Drawings

Joel asked me to draw what he was drawing (while he was drawing it). This is one of the set of things we drew at the same time. I really appreciated this way of getting to be with him and to see how these drawings unfold. I've seen lots that look like this only after he's already all done. So, it was neat to get to see oh this is how these things come about.

I'm looking forward to doing this more with Joel. It brought about similar qualities as some art exercises to do that I wrote some notes about here:
http://e-a-s-e.blogspot.com/2015/12/deliberately-doing-activity-that-will.html

Joel's asleep right now, so I can't ask him to tell me about this drawing that my parents just emailed me. We'll see if I end up getting around to updating this blogpost with thoughts on this drawing after I get to talk to Joel about it. :)

What's in the bag?

Watch this video to find out!  Want more?  Here is a prequel that you can watch, too.

Squirrels should eat slowly, too

Peter likes to feed squirrels on the window sill next to our kitchen table.  So, we get to do a lot of great close up squirrel watching.  Man man chi (eat slowly) is something that my mom often says to Joel, and that's what Joel had to say to a squirrel who was eating squash seeds the other day.

Tofu that grows on trees

One fun thing that we've been pantomiming is collecting food from trees and eating it.  We have some wallpaper in our entryway with a tree pattern on it.  Here's a picture from when Joel was a newborn that has the wallpaper in it:

We started out by picking berries off the trees.  After picking a few berries and eating them, Joel suggested that we also pick tofu off the trees.  We already suspected that tofu was a big favorite with Joel, and this confirmed it for me.

Writing this has made me realize that before all the recent pantomiming we've just discovered we can do, we already were pantomiming taking baths with laundry baskets.  The first time I did this was with a doll.  After doing all the things that I could think of that Joel did in the bath, Joel made me realize that I'd left out an important activity.  He put the doll's face down to the level of the pretend water to pantomime having it drink the bath water.  No bath is complete without drinking bath water for Joel!

Happy Halloween!

Noooooo

Click here to see a video that speaks for itself. 

Fun stuff

The other members of our household have been up to some fun stuff, too.

"A Book of Sounds" and "What Did You Find?" kids' books: I found myself inspired to create some kids' books...which led me to a website where you can not only easily create books but also record sounds for each page. (Update: Sadly, this website for creating books, Tikatok, is no more. They closed without much explanation.) Click here to see "A Book of Sounds" to see what having the ability to add sound led me to come up with. Being able to add sound also facilitated some great interactions at a family gathering recently...so I was able to capture lots of great audio...that I'm still in the process of organizing into a book... Fortunately, for the first book I completed, I kept things simple and was inspired by knowing the pictures would be easy to generate...otherwise I'd probably still only be in the process of creating books rather than having two books that are already shareable... This first book is called "What Did You Find?" and you can see it by clicking here.

"Patient zero" blog post: Click here to read about the self-experimentation with "patient zero" that Peter has been doing with inserting DNA into his skin cells. At least two other people have expressed eagerness in being "patient one" after all has gone well with patient zero.

"Fun at camp" video: "Camp" is our euphemism for the place we board Quartz when we travel...at least it's a cage-free environment where he gets to play with other dogs. Click here to see a video of Quartz playing with a dog named Puzzle. The person who filmed the video said that the dogs usually stop playing whenever she gets the camera out, but this time she managed to get quite a bit of good footage.

Hands on

What fun! A place where Joel can play with water where we don't have to be holding him up to the height of the sink! The preschool gallery at the Hands-On Museum had lots of great kid-sized, kid-friendly stuff for Joel to play with.

He seemed quite taken with alternating between dunking and splashing his hands in the water and running his wet hands through his hair.

Here is a picture of the new Engineers on a Roll exhibit that they now have in the preschool gallery.

By looking at this picture you'll see that Joel is not the only one who found this to be a "mouth on" exhibit as well as a hands on exhibit.

This is where Joel was grabbing balls as they came down the track and putting them in his mouth before putting them back into circulation in the assembly line-like exhibit. Perhaps this made it more likely that stomach flu was one of the things we brought home with us from the Hands-On Museum (and that perhaps more other people also brought home with them because Joel was doing this...sorry!!!). :(

When we first started going to a toddler playgroup, catching more things did make me reconsider whether or not I wanted to keep going to the playgroup...but I decided just to go anyway...and then added two classes to the things we regularly go to, too...

This was our first experience with stomach flu, though...which caused me to seek out sites like HealthMap...seems like sites like these will be much more useful if people post more data to it...so I'm planning on contributing mine... But, do I really want to be checking it a lot and deciding whether to go to the Hands-On Museum or not based on it...

95th percentile in height

and 90th percentile in weight and head circumference are the stats that our pediatrician gave us on Wednesday for Joel's dimensions.

Joel just demonstrated what he is now able to do with his 32 inch height. He just opened his bedroom door and escaped! We're in trouble now...

Joel's First Year (video slideshow)

Thank you to Uncle Michael and Aunt Kaiann, for not only maintaining the galleries of photos and videos of Joel and friends (http://joel.wulfenfoo.org) for a whole year now, but also for putting together a real treat for us with the awesome twenty minute video slideshow they made to celebrate his first birthday!!!

Click here to download the video slideshow...the downloaded file will need to be unzipped after you download it...it's filename is JoelYear1.mp4.zip.

Birthday candle

Like I said, he likes pointing at lights. :)

We've been having a lot of fun with "birthday season." Joel had lots of people sing birthday songs to him on Monday. Peter made pumpkin muffins on Tuesday (one of which is pictured above). My parents took Joel to the botanical gardens on Thursday, and a trip to the hands-on museum is next on our list. Good thing he had his birthday now so that it caused us to think of these great places to take him, especially in the wintertime. We'll be frequenting such places much more often!

the winston churchill look

Usually, Joel is swinging in his swing when he gets to looking like Winston Churchill to us, which isn't so conducive to picture taking. Today, we managed to capture the look while he was asleep in his car seat.

Photos from our own camera from birth to 3 months

Joel is now 4 months old today. High time to finally get the photos we've taken with our camera posted:
http://www.dropbox.com/gallery/10993375/1/PhotosFromOurCameraFebMarApr2011?h=b27edd

Peter and I don't take anywhere near as many pictures as my parents do. The latest of my parents' photos and videos of Joel are constantly being added to the following gallery:
http://joel.wulfenfoo.org
password: Woolf

some of Leeann's favorite photos

Haven't even managed to import any of the photos from our own cameras yet... I've been afraid to start that process for fear of never getting the birth announcement FAQ email sent out!

Here are some of my favorites from the photos that my parents have taken:
http://www.dropbox.com/gallery/10993375/1/SelectedPhotos?h=426852

more photos of joel

http://www.dropbox.com/gallery/2210168/1/Joel?h=05742a

pictures taken either Sunday or Monday, I already can't remember which...