What's new

Well, not much is new here, except that last week our quadruped morphed into a busy little biped. (Lily, not Daisy.) That's right, she finally graduated from a most-of-the-time crawler to a determined walker. About time too, as I myself look forward to graduating to a walker quite soon.

She's been taking steps for a while now, but always with a nearby target in mind, be it a table leg, a people leg, or anything else that she assumes won't fall over when she lunges for it. Now it's a whole new world, as she toddles around aimlessly to explore the house. Apparently she still goes down stairs properly. We haven't caught her in the act yet, but seeing her walk toward the stairs several times, I assumed there would be some tumbling involved. No such ill luck, as I've found her a floor lower quite a few times, playing sedately and fully intact.

We saw our first snowflakes last week, and on the weekend the first snowfall actually lasted a day or two. It seems that was just a teaser, but we'll be enjoying our wintry climes soon enough.

Lily and I have great opportunities to visit seniors during the day. She steals hearts wherever she goes. One fantastic scene was of a man in his 90s helping her walk, until she was barrelling along so fast he couldn't keep up.


Another visit involved honing my logging skills. It's been a while since I've used a chainsaw (limited usefulness in a condo environment), but in slaying a dozen trees I didn't hack off any unintended limbs so it all worked out.

Not a great shot, but here's the unhappy diva in her very comfy coat and homemade toque.

(...insert a day of wrangling with the interwebs... and losing...)

Sigh. I thought I'd try to post a video or three, and seeing as our nice camera does wonderful HD video, I wanted them to show up as such. No such luck, as the evil web chews them up and belches out a lousier version; sorry about the quality and the low brightness... grrr. If you couldn't guess, these clips are of our child.

October

Nothing new here... move along! Unless of course you want to see a pile of Lily shots, in which case you're in luck.

Our little tyke isn't very chunky yet. At 14 months she tips the scales at almost 18 lbs fully clothed.

She and Daisy get along very well. We're thrilled to see that Lily can play with Daisy's food while the dog is eating with no growling or other unwanted behaviour. Except the part where Lily wants to eat it too. She still needs a bit of work on that front.

Lily spends a fair bit of time in the non-office half of the basement room.

Here's where she pumps iron... after playing with dollies.

Bed head.

Food face.

One day her nap ended with her clothes and diaper almost off. I suspect there will be dirtier nap endings in the future...

Going to need hair care pretty soon.

Still not too interested in walking, but then, the ground is sooo cool!

Little angel.

We visited family for thanksgiving weekend. A rare family picture ensued.

Life

Time for a little update, since the family insists, and since I don't use that phasebook site thingy everyone likes to talk about.

Life is pretty uneventful. Carrie's at her new job downtown, her commute having changed from walking through a nice park to wading through panhandlers and questionable sidewalk spills. Unless she takes the bus, which pretty much provides door to door service with no transfers; that will probably be appreciated on those cold winter days.

I've just finished up a work project that was almost keeping me up at nights, so now I can relax a little. I still work in the evenings, but daytime is now largely for leaving the house weekly, teaching my daughter DOS and HTML, and other important stay-at-home-parent activities.

Lily's chosen vocation is to point at things all day. Guessing what she's pointing at never gets old... wait, yes it does! I can't wait until she starts asking "why" about everything under the sun. She'll try to repeat words after us; she understands plenty of words and is learning more every day.

It's been quite warm out this week, so yesterday we went to the park for a picnic (if water and Crispers qualify as a picnic). The walk to the park is along the river, so Daisy gets to jump in for a quick swim/wade. The park itself is popular with dog walkers, which is fine except when any dog bigger than Daisy comes near us. Yesterday's treat was a huge gangly Doberman that was off its leash and racing toward us. Lily and I watched as Daisy went crazy and chased that thing right back to its owner. It came back a few times, but Daisy seems to know her responsibilities around Lily. She's terrified of any dogs bigger than her, but her one defense is pretending she's big and loud and scary. Works most of the time too!

Lily stands freely all the time now, but she's walked only a couple steps here and there. She's more interested in traversing stairs. Up was learned long ago, and down only recently. Not sure how it's done yet; sometimes I'll find her on a lower floor--quiet and fully intact--so she somehow gets there safely.

She was happy (for about five seconds) to pose for a stair-top photo before decided standing was no longer cool.

"I'm dropping right here, m'kay?"

This reminds of almost exactly five years ago, when I made little Daisy hang out by the stairs. The difference this time was that Lily didn't end up falling between the treads and plummeting eight feet! I deserve a parenting medal.

Life isn't complete without some sitting. Here Lily tries out a sweet Lego chair.

She loves her bike seat and, fortunately for me, doesn't insist that it be mounted on a bike.

She also loves her helmet (or eh-met). Again, no bike required.

Happy 400th

Well, she's 400 days old. That's a milestone, right? I thought I'd throw some recent pictures up and update the world on our quiet life. When one takes no holidays, there's simply no reason to blog... but I'll try anyway.

Lily was spoiled with a second first birthday party in Ottawa (her first first birthday party having been in Vernon). Again, out came the chocolate cake and off came her clothes.

As all parties should, this one started with wearing a dumb hat and crying about it.

Licking icing off the candle turned out to be a bad idea, as she took a bite.

'This is gonna be good!"

And behold, it was very good!

Friends helping unwrap an awesome present.

Now our wee child is one and almost out of her 6-month clothes. Time to buy 9-month clothes? (She weighed in at 17.1 pounds at her one-year checkup/stabbing two weeks ago.)

She rather likes the dog's bed.

Tasting her first balloon. Thanks Oma!

Wearing her first helmet. Thanks Grandma!

She doesn't like hats but is tickled about this helmet, especially when I test it by bonking her on the (covered) head. We got a nice bike seat at a garage sale this spring; all we need to do now is actually use it once in a while. No worries though; looks like she'll fit in it for a few years.

She's at the stage where she's pointing at everything and grunting (or something). Her first word was probably "daisy" but she's added "mom" and "ball" to the collection. She recognizes quite a number of words but hasn't bothered to try and say many yet; when she does it's often with her mouth closed, so she gets the syllable count correct but that's about it.

Oh, one of her favourite items is fans. Like ceiling fans. They fascinate her for some reason; on is better than off, but they're all very exciting. One of our weirdest episodes was in North Carolina this past June. We walked into a surf/beach store that happened to have a dozen ceiling fans on, and she just went crazy. I actually had to hold on very tight to keep her from jumping ecstatically out of my arms. What a weirdo.

What else is new? Well, Carrie is leaving her job for a different one for a year and a half; it's called a secondment (temporary transfer) and gives her an acting promotion plus better pay. The new position is downtown, which is farther to walk/bike to now, but it would mean a better bus commute than to her old job if we decided to move, say, next year.

I, on the other hand, spend less time in the basement working and more time upstairs child-watching. We're slowly adjusting to a routine. Lily naps once in the morning so that means my afternoon is shot... ahem, I mean, is spent doing fun stuff or errands with my wonderful daughter. We now understand the potential benefits of living in the suburbs, as we could then use friends to babysit a few days a week. We haven't used a babysitter yet... at all. Don't worry, it's not a weird trust or attachment thing; we just haven't run into the problem yet, as we've just taken her everywhere we go together.

Well, she crawling under my desk looking for spiders to eat so I'll sign off for now.

Okanagan

Toward the end of July it was off to BC for a final holiday with Carrie's family before she went back to work full-time. It was disgustingly hot out there, but at least it wasn't humid. Unfortunately the heat made people want to go to the beach all the time. (I have yet to understand humans and their ridiculous beach urges. Perhaps I'm my own species?)


The whole clan (her side, not mine) showed up and spent a few days together. Mom arranged the every-few-years photo shoot, which is a handy way of making the three of us get a family picture taken for once.


The gang.


A few hikes, some beach time, a round of golf for the guys, and the family photo shoot were a few things to keep the crowd busy. A highlight of one hike in a nearby park was a rattlesnake hiding beside the trail. This experience was, of course, best enhanced by poking it with a stick. It gave us the obligatory rattle and slithered away to find a better place to nap.


August is a time of a zillion birthdays in the family, so we took the opportunity to have a multi-kid party.


Presents abounded...


...as did photos of one-year-old eating birthday cake...

"So... why is my shirt off?"


"Mmmmmm... chocolatey bliss!"


She didn't actually get that dirty. Of course we don't see how much of the cake she's sitting in. Plenty was found (uneaten) in and around her diaper.


Our little one-year-old enjoyed her cousins (this wasn't always reciprocated).


Like her old man, she is not a morning person.


But once those eyes are open, you just get lost in those dark pools.


When the siblings left, Carrie and I did plenty of activities with Dad, like kayaking and hiking. We'd certainly be whipped into shape if we lived nearby.


Carrie and I headed to Kelowna one day for a winery tour. We hit up Mission Hill winery and did a tour along with some wine tasting.


An avid wine disliker, even I participated in the tasting. (Still didn't like it.) Here's me practicing my snob look.


Our time there came to an end all too quickly. And of all the days to fly home, we chose Lily's first birthday; not the best way to celebrate, but she did okay.