ian – Page 54 – Out Of Their Minds Design

Chalk it Up to a Good Time

On the 18th of April Grand Rapids was host to something called the “Chalk Flood.” Apparently there’s a college student mastermind that has come up with a lot of elaborate cool ideas for the city to sort of get together and do. In this one, thousands of people flocked to the city streets to find boxes of sidewalk chalk distributed around… and so… people started doing something wonderful… drawing! So of course this sounded like a great activity for our little man. See this image larger.

At first perhaps it was a little confusing… See this image larger.

… and while Ian held Mommy’s hand when it counted…
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… this was also his big chance to run free for the day…
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…you might even say it was a common theme of our excursion.
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There was also some nice artwork to check out, of course, as anyone with an artistic bone in their body had free reign to draw what they wanted.
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Overall I’d say it was a fun day, and based on this picture, I’d say Ian thought the same. (Slept really well that night too 🙂 )
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Just Golfing Around

Some additional pics from the middle of April…

This shot is from April 14th — it turns out that if you put the camera on one of our counters and set the timer we can get a nice family shot of us on the steps… might have to do this more often!
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Ian’s recent golf lessons with Grampa Dave and his former exposure with Grampa Ray, Grandma Sue, and a little bit of TV has him going a little golf-crazy these days. These shots were taken on the 15th. Here’s a nice chip shot. See this image larger.

Yup, that’s a ladle. You’d be surprised how very attached he is to that thing. He’s got good follow through sometimes — we’re still working on that “keep your eye on the ball” thing. See this image larger.

Here he’s doing better, note the shift in his weight toward the front leg. It’s incredible watching him emulate what he sees on TV. I thought he was pooping the other day near the ball, but it turned out he was visualizing his putt down the “green.”
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Playworld, Part II

Here is the second part of the trip to Playworld, this one’s really great if you want to see what happens when Ian combines his understanding of the fun of jumping around with the dexterity to bounce.

Click here to watch the video, it weighs in at 7.3MB, which is huge, I know… but I think the bits that are in there are worth keeping in there.

I’m really quickly going to catch up on some stories, below, but don’t worry there’s plenty of pictures and other things to tell you from the last few weeks, I just want to tell the sort of “odds and ends” stuff.

I put a coat on him, and I SWEAR he said “Not a baby.” And did his best to put the coat on himself.

Many injuries – He got a full blow hockey-style check to the mouth from a boy that thought Ian was getting a little too close. It was one of those misunderstanding situations… they actually checked the video to review the details. Sounded like mostly an accident. A bite mark, some skinned elbows. A couple bug-bites recently.

Ian has sat a few times in an adult chair for dinner or lunch. This was generally out of necessity, we’re not asking him to give up booster seats yet.

He’s become a MUCH fussier eater. (NOTE: on the expansion of the technique I told you about earlier, just tried this a few nights ago, on roughly May 8th… better than saying how “happy Daddy is now that Daddy tried this!” Now I just name family members at the appropriate time: “Oh, mashed potatoes? Aren’t those Connor’s favorite?” or “Grampa Dave loves a good pork chop, I hear.”)

We had a bit of a zooey/pacifier conundrum a few weeks back, but some quick research fixed everything. I was proud of myself for being able to resolve the situation in a day — turns out his old pacifiers had that BPA chemical in them on the “shield” part that doesn’t go in his mouth. Still it was enough of a concern for Gerber to discontinue the product. Because they’re a specific shape we bought the exact same kind with shields that did not have BPA.

Here’s a fun fact that is only sorta related to Ian… did you know unemployment in Michigan is the highest in the country? Not cool.

Conversation between Ian and I somewhere around April 26th:
“Do you like taking naps?”
“Uh huh.”
“Why?”
“I like nn um my zooey.”

Also:
“Connor’s shoes. I like Connor’s shoes.” (He said, while looking at his hand-me-down sneakers.)

Playworld, Part I

Well, here we go again, I’ve got a lot of catching up to do…

First, this breaking news:
On Tuesday, Cinqo de Mayo, Ian successfully sang the alphabet from start to finish, soup to nuts, A to Z… every single letter identifiable as the real deal. We’re so proud!

I’m going to try to do an entry a night for awhile here until we’re caught up, so please check back often!

The day after Easter was Monday, of course… but as my great friend Brandon used to call it with his boy Max… MANday. We decided to go hang out with the Grand Rapids Dad club that we joined and had an absolute blast. This was our second trip with the group, but my first time filming it… The club meets at the best places in Grand Rapids to take your kids, and is made up almost entirely of stay-at-home dads. They meet a couple times a week and one of them happens to be Monday. We went to Playworld, a place I would love to go back to soon. I took some video, but again, they’re fairly substantial — low bandwidth beware!

Here’s the first part and I’ll give you the second bit tomorrow night, I hope… This is going to be about 5.2 MB
Click here to see Ian at Playworld!

Commentary – Just want to say that when I look at this video, it was only a few weeks ago, and yet he looks so much older now, to me.

Best of Easter Video

Ok so this is a HUGE video… it weighs in at 11 MB… so if you have a slow connection you’re going to want to avoid this. This is the best parts of the Easter video that was shot over our Easter visits. The good news about the size is that I made a very sloppy DVD of ALL the Easter footage and will be sending it out to all the grandparents and Great Grandma Betty, very soon.

EDIT – I took down this video until I can split it in half. I’ll put it back up tonight.

EDIT – OK I put the movie back up in two parts…
Click here to see part 1, which still weighs in at a fairly heavy 5.2 MB
Click here to see part 2, which is around 5.8 MB

Some quick commentary to read perhaps after you’ve seen the videos – Love the dunking “in” and dunking “out” noises. Ok, I feel blessed with Ian all the time, but seriously, WHAT TWO YEAR OLD that you’ve EVER met would open up a plastic egg with two suckers (candy) and HAND THEM OUT TO HIS GRANDPARENTS? He does us proud so often. I can’t help but call him Sweet Pea from time to time. And then on top of that, the very first egg he finds on his second hunt… and watch that hesitation… it ALMOST goes in the bucket; but no, Grampa Dave is standing over there without an egg! (stomp stomp) Yes that golfball hits him in the head. At the very end of the last video, he says “I eat it!”

Grampa Dave and Grandma Marcia Play Easter Bunny, Part II

This is a shot I ended up turning red accidentally… I’ve sort of tried to correct it because I still like the shot. See this image larger.

A brief pause for some happy grins! See this image larger.

And then… two great loves that came together in one awesomeness, a train and a cake! This feat was brought to us and created by Grandma Marcia, and it was as neat as it was delicious… could this little boy bait attract Ian? See this image larger.

Now would be a great time to play the Jaws theme by John Williams if you have it handy. See this image larger.

“Surely it would do no harm for me to smell that cake a little bit, right?” See this image larger.

Like one might sample a bottle of fine wine, Ian nabs a quick cake topping to see if this is going to be as good as he thinks it will be… See this image larger.

A phrase commonly used on the web these days whenever a “bite” is involved: NOM NOM NOM NOM. See this image larger.

Nothing says “happy” like a mouth full of cake! 🙂 Thanks Gramma Mahshah!!! See this image larger.

Grampa Dave and Grandma Marcia Play Easter Bunny, Part I

Grampa Dave and Grandma Marcia (or Grampa Dafe and Gramma Mahshah as Ian is currently pronouncing) arrived perfectly on time on Easter morning, April 12, 2009… but Pastor Riley went a bit long at church, so Ian, Melissa and I ended up being a little late to our own house! This turned out to be a bit of a good thing, as the Easter bunny had hidden a number of eggs around the front yard! (Video of this to follow in the 3rd part of our latest Easter expose.)

“Hi Grampa Dafe and Gramma Mahshah!” See this image larger.

Ian did not need to be reminded that eggs hold things. Good things. In fact he developed a bit of a technique with them… Step 1. Hold the egg like so… See this image larger.

Step 2. Immediately devour all contents. See this image larger.

Step 3. Repeat. See this image larger.

Marcia applauds and Mommy looks surprised as Ian blows his first solo non-spit bubble. (By which I mean, I believe this is the first time he dipped a bubble wand into bubble juice, removed it, and successfully aimed a gust of breath to create a bubble. I know, we’re stretching for firsts here… lol!) See this image larger.

Ian’s been getting into golf a lot lately… he had me watch a game the other day. (Brian Gay’s recent 10 stroke victory, don’t recall the name of the event, but it was fun.) Here Grampa Dave gives Ian a few pointers! See this image larger.

Easter Intermission

A brief pause between Easters…

On April 9th the bunnies hid in an elaborate castle. Someday you’ll see video of how quickly Ian destroyed this castle… suffice to say it was faster than the time it took for this image to appear on your screen! See this image larger.

A little bleary eyed from dunking his own head in the tub to blow some bubbles! See this image larger.

Here’s Ian on April 11th… would you believe he’s wearing a shirt that displays a monkey standing on its head? Well, I think that’s irony calling, because there’s about to be another monkey standing on his head. See this image larger.

Alright this entry was a little short, so I’m going to share something with you that happened more recently… my new email sound by Ian, recorded on April 26th! Click here to hear it! Very small download…

Granny Sue Easter ’09 Epilogue

I forgot to mention that Ian is truly a fan of eggs since the day o’ coloring.

Here’s a quick entry that shows a video taken by Grandma Sue while she was in town… I thought it was cute, and thank her for filming it with he camera. Click here to see the video, it weighs in at just over a MB, so shouldn’t be too bad.

I’m going to try to play catch-up again this week, so this is a good week to visit the site — I should have an update nearly every day.

Granny Sue Plays Easter Bunny, Part III

Recent Update: Ian’s colors are getting better… It is neat to hear him call them out without being prompted. And have you heard this kid sing “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star?” I won’t say he gets every phrase right but it is extremely impressive… I’m doing what I can to get it recorded, but as usual he saves the best for when I can’t get anywhere close to my phone. (My phone has the recorder on it, long story.) EDIT – I’ve got a nice rendition on video, coming up in a few days 🙂

And now the final part of Granny Sue’s trip! (She’s not in these shots, but she’s in video, which will end up on the DVDs, at least…)

On April 7th, it was time to dye the eggs! See this image larger.

Here’s a white egg… See this image larger.

Green! See this image larger.

Plus Red! See this image larger.

Makes Brown! See this image larger.

Hey, you can eat these? See this image larger.

I meanf, mou CAN eat thefe, right? See this image larger.

For about a week after Grandma Sue left he’d say something like “WAKE UP GRAMMA!” and two weeks after she left if somebody asked him to be quiet he’d say “Shhh, Gramma sleepin.” It was a great visit, thank you Gramma Sue!