Getting Ready for Christmas

We went a-visiting for Thanksgiving.  Big family reunion with all the cousins and much laughter and story telling. 

Mowgli ate a lot of turkey and rice-crispy treats. 

Now over the course of the long weekend, Mowgli was asked several times what he wanted for Christmas.  And unlike his cousins who want anything and everything, he had no answer.  So I suggested that he take his granddaddy to target, and show granddaddy what he wanted for Christmas.  Well, the long weekend was still too short.  We made it to the zoo, but we didn't make the trip to target. 

But Mowgli remembered.  Since we made it back home, he has asked several times to "Go to target and want for Christmas."

Shopping for Baby

I honestly think that we're pretty much set, in terms of baby shopping.  I'm trying to restrain myself and not buy any more until we get the last minute stuff like diapers and formula.

But then I see something like this outfit:

It was on sale.  And it made me smile.

Daddy wanted to get a matching shirt for Mowgli that said "Improved!"

Drums

Mowgli had his first drum lesson today. 

He's learning hand drums because they can be played inside.  I'm not bringing a trap set in my house. 

I'll admit it, my expectations were low.  We had the lesson in one of the percussion studios at CMU where distractions abound.  There were gongs and computers and two trap sets and marimbas and all sorts of things.  So much stuff to play with.  Why would he want to sit down and play just one drum?

But he did absolutely fantastic.  He kept a reasonably steady 4-4, and learned 3 different patterns.  Even if he did have a lot of trouble switching between patterns.  They played along with a Santana song, and he absolutely loved that. 

Mowgli actually came home and wanted to practice!

Baby

Mowgli has finally figured out that there's something going on with a baby in our house.  He understands that mommy's belly is getting big and the reason has something to do with a baby.  But it's hard to say how much he understands beyond that.  In his own words,

The belly got big and it growed like a baby.

She's not gonna be here till February, but we're shopping and working on names and generally getting ready.

We think Mowgli will do better if we can name her ahead of time.  If we can give her a name, that makes her a real person and part of our family, as opposed to a random baby that doesn't belong to us.  The problem is trusting that the ultrasound was correct when they said she was a girl.    We can only hope.

In other news, Mowgli's been drawing up a storm lately.  I'll try and get some posted.

Spelling Homework with Mowgli

The task is to complete sentences with spelling words. 

You try this one:  A penguin chick hatches and __________ up. 

Here's a partial list of the spelling words: 
gold, scold, cold, grows, coast, roast, blow, bowl.

Mowgli went with
A penguin chick hatches and blows up.

Methinks he's been watching too much Looney Tunes.  

The best apple-cake-dessert-thing ever

So, I've been a bad blogger... I know.  Things is crazy.  I guess I'll have to blog about all the craziness at some point.  But I'm getting closer to my Phd, so a little crazy (or a lot) is to be expected.

Anyway, I was forced to come blog because a week or so ago I found the unicorn of cookbooks.  A gluten-free, casein-free cookbook developed by a chef so she could cook for her 13 year old son.

Tonight, I wanted a dessert, and Mowgli ate the last cookie.  So I made the apple coffee cake from the book.  Pure Heaven.  So I'm sharing the recipe:

• Preheat oven to 375.  Grease a 9-inch round cake pan or springform pan.
• Peel and cube 2 large apples.  You want about 2 cups of apples.
• In a small bowl, toss together 2 tsp. GF flour, 1/2 cup brown sugar, 1/4 cup chocolate chips, 1/2 cup chopped walnuts, and 1 tsp. cinnamon.
• In another small bowl, whisk together  2 eggs, 1/2 cup granulated sugar,  and 1/4 cup brown sugar until smooth.  Whisk in 1/2 cup oil and 2 tsp vanilla.
• In a large bowl, whisk together 1 cup flour, 2 tsp baking powder, and 1/4 tsp. salt.  
• Stir the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients.
• Pour half the batter into the prepared pan, top with half the apples, and half the chocolate chip mixture.  
• Repeat layers.
• Bake for about 45 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

I think I need another slice.

One liner.

I came out of the bathroom yesterday to discover that Mowgli had written "Men" on the bathroom door in very neat handwriting with a lovely red marker.   

Jazz Combo

Mowgli would like to start a jazz combo.  He day dreams about it constantly.  Apparently in very graphic 60's era designs. 

Yesterday, he handed me a little tin whistle and insisted that I toot on it while he played a very nice B-flat on my trombone.

We've been promised a cornet.  I am eagerly anticipating the salvation of my trombone. 

Washing

So in the last post, I showed you Purple Boy.  He was so purple he turned the bath water a lovely shade of lavender. 

The next morning, my dreams were permeated by the sound of water running in the bath tub.  Instantaneously awake, I leapt out of bed and flew down the hallway.  Mowgli was standing over the tub giggling maniacally.  In the tub were about 8 stuffed animals, including his favorites Mickey Mouse & Simba.  All of them had been colored with purple markers and were now taking their bath. 

We rescued the animals from the bathtub, and I made Mowgli cart them downstairs to the laundry room for a proper 'bath'.  I made him empty the dryer, and put the clothes in the washer into the dryer.  I measured out the soap for him to put in the washer and had him load it up with the animals.  And in an amazing feat of mommyhood, I still got him dressed and ready so that he didn't miss the school bus.
When he got home from school all the animals were clean and dry, sitting on the couch, as good as new.  All was well in his world.  

Today I took some towels down to the laundry room to be washed.  I opened up the washer to find mound and mounds of soap all over the clean wet clothes.  There was another pile of soap on the floor in front of the dryer.  Opened it up, and sure enough there were more mounds of soap inside the dryer. 

Like a great big glowing sign saying 'I tried to give Mickey another bath.'

This is what I get for teaching him how to use the washing machine. 

A purple request

Purple Boy would like to make a request


He got all dressed up to make it


He's just too small for a trombone.   And the slide is really damn delicate for a 7 year old.  We need to find Mowgli a trumpet, or maybe a bugle. 


We think he was shooting for this
 

Sardinia (Part 2)

There were so many funky plants near the beach that I just had to share some of them.  I figure I'll start with the ones that were planted by the resort, and move to the native flora. 



A cross between a palm tree and a succulent?


This plant grew in great giant bushes covered with these fuzzy-looking red flowers.  


 Now for the stuff growing in the rocks and the sand down by the water.


This one looked like a living fractal growing out of crevices between the rocks.  



It was hard to get a picture of this plant with a good sense of scale, but those thorns are an average of 2 inches long and the plants were around 5-6 feet tall.  


This spiky little plant was growing out of the sand right on the beach.   Even the baby plants are hard and spiky as I found out when I accidentally sat on a sproutling with a single leaf.


There were lots of these little lizards all over the place, though they were easier to spot out sunning themselves on the sunny days.  I actually came pretty near to stepping on a snake that was also out sunning on the path.  Sucker was 3-4 feet long and an inch or so in diameter.  If I had to guess from the green coloring, I'd say it probably wasn't poisonous.  I didn't see it until the snake headed back to the cover of the rocks to avoid my feet.



And the final entry in stuff I've never seen before are these little 'beach balls.'  They came in every size between golf ball and soft ball.  Even the large ones weighed almost nothing, no more than an ounce.  They're just little balls of beach fluff collecting on the beach. 
As for what they're made of, if you've ever really looked at a palm tree, you've probably noticed the little fluffy stuff that the larger fronds grow out of.  These balls appear to consist of that fluffy stuff felted into balls by the ocean waves. 

From Sardegna

Sardegna

For most Americans, it seems like like the Italian destinations are Rome, Venice, maybe Tuscany....  But Sardinia is where Italians go on vacation.  And that's where I went for a statistics/machine learning conference.  Absolutely great place for a conference, though I do wish it had been late may or june instead of early may. 

Ok, just to start with the basics, here's the view(s) off of my room's patio:




This early in the season, there wasn't a lot to do but walk up and down the beach.  But it was so gorgeous,










And look at the color of the water once the sun came out:






Now there has to be at least one photo with me in it to prove I really was there:



The laguna that Chia Laguna resort is named for


Of course, I couldn't be in the middle of all this beauty and not pull out my paints

From Sardegna

(There were really funky plants in Sardinia, I'll post those pictures next.)

Bikes & Picasso

Mowgli got a new bike on Monday.  Well we bought it Sunday and Daddy picked up the assembled bike on Monday night.  Tuesday was raining.

So today, Wednesday, Mowgli went for his first real bike ride.  It was totally awesome.  Of course, any time he saw a car two blocks away heading our direction, he yelped, jumped off the bike and hid behind the nearest tree.  But he did a great job.  He got the pedals more or less figured out.  And he's beginning to be able to steer and pedal at the same time.  Like I said, awesome. 

When we got home, I had him put an entry in his sketch diary. 

Take a closer look at that picture of a bike.  The handle bars are facing you, like you're on the bike.  The seat is directly in line with the handle bars as if viewed from behind the bicycle.  And then you have the wheels coming down, as if viewed from the side.  Now, I knew that Mowgli had a thing for Picasso, but to have internalized cubism's multiple perspectives at once?!  How many kids draw like this?

Glitch

Mowgli just came up to Daddy, and said, "Look, [Mowgli] has a glitch.'

Orm

Meet Orm.

Orm is the dumbest guinea pig in the world.  When Pretty comes to Orm's cage, Orm "oips" for treats.  When Pretty sniffs Orm, Orm sniffs back.

This is Pretty helping me feed Orm.

You might notice in the first picture that Pretty is doing sort of a 'play-bow' to Orm.  This isn't the first time she's invited him to play.  Pretty really, really wants Orm to come out and play.  Now, don't get me wrong, Pretty has shown absolutely no signs of aggression towards the piggy.  But she's a big ol dog, and she plays like a big ol dog.  Her favorite game is to play rough with me until she catches my arm.  She's also a big fan of tug-of-war.  And I just don't see Orm enjoying either of those games. 

But Orm somewhere lost the good sense God gave him.  He wants to get out of his cage and play with Pretty just as much as she wants to play with him. 

At least Mowgli & Pretty are getting comfortable.  He was so disappointed when she didn't want to sleep in his bed last night.

Pretty

We brought home a new doggy today.  We met her at the shelter on Sunday, and we were gonna wait until Friday to bring her home so we'd have all week to get ready and all weekend to get settled. 

But I couldn't wait.  I couldn't stand the thought of somebody else going home with OUR DOG. 

Her name is Pretty.  She's a pit bull/german shepherd mix.  And she is the sweetest best behaved dog I have ever met. 

When I brought her into our house, she looked at me for permission before going upstairs to smell Mowgli's room.  When she met the guinea pig, she just smelled him.  The third time she came down to the basement to smell the piggy, she barked once, and ducked her head apologetically when I told her no.  The fourth time Pretty went to smell the piggy, Orm went to the door of his cage and acted like he expected the dog to give him a treat. 

I took Pretty with me to get Mowgli from school.  Mowgli has historically been terrified of dogs, but his cousin-dog Dolly helped him get over that this summer.  Mowgli wasn't entirely sure about Pretty, but I put Pretty in back of the suv, and had Mowgli get into his seat.  Before I got around to get in the driver's seat, Mowgli was reaching over to pet Pretty and was thinking about climbing in the far back with her. 

This is the picture Mowgli took of Pretty:

After they'd been home together for about 10 minutes, Mowgli got down, looked Pretty in the eye and said, "You wanna chase me?" 


They're not best friends yet, but they're headed that way.

;)

I have the best office!

There's a single very tall building near my office, a beautiful gothic tower.  One of the two gigantic windows in my office faces this tower.  At the very top of this tower is an peregrine falcon aerie.  They used to have live webcam feed from the nest, but alas, no longer. 

As I sat down at my desk, not 10 minutes ago, one of these gorgeous birds was engaging in pigeon hunting right outside my window.  These birds hunt by snatching smaller birds right out of the air.  There were some pretty amazing aerial gymnastics going on.

I've often seen the raptors circling at least a hundred feet in the air over the pond in the nearby park, but I had a front row seat for this. 

Wait a sec.  He just parked himself on the eave right in front of me.  He must've not caught anything.  Damn I really wish I had my camera.  I think he might be a red tailed hawk, not a peregrine.  Yup.  He's a red tailed hawk. So says the almighty google:

I wonder where he lives.   Universities make pretty good hunting grounds what with all the pigeons and chipmunks.  Maybe next time I'll get my own photo.  Who knows, maybe I'll even see him catch one of those pigeons.