Loaded and ready for action

 

The Deep

 

Tiny T was The Deep for Halloween. He wasn't too keen on me attaching his fish to his coat, to start, and wanted me to take it off. But once he got used the idea, he thought it was cool that his animals were on his shoulders, with him at every step. He was into the candy, too, but the first door we approached was opened by a dad wearing a gorilla mask, which freaked out our intrepid ocean explorer. He recovered, and tried his best to keep up with Miya in her blue butterfly costume. Miya's 3, though, so he spent a lot of the evening saying "Catch Miya!" and running as fast as he could.
At the end of the night, we drove through downtown on our way home, just to see what was up. There were hordes of people, a parade with a band and lanterns, and fireworks on the Coast Guard dock. We happened to be near a parking spot with a good view when the fireworks started, so we watched. Tiny T kept saying "Firework! Push button. Firework! Push button." Maybe he thought someone was setting them off one by one, pushing a button each time.
A good time was had by all, and his 3 candies will last him for weeks.

And thanks, Mom, for knitting the awesome creatures!!

Crumbs!!

 

This is my best crumb yet - irregular holes, light and fluffy but still chewy bread. I'm over the moon. I've been reading a bread blog, and followed the double-flour incorporation technique. It worked like a charm. Trust an organic chemist to come up with great new bread-baking methods!

Airplanes!

 

Word Web

We have all been very busy here (and remiss with posting!). Mr. T has also been busy expanding his vocabulary. I wrote down this snapshot the day before yesterday. It's now obsolete, of course - he's added at least a dozen new words since I made the list. But here it is - just shy of 19 months, and talking up a storm!

 

my hero

Life the past 2 months has been completely crazy. Let's just say the involved moving, painting an entire house, commuting across a major body of water, Douglas being away for a solid month, and a freelance writing class. There hasn't been much sleep.

What there *has* been is a lot of fun - sunshiney days on the boat, hummingbirds buzzing past our heads, eagles soaring past the kitchen window, and beach after beach after beach. Douglas and I have been discussing how it feels like life has been on pause for the past few years, and someone just hit the cosmic 'play' button.

Somehow, this sums it up for me:

http://sailingknitter.blogspot.com/2011/04/diving-andknitting.html

I feel like we've been living a crazy life - and being richly rewarded for it.

Little T is growing huge - saying 'light', 'rock', 'boot', 'boat', 'car', 'cracker', and my favourite: 'hug' (followed by an actual tiny T hug). He's got molars, is running, stomping, wearing my shoes around the house, climbing stairs, and fetching things when I ask him to (if he feels like it!).

tickled

 

running

 

wanna play ball?

 

15 months

 

so, how does this thing work?

 

Shades of the teenager he will become...

 

Duck Pond Day

blast from the past

back when little t was little (O, am I getting nostalgic already??):

making some calls

little t often sees us on the phone, and has started making some calls of his own. When he can get his hands on one, he uses an actual phone. If there's no phone handy, he uses a measuring cup, a stuffed toy, or just his hand. It all seems to work for him. This one is a business call, I think, because his "hi" is pretty subdued and serious. Sometimes, when he calls his friends, his "hi" is high-pitched and boisterous, and accompanied by wild waving of his eyebrows.

walking!

The little man has decided that there might be a better way of getting around than crawling. He's walking well while we hold his hand, and starting to step out on his own:



He's so pleased with himself! and he should be. 8)

spoonfuls

Eating with a spoon! All by himself! This will revolutionize mealtime...



Of course, he doesn't eat like that all the time. Sometimes he eats like this:



There are lots of photos that I need to post - of his birthday, especially. Hopefully soon....

refinished

 

Douglas had this table when I met him. It was covered in a thick layer of white enamel paint, which is how it was when he got it. I remember looking at it and thinking - hm, I like its lines. I wonder if there's nice wood under there. I'll bet there is....

One of my little mat leave projects was to refinish this. I scraped the paint off with a scraper, chip by chip. I sanded. I sanded more. A few days ago, we glued the table top pieces back together, then put the whole thing together and oiled it. And I love it. The wood has amazing depth, and glows a beautiful honey color.

OK, it's not quite finished - the pieces of the top aren't all level, and need to be sanded, then re-oiled. But that's probably not going to happen for a bit. so here it is, so far.

And this is my last week of mat leave. I can't believe it. Tomorrow Theo goes for his first day of gradual entry at the daycare. He and I will be there together, playing, for about 2 hours. The next day I'll leave him there by himself for about 30 minutes. And on Friday, I'll take him there, hang out for a few minutes, then go for a walk for an hour or so. I'm not looking forward to it at all. I think he'll have fun - he's such a social critter that I bet he will have a great time playing with the other kids. And I think it'll be good for him. And good for me to have a little break and some time to think workish thoughts.

But I'm still not looking forward to it!

wee walker

 

my boys

 

mmmmarmalade

 

 

Does it mean something that wee mr. t was born in marmalade season? Will he have a special affinity for Paddington Bear? Or a penchant for marmalade words? I just heard this expression, meaning fancy, multisyllabic words, and love it.

My little bookhound

 

First Christmas

I've been slow to post lately, but I'm catching up tonight. Here are some from Theo's first Christmas here:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have more photos from xmas, but they're on another computer that's difficult to access tonight, so they'll have to get posted later. All for now!!

new duds

 

mr. t has been in need of some walking shoes. He has socks, and bootees, but the first aren't super-warm, and the second don't grip the floor well. I've been wanting to get him something warm that he can walk in. You can buy little soft-soled shoes, but they're kind of expensive for something he'll only wear for a short while, and somehow they're difficult to find used. So I looked around on the internet, and guess what, I'm not the first mom to encounter this problem. Several creative folks have posted patterns for making soft-soled shoes. There's a nice summary here:
http://www.ehow.com/how_2041350_softsole-leather-baby-shoes.html and I ultimately used this pattern: http://www.michaelmillerfabrics.com/blog/cloth_shoe.pdf and just enlarged it.

So I found myself some leather, pulled out our industrial sewing machine (handy for so many things other than sailmaking!), and started experimenting.

It took about a week of playing around with patterns, sizes, fabrics, and thread tensions to come up with something that worked, but I'm finally happy with the results. They fit, they seem comfortable, and most importantly, they stay on. And now that I've figured out what to make and how to make them, they're very simple. Three pieces, 6 seams, 7 if you count sewing the elastic into a circle. And voila, the little man is shod.

I made two pairs, and will probably make a few more in the next little while. These were just using fabric scraps and sailmaking thread. I plan to make some cuter ones. They only take about an hour.

 

I also made him a little hat. I thought he would look dapper in a black bowler.

 

He doesn't seem to agree:

 

Something with strings will undoubtedly be next.

whoa, what's in here??

 

The little man is fascinated by the fridge, and tries to climb in every chance he gets. He's like our very own energy-efficiency monitor - he helps us remember to close the fridge door the second we are done in there!!