good job!

mom and i went up to UBC this evening to do some more research. it was a really tough one this time. i had electrodes attached to my forehead, and then had to go to sleep - as if. being rather tired i solved the problem by pulling the electrodes off and then rapidly dozing off.

mom then curled up in an armchair and read her book, and after an hour or so she woke me up, collected $15 and a printout that said i had great hearing and we went home again. Good job, eh?

i had a really odd dream though - something about those electrodes i pulled off, wearing headphones and listening to sounds. just as well i've been practising listening to dad's ipod.

ten months old

so what's new?

i've got teeth, which i brush sometimes.
i've got hair, which has never seen a brush but may need to see scissors sometime soon.
i've got a new means of transport - still mom powered but it goes a bit faster than my stroller.
i've put on weight: i now weigh 24-25 pounds - mom's not exactly sure which because i was wriggling rather on the bathroom scales.
i've worked out how to sit up from lying on my tummy.
i can sit on a little chair and eat a snack.
i can pull myself up to kneeling using the edge of the sofa.
i can pull myself up to standing using the bars on my crib.
i haven't yet worked out how to sit down again.

i like eating .. a lot ... all the time! tuna and cauliflower join the ranks of favourites alongside pear, mum mums, apricot and rice pips. all stuff i can feed myself now.
i like playing ball: playing footie with dad, or catch with mom.
i like watching the weather forecast.
i like tiger wrestling, and almost always win.
i like splashing dad with my washcloth in the bath.
i like unpacking my crate of clothes.
i like unpacking the crate of plastic boxes and trying to find the right lids.
i like unpacking the CDs from their rack.
i like opening and closing doors.
i like removing the books from the bookcase.
i like removing the used diapers from the bin, but mom doesn't like me doing that.


so what's old?
i've outgrown the exersaucer.
i'm pretty much too big for my jolly jumper.
i don't shake my head 'no' all the time.
i don't stay still for two minutes unless i'm asleep.
i don't want to start the day at 5am. 6.15am is early enough.

i'm in safe hands

dad's spending two days on a first aid course, so he'll be fully qualified to deal with any little accidents i might have. i hope he doesn't have to deal with any protruding internal organs as even looking at the pictures was gross, so i'm not sure he'd cope with the real thing. it might be my imagination but he does seem to be looking at me funny since he started this. perhaps he's just checking my breathing rate or something.

dad seems to know quite a lot already after watching Casualty and ER on TV. maybe i can use that as one of my 'watching TV is educational' arguments? if i watch enough Bob the Builder perhaps dad will let me help with the renovations.

dad's birthday

i helped dad open his cards first thing, and then i helped him eat his breakfast. i rather enjoy eating other people's food at the moment, it's so much better than mine. if necessary i chase them around the apartment until they surrender and sit down, at which point i either pull myself up on their legs, or just sit and beg until they feed me. it generally works although mom's getting sneaky and keeping bits of rice cake in her pocket and she gives me that instead.

i can be distracted, but only with REALLY good toys, like the telephone or the remote control for the TV. I'm getting quite adept with this, and study the TV screen avidly whilst pressing the buttons.

anyway.....back to dad's birthday. we tried to have a picnic lunch on Kits beach, but it started raining, so we retired home to watch an episode of Alias on DVD that mom had miraculously acquired from somewhere. dad got a night off giving me my bath, so mom got a good soaking instead. after all my crawling and investigating i was really quite tired, so i went to sleep straight away at 7pm, and mom and dad went off to Calhouns for dinner. uncle greg came and checked on me during the evening but i didn't feel much like talking so i did a really convincing job of pretending to be asleep.

an english roo?

having just got the hang of translating tim and lissa's australian into proper canadian, today i met an english roo. this curious anomoly is in fact a friend of mom and dad's from bristol who managed to fit us in on her great american tour. she's been researching how to emerge from the emerging church with the holy spirit. that's what she told everyone in bristol anyway. we know differently but we're not telling because we want roo to come back and see us again one day. if you tie her sister down and tickle her enough Rach may spill the beans though.

we had a lovely time on the beach and down at Granville Island. we heard about the Fuse, and Contagious, and the Glastonbury festival, and Woodies and lots of people i don't know. i didn't mind though because mom and dad looked happy, and roo thought i was lovely :)

roo was last seen on an aquabus heading back towards the west end. if she missed her flight back to england, it's not my fault. i think she wanted to stay here. i can understand that.

Anvil island

you know something serious is happening when dad gets up even earlier than me in the morning. we got into the car this morning at 7.15am which is pretty early. i had a 9am breakfast appointment on Anvil island. i couldn't have breakfast any earlier in case i was sick on the boat.

the journey out was great, watching the water whizzing past the window only inches away, and the spray was wonderful. When we got to anvil there were lots of people waiting to see me, including Shawna who was right down on the dockside.

we met nurple the armadillo, the purple team's mascot, and lots of kids on camp, and a few people from church. i'm not sure whether they called being at camp work too, but once again i was able to gather yet more evidence that dad has the best job in the world.

mom went swimming in the sea, i got to splash, and dad went down the anvil slide. this is apparently one more step along the road to being a real canadian for those not fortunate enough to have been born here.

the boat road back to the mainland was really exciting, bouncing up and down on the waves and lots of noise. according to the driver i'm the only little kid who's ever enjoyed it. maybe in a few years time i could get a job driving the boat? that's assuming i haven't taken over dad's job of course.

waterfalls

mom likes waterfalls apparently, although she's never taken me to see one, so this may just be unfounded rumour. i thought i'd put it to the test by producing waterfalls of drool.

i'm not sure she was as enthusiastic as i'd been led to believe, particularly when i drooled into her hair or ear, but i'm now the proud possessor of eight teeth. mom now feeds me from a bottle though - i don't think she appreciated being used as a teething ring :(

tim's birthday

we all went on an adventure to Bowen Island to celebrate Tim's birthday: me, mom, dad, Tim and Lissa. not everything went entirely to plan - after nothing but blue skies for months it was a bit cloudy. definitely not hot enough for Lissa to go swimming in the sea, although i did put my toes in for a few seconds. the beach was great though - covered in pebbles that looked just like the lumps of rice cake i have on my high chair tray. i did my best to bite into each one just to check there wasn't any rice cake hiding. tim threw rocks at a tree trunk, and then at some ducks which i didn't think was very kind. my mommy's taught me to treat ducks with the respect they deserve. maybe they don't have ducks in australia so timmy's mommy didn't teach him when he was little?

we went and had the traditional birthday fish and chips at the pub, even though it wasn't sunny on the deck. once we'd sent the food back to the kitchen to be reheated it was OK. the chowder was yummy anyway, and dad had a great looking nut pie, even though there wasn't any ice cream with it. the ferry home was a bit late, so we missed out on a sunset cruise. timmy was too tired anyway and fell asleep even quicker than me. birthday's must be very hard work. i'm not sure i'm looking forward to mine.

the moment many have been awaiting

well, they said i'd be crawling by the weekend, and they weren't wrong. all i really needed was the right "motivation for the scene". the gentle rocking back and forth on my knees had become unnecessarily frustrating, especially when the ball was rolling away from me.

then i was out on my rug on sunday afternoon, and mom brought dad a bowl of ice-cream. frankly it looked way more exciting than any of the toys around me. food has always been my favouritist of things, and other people's food tends to get me staring in envy and dribbling profusely. occasionally i accompany this with an endearing suck of the lips, a slight tilt of the head and those eyes that really say so much ("p-leeease", "aren't i cute?", and "oh go on you know you want to share").

this time, forget the act. i went for the bowl at the speed of ... light? sound? a train? a plane? ... well, amazingly fast, and the fastest i've ever moved. as dad gently pulled the bowl away, i just kept following, and he had me crawling around REALLY fast for ages, trying to get at the cool frozen looking yumminess.

he gave in after an hour or two (baby hours that is), with the smallest of hints of a taste. i think i'm going to like ice cream. uncle greg missed the momentous occasion as he was on the phone. the video camera also missed it, but as is a well known fact, video cameras are excellent at capturing static footage of babies that have just said/done something really cool. we have enough to bore you for days of me just sitting there staring at the camera with the background voices of mom and dad going "come on joel, what was it you were doing/saying? are you going all silent on me now?"

keep em wanting kids :)

a day off is a day to doolittle .. very little

Dad had a different day off today, cos mom went to work. needless to say we couldn't resist visiting her after I awoke from nap #1, and annoncing good news about breakfast - rice cereal and blueberries. she's helping out at church to give our very hard working administrator some holiday.

so we hung out there for a while, then went for a walk to discover they've finished shooting in our neighbourhood for the latest hollywood blockbuster. the movie is "john tucker must die" and comes out next year .. so i could see our locality on the big screen.

at lunchtime, we listened to an excellent radio story of the pixies .. what a band. if you have musical taste, you should check it out

which one's Caesar?

you're never too young for a little culture, so mom and dad took me to Young Shakespearians at Bard on the Beach. We saw an abridged version of Julius Caesar - without a set or costumes, and with actors swapping the principal roles amongst themselves during the performance - it was all rather confusing, so i went to sleep.

Celebration of Light

it's kind of weird waking up in the middle of the night and finding yourself in your stroller down by the beach. even more curious were the flashing lights in the sky. a bit loud, but very pretty. mom and dad could have told me what they had planned though, and i'd have stayed awake all evening to experience the build up and enjoy the crowds as well.

i can crawl.....

....although so far i've only found reverse gear. the more crawling i do, the further i get from the object of my attention. it's very frustrating. being the persistent sort though, i keep going until i'm wedged under the sofa or have backed myself into the corner.

in my attempts to refine this process i've learned to lift both my tummy AND my knees off the ground. other than doing half a dozen press ups, this has served no useful purpose, although it looks quite impressive, so i'm told. if only i can work out how to get my hands off the ground too, i'll be walking. maybe i should learn how to sit up on my own first?

amazing discovery

after much research, not to mention practice, i am pleased to announce my amazing discovery: if i pick something up and then let it go (that's the bit that took the practise) it drops back down again. every time. isn't that great?

it makes me laugh - especially when dad or i drop things into the bath, or when whatever i drop bounces back up again.

bunnies and blackberries

i discovered today that blackberry picking isn't much of a spectator sport. dad did his best to amuse me by climbing a tree and pretending to be a monkey, but he didn't do anything truly spectacular like falling into the brambles or anything. after a while we boys sneaked off and left mom to it.

sitting in the park was much more exciting. dad read his book (why is it work when he reads and play when i do?) and i watched the canada geese amble past. which leads me to a question for you. does anyone know if goose poo is poisonous? purely a hypothetical question you understand.

when mom found us again we went to see the bunnies. around about 6 o'clock in the evening all the bunny rabbits come out from under the blackberry bushes and have a little forage on the grass for something tasty to eat. tonight one of them found my toes. it was so exciting i almost forgot to breathe.

being out so late did mean i missed my bath, but i think it was worth it.