Binary solo

Logan has started counting in the past few weeks. He has always been good at 'one' and 'two' but it has been hit and miss as far as enunciating 'three'. Sometimes he gets it well and other times seems at a loss of what comes next. We've even had a 'four' thrown into the mix at times. Recently, though, he has solved the problem of remembering what comes after the first two numbers by simply repeating them as he counts: "one...two...one...two...one...two..." It's pretty darn cute if you ask me (but then pretty much everything he does is in my opinion). I was telling my friend about how he uses the same numbers no matter how high he's counting and she suggested that he's simply employing a binary system. My kid's already mastered the building blocks of all computer systems. Brilliant!

Did you ever doubt me?

No News is Good News

After just getting to the point at which I felt on top of things enough to start posting a little more regularly, I fell into a huge funk. It didn't take me long to suspect and then discover that this was because... I am pregnant again! I was sick the first time around but it was liveable. This time, however, I wanted to die. Thankfully I seem to be emerging from the other end of the worst of it so am starting to piece my life back together. James was amazing through everything and picked up a lot of the slack that I left around but he could only do so much after a long day of hard work. So now I'm slowly catching up on putting life back into its comfortable course. So I don't have a lot of extra time to write on here but I thought I should at least break the radio silence with a bit of an explanation for my absence.

It's bare-foot-warm weather outside

I can't believe this weather! Clearly record-breaking, obviously lovely but also heart-breaking (both for those cooped up inside and when it leaves at the end of the week).

Tiny toes are coming out of hibernation for a taste of summer before the official start of spring. What a gift!

A Car!

From the last post to this one the weather could hardly have changed more. We've been outside most afternoons all week because the weather has been so lovely and warm. There is hardly a snow-bank in sight. So much for emergency snow removal but then you never know until it's too late whether or not it was necessary. An even larger change in the intervening time is that we purchased our first car. Well, we bought our first together. James has had more cars than he can count (and he's pretty good at counting) but I have never owned one so perhaps we almost average out. Anyway we've been looking for one ever since we were married and had several potentials but they never worked out or weren't safe enough (in James' opinion) for me to drive so we kept looking. Finally it was getting to the point where we'd need a forward-facing car seat for Logan and didn't really fit in the truck cab and where the inconvenience of having one vehicle wasn't made up for by any savings (savings? Haha!) by using only our gas-guzzling truck. But we (James) weren't satisfied with most of what was available out there. We looked at a couple options and were thinking how we could settle without settling too much or if we should bite the bullet and get a car that was out of our original price-range. But then after viewing a rust-bucket that had several obvious issues we stopped at a small dealership and saw our car. It's old enough to be just a tad above our price-range but good enough to be entirely worth it. It's fully loaded but that's on top of the fact that it's a good car. We couldn't find base cars in its condition for that price so having a good car that has a bunch of extras just means we not only get our cake but we get to eat the icing too... It's also small enough to be economical while still being safe. Perfect for us and I'm so glad we held out until we found it!

Black is not my favourite colour but it does look classy when James gets it shining!

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...