Waa.

Evan's been miserable the last couple of days - he's come down with his first cold. This also coincided with the loss of his voice, which resulted in the most pathetic, heartbreaking cry you could imagine, and lots of it. It's been a rough couple of days.

On the bright side, I found a cheerio in his belly button the other day. I'm not sure how long it had been there.

If you're here looking for cuteness...

you can't do better than this picture of Erin and Brian's Evan over at TeamMcCropp. He's a sweetie and headed for great things.

Oh the horror! Look away, look away!

As promised, here is a picture of the aftermath of my momentous discovery of the reason for Evan's hunger strike (see below for details), namely that he wanted to eat all by himself. It was great that Carolynn was at work at the time this took place - the mess took close to an hour to clean up and required a full high-chair disassembly. That's mushed banana, homemade mash (also see below), cottage cheese, avocado, blueberry and sour cream (don't ask) on his shirt, and there was more inside the sleeve than on the outside. The pictures really don't do it justice.

These tasty moments are now a regular part of our lives, 3 times a day, every day. It's been fun picking up cold, mashed fruit. Don't get me wrong - it's almost worth it to see him so into the food. He's very tickled with himself.

For those of you who can't handle "baby covered in food" pictures without getting queasy, I give you ample scrolling room to avert your eyes.

I can sip my own cup mom!

 

With mom, learning about a piece of Calgary history (1988 baby, yeah!). For those unscrupulous collectors of priceless objects that would fetch top dollar on Ebay who may visit this blog, this ornament is normally kept locked in a safe in our house, so don't even try breaking in to get it! A prize to the first person who can click on the comment link below and tell me who that is on the ball...

Muchos bebes. These are the babes from Carolynn's mom's group. I don't know all their names - you have to ask Carolynn. Sorry for the redeye; I started to fix them and then I realized there's 14 eyes in this picture.

Ridin in style. 

Happy Holidays Everyone!

First time seeing Santa.

Changes

Here are the babies from last April...





And here they are today, about 7 months later...

 

Update on the hunger strike

Well the hunger strike is over. It lasted about 36 hours, wherein Evan refused food for the first time ever, and also refused to eat at the bar.

The reason for the strike, as we finally came to realize: he's getting to be a big boy now and wants to eat all by himself. Now he'll eat again, but only if he's the one holding the food.

So now we have a bath after every meal, and our caloric intake per sitting has declined significantly. Really gross pictures to follow.

Carolynn suggested that it might be a protest against the homemade baby food I've been grinding for him, but thankfully this is not the case.

After all, who could resist: poached chicken (mmmm...you should try poaching chicken...), green beans, yam, tomato, chicken broth, broccoli, apple, maple syrup, snow (don't ask), olive oil, carrot, formula, and banana, all blended into a fine pulp?

Blast from the past

Here's a few pics of Evan at 3 weeks old. He was so little back then! Today he crawled up the stairs for the first time. Well, one stair and a half, but that counts right?

Here he is in another time.

 

With buddy Alex in Calgary.

 

For Sale

We are selling three 1/4 time shares in our baby. We could arrange a 2 on 6 off schedule, or 6 hours on, 18 hours off - it's up to you. We figure there must be other couples or individuals out there who would like a baby but with only 1/4 the responsibility.

This is a great opportunity to expand your social network - you'll meet lots of new people in the supermarket and at the mall. Those interested in improving their communication skills, and/or learning a new language are especially encouraged to respond. Criminal record check required.

UPDATE: Carolynn "The Literal" Stevenson, would like you to know that this is just a joke. We're not actually selling our baby.

Yet.

Hunger Strike.

Evan is on a hunger strike. He refuses to eat. He's also refusing to sleep.

It's good now, I guess he's developing a will.

I'll keep you posted and let you know how long it lasts.

Update: Fixed the video links. Carolynn and I also talked camera angles.

We're still here....

Wow. How is it already December?

We’ve had a crazy month here at babycondin headquarters. Last time we looked it was October. My gracious audience (hi mom) has no doubt moved on by now.

For the two of you who still visit this space, things have been pretty busy in our lives lately. Now I have to squeeze all the recent developments into one big post.

Of course, the defining story out here has been the weather, which until this past weekend had turned the Lower Mainland into a teeming morass of latte-starved, traffic-weary, exhausted zombies - weighed as we were under about ten million billion litres of water and then snow, and with the sun on vacation in the tropics. First, we had the breezy Pineapple Express, which, though it wasn’t fun, was kind of wimpy in light of its tropical heat and the missing snow. But then the coastal weather gods got really pissed off, and dropped a couple feet of white stuff on a city already coping with the indignity of closed coffee shops and sushi bars, its citizens struggling for a good mocha-chai under a boil-water advisory. (It was interesting that midst the saturated news coverage of bottled-water sell-outs and "how are you coping?" stories, I didn’t see a single mention of the fact that 90% of the world’s population, including not a few in this country, would give their large intestine for the water we were drinking under the boil-water advisory.)

But I digress... without complaining, the weather lately has made for a gorgeous landscape but its been kinda difficult. Though we weren’t forced to boil water down here in South Surrey, with the power out there was one week where I spent 12 hours in traffic in the course of 3 days. This city is not prepared for extreme weather – we're so screwed when the quake comes.

Other developments, in brief:

- We bought a car, after much searching. A 2001 Honda Accord, which is nice and family-like, but still has a sporty sticker on it. You can ride in style in our '89 Tercel ($2,500 obo). It leaks oil in a Hansel-Gretel trail, so you'll never lose it.

- We went to Calgary, and experienced -25. It was invigorating and nostalgic and made us briefly miss prairie winters. It was also really great to visit with everyone we hadn’t seen in too long.

- Evan got two teeth, which we discovered on the flight home. Now he’s got two more coming in on the top.

- Evan started crawling, which is really quite adorable, but we’re fast learning that the novelty wears off. He’s now pulling himself into a standing position on just about everything, including the crib, the dishwasher and all of our non-child-proofed drawers. He has an insatiable sense of curiousity that’s intensified over the last few days. He wants to get into everything. Tonight he opened and pulled a frying pan out of the cupboard in under one second.

- Evan’s girlfriend Natalie moved across the river. He’s been full of sorrow.

- Carolynn’s dad Dennis had knee replacement surgery. Get well soon Dennis!! He was walking on it the next day.

And a bunch more stuff, but this post is long enough already. Life feels busy this time of year.

We hope this finds you relaxed and well. Happy holidays!

Here’s some random pictures from the last two weeks: