Island Living

Last Friday I noticed, briefly, that my parents were nowhere to be seen. However, I had captured the attention of 3 Grandparents, and haven't let it go since. I am told that my temporarily roaming parents will be home soon, and I thought it would be a neat trick if I could start walking by myself as a coming home surprise for them.

In fact, last week in an attempt to have better access to dishes, I climbed onto the dishwasher door when no one was looking. (I'm fairly certain that if I could get everyone to look away for an extended minute or two, I could blanket the entire city with a fine layer of cheerio dust.)

On the last day I was with my parents, we had a lovely breakfast in Vancouver with a recent house guest. Simon (who is my friend Henry's Dad), is the silliest German mock-turtleneck salesmen I had ever met.

Toys and Fun Times

I got this toy today from Commercial Drive (where I go when I feel extra hip... or Italian... or both I suppose). It's pretty incredible - quite a bit better than the Chairman Mao toy my Dad brought back from China (I'll post that link when he gets his pictures up).

Recently, I've discovered a new game called Runaway. In a nutshell, I act pretty casual while a wet diaper comes off getting ready for bed (like I'm doing a complex math problem in my head), and the second the parent turns to put it somewhere, I'm off like a streaker in a convent. Naked. That's right - it's awesome. Plus, if you get away and have a few brief moments to yourself, you have full access to your boys. Anyway, I highly recommend it.

Before I forget, it was my 9 month birthday the other day - pulling into the 4th quarter now.

PinchPunch

Pinch Punch, first day of the month! Here are some photos from the rest of January. It seems I did an awful lot of eating throughout January. Hibernating tendencies I suppose - nature - nothing I can do about it. That's probably why I'm 28.5 cms now.

New Campaign

You'd have to be living on roller-coaster vitamins to think that today wasn't an exciting day. In fact it's even inspired me to run - I'm not sure what for just yet, but I'm gonna do it. When I was young I overcame the odds and taught myself to crawl. One day soon, I'll be walking like nobody's business. And then, some day, some where, I'll run.

I especially liked the part of the speech when he suggested unclenching fists. A couple of weeks ago I started clapping and haven't looked back. You can't do that with your fists clenched.

8 Month Birthday

Happy New Year Everyone! I trust you all had a delightful introduction to '09. I don't know about you, but I think this year is going to be one of the best so far.

Since the New Year I have been trying all sorts of new foods - may I recommend the noodles with a sprinkling of shaved cheese, the warm light chicken stew with veg, the classic hand full'o'cheerios, all washed down with a couple of healthy glasses of the house water.

Jan 10th was my 8th month Birthday - we had a pretty low-key, mini, good-time party. I mainly chatted with my friend Quinn and a few of the ladies. Let me tell you, getting older can be stressful at times - it's a lot of responsibility. All I can hope for is that I take it in good stride.

Holidayeee

Well it's official... if it hasn't been said before, Christmas is good times.

Every day there's smiling and laughing, eating and yelling, colour and clapping, chewing and crawling, and lights and life!

Speaking of all things good, have you guys ever seen plastic dishes!? This christmas I received some delightful garments and some playful toys, but Holy Mother of Moses, once I tasted the plastic dishes I was hooked. I've heard a little bit about penicillin and the space time continuum, but whoever is responsible for these pieces of wonderment deserves the science prize of all time.

Thank you kindly for the wonderful prezzies and I truly hope you all had a delightful season. Here's to a Happy New Year!

Stand Tall

The rumours are true - I've been doing the standing trick for the last 4 days (ages). It feels like it was only yesterday that I was doing a lot more not standing. 

Incidentally, I also managed my first crawl on that Sunday (about 2 hours after the "I'm not into napping right now, so I'm going to pull myself up and stand at the edge of my crib" stunt). There are far more pictures of me standing these days, as I do that like it's going outta style. I'll keep you posted on the crawling, but at the moment I just don't see the point, as I can now reach the heavens (and the table).

I learned about the snow today (and that my Mum really, really likes it).

7 Months - Trip

I turned 7 months yesterday. It seems like a pretty pivotal number - 7 days of the week, 7 deadly sins, there are 7 colours in a rainbow and it's how many months old I am.

For a birthday trip I went to San Francisco for a couple of days. Having never been to San Francisco, it was a real treat. Good weather, great people and tasty bites. We spent some time with my cousins in Berkeley which was lovely.  Speaking of the food, I ate in several new places with new smells and people, but the food always tasted the same.

(I'm hoping to start crawling and standing on the same day - before 2009. I'll keep you posted.)

Photography Weeks 27 - 29

As we have a fair amount of pictures to get through I thought I'd try and keep you busy in time with the slideshow. 

Hi there, just chilling on the couch - nice to see you. 

Here I am playing with my buddy Jasper - man, that guy knows some cool stuff. I just try and take it all in as best I can. Charlie Brown Piano, what? My Grandad needs to teach me how to play this thing.

My mum, having lunch on her birthday. Who's birthday, you ask? MY MUM'S!!

Water? Yes please pretty lady. 

So these are what babysitters look like, eh? 

That's my mum. That's my mum.

"Highchair Musical 3" auditions - joy... and... drama.

Hmmm, what would happen if I used my powers for both good and evil?

Me again. Lion impression - Roar!

That's my Dad.

There's a guy hanging out in the woods in Snowman pajamas.

That's right - sometimes I like to comb my hair.

Mum's Birthday

Yesterday was my Mum's birthday (I'm not sure if you all know my mum, but if you and I have hung out before, she's usually pretty close by). She seemed thoroughly excited about her approaching big day - she's been telling me about it for ages.

I decided that it's nice when people have special days - it got me to thinking about how special I think my mum is:

• She feeds me all sorts of healthy foods throughout the day, so I can probably thank her for my dominating size and fitness.
• We have the best conversations (sometimes even about secret stuff that I can't tell you), and she's always reading, singing and teaching me things (like how her hair isn't to be used as a handle). Although, she seems obsessed with repeating 'ma' to me, slower and more pronounced each time - a little annoying to be honest.
• She's happy to come by in the middle of the night, if I feel like having a chat.
• Without getting too over the top, she's a very good snuggler.

Mum, if you're reading this, I want to say the biggest birthday thank you for all your endless love and patience. Without you I probably would have joined the circus by now, what with my incredible faux crawl/push around ninja tricks and killer teeth.

I love hanging out with you. You taught me to smile.

Doctor Doctor

I saw Dr.Leslie again today - this was my second visit with her, so we caught up a little before we got into the personals and nakedness. For the numberbods out there, I'm about 21 lbs and just over 75 cm tall. After dropping a couple of points in the size percentiles a couple of months ago (mirroring the economy), I'm right back at the top again. As far as she was concerned, everything seems to be in perfect working order. 'Seems?' I said - oh, how we laughed.

As a general update, I'm eating all sorts of things now: yams (very tasty), rice cereal (sure), oatmeal (really nice), plastic feeder jets (good for cleansing), apple/oatmeal/banana breakfast cereal (okay), avocado (what are you punishing me for?), water (Sweet Jesus, that's a delicious beverage). In terms of crawling, I'm not there yet, but man, do I have the reverse-push taken care of. Go ahead and throw a big'ole check mark by that one.

6 Months

It seems like the milestones never stop. Here I am at 6 months old, and I'm pretty sure I have another 2 teeth coming in - if I keep getting any more teeth I'm going to run out of room for food. Speaking of food, I can now add rice cereal, sweet potato and water to my repertoire (although, so far I'm rather suspicious of banana).

History

Tonight was quite something. With the time change, my schedule has been a little messed up of late, but tonight, there was no chance I was going to miss the results. 

They put me down at a reasonable time, but I got right back up again. They comforted me and asked me what was wrong, and I told them: This election has been going on for my entire life - there's no chance I'm missing the results now. I've come too far to put my head down and dream of never-ending milk fountains at such a historical moment. They seemed to hear my cry, as I was able to return to quietly witness this race come to its rightful conclusion.

This is no time for me to suggest that my official endorsement had anything to do with tonight's outcome - let's just agree it didn't hurt. Tonight should be about all of us using this momentum as a launching pad for positive change. Imagine the things we can accomplish while aiming for a better tomorrow. Who knows, maybe I'll even start liking banana.

Halloween

OK - so here's just a picture of 3 regular old pumpkins in the woods hangin' out - nothing to see here. "Next slide!" I'm just kidding, that's me in the middle, in a professional pumpkin disguise. Apparently, last weekend was all about going to different places pretending to be different things. To be honest, I've got so much going on these days trying to learn about how to be me, I've hardly got time to pretend to be other things (story of life I suppose). I don't even know what kinds of noises pumpkins are supposed to make (and these other two were no help). 

I don't want you to be alarmed, that's me as the bee aswell. Far more convincing I know - I really got inside the essence of the hardships of a bee that had wings, but couldn't fly. 

By the end of the weekend, the disguises got a little mixed up - right about the time the wine-drinking, miniature horse-riding cowboy arrived.

Great Store (plus mystery guest writer...)

I'll be the first to admit that at times I can be pretty picky when it comes to quality control (although for the most part, anything that I can get in my mouth has a good chance of passing the test). Last month, my Dad came back from a trip with a lovely set of soft blocks, and told me about this store The Little Seed. So being the kind of guy I am (personable, handsome & opinionated), I did my own research - sure enough, it's a gold mine of eco/green baby gear!

I then contacted the store, we got to talking, one thing led to another, and they asked me to write a quick guest post on their Seedling Blog.

I go off on a little bit of a rant, but I hope you enjoy it - and many thanks to my new friends Soleil and Ashley. Let's do it again sometime.

Photography Week 22 (incl Whidbey Island)

I'm pretty sure my trip to The Bedford Farm was my first trek south of the border. From my brief visit I found it to be similar to this country, although I saw a tremendous amount of homes and cars built by either the Obama Company or the McCain Company. 

The farm was delightfully peaceful, and it was nice to get away for a break from the usual routine. I did come home with a cold though, which hasn't been great. I'll tell you the thing I've learned about colds: Fun to get, bad to have. I managed to garner this one by joining the gang on a bluff walk on Whidbey Island (barely on the island as you'll see). I had my eyes closed for the majority of it, but the sights that I did see were quite breathtaking.

Side note: I'm working on bringing out the top two teeth at the moment - I figure once those two are in, I should be done.

Photography Week 20 & 21

So I am told it's officially Fall. If that means it's getting colder, I can certainly concur. I've been choosing to wear more denim trousers, cozy hats and long-sleeved tops & jackets to try to combat it.

Now, I hear you on the photo roll - 12 shots of me in a maybe-planned/maybe-not-planned pumpkin-coloured seat, in between a pair of seat-coloured pumpkins could be considered overkill. But what if I told you that that perfect Fall sweater was beautifully crafted by my friend Peter and the pumpkins were grown in my Grandma's garden? (I'll post more when we're closer to Halloween.)

5 Month Birthday

Firstly, thank you in advance for all your kind birthday wishes and chewable presents. I'll be honest, the thought of being another month older was a little daunting this morning. Not to mention the fact that it's been donkeys since my first two toofs came in, and they've attracted no company. 

I was greeted this morning with a french dog puppet as a present - his ears are very flappy, but seriously, I didn't understand a word he said.

My Westender Interview

I just wanted to let you know that my interview was printed in the current issue of The Westender on Thursday. By all means pick up a copy, or read it online in the My Digs section.

Press coverage always makes me a little nervous because it's like a box of chocolates... - but everyone at the paper was great, and I'd like to think it came off well. Thanks again to everyone for the gifts that made my room as comfy as it is. It made moving so much easier.

Photography Week 19

Another international week and I barely needed to move. Had breakfast with a new friend from Peru, then had dinner with another new friend from Costa Rica. There were also some meals with some familiar faces from Ontario, Victoria and SanFran thrown in there for good measure.

In addition, I was interviewed and photographed last Thursday by The Westender weekly newspaper. The interview will be in this week's paper which comes out on Thursday Oct 2nd. I know what you're thinking, but I assure you, this new found exposure will not go to my head. (FYI: When the article is online, I'll be sure to have my PA post it.)

Photography Week 18

Another week of photos... It seems like time just keeps ticking on by, like it's on some sort of strict schedule. "Relax Mr. Time" I say.

That reminds me, I hung out with Grandad Bailey last week - quite a character. Among our long talks, we briefly broached the subject of time, and 'the grand past' (like my 4 month birthday seems as though it was forever ago, or like when I didn't know how to roll). He told me "History does not repeat itself. Historians repeat each other." I thought that was clever.

I started thinking, I would make a pretty good historian: I remember the old days (or the period that some people refer to as "May"), I even have the odd artifact from those times, I tell a good story, and apparently I'm quite fond of "quotation marks".

"Great" Party!

I was back in Victoria last weekend for my Great Grandma Gammy's 90th - it was a lovely affair. My two regular Grandmas were there aswell - it was like a Grandmafest. (I'm guessing that to get Great status you have to run some sort of crazy labyrinth-type obstacle course with snakes and fire and stuff.)

I can only assume that the 90 is for 90 months, which seems like a long time, hence the big celebration. People ate several types of cakes and pies, drank teas and coffees while I stuck to my old faithful of milk and bubbles. Here's to all the 90 month olds!

Photography Week 17

These are a little late for last week's photos, but as I've said since my beginning - better late than never (even if it's 11 days). Please don't be alarmed by some of the tricks documented here - I've done all the proper training. Just so you know, they say that holding my feet in my hands at this age takes 3 times the concentration that that guy at Granville Island needs to ride an 8 foot unicycle while juggling a chainsaw, a bowl of hot chili and a live chicken. I'm just saying...

I've also started break dancing classes. 

Photography Week 16

Pinch, Punch, first day of the month! (Love that one.) So this was a pretty slow week for photography around these parts - the good news is, I'm another week older, regardless. Speaking of which, I was downtown yesterday, just out and about, and I saw this tiny baby at another table doing the old 'stoneface, pause, smile' routine. Seriously? I'm rolling my r's, chuckling, growing teeth, being enormous and rolling around on the floor like a Jr. Fireman at a summer day camp over here. I even lie on my back and adorably hold my own hands like a seal pup for goodness' sake.

Don't get me wrong, I'm pro-baby. I just think that as a group, we could work a little harder sometimes. Although, as the old saying goes, 'be not afraid of growing slowly, be afraid only of standing still'.

Photography Week 15

Most of this last week was spent in Qualicum with family. The weather was generally questionable with sunny breaks, but the family was top notch. Then on the weekend we went to Buntzen Lake near Port Moody for some further fun in sun. It doesn't seem to matter whether it's the ocean or a lake, the water's always cold.

two toofs

Not sure if you can see them here, but I've got two teeth breaking the surface. (Note: if you follow these incredible updates via email and want to see entries a little more clearly, you can always click the grey ** dublin's days ** in your email and that will take you to the site.) To be honest, I don't really see the point of teeth, other than their obvious use as weapons - and at the moment, my well-honed erratic ninja skills already have me covered. Giving me teeth is just unfair to potential opposition ninjas.

Now, I know what you're thinking, and yes, at first I was thinking I've got to find myself a sweet set of grills for these bad boys. But then my cousin Leo was telling me of this mysterious tooth buyer who is happy to take them off your hands when they fall out - sometimes for as much as $5. So I'm thinking, we get a few of us together, learn a little more about tooth growing, and set us up a bit of an operation - a grow op of sorts. Let me know if you want in.

Big Shots

I had my first round of shots last week - that was something. Needles aren't fun whichever way you slice it. Can't they put that stuff in a pill, or a cool new flavour of ChupaChups or something? I mean, the needle in it's current form must have been invented when God was a boy - all I'm asking for is a little advancement. Although, it puts my mind at ease to know that I'm taking steps to avoid the experience of diphtheria, haemophilus, pneumococcal and its cousin meningcoccal. These things were obviously named by dinosaurs. 

In terms of my latest stats, I'm 17lbs 6oz, and I'm 25 1/4 inches tall. I have slipped a couple of points in terms of percentiles, but what I've lost, I've more than made up for in experimental Judo skillz.  

(Disclaimer: there's a little nudity in this last round of photography - just trying out some different stuff.)

Events

So I've noticed the Olympics have started - so far, pretty interesting. Although I have to admit, I don't understand how some of the events made it passed the OEFD (The Olympic Event Filtration Department). I mean water polo? That's just too many games thrown together in a pool...

((polo - horses) + basketball + (lacrosse • .4)) • swimming pool = water polo

I mean why stop there? Why not have Water Archery Boxing? It could be called Warchering and take place in a water-filled ring. I'm kidding of course - that would be ridiculous. However, I'm not sure if anyone has seen my Feeding Feet performances? That could be an event. Competitors find a lady, latch, eat and stay balanced, all the while running through your well-rehearsed routine with your legs. They could even have pairs. Just something to think about.

And while we're on the subject... let's be honest, those Chinese gymnasts are barely older than I am. 

"...go shawty, it's your birthday..."

That's right, today was my 3 month birthday (and yes, I listen to gangsta rap on occasion). Where does the time go? My Dad was gone for what seemed like an eternity (although, I admit at times I appreciated the break from his antics), but he brought me back this styling blue hat for my birthday so that's something. 

It seems that birthday or not, whenever I go a short time without seeing someone, our next meeting includes a present. If this ritual is common protocol, I would like to know the exact amount of time that is required to pass, in order to bring about such an offering. In addition, I would like to throw it out there that I'm looking for someone to help me develop a perfectly timed visitation schedule in order to maximize the benefit of this custom - any doubles I get are yours. 

Photography Week 11 & 12

Wow, time flies (how does that Marx saying go... Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana). I can't believe I've been back from the continent for 2 weeks now. First off, I apologize for the number of seemingly repeated photos here - you know how stylists and photographers are - every pose tells a different story etc etc. 

The last couple of weeks have been good: I spent a fair amount of time in some clothes I have now grown into (I'm still carrying a little holiday weight), continued satisfying my many social obligations, started getting ready for the new soccer season, and am now just packing for the next week in Victoria. The Island will be nice, it seems like things were getting busy for a while over here - time to kick back.