An artist at work

Science class

Many have argued that America is in danger of loosing its competitive advantage in technology and business innovation to other nations, like China and India, due to lack a of funding and emphasis on education and research in scientific and mathematic disciplines. Apparently those people have never spent an afternoon with Baba.

Kari has arranged for various grandparent help with LT while she works one of her two jobs. My mom comes by for a couple hours on most Tuesday afternoons. Today I finished working before Kari did so I headed downstairs to make dinner* and ran into LT and Baba in the kitchen doing science experiments. I'm not sure exactly what the experiment was but it involved lots of water, soap, bubbles, some random dishes and, from the looks of these pictures, lots of fun...

* By "make dinner" what I really mean is warmed up some leftovers and cut up a few pieces of fruit. What did you expect?

Inauguration

I imagine that, many years from now, the inauguration of the 44th President will be one of those events in history, like the moon landing or the assassination of JFK, where people talk about the question, "where were you when...?"

I'll be able to say that I was in a good place - with family - in Silverthorne with LT, Kari and my parents.

Also there were four dogs there keeping things a little crazy but I was only able to get two of them in this picture with Obama on TV in the background.

National Western Stock Show

Last Sunday we, along with most of Kari's side of the family, took LT to the stock show. Uncle Steve has been talking about taking LT to the stock show for a long time and, as you can tell from the picture, he and LT seem equally excited about seeing the animals.


LT loved seeing all the farm equipment that was for sale.

He even got to "drive" this tractor.


The highlight of the show for LT was the pony ride for kids. He didn't actually ride a pony but he loved just watching them though the fence (shown in the three shots above).

I can't say that I necessarily disliked going to the stock show but I'm also not sure I'm exactly a stock show kind of guy. I think the consensus opinion around our house is that next year LT and Steve might be the only ones going.

60+ in January

The front yard is a fine place to spend the afternoon on a warm and sunny January day. It's got rocks and sticks and dirt - what else could you ask for?

Saturday Stay at Home Dad

Kari has been working all kinds of different part time jobs lately. She finished teaching at the Logan School just as the seasonal work with The New Teacher Project started again for the year. This year she is doing screening of applications nationally as well as doing the in person interviews for Denver like she did last year. Her first full day of interviews was today which leaves me as the stay at home parent for the day. That leaves LT at the mercy of my parenting stills that are rarely tested beyond a couple of hours at a time.

We all drove to Tenn Street Coffee together to get the day started right. LT read some books with mom before she had to go off to work for the day.

Mom took the car to work so, after a little quality time at Tenn St., LT and I were on our own to walk home. He seems pretty comfortable strutting his stuff walking along Tennyson.

The weather forecast for today was predicting highs in the 50's but it was cold in the morning so LT was bundled up for the walk. I think he looks a little like an astronaut in this outfit so I've taken to calling him the orangesturnaut. The orangesturnaut was pleased to discover a stick in the out reaches of our block.

Don't tell mom but dad let the little guy watch some Sesame Street on the "de-te".

As it turned out, a friend of Papa's was going to be playing music at Tenn St. a little later in the morning so we decided to head back out and meet him. My plan was to spend an hour or so there and then head to the playground for a bit to tire LT out. Then a quick lunch for the little man and it would be nearly nap time. The only real chance I had of getting him to sleep (so I thought) was walking him in the stroller so we took it with us to Tenn St. so we'd have it later. However, as you can see in this picture, on the way there LT decided it was better to push the stroller than to ride in it.

LT loves music lately and he was entranced by the guitar playing.

It wasn't long before his eyes started getting heavy...

... and then he was out.

He slept for about 45 minutes in Papa's arms (one recently broken).

So much for my nap plan - he fell asleep about 2 hours earlier and slept for about half of what my original plan had called for. I suppose now would be a good time to fess up that I may have called my wife the "Nap Nazi" a few times for her concern over trying to keep a semi-consistent nap schedule. In her defense, however, things do usually go much more smoothly with LT if he's gotten the requisite sleep. It was starting to look like that wasn't going to be the case today. At least he was having fun reading with Papa after the short nap.


After Papa went home, LT and I headed over to the playground for bit.

Baba was in town today and I had originally told her that LT would be sleeping during the time she was free. But we now suddenly found ourselves with a different schedule so we invited her over to play. LT was very excited about pushing his stroller home from the park to meet Baba.

But not so excited that we couldn't take a detour on the way home to stop and crunch some leaves.

LT happily sent me on my way to do some chores while he and Baba played in the front yard.

I wasn't totally successful with the naps but, on top of keeping the kid alive and happy, I did manage to do some laundry, clean up after and walk the dogs, and even made a pizza dinner for the three of us (from 'scratch' with our new bread maker). Not too bad for a part-time stay at home dad.

I think both Kari and I enjoyed our day of 'trading places' but I don't know if either of us would jump to make the trade a permanent one. I will say that having some help from the grandparents is pretty nice and we are really lucky to have them all reasonably nearby.

Energy

Raising a 19 month old isn't all roses and puppy dogs. Sometimes the little guy has [a lot] more energy than we do.

It's been said that a picture is worth a thousand words and I don't think this one disappoints.

Self portrait

It seems like LT's acquisition of new skills has greatly accelerated in the last few weeks. A month ago I could have named his entire vocabulary but it's now too big for me to remember and it continues to grow daily. In just the last day or so he's introduced the words, "bus", "dee tee" (TV), "biss" (beef), "mess", "pee pee" (pizza), "deal", "plesss" (please) and a few more that I can't remember at the moment.

He's also more and more interested in *doing* things. Today, while I was at work, he helped Kari clean the house and shovel snow. Help being a relative term in this case, of course, but he genuinely wants to participate and be dong the same kinds of things we do.

Last night he was trying to figure out the camera. With just a little help from me (and after I traded him the old camera for the new one in hopes of avoiding damage) he managed to take this shot of himself. He's got a few things to learn but not bad for a first try...

Christmas in the mountains

Volume II of LT's blog book was the flagship gift this year. The first book only covered 6 months while this book had a full year of content. At over 300 pages, it was a daunting effort to say the least but LT and his grandparents seem to be enjoying it here.

LT got some books of his own.

Showing off in a big person chair.

The windows at Baba's house were just the perfect height for LT and were a big hit.

Especially when Baba played peek-a-boo on the outside.



Perhaps the best part of the trip was the after Christmas shopping trip to Target.
LT was pretty proud of himself pushing the big cart with no help.

Pufball goes sledding

We took LT to the mountains last week to have Christmas with my parents. There was lots of snow so we thought we'd try sledding (and by that I really mean just pulling him on the snow and ice on the street).

He seemed pretty excited getting ready.

Kind of serious as grandpa held him while the the rest of us got ready.

And maybe we'll try sledding again next year. This is the closest he came to smiling and if you look closely you'll see it's really more of a grimace.


Sledding wasn't much of a hit but LT did enjoy using the broom and the shovel to help clear snow off the porch...

An important phone call

The other day, LT grabbed Brian's blackberry and began talking frantically on the phone as if he had important business to take care of. He even began doing hand motions and pacing around.

Reading with mom

LT has had a few early, grumpy mornings lately and reading has been one of the only happy activities he wants to do. He sure enjoys all his books and we make very good use out of them all. He has started "reading" along with me by pointing to words and telling me the letters.