Guck, Guck, Goose

Last week Frances came down with a wee cold. The full effects only lasted two days and it was mild as far as baby colds go but bits of it seem to be lingering. We're now on a strict regime of vitamin-c packed afternoon smoothies and warm baths before bed. A pretty rad regime and one that seems to be doing the trick. 

These baths have been her first with bubbles and the empty bathtub has been added to the long list of things (like dish soap and teeth brushing) that make her ask so sweetly buboes? buboes?

Here's looking at you. 

Water?

Fall!

In non-germ developments, Frances is really quite taken with her bicycle helmet. We pulled it out a few days ago and tried out the baby bike seat on the back of my bike (both awesome and nerve-racking) and now it is worn at least once a day just for fun. 

It seems as though all of her favourite things lately are those that she can name. Elmo still reigns supreme of course, but she's become pretty taken lately with ducks (gucks) and hats (ats aka her bicycle helmet). She finds so much joy in pointing to ducks (anything with a beak really) and having us understand what she means when she declares guck! Or in pointing to her helmet, saying at? and having us hand her exactly what she wants. Watching her learn how to communicate her thoughts with the world and watching her beam at her communication feats is surely one of the best mamma-perks yet.  

Need a New Place To Retire

Lurking behind all of the fall things that I’m happy to tout my love for (see here and here) is a more hush-hush thing-I-love-about-fall. I love knowing that there is a long period of family hibernation right around the corner. 

When the cool nights set in my thoughts turn to entire days spent indoors. Days spent peeking out white windows and feeling a little extra warmth in my belly knowing that I’m not venturing outside (in the wild wind and snow) once all day. They turn to evenings that grow dark at five o’clock and having nowhere to go and nothing to do but flip the radio and snuggle this sweet babe. 

It’s been an amazing spring and summer and our fall is shaping up to be much of the same. I have loved learning to sail and running and sitting on the balcony and walking to the park. Lately though I’m feeling pretty worn. Like all I want to do is flip on the radio and sit down and snuggle. And then go to bed with Frances at eight o’clock. Turning ninety-one next year. Must be. 

At the very same time, since I know that I’ll be among the first to yearn for spring come January I’m going to push hibernation to the back of my mind for just a few more weeks. And get outside and enjoy the things that I will think may never come again when we still have two feet of snow three months after Christmas (spring is so sloooow coming to this little island).Things like crunchy leaf walks and picking cranberries.

Can the change of seasons be your favourite season? I say yes.

I would make a terrible Floridian. 

Saturday and Sunday

Saturday: birthdays, babies and ball games 

(Love this photo)

(Photo by Nanna) 

Sunday: mastering the new slide in Nanna and Granddad's backyard

Wee!

(Photo by Nanna)

Do De Rubber Duck

Seeing as he's on the verge of becoming a member of the family, we've had to set a few limits on elmo viewing: one half an hour of elmo on weekdays while mama makes supper. Her love for him knows no bounds. It amazes me really, that she's so young but so drawn to this fuzzy red monster. Any time she sees a computer anywhere it's melmo? melmo? As much as we were hoping for no sitting in front of screens until she was three it is a pretty cute attachment. And this feels like a good compromise. We do toys and books and parks and music and this one more bright and colourful kind of baby brain stimulation. 

This is her favourite. Fiest and the monsters. Before this video her dance moves always and only involved a little up and down bounce. Now she watches and twists and sways her shoulders back and forth along with Fiest and the monsters. The cute of it all.

And this is my favourite. It's a classic but I don't remember it from when I was little. I guess it got edged out by the more famous and straightforward rubber ducky you're the one.  

The Finish Line

First 10km: 59 minutes and 20 seconds.

Pretty beaming proud of myself.

A Fair Affair

All anticipation for the parade. 

Checking out the cow float up close. 

Handsome scooting fella in the parade. 

Sharing a seat (kind of) with sweet Sunny.

Happy Saturday

Thankfully this week didn't feel nearly as long as last week. Our new work and nap and play and everything else schedule is working really well. Frances is down to one nap a day now and I couldn't be happier. There were quite a few weeks where we hovered between one and two naps, her morning nap as usual and then extreme tiredness at six-thirty in the evening: too early for bed and way too late for a second nap. One nap means that we can get out a lot more and get a lot more done since the threat of an evening meltdown is now behind us. We've got a lot planned for this weekend: a fair, a race and a sail are top of the list. To celebrate the arrival of cooler weather (our windows are officially closed now) here are some stunning cool weather photos from around the web. Oh the beauty that is.

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Trois Vallees, French Alps

Edinburgh

To Every Season

Oh the anguish of packing up little dresses and jumpers at the end of summer. Not just because the balmiest days are behind us, but because she'll never wear any of these sweet little outfits again.

At the end of last summer I kept all of my favourite pieces in the back of her dresser, convinced that she couldn't possibly grow that much. Maybe they'd just be a bit snug when the sunny days rolled around again. As winter wore on and she grew and grew and grew, I put on my longest face and stashed the holdouts at the back of the closet along with the 'too-small' everything else.

But then, with packing up comes unpacking. When I found out I was pregnant, padraig cottage slippers were the one thing I had to have. A treat for the tiny baby in my tummy who I couldn't imagine ever being old enough to run from room to room in them.

They're still a bit big so maybe at the end of winter I'll just stash them at the back of the dresser in case they still fit next fall. You never know.

Once the camera was out I thought I'd give manual focus a try. I like it better than auto focus but with a moving target, having one more thing to align can be one too many. We won some: 

And lost some:

First Mate Frances

Last week was long. Or maybe it just felt long. Frankie's eye teeth are dancing in (two steps forward one step back) and seem to do their heaviest tapping at night. It was also the first week that required some adjustment to a newish work schedule while still trying to get done in a day all that was done before. Consequently there were a lot of rest and refresh expectations riding on this weekend. We faired okay. Just okay. Some to dos were done and some morning relaxation had but I'd gladly take a redo if anyone's mastered that time rewind sequence. 

This week should be easier - our new schedule is now scheduled and all the paperwork for this little guy is complete:

Meet David, our new Suzuki. Our not-so-trusty red one was eleven years old and it was a neon surely making it the holder of some sort of longevity record. 

This copper fella has lots of fancy features including no need to ever dig the key out from the bottom of your giant and full purse. So long as the key is with you (wedged somewhere between a baby sock and a cheque book) you just press a button to open the door and another to start the car. Although it may sound mundane, the next time you leave the house with a baby, a diaper bag, a fistful of toys, and a giant purse, it will feel revolutionary. Novelty aside, we all feel so very much safer when driving around town. And so very much braver when we venture more than thirty kilometers from home. 

Baby in the front seat (parked of course).

Also this. 

We had hoped to take Frances on her first boat ride this weekend but the wind and ever earlier sunsets had other ideas. Still she modeled her new life jacket (thank you great aunt ruth and great uncle robert) and it fit as snug as a bug in a rug. Hopefully she'll get a chance to try out her sea legs later this week. No sails, since it takes two of us to sail and at least one more of us to hold onto her, just a nice little motored putt around the harbour. I think she is going to love it.  

Nannas and Babies

Love Love

Tedx Bras d'Or

A few weeks ago a whole lovely Saturday was spent listening to ideas. Big ideas. New ideas. Inspiring ideas. Ideas that are changing the way we do things. For the better. Right now. Today.

In some ways it feels like ideas have been made into the problem child of the twenty-first century. They're unruly. They're all over the place. They're fond of upheaval. And so they've been tossed aside as being too cerebral or not leading to efficient and immediate and measurable change. But a world that shuns ideas is surely a grey and sterile place where old answers are continually applied to new questions and few problems are ever really solved. Ideas are the source of innovation and action. Especially impassioned action. The kind that accomplishes huge things with almost no money because it is fueled entirely by someone's belief in their idea.

The videos from this event haven't yet been released .Fortunately though, we were able to watch a few clips from other larger Ted Talks. These were two of my favourites. 

The first is by Temple Grandin. A few years ago there was a movie made about her life. I'm sure it is a fantastic enough movie, though I can't imagine it being nearly as moving as these twenty minutes. Temple is an animal rights activist and animal behaviour consultant who has changed the way that slaughter houses and the livestock industry operate. She is also autistic. In this talk she offers some pretty amazing insights into the autistic mind, types of autism and why all of these minds have so much to offer.

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This second video keeps creeping back into my head. I'll be driving somewhere or just about to fall asleep and find myself thinking of Robert Hammond. How this completely average person woke up one day with an idea and then made it happen. I bet it felt impossible. I bet almost everyone told him it was impossible. I bet that there were days and nights and weeks where it felt like it was finally time to give up. But he didn't. And so this completely average person built a park in the sky. Just like that.

For hundreds (like seven hundred) more great ideas check out Ted Talks. And watch for a Tedx event near you!

A September Slow Down

Last week when I realized that another month was almost through I started to feel a little nervous. A lot of nervous actually. Although unofficially, the first of September marks the start of autumn. The start of the very best and most fleeting season of all, with leaves to crunch, apples to pick, colours to admire, pies to bake and favourite sweaters to unpack. The thought of these cooler days passing us by as quickly as most of our days do now is almost unbearable. So here's to slower days and nights. To a long and warm fall. To evening walks with steaming cups of vanilla earl grey tea. To pumpkin pie french toast. To bundled up babies. To sunday dinners and apple cider and a holiday that doesn't ask to list what else we want but to remember how much we already have. 

The photos below are from our pretty perfect start to this loveliest of seasons: a night away, a hotel room with cartoons, a beach swim, a park, a bonfire, a baby with a marshmallowy face, and a sunset sail.  

Seashore.

Sand love. 

Slide love. 

A scottish golfer and his concerned swimmer.  

My favourite. 

Silent night.

Long Live Melmo

Over the last few weeks Frankie's word world has been on the up and up. Her first five words (mamma, dadda, uh oh, wow and woof) lasted her quite a while. But now? Now she's got a story to tell. A story about bubbles, hippos and nannas.

Her word world at fifteen months: 

Bawl (ball)

Bubboe (bubble) 

Baybay (baby)

Beep beep 

Nanna 

Gog (dog) 

Guck (duck) 

Apple and Hippo (although she doesn't really understand what either means)

Up (used for both getting picked up and put down)

And last but most definitely not least Melmo (Elmo). Her disposable diapers have Elmo on them and she loves pulling up her dress or down her pants and pointing to Melmo. Oh yes, time to switch brands. 

Her three favourite things in the universe are now balls, bubbles and Elmos. She was kind of indifferent to them until she learned to beamingly point to each and say its name. Now its bawls, bubboes and melmo all day long. With the exception of Melmo I've been really good about repeating the correct pronunciation of words back to her. But Melmo? I die of an instant cuteness attack. Long live Melmo!

She left this headband on for five minutes.

It was crazy adorable for the whole five minutes. 

Bare foot home depot baby. She is going to hate winter clothing.