Basket Fun

I am just getting sicker and sicker. Yesterday I actually felt better in the evening, but this morning I feel like my head is made of lead and my nose is as big as a bus. Luke seems to be doing fine. He's got a runny nose, but so far no fever or any other symptoms of a cold.

These pictures are from yesterday evening. The basket was a big hit with the kids. They took turns sitting in it, and Cammy pulled Luke around in it. Luke is a pretty good crawler now, and can stand up and play with toys on the coffee table with Cameryn now. Cammy wanders around the house saying, "Come, 'Uke. Come!" And then she handed him the baseball mitt and threw the stuffed baseball at him and said, "Etch!" Luke laughs and laughs at her, and follows her around on the floor. Luke is determined to catch her and pull her hair, as you can see in the picture where he's climbing Helene's leg to get to Cammy. We barbecued hamburgers, and even though yesterday was colder than the last few days, let me tell you: it felt like Spring! Potato salad and hamburgers! Oh, I can feel it coming.

Yesterday before we left the house I posted the blog, and while I was in the back room Luke was hanging out in the living room playing with Lightning McQueen and poking Sookie through the wires. After a few minutes I noticed it got very quiet. I was just about to go check on things when I heard Luke laughing hysterically. I ran out into the living room, and wouldn't you know it! Luke had managed to open Sookie's crate and she was on top of him licking his face, while he laughed his head off.

Doing Dishes

I have a cold, so last night while I was laying on the couch, Luke and Derek did dishes. It's hard to get anything done in the kitchen these days because Luke crawls right over and wants to climb your legs or get right in the oven while you're preheating it. But helping put dishes away was pretty darn cute.

Today Luke and I slept in a little and then our day becomes a whirlwind. Luke is staying with Helene most of the day while I head to Winnipeg for a meeting about the School of Writing. I'm also going to get to see Megan for a minute or two over lunch! I was really excited about this trip to Winnipeg without the baby, but now that I'm sick I am starting to worry about how exhausted I will be at the end of the day. Thankfully, Helene has invited us over for supper so I don't have to worry about that when I get home!

Old MacDonald

Luke and I sing Old MacDonald almost everyday, and we read poems about all the farm animals. Today, St. Patrick's Day, it was especially poignant. MacDonald is Irish, you know. He immigrated to Canada from Ireland in the 1600's to save his children from having to fight in what seemed like the constant back and forth battle between the Old Irish and the new English and Scottish settlers. When he got to Canada he was given a parcel of land from the government, in exchange for a percentage of his crop income for the first ten years. After ten long, hard years (the land was covered in trees, how was he supposed to farm?!), he had paid his debt to the country and the land was his.

The song written in his honor, "Old MacDonald", is perhaps one of the saddest children songs ever written. "Old MacDonald" HAD a farm - as in, he no longer HAS a farm. So either he's dead, or some multi-national corporation bought him out and the land that had been in his family for generations was sold off, depersonalized, and most likely exploited. Poor Old MacDonald. The old farm house was torn down, the cattle siphoned off to some larger, less clean facility and the stone carrying the family name was heaped with all the other ancient stones that had been dragged from the field where they were once placed to mark the edges of MacDonald's property. If he's not dead yet, he's probably heart-broken over his choice to sell the farm. I know I am. And doesn't Luke look sad, too?

These are a few of my favorite things

I wanted to post the picture of Luke with pancake in his ear, but it looks like it was accidentally deleted. Luke has decided pancake is on the top of his Favorite Foods list. He also likes bran muffins, sweet potatoes, cool whip, and bread of any shape or flavor. Saturday morning I made pancakes and we let him feed himself. As I was taking him out of the high chair I noticed he had pancake in his ear! Of course there was pancake everywhere else, but somehow I didn't expect to see any in his ear.

Saturday night we went to the Winkler Skate Club annual review. I love to watch figure skating. Luke didn't enjoy it as much as I had hoped because he didn't nap very well during the day and was really tired. Celeste's two daughters are involved in the Skate Club and they both won awards, so it was very nice to be there.

We had fog yesterday! But it wasn't like Shafter fog. This was freezing fog that made everything white. It was beautiful. Harv and Helene came back Saturday night and we had lunch with them on Sunday. Luke left a huge mess under his high chair at the restaurant. Once again he had pancakes (Derek ordered breakfast), and a dinner roll. I had planned on feeding him some of my vegetables, but they were inedible, chewy, cold bits of disgusting. Luke is really enjoying starting to feed himself. Food is quickly becoming the high point of the day for this little guy.

By the way, at the restaurant the waitress said she'd love to baby-sit such a cute little guy and a total stranger stopped us and told us, "What a handsome little boy you've got!" I'm not the only one.

Roller Coaster

Luke has never ridden a roller-coaster, although when I was pregnant with him I DID ride a merry-go-round at Disneyland. He acts like an old pro at roller-coaster riding when he's in his exersaucer. He tosses his hands in the air and jumps, jumps, jumps and his shout gets louder and louder until he shouts, "AAAAAHHHH", ending with a breathy satisfied sigh, then turns to whoever's in the room and smiles a huge smile.

This morning was pretty strange. I think maybe Luke's having a growth spurt, or has another little cold. He went to bed at 8:30 last night, just like always. But this morning he woke up at 6:45. I fed him at 7am and then laid him back down in his crib thinking maybe, just maybe I could get a few more minutes of sleep...I woke up at 9am, and Luke was still asleep! He slept until 9:30! It was beautiful.

Then we read cookbooks and came up with a dessert for tonight. We're having dinner with James, Jaime, their kids, and Doug. We're just ordering pizza, but I wanted to make a nice dessert. I've been craving cheesecake, but after looking at the cookbooks, Luke and I decided just to make something that has cream cheese in it. So we're either going to make that dessert that I don't know the name for that Mom always used to make with pistachio pudding but I like better with chocolate pudding, OR earthquake cake. Mmmm. I had to call Plain Ol' Grammy to get the recipe for Mom's dessert, and Grammy had it listed as "LeeAnn's Dessert". So none of us really know what it's called! Well, good food and good company will be a good end to a (pretty) good week.

Nightmare

Photos: Sookie is trying to teach Luke how to open her crate so she can make a break for it. And Luke is climbing my leg. He tries to climb everybody's legs. He even tried to climb Cameryn's legs the other day and once he got himself up to hold onto her shoulder, he decided a thank-you gesture was in order and pulled her hair.

I have a few very exciting opportunities coming up, but they all sort of overlap and I am getting nervous about being able to do them all at once. First there is the photography for CMU's School of Writing. My former English professor accepted my offer to photograph the event and asked if I would like to take the Poetry class in exchange for my photography. Then she asked if I would also like to be her Woman Friday for the event! To do all of this I will have to spend the entire week in Winnipeg, and have a baby-sitter for Luke the whole week too. To top it all off, the photography class that I planned on attending at Prairie View School of Photography begins the very same week and goes from 7-10pm, one night a week for six weeks. And I still have to decide how we're going to work the feeding thing. Will I wean Luke before May 4th? Will I pump? Tough decisions!

All of these things are running through my head at once and I am beginning to wonder if I'm in over my head. And then I have the nightmare. Ugh, it was horrible. I was shooting a wedding with my Nikon and my three flash cards. I got the ceremony all on one card, and most of the reception. The bride wanted a picture with her whole family at the reception, so with all the guests watching we set up the family around the head table and I took a test shot. It was far too dark, so I had to get my flash. As soon as I put the flash on my camera and took one test shot, my battery died. I had to go back and get my spare battery. As soon as that was done and I went back to take the picture my CF card blinked FULL. Everyone was getting pretty antsy by now and the bride was getting frustrated. As I dug around looking for my spare CF cards I realized I had left them in my pocket. I reached in and pulled out these totally mashed, destroyed CF cards. They were leaking wet, colorful pictures like liquid film.

I started to cry, but went back through the only CF card that was working and started deleting anything I thought I might not need. I cried as I deleted and deleted and deleted, trying to make room for the rest of the wedding but distraught that I had to get rid of pictures before I was certain I didn't need them. Finally I took the family's picture and I hadn't yet photographed the reception details, like the cake and the tables! I was frantic. Then I woke up.

The good news is, three weeks from today Luke and I are coming down to California! We are getting very excited, and Luke is practicing his wave so he can say hello to everyone properly.

Dog Vomit

It's about time I tell this revolting story. I've been trying to forget it for several days, but I think the only way I can truly purge my memory is to tell the story.

I bravely took the dog and the baby with me to the veterinarian. Or perhaps it was not an issue of bravery, but rather of stupidity. I knew my hands would be full, but I thought I could handle it. It's a bitterly cold day, that's even how they described it on the weather station. "Bitterly cold with a dangerous windchill". I manage to get everyone packed in the car, Sookie on the floor in the front passenger seat. Of course she is not happy down there and continually attempts to jump into the passenger seat which is blocked by my diaper bag/backpack, so she ends up climbing up the side of my backpack and hanging on by her fingernails trying to balance and stay on top of it. I keep pushing her back down.

We get to the vet's office and suddenly I am at a loss. Do I take the baby in and ask the nurse to hold him while I get the dog or do I take the dog in and ask the nurse to hold the dog while I get the baby? I settle on taking the dog in first. The problem arises once I get inside and there's nobody behind the desk. I wait and wait and wait, and the baby's still outside, alone in the car! Finally somebody comes and agrees to hold the dog. I run out to the baby who is, by now, crying.

When we come back in the nurse has weighed Sookie, and been peed on by Sookie. What a good dog, eh? Everything goes pretty well during the visit. She doesn't even seem to feel the shot, she's happy as a clam with the vet who says she's healthy and beautiful, all these things which we knew before. So we head back out to the car: baby first, then dog.

Once we're in the car Luke falls right to sleep. He hasn't had a nap all day long and by now it is 4:30. He has been incredibly grumpy, and presumably is teething, but AT LAST he sleeps! I decide to extend this nap by driving around a bit. But Sookie is still unhappy on the floor of the car. She clambers up onto the seat over and over. Finally she seems to settle down onto the cushion on the floor. But moments later I realize why she's so still...she's about to puke! I curse loudly and the baby wakes up..and what more can I do?! I can't stop, and even if I did pull over I have nothing to clean this mess up with, and opening the car doors for any length of time does not seem smart with such a cold wind. She pukes right into the depression beneath the handbrake, and it just keeps coming! It fills the spot beneath the handbrake, overflows down the side of the passenger seat and into the soft black rubber around the brake.

Gross. Gross, gross, GROSS! It smells like dog food, and now she's eating it again. I try to stop her from eating it, but then I realize the more she eats, the less I'll have to clean up, so I let her at it. The only thing I can do now is drive straight home. The sound of her licking makes me want to vomit too.

I should have gotten a baby-sitter.