E is starting to use words in conjunction with each other, to refine the concepts he can communicate. It’s pretty cool! He started with “chair pop”, when one of the bubbles we blew popped against the lawn chair; then there’s “nose hole”, one of his favourite things on himself or anyone; and the other day it was “mouse shoe”. (The day before, Daddy had put one of E’s shoes on the rubbery mouse that goes with the blocks – it stands up like a person and is small enough that its whole bottom half fit in the shoe. So they played with the “giant-footed mouse” and E liked it that way. When the shoe came off the next day, the mouse was NOT AS FUN.) Continued…
SPOILER ALERT: I may discuss Potter plot. If you have been meaning to read Harry Potter – any of it – and still haven’t gotten around to it… what’s wrong with you? Go read it. Just close this window and go. Shoo!
For the rest of you… here we go. It’s a doozy.
Ahem.
We humans are constantly forming hierarchies. Just as in the Canadan military, for example, there is a continuum from Second Lieutenant to General, Harry Potter fandom also exists on a scale (sorry, my terms are just not as pithy as the army’s):
Level 1 – Tragically Unaware (Non-Fan): “Hi, welcome to my cave under this rock. No, I’m afraid I’m not acquainted with any hairy potters.”
Level 2 – Too Cool for Hogwarts (Negative Fan): “I don’t read Harry Potter, it’s just too popular. I try to avoid/hate on things thousands of people say are good.” [N.B.: if you are this, I'm not sure you should be reading this blog at all. Perhaps you should go here instead.] Continued…
That’s TWICE I’ve gone gallivanting to the movies in as many weeks!! What is the world coming to?
My hubby and I were going to see Inception, but circumstances prevented it. If we were to go to the movies again sometime soon (can you imagine??), that would be why. Meanwhile, Sean was pretty stoked to see this flick.
I know I’d seen a trailer for Scott Pilgrim… but it didn’t really prepare me. I left the cinema feeling rather stunned and overwhelmed, and even a little confused – but also amused!
Here’s my advice. Don’t see Scott Pilgrim vs. The World if you:
are a recovering retro-video game addict – it’ll send you back to the bad place;
get nauseated watching hand-to-hand combat; Continued…
(Hope you don’t mind my use of bullets in practically every post… I love them so.)
E is still a Baby – he said so. Daddy asked him this morning, “Who’s a cutie-pie?” and he tapped his own chest and said, “Baby.” (He also apparently knows he’s a cutie-pie… which is not surprising since we can’t seem to stop ourselves from calling him that many times a day.)
E also likes other Babies. Any small child he sees, even those quite a bit bigger than he is, he calls “Baby”. In books, he calls them “Baby” if they’re bald… and if they’re girls with hair, they’re “Doll”. Hmmm. This could be problematic later on. Continued…
The GGG’s latest book, discussed yesterday over frozen drinks on the patio (which, now that I think about it, is a bit ironic), was Three Cups of Tea, by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin.
It says Greg Mortenson’s name first on the cover, but it seemed to me that David Oliver Relin was more the author, since it was all third-person, very much about Greg – obviously with in-depth personal knowledge of his thoughts and feelings, but also written with a pronounced admiration Greg certainly wouldn’t have written about himself.
Anyway!
The GGG was unanimous on the following points:
Greg Mortenson is an amazing person/character. If there’s one thing you take away from this book, it has to be that one person CAN make an immense difference to the lives of thousands, even millions – to the point of changing the political landscape – but not just any person. This guy is off-the-charts special.
None of us would marry him. Despite his motivation, tenacity, charisma, facility with languages, and extreme kindness… none of us would trade places with his wife, Tara Bishop, who is not only without her husband and the father of her children for large chunks of every year, but he goes to the Middle East, gallivants on mountains, rubs shoulders with terrorists… all with good reason, but frankly, it’s amazing he is still alive. And that she survives the stress. Continued…
Here are some more Bits, for E’s beloved Papa (my dad, his grandpa – Papa is what we call him and E has now latched onto the term)… because there are always more! I just don’t want to bore you with every little time he says something cute… plus there are too many to count…
I forgot to mention a few other skills he picked up at Camp:
He can bat his eyes. Sorta. I think it was one of our kitchen staff, who is exactly the sort of pretty young woman E likes to flirt with, who charmed him by looking at him all coy and then batting her eyes. Now if you blink at him, he’ll grin and blink purposefully back. So far about once per second is as fast as he can blink… but it’s still rather charming.
He painted his first-ever piece of art in kids’ program Continued…
E has a joke. It involves putting random things on his head and saying “Hat.” Lately he’s getting especially silly and putting multiple “hats” on Mama or Daddy at once. Latest example is an aluminum pie plate AND a plastic octopus… what a stylish combo!
His vocabulary is growing at a ridiculous rate – it almost freaks me out. But then he still does sometimes come out with a phrase that I am pretty sure is accidental (or I hope so, anyway) – like the time he woke up and said “Biker gang”, or the time Sean and I were talking about taking him to the potty and he grinned at us and said, “F**k that.” You can imagine the way our jaws dropped. Continued…
A friend of mine recently told me I would need some more movie reviews for folks like her on my blog, since she is a hardened movie addict. I meant to write a review of Toy Story 3 a few weeks ago, when I actually saw it, but then I ran out of time before Camp.
But since there’s a request… and it’s still in theatres…
I saw the first two Toy Story movies back when they were new, or at least newer. I loved the concept – not just because you get to see retro toys, like ones I actually owned as a kid, brought to life, but also because I was always a believer in the secret lives of my toys. It made perfect sense to me that they would have feelings, want to be played with, and have adventures on the sly. The movies were very entertaining and satisfying.
Well, I truly did try on Day One of Family Camp to send out a photo, and couldn’t figure it out from my iPhone. There’s probably a way, but at the time I was cooking for 35 people and single-parenting (lots of help on both counts, but still) so I didn’t pursue it.
There are too many wonderful moments to count, and certainly too many to blog, but here are a few:
Two 3-year-old boys and two 3-year-old girls – there was playing and imagination in the extreme
Watching babies fall asleep on their moms in Meeting
Seeing 6-month-old sleep any old where, and looking like it was the best snooze spot possible Continued…
