Some urban swingin'

How's that for some urban playground action? Graffiti, underside of a bridge, fuzzy Huggy Bear coat, Cole's modelesque side look...

It's not actually that hardcore - it's Yaletown and I think the graffiti is related to the fitness bootcamp that routinely overtakes the playground. :-)

Random tally

I love lists. I'm not necessarily great at following the lists, but there is just something so mentally organizing about writing them. I used to do a little list of current favourites on the sidebar, but I think sometimes a little more explanation is in order... So here's a random list of not-particularly-interesting things I'm enjoying this week...

Treat:
Speaking of lists, I enjoy buying new notebooks, full of crispy fresh unblemished pages. Ah, simple dreams of consistent penmanship and checked-off items... My favourite purchase in the last week or so has been a couple new Ecojot jumbo spiral lined notebooks. I go back and forth between my conscience/the environment and being tempted by adorable Japanese books at Paper-Ya, but these are a happy middle. Still cute, definitely 100% post-consumer paper. They're on sale right now at Grand & Toy for $5 (from $15)!

I just happened to find the sale on Saturday when Jamie stopped by the office for a few minutes to pick up some stuff before his trip. I stayed downstairs, wandering along a nearly-deserted Granville Street with a wailing, struggling infant strapped to my chest in an ill-adjusted Ergo, and stumbling on these notebooks at a great deal was the peak of the experience... Not so much the freaked out look of the copy guy in the store who looked repelled by my situation.

On the subject of notebooks and lists, I got a Moleskine notebook a few weeks ago and started a 5-a-day journal. It's just a loose tally of five things from that day. Not big events or gratitude things, more like quirky moments and plain old stuff. Less structure and effort than a regular journal, so easy to manage consistently - so far, anyway - and lots of fun.

Drink:
Revolution tea. I bought a little sampler set. Can't resist things in tiny little separate packages (hey, at least I religiously recycle the boxes!) and these teabags are just enough of a little treat. I am a big tea drinker - probably about a litre a day, all tallied up. Must make a tea cozy...

Kids book:
Cole and I went for a walk last night to knock a few things off my to-do list. Why is nothing exciting ever on that list? Well, that's not true - I write a massively random list of "Things I'd Like To Do This Week" (heinous capitalization intended for effect...) but most of the good stuff ends up getting shuffled to the next week... I am, perhaps, overambitious when I write this list...

Anyway, we went out (in the dark!) to return library books and exchange a lip gloss because the brush had fallen off. Exciting stuff... I find it hard to resist the Book Warehouse on Homer, and we wandered in to see what we could see while we were over there. We found Grumpy Bird - a vibrantly illustrated tale about a (you guessed it) grumpy bird who is just so lovably ornery that I couldn't resist. Walking back in the dark was fun. I hardly ever seem to get out in the dark lately. I guess that's one benefit to the Fall - early sunset tricks me into thinking I have a nightlife?

Mama book:
Just finished the super-quick reading Three Martini Family Vacation. Too funny. Great easy chuckles inside. I hope the library doesn't mind me taking all their books in the tub... That's really the only time I get to read anything consistently lately. I try to stick to lightweight books in the tub - History of Britian in hardback made my arms ache.

Food:
Pre-made everything. When Jamie travels, which thankfully is not often now, I go thourougly effortless. Urban Fare and Whole Foods are by go-to places. There's nowhere good that delivers to this end of False Creek - I can't even get Hon's to deliver and they are like a block away! And last year's blacklisting at Panago (they blacklisted ME - long story) nearly left us hung out to dry in the deliverable food category... Besides, the grocery store take-out is so much healthier - or at least more diverse... Even my Mom, totally the health food store type when I was a kid, let us eat canned spaghetti when my Dad traveled!

Craft:
Crafts have been slow going around here lately. I have't had much time for sewing, but the projects are a-pilin' up... There are the half-finished pants for Cole that require a waistband to finish them off. There is the matter of a quilt I started for some reason last night for Jamie (who has no quilt to call his own - poor guy)... I keep starting new knit hats for Cole, only to reconsider about 10 rows in and unravel all the wool. At least I don't have sewing a Hallowe'en costume on my list now - Jamie found a mega costume place in California has just the thing...

A fellow shoe enthusiast?

Cole plays a lot in the hallway between our bedroom and bathroom. It's lined with dual full-length mirrors and he has a blast there. I can say that it's the one fully baby-proofed space in our apartment, providing the closet is closed. So far anyway - I have to get more plug covers and baby bumpers and possibly replace our cheap and pointy $29 IKEA coffee table with an ottoman.

It was only a matter of time, though, before he realized that behind the mirrors there are a multitude of Mama's shoes. Not plain old runners and wellies, but shiny, delicious shoes! In boxes! With crinkly tissue! Some of his favourite things... He munches on his own shoes, but I kept him from doing that to mine in the interest of (a) safety for him and (b) safety for the shoes! He tore through the low-hanging fruit before I pulled him away. I'm trying to balance letting him explore stuff that he is interested in with stopping him when things become too dangerous for my liking...

In all fairness, he seemed as enamoured with the boxes as he was with the shoes, and that is the opposite for me...

Searching for that perfect pumpkin...

We visited the Westham Island herb farm yesterday way out in Ladner. It's been our favourite place to get fresh-off-the-vine pumpkins for a few years at least. It was particularly windy, so Cole was a touch distractable, but cool, clear and gorgeous Fall weather out. Have I mentioned how much I love the Fall? I know that's not terribly original, but I really do love it. Everything, including the rainy days too. (Note to self: buy some more apple cider today. Maybe make a meatloaf?)

Cole was really into feeling all of the pumpkins. We didn't remember to get our rubber boots from the storage locker downstairs, so we stuck to the ample selection of picked & washed pumpkins, rather than venturing out into the muddy patch in our suede sneakers... I can't wait to do that next year, when Cole will be able to appreciate all that lovely muck!

We don't have lots of pumpkin-carving time this week (Jamie is traveling for part of it) or a front stoop to put them on, so we just got a little tiny one that Cole seemed to keep coming back to. It is small and perfectly round and has a tiny little frayed stem.

He was really intent on all the little things today too, like hay, grass and leaves. He kept plucking and really investigating the textures. He kept us on our toes, making sure he didn't eat any of the found treasures...

A perfect fall afternoon

On Wednesday Cole and I made a second pilgrimage to Granville Island this week. On our walk there the other day I kept wishing that I'd brought the big camera - there was amazing not rainy/not sunny light. The light was impossible to recreate, but we had a great fall walk anyway. The foliage is gorgeous right now. I used to think that BC didn't get beautiful colours like back East, but either I wasn't paying attention, or something's in the air. Probably both?

It was the perfect opportunity to test out our new baby carrier. I finally broke down and put our Bjorn on the shelf. It's served us well for six months, but my shoulders just couldn't take it anymore. Cole weighs about 18lbs (so I've calculated on our digital bathroom scale that - egad - also tells your body fat %) and it's been hard going for the last month or so in the Bjorn. I got an Ergo, which everyone raves about. I like it ok so far - it's comfy when it's all adjusted right, but I do miss the simplicity of the Bjorn. Click, click... Now, I'm all tugging on things and trying to figure out whether the sleeping hood is helpful or causes Cole to freak out... A little of both, I think. The Ergo is comfortable though, our walk was great and Cole napped the whole way.

The market was simply crawling with teenagers. It was like a pimply, slouchy gauntlet! I got annoyed at not being able to get through the crowd and at one point bellowed, "excuse me, children" at a group of 6 foot tall 14 year old boys. Who visibly rolled their eyes, snickered and moved about an inch. I managed to get us some of the most delicious honey crisp apples at our favourite Okanagan stand, pears for jam (which hopefully won't be a repeat of last year's pear jam fiasco) and some deliciously stinky Shropshire blue cheese to go with my Terra walnut bread.

I wanted to take the ferry home - as always I'd bought too much fruit to make walking an easy option - but we kept missing the boat. The ferry to Science World only comes twice an hour... I wandered off to spend my half hour wait obtaining a Copenhagen, only to become distracted by the ukelele guy (Ralph Shaw, my favourite busker at the market) playing a spirited rendition of Sex Bomb. It was a request from one of the old dudes in the crowd and it was just too funny watching the crowd of grannies and babies groovin' to the music.

So we ended up just missing the boat again, but thankfully the 30 minutes didn't pass without entertainment. First, at the dock, we took from-above photos of ourselves... Notice half-eaten Copenhagen just inching out of the frame. I can entertain Cole for ages by chewing. Seriously. Then, another nice Mama pulled up with her 1+ year old girl and her nagging Mother. Grandma proceeded to nitpick everything about the situation - the baby's leg was sticking out of her pants 1 inch - cover the poor child up or she'll freeze to death! It was funnier when she turned on another random Mother standing on the dock, chastising her for covering her baby with a blanket. Had the child no sweater? And on and on. Thankfully she must have seen me laughing with my eyes (as Tyra would say) and she spared me her advice. This same woman proceeded to find things from her purse for the child to play with - possibly in the hope of reducing the amount of frenzied shrieking going on - including a bottle of prescription pills to shake. Nice...

Ack - ugly!

Yup - making more changes... And the blog is oogly for the moment... Thank goodness that it doesn't interfere with the messy baby photos being visible! :-)

Bananarama

Cole has been steadily adding new foods to his diet for the past four weeks. We've tried rice cereal, pears, butternut squash, apples and bananas now. The mighty banana is king with Cole - he loves them.

I, on the other hand, detest bananas. They might be nature's perfect food and all that, but I can't stand them. The devil's fruit! :-) I will eat one, because they are convenient and healthy and whatnot, but gak - there's that horrible texture, the odour, that slimy peel. Blech.

He's been blowing a lot of raspberries lately, which he definitely likes to do with them in his mouth. And he likes to blow them into his hands, smear them on his face and grab the spoon. So of course they get everywhere...

Seriously, this kid loves the swings

I tried to upload this video a couple of days ago - it's of Cole on the swings near Granville Island on his half birthday. He really, really loves the swings. There aren't enough swing sets downtown, but we've found a couple great ones relatively nearby. One on the walk to Granville Island, and one on the other side of the seawall, in Yaletown.



I love how happy the swings make him. For me, swinging brings about a vague feeling of nausea. It's euphoric at first - weeeee, swinging!! - and then slowly deteriorates into a "I kind of think I might to be sick" feeling, without the productiveness of boking.

Wouldn't you know it - when I had a minute to try uploading this, YouTube was experiencing problems and I had to wait. Don't they know that people have valuable baby videos to share? To say nothing of all the drunken stunts, embarrassing teenaged moments captured for posterity (and possible future relationship/career damage) and pirated videos that are going unappreciated at this moment due to their technological snafu? :-)

Six months!!!

Yay for Cole, who turns six whole months today - it's his half birthday!

It's quite amazing, when I think of it, that he's six months old. On one hand it is so fresh in my mind, his birth and our first days home, all three of us. I remember feeling slightly dazed and Jamie and I looking at each other wondering what we should do next. Just watching him sleep and being amazed. Waiting to bathe him for days because we were nervous. Being extremely creeped out about the belly button stump - me especially. Thinking we could just come home and do the same stuff as we were used to, but with a baby. Lots of "is that normal?". Marvelling at his tiny little body. Having him sleep nestled in my pajamas, all warm and close to my skin. Just breathing in that baby scent.

And at the same time, I can hardly remember what it was like before he was here. He's so much a part of our family - his smile, his quirky little ways, the patterns of our lives and days now. That great baby scent still works wonders! Vaguely, I do remember sleeping a little more way back when, having a lot more personal time (which, in hindsight, I realize that I almost always squandered!) and space for a messy, creative office instead of working on the dining table! :-)

At six months Cole is really amazing us. He's sitting up on his own, creeping/crawling (I don't know where one ends and the other begins), interested in everything and cutting his first tooth. I can't get enough of this tooth business. You can only just see it peeping out of the gum, if you peer into his mouth and catch a glimpse in the right kind of light. I keep trying to look every chance I get, and being both crazily excited and slightly creeped out when I catch a glimpse. It's so cool but at the same time I am such a dental phobe.

We celebrated by starting this morning singing a little "Happy Half Birthday" to Cole while he looked at us, smiling and probably thinking we are weird. I'm sure he'll think that a lot more in the years to come... He loves singing of all sorts. Thankfully, he's not too particular, as I am not going to get any recording contracts anytime soon! We headed to Granville Island market today to meet up with our family and had a lovely time eating, visiting and letting our inner children loose in the Kids Market. On the way home Cole and I stopped to have a great time on the swings. He is crazy for the swings!

Here's to the next amazing six months Cole. I can't wait to see what wonders they bring.

More favourite books

We are book crazy around here these days. Maybe it's the dark of the rainy season, but all I feel like doing is curling up with a good book, a cup of tea and possibly a lemon tart, and reading. Preferably in a be-pillowed window seat behind leaded glass windows, but we are short on those two things. I did go to Costco yesterday though, so we have plenty of tea. While I seem to lack the leisure time for my own book-reading, I'm really enjoying reading to Cole. Here are a few of our favourites this week:

365 Penguins - a terrific oversized book full of vivid illustrations. I love this story - a penguin is mysteriously delivered to this family each day for a year. You'll see why! Strange... I just had the most bizzare deja vu about typing this paragraph... The story is pretty long and involves some light math if you want to get into it - great for older kids - but Cole finds the pictures particulary interesting.

And the feel of the paper - he is crazy for paper these days. I had to remind him that it's a library book (we must get our own!), so please get back to destroying my magazines:

We stopped by Duthies earlier this week and found titles to add to our shelves. I should have known it couldn't stop at looking! We found some favourites, including the adorable board book Saffy and a couple others about colours & animals - I can't remember the names now and Cole's napping in the library (aka his room).

We also picked up two books I'd had on my wish list for a while now, The Incredible Book Eating Boy and The Great Paper Caper, by the amazingly talented (and Northern Irish so I'm vastly sentimental about our honeymoon now) Oliver Jeffers.

I couldn't resist the story of Sergio Makes a Splash by Edel Rodriguez. It's so wonderfully minimal in it's use of colour. The story tells of a penguin from Argentina who loves water but is scared to swim. Adorable.

We also got a couple of favourites on the cheap while wasting time yesterday at Costco. Our mission was to buy tea since I had forgotten to go to the "real store" (aka where mustard doesn't come by the gallon), and Costco is sadly the closest grocery store downtown. We left with the tea, 8 pairs of ankle socks, two kinds of cheese, fruit, veg and of course a couple of books. I did manage to leave the kilo of Licorice Allsorts behind. We picked up Yertle the Turtle and Horton Hatches the Egg. Perfect for a day when I was longing for a vacation! ;-) I don't know why, but we didn't have Dr. Seuss around the house growing up, so all these stories are new to me. Man, I couldn't wait for that obnoxious turtle to get his comeuppance.

What an understatement!

Yesterday we went to the dreaded Sears Portrait Studio to get Cole's passport photo. Just something I'd been meaning to take care of. Apparently Blacks - my first stop in Pacific Centre - "doesn't do babies"...

Cole sat on my knee for the photo and I had to take off his jacket. I wasn't expecting that - and he was wearing one of his tragically funny onesies. To great effect:

You can't see the "muffin" part of the equation - they cropped it because I think Passport Canada doesn't jive with message tees or something - but I think it will do nicely. He was quite baffled by the photographer, who thought she could elicit a neutral expression by waving a seizure-inducing flashing duck in front of him.

Fishies, fishies, everywhere...

Cole and I took advantage of our annual membership to the Vancouver Aquarium on Friday, and we really enjoyed it. Last time we visited he was sleeping, so definitely this time was more exciting for him! He squealed through the beluga underwater area - great echoes - and at all the jellyfish and tropical fish. It was too cute.



And loud! Good thing there's an excellent minimum din level of noise at the Aquarium at all times... It was this general lawless atmosphere of squealing children and stroller posses that has kept me away from the Aquarium for the most part over the years, with the exception of a lone hurricane-quick visit with my brother. B, I miss our fast, read-no-plaques tours of tourist attractions! ;-) Now that we can contribute to the volume, I guess that old saying does really apply; if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

Laundry's a-pilin' up...

For the past two or three years we have elected not to use a laundry basket because, in our house at least, it seems to contribute to a general willingness not to tackle the laundry until it's physically impossible not to stack more items on the heap. Or until we run out of underpants - whichever comes first. We just fire all the laundry directly into the machine and, when it's full, we turn it on. That's the idea, anyway. Really, most of the time we end up cramming laundry in between the top of the washer and the bottom of the dryer, since we don't have a laundry basket to put it in... Good invention, that.

We had a mega load that remained washed yet unfolded on a chair for a couple of days, while Cole and I pursued more exciting endeavours, like going swimming, searching for bento trays and napping. I tackled the folding yesterday, and what I liked the most (other than getting only half done and letting Jamie finish the rest) was how happy Cole was just to chill on a pile of clothes, smiling away.

Dear Santa...

Auntie Jas asked me the other day whether we had any good ideas for Christmas gifts for Cole. Do I ever! Aside from boxes and crunkly paper, which is what he probably will enjoy the most! There are so many wonderful toys out there that we can't wait to play Santa for Cole.

I have a folder on my taskbar marked "things to buy." It's full of cool things for Cole that I've seen here and there on the good old Interweb, saved so that I won't have search around, let alone try to remember what I thought was so cool way back when in my sleepless delerium... It's nestled right between my "things to make" folder, which is full of craft & sewing projects I will make some time in the next thousand years, and the well-visited "Randi's news" folder, which contains links to my favourite actual news sites and trashy gossip.

Mostly it's full of cool wooden toys. I'm on a real wooden toys kick. I prefer wood to plastic - they're more safe, more durable and heck - way cooler. We're hoping to buy some more musical toys too, and I always have a saved shopping cart on the go at Amazon. I'm trying to avoid stuff made in China, whatever it's made out of, just because of the safety issues. Jamie and I have a thing against commercial cartoon characters, so we stay clear of anything branded. We're doing pretty good, with the exception of a Spongebob doll that Jamie bought a while back and Cole enjoys (possibly due to the tragic Tiny Tim style song I sing when I make him dance?). We have so many stuffed toys that for now that we are running out of places for them and Jamie has said more are verboten...

Rather than write a bunch of posts to share all these cool ideas - until I buy some of them, that is - I'm adding a new sidebar. Dear Santa.... If you're stumped for a baby gift for that special baby in your life maybe these ideas will help? And yay - most of them you can buy without leaving your chair! This is great for me because of my often moaned about lack of time, general laziness and love of packages in the mail. Here are a few of my favourites:

Cheekeyes wooden figures polar set

Any wooden blocks from Haba, in both fun colours and untreated wood or crazy wooden knob blocks

Awesome wooden montessori animal puzzles

Puzzle pairs simple matching games

Wooden drum from Plan Toys

International shopping...

I've been on a real bender lately for homemade international foods. I think I'm a pretty good cook, if I do say so myself, but it's too complicated and exhausting to make exciting dinners after Cole goes to sleep. We've been trying to eat healthfully, but I do get very bored of the two easiest dinners that fall under that category: grilled chicken & veg or stir-fry. That's when I resort to extra spicy homemade pizza or take-out, because my taste buds are sitting around, tapping their feet and rolling their eyes. I was noticing that when we eat out, we enjoy a wide variety of savoury and spicy international meals, so of course at home we'd be bored of mungie cake cuisine - fond as I am of good WASPy comfort food... :-)

So I've been trying to vary things up a bit with sauces, spices, marinades and such. I used to be more adventurous, when I had more time for cooking! So far this week we've had a red thai curry, butter chicken (my non-spicy inaugural Indian dish for Jamie, who has had a few bad experiences before) and Korean bbq beef stir fry last night. All have been delicious, and they've all been given two thumbs up from the resident (former) picky eater. Cole's only eating mush, so that would be Jamie. The only problem so far has been the butter chicken - it was amazingly good, but it took days to get the smell out of the house. It practically had to be exorcised. I have some udon bowls in mind next, some madras and satay marinades for grilling, and a few different Thai meals as well.

Part of the fun of making more interesting meals is revisiting some of my favourite international stores... I buy a lot of ingredients at our regular places - mainly Urban Fare and Whole Foods, just because they're on our daily paths, but for authenticity, I like to branch out... If you like Japanese snack foods, visit Konbiniya Japan Centre on Robson - there are about a million kinds of Pocky there, and they're open until 2 AM in case you're desperate...

I've been in love with H Mart, the Korean grocery store on Seymour, since my first trip there last year. They have the best selection of all your favourite Asian food items - and the most hilarious sweets & candy selection, including my new favourite - Hi Chew. Kind of like Starburst, if you replaced it's waxy oilyness with a more spongy, gelatinous texture. Really good, actually! Their website graphics are enough to make me buy a plane ticket. Oh, the glorious wackiness... The graphic designer in me loves the whole hearted commitment these products make to be enticing.

I also found some amazing glass food storage containers there yesterday - Glass Lock. They are glass on the bottom with an air-tight plastic lid. I'm not yet militant about plastic for food storage, but I really like the idea of not using it whenever I can. Old Pyrex dishes with the glass lids don't exactly seal well, so these are great! They simultaneously promise to be "almost unbreakable" and "semi-durable", so we'll see how they go.

I am sometimes a little overwhelmed by inability to read what I'm buying though... I nearly bought some rice crackers that promised "sea taste" which I thought sounded good, but alas, that meant cuttlefish flavour - aka squid -and that is a little too international for me. And I got a kitchen sponge because I thought it was cute and we needed a new one. It had a grouchy looking man on the front that looked as though he meant real business, but when I opened it I realized that it was some kind of magic eraser style cleaning product. It did remove the stroller scuff marks from our wall, and although I thought it might also be removing the paint, in the light of day all looks well...

I'm still on the hunt for some appropriate bento trays. Not boxes, but the open-top tray that you get at a medium-quality sushi place. I think they'd be fun to eat snacks out of at home - I am not adventurous enough to bother making my own sushi... I think they'd make good divided dishes for kids too - lightweight and unbreakable. No luck so far at Daiso or any of the other places I've tried, so I might just order some off the internet. Daiso - the 100 Yen ($2) store in Richmond - did yield some other delights though, including a few adorable bowls for Cole and some tea towels and baskets, all made in Japan.

Mirror, mirror, on the wall...

Cole loves to play in the hallway between our bedroom and the bathroom. There is a hall-length closet with mirrored doors that he has a blast with. He's often really intrigued by the baby in the mirror, reaching out to touch his reflection, studying it and laughing away.

Optical illusion - dancing twins!! Which one is the real Cole? Oh, that would be the one that can squeal with delight, using the most adorable high-pitched sound. He's just started making that sound this week, and it's so cute... Ear-splittingly cute! Like an eagle about to attack. :-)

The bumpers are working out great. Combined with a safety plug cover, I feel good about how baby-proof that hallway is. He hangs out there playing with toys or his reflection while I'm getting ready and we can chat and sing. His favourite new song is Old MacDonald, but we change it to his name. Lucky he has the "Mc"!

GRRR - templates.

Templates are the bain of my existence. Good templates rock, but shitty templates are pretty much just that...

Since I have such a lack of things to fill my spare hour or two of time daily (snarf!!), I thought that I'd change the template on the blog. While I sit here at a table covered with unfolded laundry, with an unmade bed peering at me from the other room and my teeth still unbrushed. And my art & craft projects untouched, design projects for others unfinished and the websites I visit every morning unread. And down to the last few squares of toilet paper because every day for the last few I've forgotten to buy more. But first things first - I want dual sidebars! Wow - possibilities.

I switched to a new ugly template that I thought would work but didn't, and then back to my old template wishing for it's old-pilly-sweater familiarity, but now all the little tweaks that I'd done are gone. I see I have some work to do with that, so it might look kind of weird and crummy until I figure out what I'm doing. Wish me luck!

Good timing - Cole just started to make munching, squealing and laughing sounds from his crib. This now concludes the morning nap.

Pardon me? YOU are tired?

I am, perhaps, tired. Just a wee little bit. OK, I am more tired than I have ever been in my entire life - and that even counts tiredness cumulatively.

So I was a little unwilling to accept the complaints of tiredness from a sales clerk yesterday at American Eagle, where I was returning an ill-fitting blazer. She moped about behind the counter moaning about how tired she was and it was seriously all I could do not to a) laugh in her face b) throw something at her. LADY, YOU DON'T KNOW TIRED. In case you're reading this.

From now on in life, I will only accept "tired" as a description from parents of young children, the elderly and pregnant women (just wait though!). Possibly people deplaning from red-eye flights overseas. For everyone else I will think you mean either "lazy", "hungover" or "bored".

Fun finger puppets

We found a set of these awesome Great Revolutionaries finger puppets last weekend in Victoria. Ghandi, Trotsky, Mandela and Che Guevara. I'm sure they will be lots of fun. At least as much fun as they all were (or are, in the case of Mandela) in real life, I suppose? :-)

More excellent books

We went on a book-buying spree at Munro's while we were in Victoria. It's a lovely bookstore with a bursting children's section. I couldn't help it - wherever I looked, I found more books for Coley. I never turn down great books when I find them, whatever the age they're technically for. Here are a few of our favourites:

Cole seems to be really enthralled by What Am I?, a board book with die-cut eyes that get smaller on each right-side page and are just begging to be touched.

Dr Seuss' Foot Book is a condensed board book version of the longer tale - the perfect accompaniment to a book we read all the time, Hand Hand, Fingers Thumb. Got to explain all the appendages, right?

Just like You is a sweet, simple book about a little baby bear who wants to be just like Daddy.

Lost and Found has a lovely, touching story about a lost penguin and the boy who befriends him. It seemed a little sad just before the end - I thought they would never get reunited! - but persevere. It's adorable. The Belfast-based author has another book out too - How to Catch a Star - that I'm ordering... I can't resist.

Everyone Poops is a Japanese classic about, you guessed it, poop. Probably a great toilet-training book, and what kid can resist a tale about such topics?

This is Paris and This is London books are two originals in a larger series. I think I'll order copies of Ireland and New York too, to round out a collection of places that are significant to us... They're all great though, and would be awesome to read with children before a vacation. The illustrations area classic late 50's Euro style that I love, and they contain all kinds of interesting information about those cities.

I suspect that many of Cole's books will make their way onto my bookshelves in many years for their graphic qualities alone.

It must be the Island rhythms, man.

Our little trio had a fantastic three days in Victoria this past weekend. So much fun - and SO many photos of course...

We took the ferry on Friday and spent a couple of nights at the Magnolia Hotel. It's my favourite place in Victoria. A small hotel, but very personal and very well-appointed. We brought our "downsized" amount of traveling stuff - stroller, Bjorn, travel crib, suitcase, Cole's stuff bag, toiletries bag, diaper bag and snacks and magazines for the ferry. Quite a lot of stuff to tote to the car, considering Jamie and I pretty much wore the same stuff every day!

We spent all weekend walking, doing a little shopping, eating and lounging around in our hotel and at the beach. We found a lovely little spot along Dallas Road with stairs to the beach - really a rocky outcrop - that was a great place to skip stones.

We just discovered Beacon Hill Park, located a few blocks from the Parliament Buildings. I have been to Victoria probably 8 times and Jamie used to live there, and neither of us knew about this park. We were stoked to find some baby swings for Cole to try, which he LOVED! He couldn't get enough swinging. They also have a number of duck ponds - Cole always gets a kick out of ducks.

He was less impressed with the Parliament Buildings, although he did enjoy them at night when they're all lit up. He is generally a big fan of things that use light bulbs.

We stopped by that great spot along the beach on the way back to relax in the sun a little more and we gave Cole his first toe-dip in the Pacific Ocean! It was cold, but he didn't protest at all - he actually seemed to get a real kick out of it. Not like that first toe-dip in the Okanogan!

The ferry ride back was great - we were lucky enough to show up just in time to get on an earlier ferry than our reservation. Nothing quite like driving straight onto the ferry without waiting... Cole had a blast walking around the windy decks. I don't know if it was the wind, the sunshine or his silly hat, but he laughed and laughed so hard, squealing and kicking and having a blast.

Baby food storage

I picked up a couple sets of Baby Cubes today - they are BPA- and phthalate-free and made in Brazil. They will serve me well, I hope, as I start preparing and freezing more fresh organic baby food for Cole. I love the fact that they're all little separate jars with lids. I also like the fact that they're not made in China. I have nothing against China (aside from the human rights issues, the lack of free speech and media, the polluting - but the same could really be said of America, right?), but all the scares lately do certainly act as a deterrent.

Oh, and on the subject of baby feeding, here is a funny video of Coley enjoying his pears. I didn't think my still photo did it justice - the faces he makes are priceless. I don't know if it's the texture or the flavour that he finds objectionable? But, he keeps eating, so I keep giving him spoonfuls of yummy, delicious pears.