random wellness

we spent the last week lying low. cole had some cooties, so we had to cancel plans with all our baby friends to keep from sharing... the doctor told us that he may have caught coxsackie virus, a scary-sounding but common childhood illness that's "going around". cole had some odd red spots on his inner lip, spots that we couldn't figure out and drove us to consult the doctor. thankfully no coughing or sniffling, no fever and he seemed generally in high spirits during the day, but not hungry at all and at night he cried a lot and woke up more than ever (!)...

his lip looks fine now and he did seem to get up to more than his share of fun this week while on the mend. the moments i have photos for:

we've been playing a lot of dress-up lately. cole's dress-up suitcase is not very full yet, but it does contain all the pride parade beads that i had laying around, a kukui nut necklace, a crown, a cape, one leather glove and a few other odds and ends. he loves the necklaces - putting them on and taking them off - so cute.

we took the boat over to granville island, just for fun. cole loves the ride, waving at the boaters and the birds... i got a chance to try out our new umbrella stroller, scored on craigslist last weekend in preparation for future travel - brand new, in the box, crazy deal... i have seen the light of the small baby carriage. i folded it in seriously five seconds and just slung it over my shoulder - ahhhhhhh! (that was angels singing, not me having a spaz.) we were polite to and then irrated by the crushing, gawking tourists and i'm so thankful that it will be september in a few days and many will go home. so i can enjoy buying fruit (and beer and tiramisu) in relative peace...

we revisited for the 1000th time the many playgrounds of our area, always bringing chalk. i am in love with sidewalk chalk, you might have noticed. it's so vibrant! cole loves colouring with it - and he's not eating it as much, so that's good.

and we made fun stuff out of our recyclables. my favourite , the beer-carton hat that jamie fashioned for cole:

and, because of the poor nighttime sleeping, we spent a lot of time overnight on the couch, like so (thanks jamie - it's not as bad as i pictured when you woke me up by taking it):

leaving breadcrumbs in the woods

we went for our first hike in ages on saturday, at the ubc research forest. "hike" might be stretching it - the trails near the entrance are really well worn and the grade mostly even, so it was more of a nature walk in the woods, but it was delightful! we totally missed the trail marker we were looking for but ended up walking on the most beautiful secondary trail along a stream. and we didn't see any other people, other than a couple cliff jumpers, so it was my type of day. not that i'm anti-social, but a bustling walk in the woods is not my cup of tea. we took our time, stopping to play in the stream and just enjoying the quiet all around us. well, quiet except for cole's call for "wawa" every five minutes and the incessant click of my shutter. ;-)

cloudy days at the beach

my favourite days at the beach are always the cloudy ones. the more ominous the clouds, the better! i can enjoy a sunny day at the seaside like the best of 'em, and i am partial to tropical sunny shores, but i do love a stormy day by the water.

we biked over to sunset beach yesterday and enjoyed the deserted "sand" - really crushed shells mostly - and the outgoing tide. i love to watch the way cole inspects every little treasure, turning rocks over in his hands, feeling the barnacle-encrusted shells and pushing sand in small piles to cover dried seaweed. and he did his fair share of eating sand and chasing birds too...

and we found another abandoned toy shovel - i seem to be collecting them...

chalk outlines

we took our giant bucket of sidewalk chalk over to the close park across the street yesterday with friends and went back again today to add to our masterpiece.

cole loves doodling on random things (his face, the fridge door, etc) and although i'm sure letting him doodle all over the playground is not going to curb this, it certainly is fun. from a graffiti standpoint, i figure it's ok if the boot camp people can do it all over the place... i couldn't resist doodling along with him, and i must say that i think the playground is far more exciting now. we drew comments coming from the car passenger doors, covered the car in flames (no, other playground mom - it's not on fire - it's just really fast!), wrote sound effects noises around everything, put a welcome mat outside the playhouse and my favourite - we drew a pool full of pirahnas at the bottom of the slide. fun!

there were some pretty young ladies today at the park doing a photo shoot and cole was such a ham - he kept wandering into their shots. the photographer was happy to let cole sit with the girls and cole was certainly glad to participate - seriously, that kid loves the camera. he was all chatty and saying "s-mmmaya" (smile) the whole time. i think he got a number...

yum yum - stolen fruit, macarons & markers

cole and i rode our bike yesterday from morning 'till night, with a few stops back at home for naps, naturally... we rode over to the granville island market for some fruit & veggies, an impromptu and not-very-good magic show, some bread samples and a macaron and a stop at the water park. while i was paying for our apples and peaches at our favourite okanagan fruit stand, i put squirmy mcwherearethecrackers (aka cole) down for a second and he dug right in to the bins of plums at ground level. i kind of turned a blind eye since he'd already chowed down - hey, eat those plums kid! i did however buy a bag of plums after i'd finished paying for the other stuff...

when we went to the playground/waterpark for fun afterwards i introduced cole to the amazing world of macarons! oh, bestill my heart - the boy loves lemon.

and on the subject of delicious things... i couldn't resist the lure of the back-to-school supplies while shopping at the drugstore the other day... nerdy nerd that i was (and am!) i used to look forward to school supplies shopping like nobody's business. "good thing" our public school system has no money - i'm sure there will be no shortage of school supplies shopping for cole someday... in the meantime, we settled on a package of jumbo markers, which i brought out while making dinner yesterday. yay - high intensity colour. non toxic, check. easily washable, check. delicious?

maybe next time i'll buy mr.sketch. he absolutely beamed while drawing on his mouth and hands. thankfully the marker did, in fact, wash off very easily.

82 years older than cole

we took our first ride in grampa dave's model t yesterday and boy, was that a blast! his restoration work is nearly finished and his hard work definitely shows - it was such a comfortable ride. no seatbelts, no roof, just rolling down their side street with the wind in our hair. i can see why folks would wear driving scarves to cover up, and perhaps goggles and gatsby-esque fur coats in the cold weather...

and after our turn up the street, cole had a great time playing driver with his little friend james from next door riding shotgun.

junior versions of big people

just a few photos of cole and his friend aiden. it's so lovely to have friends with babies of the same age. we hadn't seen aiden and his mama mi ae in ages and ages but it was lovely to just pick up where we left off - laughing and playing and having a good time. the funny thing is, i see mi ae in aiden right off the bat both in his features and his expressions, and i personally think cole looks exactly like me, but put them together and they just looked like their dads, hanging out.

cole tends to hang back a little and quietly observe when we meet "new" kids. he flirts and makes grown-up pals all day long, but with kids he's a little shy and takes a gentle approach... aiden's reaction to seriously everything is "ahhhh! amazing!" with jaw-dropping excitement. so adorable. i think cole was a little skeptical at first - maybe he was just being blasé, after all we were at his usual delicious playground (woodchips - yum!). as kids do when you want to just sit and talk, they played separately for a while, seemingly oblivious to each other, running in different directions (ah - goose poop over here - awesome! check it out - tripping hazards this way!) and crossing paths just long enough for us mamas to get a few tidbits in and sip coffee on occasion. but slowly they came together and started to do their own thing.

bath time

cole loves his bath. we've made it part of his going-to-bed routine ever since his first week or so - after we got over our fear of giving him one! i still remember being in the hospital that second night, and the kindest no-nonsense jamaican nurse who was funny and tender and had six kids showed us how to give him a bath. it was daunting - not hard, but somehow overwhelming and i cried a little because i felt so timid with him, and then i of course didn't want them to think i was "sad-sad" instead of just new-mom-overwhelmed in the i'm-not-crazy sense so i tried to settle down and not be scared of the bath. when we got home i think it took about four or five days before we got up the nerve to get out the baby tub.

since he's outgrown the baby tub months and months ago, we've been bathing with him most nights in the big one. our shower has glass doors and the tub is a deep soaker, with an edge with a metal rail for the doors, making leaning in to take care of the business of soaping him, brushing his teeth, playing etc. kind of awkward. plus, it's a good end to the day - nothing like a soak. and a cool one these last hot days. at auntie patti's i gave him baths in the kitchen sink because be was scrambly and enjoyed practicing his escape moves, and let's face it - 38 degrees is too hot for bending and wrangling.

but tonight, while getting ready to get in, he was having so much fun in the bubbles that i just had to take some photos. it's a long way from the first bath at the hospital.

after all, i've been remiss in not posting photos of cole in the bath until now. because everyone nowadays needs to have their bathtime baby pictures on the internet. no need to wait until future love interests come over to haul out the album - here they are for everyone. ;-)