happy love day!

coco, with a little help from steve, made me the cutest card for valentine's day! he drew a roller coaster, the two of us, his name and some adorable details, and had some help in adding other things he wanted on there - the message inside and he insisted on the image from the warning sticker on his car seat. here he is explaining it:



i'm blinking a lot because i recently had laser eye surgery and i'm still recovering - and i was afraid of the likely possibility of getting poked in the eye!

oh i love this little guy so, so, so much. :)

coco's two girlfriends

playing catch-up (as always, it seems!) with photos and videos. we have been taking a lot lately since coco loves to watch little mini videos with himself as the star! here we learn that he has two girlfriends - abby and maya - two of his little friends from daycare...

set em up and knock em down...

just a few photos of coco and me goofing around in his room this morning, playing dominoes and enjoying a bit of quiet time.  

 

 

 

patiently waiting for a random moment*

the last couple of weeks have been pretty busy around here.  the blog needs food!

summer has finally caught on and our sunny days have been full of fun trips here and there - and then of course by the end of the day we're all exhausted. i've been doing a bit more freelance design work lately during naptimes, evenings and weekends and also not helping my general ability to keep up-to-date is our newfound obsession with lost. of course i should have been watching this years ago but i never got into it until last week.  now that we've started in on the boxed sets (thanks kim!) we're hooked.  

we've been to many parks lately, on many playdates, started an informal swimming class, have visited maplewood farms, science world, the beach and much more.  we've been baking with blueberries, sampling the first peaches, splashing in the world's tiniest inflatable pool on the patio, going for walks, thrifting for pillowcases and eating corn.  coco has been enjoying his turn as a good-natured conscientious objector to bedtime.  

later today we're heading to a family bbq, later later today we're hoping to assemble our freshly-delivered new bbq.  i have a stack of shirts to sew, a skirt to make, a pattern to develop, gnomes to ship, matters to attend to and photos to organize.  

just a few random photos then to keep us going until i can manage a real post.  enjoy!

* or for a piece of long-hidden easter chocolate, in the case of the first photo.  ;-)

creative endeavours

cole is crazy lately for creating his own masterpieces. he gets very into the details and he knows what every little line represents. here's what you get when you have paper & markers:

and then here's what you get when he branches out onto new surfaces. thank goodness those markers wash off easily:

and in case the visual arts aren't your thing, there's always music. and dancing!

technical difficulties

more on the subject of food

this boy is more adorable by the day. his conversational skills make me laugh a ton - everything is narrated and questions are asked and it's often hilarious. a conversation earlier today, shortly before dinnertime:

cole: need food! neeeeed food!
me: what kind of food?
cole: boy food!
me: what type of food is boy food?
cole: macaroni! need macaroni! make macaroni!

once in the kitchen he became slightly distracted by an enticing jar of pickles:

but soon enough, boy food was served:

well wishes for y2.01k

happy new year to all - we wish you the best in 2010 - or y2.01k as we've taken to calling it. ;-)

talking a walk in heels

i've been a devoted heels-wearer for all of my adult life. i just like shoes, really, and if my feet are going to be fashionable and uncomfortable i figure that i might as well wear a heel over a ballet slipper... bunions vs fallen arches anyone?

i don't think i knew my real height in relation to the world until about 8 months into pregnancy when the heels went into the closet - suddenly all the counters and toilet seats and car doors were so much higher than before! and all those short people? they were on the same eye level! but since becoming a work/stay-at-home mom, i'm finding that i don't have quite the same need for my fancy shoes. we mostly play and walk places and heels are too impractical for that.

i did buy a low-heeled wedge the other day, for my "i'm comfortable and not dressed up but not slobby" look (you know, that mythical state of being) and cole has taken a shine to them:



it makes me laugh, and reminds me that, however dorky, i would really love to take tap dancing lessons. ah, that lovely 'tappa tappa tappa' sound. plus, i could inject tap interludes into everyday situations, like they did in old musicals.

Things we find out how?

Cole loves the harmonica. It need not be played well. Case in point:



It stops him in his tracks totally if he's fussing - he stops, stares and starts to laugh. Sometimes he looks mildly concerned too. Jamie teases me for bringing the harmonica with us lately, but hey - if there's something that works I am more than willing to look a little crazy. Thank you cheap harmonica that we had in the house for some reason.

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? :-)

Enough videos already?

I don't suppose anyone wants to see some more adorable baby videos??? I can't help it - Cole is just so cute! You can take your pick today...

First up - Cole munching on his foot. He discovered his feet once a few weeks ago but didn't seem too impressed. He hadn't bothered with them again until this past week. Now foot-munching is pretty high up on his list of favourite things, along with milk and Daddy's fun games.



And here is one that makes me smile every time - Cole sleeping. He is taking an early morning nap in his Oeuf lounger. At first I'm sure you may think, "um - sleeping baby, big whoop!" (or something nicer, since you are all such nice people) but wait for it. In the second half he starts to smile in his sleep. Not just a little grimace, but a huge, wide grin. I wonder what he's dreaming about? Probably some combination of the above favourite activities - foot-munching, Daddy's games or milk... :-) Talk about sleeping like a baby.

Cole loves his ball!

We dug out an old beach ball the other day after getting inspired by another one of the brilliant-yet-simple ideas from our book of 1001 games for babies. They suggested tossing up and catching the ball just before it lands on the baby, but this seems a little startling. I tried it anyway, and Cole seemed to enjoy it, but not as much as he enjoyed playing with the ball himself! He has been loving the ball - rolling with it, grabbing it, trying to eat it... It's adorable!

It's as much fun as a balloon, but more safe, since it won't explode and send delicious-yet-deadly rubber shards everywhere!

And, I figured out how to upload videos to YouTube! I was thinking about doing this last night at 2:30 am when, in a cruel twist of fate, I was again unable to sleep. It's really easy (uploading videos, not sleeping). Yay for me! :-) I think 90% of YouTube is split 50-50 between adorable baby videos and movies of teenagers hurting themselves... By the way, the video is smoother if you pause it at the beginning and wait for it to buffer.