Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Playing around with Callum today.

Highlights

Here are a few highlights from the Children's Festival, courtesy of Aunti Mari!

Sunday, May 20, 2007

Great Big Baby!

Callum is finally big enough to wear the Great Big Sea shirt we bought him at last summer's concert! It's cute because instead of Great Big Sea, it says Great Big Baby! Graham and I are huge fans of Great Big Sea, a love that was propelled by our BFFs Lisa and Perry, who are from Newfoundland. I think there is a big of the Celtic blood in us that also draws us to their music.

Here are a few photos of Callum in his t-shirt:

Contemplative.

I chose to try my hand at altering the following photo from colour to black & white, also I mucked about with the contrast. I think he looks so artsy in this shot:

Sweetie

Nothing beats wee man's true to life gorgeousness though...

Colour sweetie.

Here's our happy wee man on a grocery shopping trip with Mummy. He has certainly figured out technology quite quickly; he's always going into our wallets and taking out the debit cards!

Okay, take what you want!

Figuring out how to spend Mummy's money.

Food has always been a bit of a struggle with Callum. He likes what he likes and don't dare try and feed him anything different or he clamps shut and starts scrubbing his face with his mucky little hands! Case in point, the other day I was trying to get him to eat pasta, but he decided it was much better smeared all over his tray, face and hair.

Pasta 'lunch', most of it ended up on the floor.

A huge achievement for Callum just recently is being brave and confident enough to go down the slide all by himself! He started off going down feet first, but then saw another wee boy go down backwards on his stomach. After that, he was up and down the slide like crazy! At the same play area Callum and I encountered his first bully - booo! The boy was around 4 or 5 years old and kept pulling Callum very hard by the shirt and landing him on the ground. At first all I could see around the slide was Callum fall down backwards with a big thud and of course thought it was a tad unusual. I've been trying to hold back a bit when swooping in like Mother Bird, but when I realized the boy with the stuffed pig was intentionally hurting Callum I thought I was going to bust! I swooped in there, scolded him and brought him over to his Mom who was reading the paper and completely ignoring anything going on around her! I then scolded her and much to my amazement, she just shrugged and looked at me like I was insane! The same boy had just kicked another baby (14 months) and she just sat there. It's hard to figure out how to behave in a situation like that because really I just wanted to get in her face and shake some sense into her.

Anyway, here's Callum enjoying himself on the slide!

Sliding Callum.

On Saturday (May 19th), Graham, Callum and I went to the Children's Festival at Vanier Park with Graham's parents, brother Malcolm and his wife Mari, as well as their kids, Isabel and baby Malcolm. It was quite exciting to see all there was to be had at the festival for all age groups, even as young as Callum! Of course next year will be even better because he can make crafts, etc. There was a travelling entertainment group playing the accordian, oboe and something else...boy were they odd looking! As an adult I appreciate the strangeness of their costumes, but I did wonder if the kids would be afraid. Callum was very interested in the crazed carrot, that was until it started to come over to him and then his smiled disappeared and he legged it!

Creepiest kid's entertainers ever!

There were loads of volunteers painting kids faces and even though I knew Callum wouldn't have an appreciation for it at his age, I really wanted him to get it done. Even when I thought I didn't like kids, I always loved seeing them with painted faces! The girl was very patient and amazingly was able to paint a spider web and spider on Callum's cheek before he squiggled away.

Wee man looking not so wee anymore.

Granny bought Callum a lovely pinwheel that he really liked, but didn't understand the concept of. He decided it should be used just as a stick and repeatedly pulled the pinwheel apart and played with the ever-coveted stick. While riding on Daddy's shoulders he quickly realized he could poke Daddy in the head. It was almost like he was egging Graham on to go faster!

Pinwheel!

The yogurt-faced spiderman, hippy (check out that long hair!) seriously appreciated and yummed up his (free) tub of Liberte yogurt from Capers. Graham was convinced, and secretly hoping, Callum couldn't finish his tasty yogurt, but once again, Daddy was wrong! This 8.5% milkfat (ouch) yogurt is best left for the baby's who can afford a fat content that high!

Spiderman just had a tub of yoghurt...mmm.

All in all, it's been a good week or so in the McKinnon household.

Over and out!

Monday, May 07, 2007

Long time passing.

Yes, it's been a LONG time since I've posted and that's really crappy - sorry!

Many things have been going on in our lives, thus one of the reasons why the blog (poor thing) has been neglected. Starting in March we were very busy getting our townhouse ready for listing on the housing market. This was a decision we came to when Graham started working out at UBC because the commute was so horrendous. Graham is now back at the law firm downtown, but we decided to move a teensy-bit closer to Vancouver anyway.

Our townhouse sold in one day for $16,000 over the asking price, needless to say we were totally chuffed! The housing market here is still steady and crazy as always; will this never end?!

The hunt for the new house was on and kept us very busy for a few weeks. The end result was a house, yes a detached house (yay!) with a large backyard for Callum to run around. Our move-in date is June 30th and we quickly learned that this is the most popular moving day of the year. Luckily my Mom convinced me to start calling moving companies right away, so we ended up securing what seems to be a good moving company.

Mom and Dad came for a visit, which sadly feels like ages ago, but in reality it was only a month ago!

That brings us to now.

Here are the updates for Callum:

1. Walking steadily; no more crawling.
2. Flicks light switches on and off.
3. Loves to ring the doorbell and make the garage door go up and down.
4. Claps and signs 'more'.
5. Sang "I...J" the other day during the alphaet song!
6. Throws a ball.
7. Shakes his head 'no'.
8. Clangs bowls together and bangs things (thanks Mom!)
9. Understands 'no'.
10. Drinks from a sippy cup.
11. Loves toast (thanks Dad!)
12. Remembers things and recognizes people.
13. Loves investigating...everything!
14. Figured out how to open bifold closet doors all by himself. He lay on his stomach and looked underneath the door and then pulled, it was an amazing moment!

Here are some random pictures from the last wee while.

Darby & Callum; see the Irish & Scots can get along!

Darby.

Daddy & Callum.

Callum having fun!

Not happy! Looking like a milk warrior!

Grandpa Bell & Callum going for a stroll.

Still strolling.

Trip to Vancouver Aquarium with the family.

Welcome to Callum's habitat!

Excited by the starfish.

Pretty jellyfish.

Jellyfish.

Callum loving the jellyfish.

Oooh, coloured bubbles!

I love bubbles!

Daddy & Callum at Burnaby Lake.

Burnaby Lake.

The rocks proved to be very interesting.

Discovering the world of rock!

Taking a ride on Mummy's shoulders.

Skunky slugs.

Cowboy Callum!

Ana having fun.

Ana & her Mummy, Cara.

Cruising.

Callum's own method of driving.

Leaving for work.

King of his own castle.

You expect me to vacuum?!

Vienna and her Mummy, Korrie.

Callum discovering a new musical instrument.

CLANG!

Whew! Well hopefully that fills the Callum void for a bit. The camera is being charged up as I write this, so please look forward to more pics soon!

Over and out.
Allison