Several Days

Hi all,

Been a few days of high adventure! Well, not so adventurous, but we have been mighty busy around here.

Thursday morning and Friday saw Rose demonstrate the amazing volume of her stomach by showing it to us with velocity and quickness that was truly amazing. This display, of course, took the energy right out of her and had us quite worried as a similar bug had put our neighbor's daughter in the ER. After some advice from the nurse at our doctor's office, we started feeding her Pedialyte in small doses and she is now keeping her fluids down and bodily functions appear to be normalizing. Yay.

In the midst of all of that, Reena decided that the young shall indeed lead, and took Rose's example to heart. Friday night was a night of going between Reena camped out on the couch and Rose fussing in her crib. Both situation seem on the mend.

This is all after the high level of stress at work for the last few weeks finally let up as we are starting a week of break. Time to regroup, do some planning, and get quite a few to-do items done--I had hoped. Perhaps it will still happen, but we are set back a bit.

Friday also saw the arrival of grandparents. Welcomed timing as I was out of gas.

I have now had a bit of a break, and my poor neuron is slowly pulling itself together.

A grammar thought: When did me, myself, and I get so abused? I am reading a book, and the author, having passed it by an editor we must presume, often uses I instead of me. I think this may be more of an East Coast thing, but it still jars on my nerves. "Please give it to John and I" or "Please give it to John and myself." These types of sentences are common now, and I am not really sure when it became common parlance to use I or myself instead of me. Ah well...

The sound of water

Everywhere, the sound of water permeates the environment. Drips and drops emanate from every place water can slowly collect and fall in single drops. Splashes and gurgles follow the conjoining of all those drips and drops and where the banks of snow and ice meet warm pavement or soak in the sunshine. Pools stand on top of ice fields, rivers run where none usually exist, and everywhere, there is the sound of water. On my walk this morning, the cemetery through which I pass was lit up with the sun. I no longer walk through dawn--sunrise painted pastels to accompany my breakfast. Full light and the warmth that comes with it fills my hour walk from home to school.On the way home, I passed the same spot where the translucent ice sheets caught my attention the other day. In their place was a babbling brook of meltwater.

Rose fell asleep on the walk home. I lowered the seat back so she could recline and let her snooze to the sounds of water and the bumps of icy remnants that litter the sidewalks.
However, she soon perked up. This video is for Avi!



And nothing is like a cardboard box or soda bottle for a toy!

Parallel Play

Rose and I visited Rachel and Allie today. We stopped by Noam's to feed his cat, Thor, and then hopped on over to our neighbors' house. Rose and Allie had a good long time to play together. There was much attempted face pulling, but when engaged with toys, it was all parallel play. Seeing them go to town on this stand-around toy was great.

Ice Again

I decided to walk to school today. I have not done so for quite a while, so it was with some trepidation that I laced up my boots and set off. The walking path in the park nearby was a frozen river as many other sections on the walk were. I knew that they would mostly be melted by the afternoon when I had to push Rose home.

This is a close up of the walkway. Ice makes such an amazing variety of patterns. Many have to be appreciated before people come and stomp on them to hear the cracking sound.
The early morning light lit the landscape with an amber light. Glistening stretches of ice covered the pathway, so I walked mostly on the snowy sides.On the way home, I came across this suspended shelf of ice. It was about an inch from the ground and had trapped some moisture and heat. Large drops of water condensed on the underside of the ice. Ice can be transparent, presenting a window into a world of its creating.

Rose enjoyed the long walk home.
The ripples of this paper-thin ice refracted the light to create a wavy view of the leaves behind it. The upper ripples and other frozen forms refracted the light, and it glistened as I walked past.
Ice is ephemeral. Even as I stood and photographed these thin ice sheets, they changed form and shape. This masterpiece was probably only appreciated by my and will never return in exactly this form.

Tacky Tee Shirt

Yes, parents dress their kids in Harvard and Yale shirts. Princeton and Stanford abound, too. Not as many kids are out there wearing a Haverford shirt, so Rose is a bit more unusual in her college statement. At the same time, however, it is a bit crazy to brand infants with college gear. We got the shirt at the 15 year reunion when Rose was only 5 weeks old.
Now that Rose has gotten bigger, she no longer fits well into the infant car seat. Reena and I went to a store to check out next sized car seats and ran into Veronique and Rubin (who was drowsy and fell asleep). It was great to catch up.

welcome art

The ramp entrance to the Atrium has animals made in a previous year's study option. I really like the colors and organic forms that contrast the wire mesh and architectural design.

Toggle

My new laptop, thanks to Noam, is a wonder of small form and weight for little $. I just got the webcam working by finally figuring out that I had to press a keyboard toggle. Fun with photobooth.

Cheerio- kind of

Rose managed to get a piece of cereal (an organic version of Cheerios) into her mouth. This video, however, features the many attempts made between successes.

Aren't we sick of this ice?

Leaving school, I saw the sun illuminating some icicles.

Full Day

It snowed again today.


Rose showed off her poses while trying to navigate her first chimney.

Rachel (mom) and Allie(baby only a few days different in age from Rose) visited today. Yay for play and talking.

I went to class and, though the clock said time was blazing by, it did not do so.


We made rice paste paper that we will be turning into books.

High Dynamic Range

My images are not uploading right now. I spent the evening taking pictures with varying shutter speeds and then feeding the resulting images into the HDR creator in Photoshop. I got some neat pictures and a much better understanding of what I might do to improve. Hopefully I'll add more photos later when Blogger doesn't spit them back out at me.

Edit: Two of the house images used to create the picture above.

Go Cautiously

On the way home from watching the Superbowl at Noam's, the lights at Mass Ave and Rindge were telling folks to go, but slowly. At first I thought they would change to just flashing yellow, but they were stuck in green with flashing yellow. Drivers were a bit perplexed--especially the ones who were faced with a stuck red.

Leaf buds

As promised, here are some blurry leaf bud photos. Spring really will come at some point. I took these images as the morning sun was just making it around the corner of the house and lighting up a few branches with that early morning glow.

Hitting the Links

I have a picture for today, but I am just too tired to upload it right now. Tomorrow.

In the mean time, here is a link to one of the more funny Sesame Street episodes I have seen. I forgot where I saw this originally, but I rarely see the show. I think I was at a hotel flipping through the channels, but when I saw Ben Stiller, I had to watch.

Rose has a new favorite toy--a wooden rhinoceros. It is made by a pretty cool toy company called Hape as part of their Animalz collection.

Weights, colors, and more ice!

Today, I went on a walk to do some errands. Rose in the stroller, we navigated our way around the local businesses. Ice is still everywhere, and especially with all the melt run-off and night time freezing, it is quite slick out there. I do love the patterns and forms that ice makes. Endless varieties.
This is our driveway. Snow melts and runs into the sidewalk and any shoveled area we have created. We now have a two inch thick pad of ice slowly moving its way down our property. It is the Freedman-Riles glacier!
I know many of my recent posts have been about ice and snow. Winter here is quite intense. However, today I noticed the leaf buds swelling on some trees. Well, I didn't see the swelling happen, but they are bigger than they were before. Spring will happen. I can't wait to see the first shoots of crocuses poke through soil and any remaining snow to paint the dull landscape with fresh bursts of color.
I visited a local Goodwill today to check out baby clothes. I love how they organized the woman's section by color. It is a palette in fabric.
Today, Rose hung out with me in her bathroom as I filled the humidifier tanks. We have a weight to keep the door open when the windows are open (not for a while has that happened!). Rose decided to pump some iron.

I'm Melting!

The cap of snow and ice that has formed on the roof of my car has been subjected to the same freezing and thawing of that on the ground. Delicate fingers of ice reach out from the massive mounds of snow. Along roadsides, the directional spray of passing cars carve seemingly sharp claws of ice, all pointed the same direction and colored a dirty gray.

Where in the World?

I have been playing with google maps. Here is a link to the one I was building. So far, I just have locations I have lived. Anyone with more precise info, please let me know. This is the street view of the house I bought in St. Louis. The address in the bar is incorrect, though. The furniture on the porch means that this was taken after I moved out. When I bought the house, the bushes in front were wild. I got them back into shape after much work. I miss the beautiful tree on the lawn. It was some kind of maple that turned the most gorgeous colors in fall.

Duck, Duck, Goose??

In front of the library across the street from our house, I found this goose happily pecking up the berries that had fallen from the trees that line the front of the elementary school. Proof that feathers are good insulators!

Patterns

This is a game I got for Reena early on. Her office has lots of toys for students and adults to fiddle with. Love ebay!

Mobility bring new experiences

The mobility provided by crawling and standing up when holding on to furniture has provided Rose with many new opportunities to experience the world. Today, while visiting JD and Julianne, Rose experienced Titus, and Titus experience Rose. While he remained just out of reach, he seemed to seek the attention as he never just vanished from the room. Rose pursued him with chortles of glee.