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We're in the Pioneer Press

Check it out, we're on the cover of the Pioneer Press today! It's a neat story about our Twitter use.

It's interesting and weird to see yourself in print like that. I think it was a nicely written story!

My biggest nervousness comes from thinking people will come to my blog and see my horrible blog design. *Shudders* I designed this like six years ago. I have a new one that I'm working on, but you know how slow things go these days...

Caleb Update

I can't believe Caleb will be one year old in just two weeks!

He said his first sentence today. He looked at the cat, who was sleeping on the couch, extended his hand (his version of waving looks more like giving the power or faith healing) and said "Ha titi!" Which was putting together "hi" and "kitty." I was like, "Dude, that's a sentence!" A couple of weeks ago, if I shut off a light, he'd say "Aight ffffffffff." That means that the light is off. But, he never said the light is off, so it doesn't count as his first sentence.

Today he learned how to whistle. He puckers up his lips and this low tone comes whistling out. When I whistle back to him, he laughs and claps, then tries to whistle again but can't because he's laughing. So, things have to be very calm for him to share it with you!

We read lots of stories and he has his favorites. He will get a book from his shelf and bring it to me, patting it. He'll sit in my lap and rock back and forth while I read. He will respond to me now too. I'll say, "Where's the ducky?" and he'll hit the page really hard where the ducky is. Then I say "Yay! That's the ducky!" while he claps for himself. He especially loves the books I sing to him like Wheels on the Bus and Row Row Row Your Boat.

Man can Caleb crawl. I get stopped at church a lot by people telling me how fast my kid can crawl. Usually the words "wiggly," "curious," and "speedy" come up as well. That's Caleb. Man he's fast and he gets into everything.

He is starting to "help" with jobs around the house. He helps unload the dishwasher (emptying the silverware onto the floor), and he helps with the laundry. He will sit with me and either put clothes in or take clothes out of the washer. He will also "wash" his tray or the table if I give him a washcloth and say "Clean, clean, clean!" He grins and wipes it back and forth. He also pushes the laundry basket from the top of the stairs to my bedroom and then hands me things while I fold them. I think he enjoys making himself useful.

He has started walking, and has probably done about six steps in his peak performance. I think the biggest problem slowing down his walking, besides being awesome at crawling, is that he gets distracted half way through. It's like, "I'm going to go to mommy! I'm almost there! Just go a little further... hey! What's that over there! It's shiny!" Then he plops down to go explore whatever it is that he saw.

Caleb LOVES the beach. We go there once a week and he especially loves patting down dirt that I shovel into a pile and "bear walking" back and forth in and out of the water. I'm looking for a good water activity we can do once it's too cold to be on the public beeches. On a related note, I have learned that, when babies eat sand, the body does not digest it as we would hope.

Caleb also really enjoys being outside. He crawls around our whole backyard. He likes to go to the tree and pat it, then go to the flower bed and explore the plants, then go to the playground to play on everything (with my help), then crawl over to the back step and explore the garden hose hung on the wall. I'm looking forward to getting our back patio poured so it won't be so dirty back there. But, I've had an attitude of "clothes can be washed" so I don't care if he gets dirty.

Josh and I were removing some patio block and Caleb was "helping" us. There were lots of worms under the blocks and he was fascinated by them. He'd pick them up and they'd squirm and he'd get all excited. At one point, he started sucking on one and Josh and I said "EWWWWWWWWW!!!" while I took it out of his mouth. Ewwww, indeed.

Caleb's buddy is Ella. He will call to her and she will come to him maybe 1/2 of the time he calls. He pets her nicely by stroking her back and rubbing her neck. Sometimes he pets her not-nicely by hitting her head, but we're working on that. One time I was sitting on the couch with Caleb and Ella sat by us, he proceeded to pet her with his feet and laugh. I also caught Caleb trying to feed Ella a piece of fuzz. She turned her head away from it so he lifted up her lip and stuck it in there. I intervened just in time so poor Ella didn't have to eat fuzz.

I have lots of pictures of loved ones that I've clothes-pinned around the lower levels of Caleb's room. He takes them off and carries them around the house. Once he was looking at some pictures upside-down, I turned them the correct direction and then he turned his head sideways to look at them because he apparently wanted to look at them that way. Who knows.

He also loves music. He will point to our iPod dock and do the sign for music and I will turn on music for him. He rocks back and forth and claps. He also will "play" the piano, guitar, and banjo whenever I let him. We signed him up for Musikgarten for fall and I'm sure he'll love it.

Caleb uses the following signs: Finished/All Done, Round-and-Round (sign for "spin," we use for fans & wheels), Music, Dog (hard to tell if he's doing the sign for dog or just patting in excitement), Art (which I'm teaching him is to be used for things framed and hung on a wall... for now), and Light. He also understands other signs I use with him, but has not signed them back, including Cat, Dad, Milk, Drink, Where, and More.

He has four teeth on top and two on the bottom. Based on his fussiness tonight and some gum swelling, I think more will be here soon. He likes to chew things.

I have been preparing most of his foods from the Petit Appetit Cookbook, which is the best baby cookbook I've found. Heck, I love the recipes from there! He eats mini muffins, baby biscotti (usually I dip it in peach juice for him), cooked vegetables, various beans & rices, pasta, egg yolks (hard boiled), cheeses (especially loves cottage cheese & ricotta & cheddar), fruits (especially loves berries), YoBaby yogurt, meats (especially turkey lunch meat and hamburger), corn puffs, and cereal puffs. I have been giving him ice cream cones too and he loves them. I just put a tiny bit of ice cream in those kid cones and he just laughs the whole time he eats it like he's in some kind of fantasy world or something. It's pretty funny... and messy!

Those are the basics of what he's doing right now. What a little joy he is!

Harry Potter

I finally started reading the Harry Potter books. I know, horribly late, how could I wait so long?, out of the loop, blah, blah, blah. The truth of the matter was that, when the books were all in fad, I was too busy reading other stuff regarding art, art history, teaching, cultural studies, technology and other mumbo jumbo to finish my California credential, National Board certification, then master's degree. After that came the "O crap, do I really know how to be a parent?" books. The only fiction that filtered through all of those years was the Ender and Bean series by Orson Scott Card, a bunch of David Sedaris, and some random books that I started reading by chance and simply couldn't put down.

I admit, I've seen all the Harry Potter movies that have come out. So, I'm doing things backwards by doing movies first and books second. I'm okay with that.

In retrospect, I'm actually glad that I waited for two reasons. First, I like being different from the culture and that means sometimes I purposefully avoid things that are "cool" just because they are so. Do your own psychological analysis on why I'm like that, but I've always been a tad rebellious and I figure this is a healthier way to rebel than other potential ways. Second, because now I can just plow through all the books without having to wait with baited breath for the next book to come out. They are all out and I can read them as quickly or leisurely as I want. I think this is why I don't watch television anymore. I wait for the complete series of a show to come out (or a complete season, or at least individual shows), then I watch it at my own pace on Hulu or through Netflix. I guess this is just how I roll these days. I like to be in control of my viewing/reading pace rather than be at the whim of what the industry thinks is the most profitable and possible way to feed their media to the public. I digress...

So, the first book, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, was quite good. I quick little read. I loved all of the little details in it that the movie did not have. I am almost done with the second book, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.

Funny thing is that I told Josh I wanted to read the book, then watch the movie, then read the next book, and watch that movie, and so on. Well, we started watching the Sorcerer's Stone movie yesterday, but I was reading The Chamber of Secrets. I'd watch part of Sorcerer's Stone, then Caleb would wake up and I'd read Chamber of Secrets while I nursed him back down. Then I'd go downstairs to watch some more Sorcerer's Stone, only to have Caleb wake up again, so I'd read some more Chamber of Secrets while getting him back to sleep, then back downstairs to watch the Sorcerer's Stone. My brain had to work really hard not to confuse the plots.

And seriously, I must say that the Harry Potter series is perfectly cast. Especially Alan Rickman as Professor Severus Snape. Seriously. That dude's awesome.

All of this being said, I'm enjoying the books. Hopefully I'll be able to get my hands on books 3 & 4 to read at the stuga this weekend.

Pigeon Print on Window

Pigeon on Window, originally uploaded by StephLewis.

While we were staying with my parents in February 2008, we heard a loud noise upstairs. My dad came inside the house and said a goshawk was chasing the pigeons. We looked on the dining room window and saw this print of a flying pigeon on the window. Turns out this pigeon ran straight into the window while trying to outfly the goshawk. The pigeon died (we found him below the window outside). But, isn't it weird that this perfect imprint was left on the window? Must've been the dust in his feathers or something. Check out the detail, it's creepy!

Baby Bunny

Henson & Ella with Bobos, originally uploaded by StephLewis.

I was out in our yard today with Ella and Caleb. Ella was just sniffing around like usual while Caleb and I were on the swings. Then I heard this loud "Reeeee!" sound and saw three baby bunnies go bolting across the yard in different directions. Ella was standing over something with her tail wagging wildly. Caleb and I went over there and I saw a baby bunny writhing, then lay still.

It was so weird because Ella seems like this sweet, caring dog. But, something in her "ran a procedure buried deep in her ROM," as Josh said. It's crazy how dogs are bred for specific purposes and there are some things in them that you just can't train out of them. It reminds me to be extra careful in selecting the breed of dog you want to welcome into your home. Ella's breed, the miniature dachshund was developed to hunt rabbits. And that she does.

Sidenote: When we were staying with my parents during our in-between California and Minnesota time, Henson was with my dad outside. A rabbit went across the yard and my dad shouted, "Get him!" Henson took off after the rabbit, chased him through the woods, and came back carrying a hunk of fur in his teeth. So, Henson was serious about some bunny hunting too. He passed away a few weeks ago and we miss him, he was our little buddy.