22/365: country living

Today we got to see a baby cow.... and I mean a BABY. She was born this morning at 8:30 a.m., and Jack and I were able to go over and visit around 4:30 this afternoon. Jack got to touch her muzzle and admire her for a few minutes before she needed to go spend time with her mama. She was already up and around, being willful and adorably stubborn as Chris tried to lead her places. :)

I was going to take pictures but I left the camera at home and my phone's camera wasn't up to the low-lit task. I'm not too worried about it though -- we'll be seeing her again soon enough!

21/365: good idea!

Jack has finally figured out a way to play with Pooka without getting scratched!

20/365: Jack decorates

Jack and I got into the boxes of holiday decorations! I saw where most of them ended up as he distributed them, but one caught me by surprise: I went into the kitchen to cook our next meal and found this intrepid Santa fighting his way across the... windswept, frozen linoleum?

19/365: Parade of Socks

I recently (this month) knitted my first sock. It went so well, I knitted another! And another, and another.... Socks have got to be the easiest, most rewarding knitting project I've found yet.

Here's the biggest one, made for me. The rest are toddler/baby socks and will get their own post with pictures all together as soon as I finish the second sock of the baby pair I'm working on right now!

18/365: Fire Station

A while back, the fire department had a pancake feed where they brought all their engines out into the street for everyone to admire. The city blocked off the street. (That's something they are quick to do if it's for a kid-related activity.... Thank you, Mac, for being so family-friendly!) They even had three engines driving loads of kids around downtown.

One of my friends called me and let me know it was happening, so of course we set out to get a fire truck ride. :)

We jumped right into the line to wait for a ride, but it was a long one. We passed the time playing "Go touch that fire truck...."

"and come right back to tell me about it!"

I didn't actually get any pictures when it was our turn to ride. Jack was WAY too excited for me to do anything but juggle him. Technically they were only giving rides to kids 3 and up, but apparently we asked very nicely. We even got to sit in the front seat with the driver!!

After our ride we found out that the trucks in the street were not only for looking at.... They were for climbing in!! I had no idea. For some reason we were the only people taking advantage of this, but that just meant Jack got to keep the whole fleet to himself. :)

16/365: Movie Night

We've started doing a movie night on Sunday nights. Recent features include Up and Cars. Here's Jack enjoying the show: (We do all sit together for the movies but Jack was ready while Alex and I were still wandering around doing whatever boring stuff parents do to delay fun activities.) ;)

15/365: Snow!

We had snow recently! Jack was really excited to go exploring. He has seen snow before, of course, being a New Hampshire baby, but he doesn't remember it. This was essentially his first snow.

We made it about halfway down the stairs before he started to reconsider. "Mommy, I cold!!"

We made it down the stairs (after much coaxing) to taste the snow!

"Tastes like ice!"

Then we tried crunching on the snow "with Elmo boots!"

A bunch of fat robins were eating some kind of goodie (seeds, I think) that had been knocked off the trees.

Wiping snow off the cars was fun until he realized how cold it made his hands....

This was another moment where the dazzling appeal was wearing off for a moment.... He was trying to convince me we needed to get in the car and drive somewhere warm.

...or we could crunch in the frozen grass. :)

The best part of the morning was when we found our fix-it man, Clive, spreading sand on the walkways. This was downright AMAZING.

Jack literally chased him around the entire apartment complex, just marveling at the sand-throwing machine. (It was pretty cool! Clive says we will use 150 lbs of sand per snow/ice storm just to cover our sidewalks.)

13/365: Technical Difficulties

At this rate, this project is going to take me more than a year. November seems to be my annual time for cataclysmic computer-related events. The laptop is dead, down to the last "dear God, please let Alex save the data" sputterings. This might be the end of my NaNo whether I like it or not!

Even more than my NaNo, I'd love to have my budgetting calendar back. It is this wonderful program that Alex wrote for me that allows me to budget on a calendar where I can view the whole month and year. It thinks just like I do -- the perks of having my husband design it specially for me! It's been a day since the laptop fully died; I miss it terribly already.

6/365: Laptop Suicide

I'll start by admitting that I completely missed posting yesterday! But I have a good excuse.

I do all my work on our laptop, while Alex uses the desktop computer. Last night I was carrying it to do my normal routine of sitting with Jack, playing music and getting work done while he goes to sleep.... when it somehow fell/jumped out of my arms and landed on the floor. It landed on one corner first, which I suspect is the worst possible way.

The damage: The keyboard doesn't work. Nor does the mouse. Nor the mute button. Today I found out that it also refuses to read the camera's memory stick. (Not surprising since the reader is in the corner that hit the ground first.)

Alex got me set up with a keyboard and mouse that can plug in, so I'm basically functional for now, but it looks like we will need to buy a new laptop pretty soon. :(

3/365: Story time!

I've tried a couple of times to get pictures of the main event at Story Time, which is the big bubble-blowing finale. This is probably Jack's favorite event of the entire week! I feel like I captured a little bit of the magic that Jack sees every time, but it's times like these when I recognize exactly how much I don't know about photography....

2/365: Farmer Jack

Chris recently bought a farm, and the place is pretty much heaven in Jack's opinion. There are dogs, kittens even more pliable than Pooka, goats, sheep, pigs, chickens, and rabbits. And that's not to mention two of his best friends, Daphne and Cyprus!

Plus, Chris makes a mean taco and he definitely loves when we have them for lunch. :)

Jack is just now able to skip his nap on some days and survive, sanity intact, until bedtime. We usually take it easy for the afternoon, reading books and doing other quiet activities. Well, today he did skip his nap and then we decided that to fill our afternoon, we would go to Chris's farm and see how big the pigs had grown since our last visit.

We ended up tromping around the farm all afternoon while Chris fed the animals. Jack was excited to see them all. He even went in the pig pen and got knocked down in the mud by three curious pigs. He didn't mind, even when he tripped and fell right back into the muck after I had just rescued him!

The big hit was the hen house, where Daphne found two chicken eggs, and Chris found five. Jack was totally impressed, especially when Chris gave him an egg to take home! Here is the single photo we managed to capture immediately after returning home: (Do you know how hard it is to photograph a tired toddler?)


Here is my darling little boy with his boots on the wrong feet, peppered with mud splotches, exhausted beyond belief, and yet still totally excited about the egg he earned for his help doing farm chores.

Right after this, he watched Daddy crack and scramble the egg. Then he ate it (followed by a few more) and snuggled on the couch briefly before conking out. All in a day's playing, right?

1/365: spices

Every so often while I'm cleaning the kitchen, Jack comes in and spends time with me by climbing on the counter and checking out the spice cabinet. He likes to open each jar, smell what's inside and ask me what each one is called.

"Ooh, pepper!"

He was having a great time after he smelled each one, announcing "EWW!" and "GROSS!" This is the funniest possible thing to do with spices. :)

This time he decided he wanted to taste the spices too. He tried tiny tastes of cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger. Then he needed a drink, big time!

365

A few nights ago, it was almost time for Jack to go to bed. Of course, he didn't want to, and he chose a very sweet way to express that. He climbed up onto the couch with me and snuggled at my side, insisting we read a stream of books, tickle, snuggle, and so on.

Jack and I ended up being very silly and playing while Alex was a good Daddy and made bedtime happen despite our best efforts. (And without tears, I might add!)

After Jack was finally asleep, I realized again how totally sweet he is, and how much I love spending time with him. And that I'm not going to have much more time where it's just the two of us playing all day!

In other (obvious) news, I've had trouble updating the blog regularly, and I have probably lost my mind, but I think the answer to this problem, and a way to appreciate and share my time with Jack even with a new baby coming to add mayhem and distraction, might be to commit to a project where I post something every day for a year. Crazy, right? But it just might work!

So, that's the plan. 1 post per day, preferably with photos, every day for 365 days. When the baby arrives, she'll be tucked into the project too. :) And yes, I will admit I'm stealing inspiration for this from my friend Chris's blog, www.oregonnaturalfoods.com!