. Then, look out!

Talking bobcats

We've been under the weather this past week which in part accounts for the length of silence. It has been beautiful, however, in my favourite Autumn way so we have been seizing opportunities to head outside every day we can. Parked in our back parking lot (in sight from where we normally exit when going for a walk) is one of the bobcats that James drives and it has become an essential part of our routine to walk around the bobcat before going anywhere (or coming back inside). Although the little bear isn't speaking completely yet he certainly is trying and not only makes sounds that are very close to the proper words but also is quite adept at getting his intent across through a variety of other ways. I know the moment he sets eyes on the bobcat and feel probably much like a horse does as he guides me over to it. As far as word enunciation goes, he has said "bob" very distinctly followed by other sounds and has also said "cat" (but he's practised and had that one down for a while now from the other context) and once he mashed the two with a longish "baaat" sounding word. But he's working on it and seems to be progressing. I know I probably interpret more than an outside observer would from what he says but I know he is trying the proper words and uses them at appropriate occasions. And we have had unbiased (as much as is possible) observers hear him say words (without our prompting them to hear things) so I'm not just an over-achieving mother. Just for future reference for myself, I want to list what he has said so far. Around three months he started saying "hi" (often with just a little aspiration but a clear vowel sound) at the appropriate times and occasionally when prompted. He has mostly dropped this now but waves with his hand (a few minutes after someone has waved at him, usually). Then he would say "Da" or "Dada" appropriately in a very happy voice when he was around eight or nine months. Around the same time he would say "Mama" but always when he was upset in a half-cry... He has dropped this one too but still calls or names James "Da" in a high tone (not to mention the body wriggles and smiles he gets too). I'm trying to remember which came first but around ten months he helped James change some light-bulbs (rather, watched while James changed the light-bulbs...much as I do when I 'help') and from that point was interested in lights and would point to them and say "ight". Then one day James was drinking a Blue and L was trying to grab it so James spelled the word out and said "it says 'Blue'" to which the little guy said "Bu" and has continued to pronounce appropriately (while pointing to the letters as James had). He doesn't have the 'l' down yet but will extend the vowel to the appropriate length for the word "Buuu". Then with the coming of the cats and his immediate interest in them he says "At" or "Ca" or even "It" (probably from kitty) whenever he seas or hears them. This is also said in that high tone he uses for Dad. Even when he doesn't say any word his pitch will heighten considerably when mentioning them. These are the words he is saying fairly consistently and clearly. Along with them he is very good at imitating sounds and miscellaneous other words. Over all it's fascinating and so much fun to be a part of his first steps in language! Now for a couple pictures from this week:

"Sorry, you're a little late for candy now..."

"That's okay: I'll eat this stick instead."