Month: October 2009

These are the things I want to remember

These are the things I want to remember about life with 20-month old Lucas. I write them here because they are ephermal, because they’ll disappear in the blink of an eye or the beat of a heart and I won’t even notice they’re gone, and someday I’ll be sad that I didn’t capture them a little bit better.

I want to remember how he says “Yeah!” with such enthusiasm when you ask him a question, like “Do you want to wear your Bob the Builder jammies tonight?” and he says it so that you cannot mistake the exclamation mark at the end.

I want to remember how he grabs me around the neck and squeezes hard when I pick him up, often crushing his face into mine in a sweetly aggressive sort of mashed-up kiss, as if he has just a little bit too much love for an ordinary hug and kiss to express.

I want to remember how even though he is perfectly capable of saying “Nimon” he calls both of his brothers “Tittan”. He started out calling them “Ninon” and “Ninnan”; now, they are the two-headed brother monster with one name.

I want to remember how he begs for whatever bit of tasty treat you’ve got not unlike a labrador puppy might, by standing as close to you as he can making obvious eye contact with you, all the while encouraging you to share with a musical “Mmm hmmm! Mmm hmmm!”

I want to remember how he must be just like his big brothers in all things, and how he loves to draw when they draw and play with lego when they play with lego. I really don’t think it’s occured to him that they are any older or any different than he is.

I want to remember how he loves certain videos and how he asks for them by ‘name’. Bob the Builder is of course “Bob!” (always with the audible exclamation mark) and Blues Clues is “Puppy!” The Muppets episode with Mark Hamill is less easy to convey; he gargles in the fashion of Angus McGonagle, the Argyle Gargoyle who gargles Gershwin. I’ll need to get the new Flip video camera out for that one, I think.

I want to remember how he loves for us to sing “Old Macdonald” in the car, and how when we pause to allow him to name an animal, he says “Cow!” each and every time, over and over again. (And yes, the exclamation mark is audible on that one, too. I think like any new skill that gets acquired by a toddler, he’s busy incorporating the exclamation into his repetoire through fierce and constant repetition.)

I want to remember how hard it is not to laugh when he is vexed and falls to the floor in a disappointed heap, not exactly throwing a tantrum but utterly exasperated by being denied the whimsy of his desire.

I want to remember his good ear for mimicry, and how he can repeat several words in a sing-song of sounds even though he’s only stringing together a word or two at a time. He will stack up a couple of blocks and then look at me and say, “Don’t you do it!” daring me not to knock over his tower the way he knocks down the ones I build for him. And he is pitch-perfect in capturing my tone as he climbs up onto the table and then scolds himself: “Git DOWN!”

I want to remember the way he chortles with glee and relief when we say it’s time for “Blankey and Soo” the bedtime duo. “Banky Sooooooo” he repeats.

I want to remember the way he looks solemnly into my eyes each night as I tell him the story of his day, agreeing with “Mmm hmm” to the key points, around his mouthful of soother.

I want to remember how utterly beautiful, and exasperating, and exhausting, and fulfilling it can be to parent the ball of curious and relentless and lovingly adorable energy that is Lucas at 20 months. It’s so hard to believe some days that it won’t be like this forever, that it might not be like this next month…

The one with the pancakes in a can — no, really!

Attention marketers and PR types: even if you have a product that might not otherwise catch my attention, if you can contextualize your product as a fun blog post in my head, you’ve got my attention. A good product is fundamental, but you also have to catch my attention — and inspiring my sense of whimsy definitely helps.

That’s what happened today when I had my first — and, I can only imagine, my only — experience of drive-by pancaking. Pancakes from a can, no less. No, seriously!

The Batter Blaster people were in town this morning doing a media tour, and they canvassed a few local bloggers to see if anyone might be interested in having chef Anthony Elman drop by and make a pancake breakfast for the family. That’s not a pitch you get every day! They were pitching a new product called Batter Blaster, which is basically pancake batter in a can. Unfortunately for me, I was already at work by the time I got the e-mail. I ended up exchanging a few e-mails with the PR team, and they offered to drop off a free sample to me downtown and, intrigued, I said yes.

I have to admit, at first I rolled my eyes. Pancake batter in a can that looks suspiciously like a whipped cream canister? But I read the ingredient list, and was surprisingly wholesome. Organic, no less. Since Monday is one of the days that I am on my own for dinner, this seemed like an easy and fun dinner idea. When I was a kid I used to absolutely love the frozen pancake batter you could get in a milk carton. In fact, not that long ago I wondered to Beloved why you can’t get that anymore.

So that’s how I came to meet Julie and Anthony, my Batter Blaster peeps, for an illicit mid-afternoon drive-by pancaking in the Market.

Julie and Tony

They’re super-nice by the way, and they’re surprisingly passionate about their pancakes. Not only did I get dinner, and pictures, and a great blog post, but they had more ideas and recipes, and even threw in (snicker, I swear I am not making this up!) a set of Batter Blaster t-shirts for the family.

The boys were fascinated by the idea of pancakes from a can, and were keen to “help” make dinner.

boys

When you squeeze the trigger, the batter is surprisingly light and fluffy, and kind of melts into a traditional pancake batter as it settles. (Please admire the artistry of taking a photograph one-handed with a right-shutter camera while using my right hand to dispense the batter!)

squirt

I taught the boys the fine art of waiting for the bubbles to surface, and they took turns squirting the batter and flipping the pancakes.

watching

And the true test? Damn, they were really, really tasty pancakes. I mean, really good! Light and fluffy, and better than I usually make from the just-add-water mix.

with syrup

We all agreed.

yum

In fact, I had to step up production when my helpers started absconding to eat the pancakes and I couldn’t make them fast enough.

three in a pan

In fact, we ate the whole can! I think the boys had about five pancakes each. I’d made myself an omelette, because I’m trying to watch my carbs again, but I couldn’t resist one or two myself — they were just that good.

empty table

So that’s the story of how I got drive-by pancaked by Batter Blaster, the pancakes in a can. I wanted to mock this product, but I have nothing left to mock. It was a tasty, easy meal; the clean-up was minimal; the boys played along; I made one meal for all four of us; AND every single piece of the empty can is recyclable. The PR pitch was fun, and so was dinner. Plus, I laughed a lot when I explained it all to Beloved when he got home, from the drive-by pancaking to the free t-shirts.

I’m telling you, sometimes life is stranger than fiction. Pancakes in a can. Who knew?

Project 365: TtV photography and a new toy

So I have a new obsession, a subset of my 365 obsession, which in itself is a subset of my photography obsession, which, it might be argued, is a subset of my “living my life out loud on the Internet” obsession. My new obsession is TtV (through the viewfinder) photography, in which you take a photograph by shooting through the viewfinder of another, usually vintage, camera.

This picture, my photo of the day for last Sunday, is taken through the viewfinder of a camera that I’ve had since I was a kid, my uncle’s old Kodak Brownie Hawkeye.

250:365 TtV apple

But this one is taken through the viewfinder of my latest toy, a Kodak Duaflex IV that I won on eBay this weekend. (It’s the first auction I’ve ever won! I bid on and won a lot of six vintage cameras including a a Baby Brownie Special, and a Brownie Reflex Synchro, THREE Brownie Hawkeyes including a flash unit — that’s in addition to the Brownie Hawkeye I already own, mind you. The other cameras are in middling to rough condition, as you might expect for a lot of vintage cameras, but the one I really wanted, the Kodak Duaflex IV, was in near-mint condition including an original leather case. (You can click through to see what it looks like, but mine is in much better condition.) I got it all for the stellar price of $10.99!

So now instead of murky, fuzzy TtV pictures like the apple above, I can shoot clear and dreamy ones like this one:

253:365 Tea-T-V

I am absolutely fascinated with TtV photography now, and have a half-written post discussing it in more detail for next week. (Edited to add: TtV how-to post is now live!)

The rest of my pictures are all over the map this week. There is nothing even remotely resembling a theme, or a coherent narrative. There’s the obligatory cute baby shot, for example:

248:365 Pucker

And there’s this one. I’d stepped out of my office on the way home into a cool, rainy afternoon, and suddenly there was this massive moving sea of umbrellas crossing the street in front of me… some sort of Japanese tour group, from the look of it. I tried to get a few shots, but they moved surprisingly quickly, and by the time I hopped up on a bench for a higher vantage point (in a short skirt and heels, no less, what a sight I must have been myself!) they’d moved on. This is an *almost* shot that didn’t quite capture what I wanted, but was still good enough for the POTD.

252:365 Umbrella madness

I took this one the same day I wrote the post grumbling about how difficult the homework-dinner-prep-baby-wrangling part of the day is, and you’d never know it from their inherent cuteness how stressful it can all be! But lookit the grip Lucas has on that pencil — not bad for a 19-month-old!

251:365 Homework time

I’m really pleased with how this shot of Tristan’s hockey skates turned out. I think the black and white emphasizes the shapes and the textures, which is what makes this shot look particularly interesting. (IMHO, that is!)

249:365 Hockey skates

And this bike caught my eye when I was going for coffee one morning… I’m not sure why but something about the shape of it appealed to me, out of the dozens of chained-up bikes I walk past every day downtown. It was a drizzly grey morning anyway, so desaturating it to b&w wasn’t much of a stretch, but then I used Photoshop to remove the b&w from the bell, leaving it the original gold colour. I like how all the lines in the picture lead the eye toward the bell.

251b:365 Golden bell

This was yesterday’s picture and yes, it is an editorial comment on how my day went. I don’t know why some days fall apart, and why some days go so spectacularly sideways, but yesterday was one of them, from start to finish. I’m glad it’s over!

254:365 Sigh

And finally, this week happened to include the end of September. In case you haven’t been paying attention, here’s a September recap in the form of the monthly mosaic:

September mosaic

September was a good month. A long month, but a good month. Expect October to be stuffed with shots of fall colour (if the rain ever stops) and more TtV experiments!

Five things that are freaking me out about H1N1

Are y’all feeling a little freaked out by H1N1, the so-called “swine flu”? I’m not usually one to get my knickers in a twist over the panic-du-jour (Y2K, avian flu, computer viruses — why are all the major media panic-attacks linked to either computer or human viruses anyway?) but this one is slowly but surely unnerving me.

Here’s five things that are freaking me out about H1N1.

1. Healthy 40-year-olds are apparently a high risk group, as are toddlers under two.

2. Schools may close, kids have to stay home for up to a week. So, I have an (extremely generous) one week of family-related leave, of which I’ve used most days already. One kid gets sick, needs to stay home for a week, then you know it will be exactly a week later when the next kid gets sick and has to stay home for a week, and there’s no chance that would coincide with whatever time the school is closed, and the nanny happens to be in another risk group so I need to consider protecting her… thank goodness for the generous leave, I couldn’t imagine facing it otherwise.

3. The seasonal flu shot may make you even more susceptible to H1N1.

4. I’m trying to keep the hyperbole from getting to me, but I do find myself conscious of all the shared surfaces I touch in a day — everything from the rails near the bus exit to the door handles at the Rideau Centre (I’ve actually started using my sleeve instead of my bare hand to push them) to the ATM keypad. It’s a slippery slope from here to OCD (and I haven’t even told you about my counting thing!)

5. I’m on the fence about the whole vaccination thing. I get most of the standard vaccines for the boys, and I’m mildly opposed to the Jenny-McCarthy-fearmongering that goes on around vaccines, but vaccinating Lucas for this one gives me the willies. Our family pediatrician doesn’t recommend the seasonal flu vaccine for kids who are otherwise healthy, but he does recommend H1N1 vaccination, which is enough for me. Almost. I read every word of every article like this one, though, trying to figure out which is the lesser of two evils. The one thing I can say is holy hell am I glad I’m not pregnant right now.

So what do you think? Will you get the H1N1 vaccine for yourself, and/or your kids? Is the hype getting to you, or are you rolling your eyes at the Chicken Littles among us? Have you made any other sorts of preparations?