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):

Halloween is for the ducks

Cole's first Halloween experience was a smash hit. We had a thoroughly good time dressing him up in a duck suit. You don't get many chances to put another human being into a silly costume, so we are definitely taking our opportunities now. Jamie found this one in California. Cole goes kooky for duck quacking sounds, so this was a good choice, we figured. We did get to make lots of quacking sounds to him - with varying degrees of interest on his part.

It's hard to figure out what to do for Halloween when you live downtown... We had planned to go to the somewhat lame Yaletown Halloween thing - where all the kiddies march around to 'area merchants' for candy and there is some kind of costume parade. Aside from the fact that it coincided with Cole's naptime (we were going to chance it!), the pouring rain did the trick and got us to change our minds; walking around with a napping baby dressed as a duck underneat a stroller rain canopy is less fun than just weird.

So, we carved our pumpkin at home, packed it up and hit the highway and for a visit to Grandma & Grandpa's. They'd gone all out decorating the house and I was glad we got to see it. We knocked on a couple doors (hi everyone!), loved seeing little James next door dressed up adorably and had a great time showing our little ducky the ropes.

He didn't eat any candy (obviously, what with working his way through the mashed fruits & veg) but he loved the crispy wrappers and the colours. Just wait until he realizes what's inside...