new photos on flickr

NEW slideshow on Flickr

how cute is this guy?

laughter is the best

Darren filmed Gus playing with this new bike helmet. He thinks it's the funniest thing ever.


We took him for a bike ride in the trailer on Friday and he seemed to have a pretty good time. He fell asleep on the way home. The bike trailer is a great invention, it converts to a stroller with addition of an extra wheel so it allows you to be moblie in so many ways with the little monkey. We'll get some photos of him next time we take him out.

snap shots

please let me know if you find these annoying...
here is an example to test it out - VPLs webpage
it should be giving you a bubble snap shot of the VPL webpage when you hover your mouse over the link (blue text).

counting

Gus can count to ten.
Except instead of saying "five", he says "pies".
one, two, three, four, pies, six, seven...

phlox off!

somebody help me - is this phlox???

new slideshow - at the playground!!!

click on the photo for the newest slideshow...
Your playground! slideshow on Flickr
We had a great day at the playground again. There was a crowd of screaming and running 8 to 10 year olds pretending to be the Pokemon video game. Annoying because they kept running over poor little Gus, the guardian appeared to be about 15 and she was useless at discipline. We still managed to get a few good runs on the slide. Gus loved the crazy kids and wanted to copy them. I realize one day other kids will have more influence over him than I do. yikes! and sigh...
I took a couple videos, except I held the camera sideways and I don't know how to rotate the video. hmmm. If anyone has any ideas please let me know... I may just upload it sideways and you will all have to turn your heads. They are worth seeing, even sideways.

I have a moussaka to make, so this is a short entry. Enjoy the photos.

inclined to tedious morality in honour of Earth Day

In honour of Earth day, I challenge you all to try the 100-mile diet.


Try out the 100 mile diet for one meal, one day or however often or as long as you think you can do it.
Eating a 100 mile diet means only eating foods that were produced within 100 miles of your home. Why on earth would you want to that, you ask? Consider the statistics they cite on the 100-mile diet website:

• Minimum distance that North American produce typically travels from farm to plate, in miles: 1,500
• Number of Planet Earths’ worth of resources that would be needed if every person worldwide lived like the average North American: 8

• Planets saved if all of those people ate locally: 1
• Ratio of minutes spent preparing food by English consumers who buy ready-made foods versus traditional home-cooking: 1:1
• Estimated number of plant species worldwide with edible parts: 30,000
• Number of species that currently provide 90 percent of the world’s food: 20
• Share of each U.S. consumer food dollar that returned to the farmer in 1910, in cents: 40
• Share that returned to the farmer in 1997, in cents: 7
• Ratio of prisoners to farmers in the U.S. population: 5:2
• Percentage of fresh vegetables eaten in Hanoi, Vietnam, that are grown in the city: 80
• Percentage of all tomatoes in U.S. that are harvested while green : 80
• Major river dams constructed to irrigate California, now the world’s number five agricultural producer: 1,200
• Number of years that Alisa Smith and James MacKinnon of Vancouver, Canada, ate only foods produced from within 100 miles of their home: 1
• Amount of potatoes, in pounds, that they bought for the winter: 100
• Days that that 100 pounds of potatoes would have fed a person in Ireland, on average, before the potato famine of 1845: 18
• Combined weight in pounds that Alisa and James lost on their 100-Mile Diet: 12

Alisa and James are the authors of the book, The 100 Mile Diet - in which they ate within 100 mile radius of their homes for one year. Interesting that they also lost weight!

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see The 100 Mile Diet website for a list of references (because I didn't just make it up): http://www.100milediet.org/spread-the-word/

at the park

We had a nice morning at the park. First, he yelled at the ducks. Then, he wanted to splash in the duck pond. Fortunately a nice woman came along with two dogs and told him the duck pond was full of poop. She also told us the elementary school nearby was a good school. Her daughter is in grade four there. After the poop/school discusssion, we went over to the swing. He lasted about a minute. For some reason he hated it. Then we walked over to the playground where he got a all sandy from throwing sand around, sliding down the slide several thousand times and rolling around.
He is now watching Cars for the 100th time. He is also reading Wheels on the Bus. Hence, my ability to write uninterrupted
and Daddy just got home. Now we can put the baby seat on the back of the bike. I made a futile attempt to do so with Gus running around the backyard, playing with his hockey game. He just gets into everything.
Hopefully, he enjoys his helmet a little more once he's on the back of the bike. I tried to explain it's so he can hit his head and it won't hurt. I think he actually got it - so we'll see.

Facebook

Thank you Patricia, I may have just resurrected my social life (beyond playdates).
check out my new Facebook profile.
You can also find it on the left hand column of the blog somewhere below the flickr badge and the library thing... the facebook badge includes my current status - which means at any time you can check where I am or how I'm feeling. Right now I am cold and at work. on a break, of course.

cool photo

taken on my phone at the aquarium.

new video by darren

new video...

talking machine. repetitive

a very repetitive talking machine:
watch cars, watch cars, watch cars. meaning the movie cars. he always wants to watch it.
ockey swedu on, ockey swedu on, ockey swedu on. Hockey sweater on. he cries when we take it off.
yama dark. refers to a line in the book Llama llama red pajama
"llama llama red pajama in the dark without his mama" He used to cry on that page because the baby llama looks so sad without his mama. Now he refuses to turn the page and kisses the llama over and over again. We read that book two or three times every night at bedtime. I'll eventually have to buy it (it's from the library, naturally) because he doesn't seem to ever get bored of it. I've had it out several times.
sukuw gahs. Circle dogs. see above entry on Llamas. another book. obsessed.

eats the same foods over and over. mumitz (muffins), gups (grapes), kukees (cookies), kees (cheese)

He's lots of fun and lots of work. He definately has a defiant side - lots of arguing, very little compromise (on his part), and lots of drama over the irrational little things that he absolutely must have or do. Like wear his hockey sweater. He's had a couple of complete meltdowns because we occasionally have to take it off. We've resorted to bribery (what joy when I discovered it worked!) on a number of occasions. How such a small person can completely rule our lives is unfathomable, but rule he does.

by the way, new photos on flickr (click on the photo!):