hot, hot heat

so it's been hot this week.  also known in other places as "summer" but in bc it always comes across as kind of a surprise.  jamie flew the usual "after one week of heat let's buy an air conditioner" conversation today but i am so opposed and we agreed to go down to the storage locker tonight and get out the box of fans.  it was labeled "boots n' fans" because when we moved we consolidated seldom-used items into one large box of, yes, old rubber boots and fans.  perfect for the pumpkin patch photo-op and the week of hot bc weather.

and rather than sit indoors with our boots 'n fans, cole and i have been enjoying our patio lately.  we've had a few playdates and visits outside this week and cole never seems to get tired of getting out his favourites: playdough, paints and markers.  we've been getting a lot of use from the water table (we had to kick out the dead spiders that had accumulated during the rainy spell) and he cast a wary eye over a new sprinkler.  i just discovered today that our patio umbrella tilts - lovely.  and we've eaten every meal out there for days.  cole keeps requesting "a picnic - that would be nice" and i agree.  food tastes better outside and it is so pleasant to hose off the under-table area after a toddler meal.

on a heat-related note, we stopped by trout lake for a brief visit today after a trip downtown to buy camping gear.  cole loved the beach and wading in the water - and didn't mind the ice cream sandwich either...  an excellent way to stay cool!  and not very messy, compared to popsicles.  the whole melting thing is a tricky concept to grasp, plus cole usually wants me to cut up his popsicle like he's mr. pitt on seinfeld or something...

here's to hoping for a lot more nice weather this summer.  at least until monday - we are going camping on sunday!  ps, i am liking the private blog set-up - i can actually say things like "we are leaving the house" without assuming that burglars are reading.  unless anyone i know has a hankering for a smallish tv.  ;-)

early morning 'round the house

in the mornings, while jamie does the dishes or i get breakfast going, cole often plays his own little games. i love watching what he does when left to his own devices - building lego masterpieces, creating a hamburger using himself between the ottoman cushions, dancing to music or just playing with whatever captures his interest at the moment. often lately it's the $1 mini keyboard we found at a yard sale - it has a demo feature that plays five songs - three of them christmas tunes! (i've come to realize how threat-filled santa claus is coming to town really is! holy heavy-handed, st. nick) it amazes me what he gets up to on his own - intricate games and conversations and also, any of these are preferable to the alternative, which may be trying to climb the dishwasher, pushing me aside to access the cereal cupboard (we've worked on "excuse me" for that) or flinging around the empty yet crumb-filled pizza boxes waiting at the front door!

another favourite pre-breakfast activity of his is to climb onto my desk chair (formerly out-of-bounds territory) and ask me to turn his music on on my computer. he has quite specific requests and he tells me which songs he wants and points out their associated album covers. and then he just sits there - listening without saying anything and sometimes singing along. if a new one comes on he says "don't know it" and cocks his head, listens intently and asks to hear it again.

after breakfast the light takes on a different tone in our living room. they day has started, things are warming up. after about 8am the east light streams through our patio door and hits the floor, the couch, the wall. sometimes cole likes to dance around in the light, or do handstands. this is often about the time we try the potty, hence the pantless exercise. ;-)

cole and the babies

yes, another post involving the somewhat-creepy vintage doll dubbed the "new year's baby". actually, i'm not sure that we've had that many posts that reference this doll, but it comes up in conversation oddly often in our family.

for those who don't know: jamie and i liberated it four years ago now on christmas eve eve from a musty corner at the cloverdale "antique" mall - source of good finds and a lot of junk. it was one of our two contributions to the annual family post-christmas-dinner gag gift exchange. won by aunt christine, who was totally creeped out by it and vowed that it would not be allowed in the house. surprisingly, it showed up again the following christmas, only to end up with yours truly. i was very excited to see it back. turns out uncle ian had kept it hidden in a spider-infested shed and saved it for the exchange. i have been wanting to put it back in for the last few years, but it's proved too good a model for various things (stock photography, for one) and instead we've put in substitutes two years running - one year a framed photo of the baby, hilariously which ended up with uncle ian who, when unwrapping his gift, prematurely declared "at least it's not the creepy doll". and last christmas we had a deck of cards custom-printed with the baby photo on the back, encased in a box containing four pounds of peanuts in the shell, which made little sense but had us laughing until we cried while we wrapped it up. fifty-two new years baby photos - plus jokers! check out the baby's annual family christmas appearance in this flickr set...

anyway, the baby still lives here at our place. cole used to be alternately mildy curious, spooked by it and then intrigued. now he calls it 'baby' and laughs at it and likes to dress it up with various hats. and to possibly make it less creepy (but not really) we've dressed him in one of cole's old newborn t-shirt with monkeys on the front. a while ago i was getting rid of some things on craigslist and a woman came by to pick them up. she was browsing through our old baby clothes and found the pants that matched the shirt and asked where the top was. i think she was creeped out when i pointed to the doll... right now it's sitting on cole's radio flyer scooter over in the corner. yesterday it was lying, spread eagled with no pants on, in the hallway when jamie walked in and declared that it was too gross a sight to see on first getting home.

we added another doll baby to the house a little while ago, when i thought ny baby might be too creepy for cole. we got an inexpensive doll from toys 'r us that had a hard head and appendages but a soft, squishy body and a rather vacant expression, which we've dubbed 'scuttles' since that's kind of what he does when you make him pretend chase cole. cole calls scuttles 'baby' too and likes especially to drag him through the big blue tunnel that always seems to come out when it's time to fold laundry, for some reason.

anyway, that whole long, rambling story was just to justify the photos of cole being adorable with his dolls.

just sittin' on a doorstep

cole loves sitting on the ledge between the living room and the balcony. we've thought about whether to add some kind of gate or something for safety but so far he's been minding our requests to stay inside and of course we don't leave the door open unattended... but he does love to linger on the crest until we go out with him...

cole recycles...

cole's favourite new toys? items destined for the recycling bin!

when we recently emptied a juice bottle and then a milk jug he seemed curious, so i washed them out and handed them over. he's been playing with them for five days now, and they keep him occupied forever while we play together in the kitchen while i'm preparing food or tidying up. we've added to his stash - there's the clear tub we keep the stuff in, a cute blue scoop from the laundry detergent and a plastic cup as well. oh, and an old magazine. and we've added cute faces to everything, you know, because i like to.

i'm just amazed at how long this stuff holds his interest! and a little dismayed at how durable these items are. although in the long run they'll go into the blue bin downstairs, it's quite obvious that they would last as long as anything that's manufactured with durability in mind.

Yawning, in four steps

Couldn't resist posting these photos of Cole from the other day. They're not particularly good quality - despite a respectable amount of windows the light has been very low inside our place lately. I'm trying to find the balance between deer-in-the-headlights effect with the regular flash and blurry-but-nice-lighting without. What I really *need* is a separate top-mounting external flash. Hello Santa? Also, Cole has lots of food on his face. He is very resistant to the washcloth and I catch what I can on the first go before fixing him up later, I swear... Enjoy!