we've been hit

Well. This is exactly the expression Kaspar was NOT wearing this morning. I made the mistake of showing him the snow first thing as we got up and he became the king of cranky for the rest of the morning. I suppose it’s sort of understandable, when you have to be stuck inside with your nose pressed to the window, while your parents are out shoveling the white stuff. Who said life was fare?

We were promised 10 cm of snow over night, but we woke up to more what seemed like 20 cm. And even that might be a conservative guess! In the middle of January we were complaining about lack of winter, well… we’ve finally been hit with winter. It took Steve and I a good half hour to shovel our paths clean, but it was a pleasant sort of shoveling - light, fluffy, clean, white snow.

Kaspar is surprisingly into winter! Yes, we do get the long and cranky dressing to go outside deal, but, once he’s outdoors, he’s pretty happy to be just outdoors. In fact, last week, when the temperatures were well below zero I found myself feeling cold and wanting to go back in well before he was ready to even think about the indoors. Once he’s dressed for the outdoors, he kind of looks like a stuffed doll that’s about to burst at the seams. He’s almost the same height as he is wide. And then he’s got his great thick hat that makes his head look huge. It’s very cute!

The winter clothes for toddlers, I have come to the conclusion, are designed not only for warmth but also for protection of falls and accidents. Wise, indeed! The bundled up children tend to climb snow banks on roll right back down, run on ice and fall flat on their backs, go stomping through the snow, only to get a foot caught and fall face first into the snow…. Well, you get the picture! I bet tobogganing would be a piece of cake!

did you say music?

Kaspar's favourite room lately seems to be the computer room a.k.a. "Steve's studio". He loves to push all the buttons he's not really allowed to push. He loves to take apart the CD stand. The best part is taking the CD's out of the cases, if there is enough time, before anyone notices! And he loves to dance while listening to dad's newest mixes on the headphones.

Television

This picture was taken in December, Christmas day, at my cousin's place. Can you guess what these four are doing? Yeah ... the glazed over expressions, the blank look in their eyes, concentration in the faces... of course they're watching TV!



I'm very proud to admit that for the last 12 years since Steve and I have known each other we have managed to make do with a little 15" TV that was inherited from his parents and probably purchased in the late 70's. I love that little television set! It's nice and compact, with a decent receiver and fake dark wood paneling on the sides. However, yesterday we upgraded to a brand new silver coloured 20" TV, which Steve managed to get at some factory outlet sale (or something along those lines) for a whole 40$! Now we have a TV, that's large by our standards, but it does not show even half of the channels we can get with the old one. I guess they just don't make them as good these days. They expect that everyone will have cable, I suppose.

But Kaspar is absolutely thrilled with the new TV. He stands in front of it and spreads his arms wide and makes the "big" sound. He does not yet have a word for big, but he does have this sound, that I cannot possibly explain in words, but when he makes that sound, and you see his little face, eyes wide like saucers, arms wide... you just know he's saying "big".

Speaking of words… Kaspar is learning new words fast, but I might have to devote a whole blog to that. However, I am most amazed with the fact that he already knows 6 letters. Yeah! My mom must have started teaching him, but he's been picking up new ones almost every day. He now likes to sit at the kitchen table scouring Harpers or Financial Post or some other adult paper or magazine for letters he'll recognize. He knows the letter "M" as well as "m" - that's "mamma's letter. "T" and "t" stands for dad. (In the beginning he called dad - "dad", but recently it's turned into "tete", which is a slang version of the Latvian "tetis"). "B" (he only recognizes the capital) for baby! "S" -for Silvija. "O" for "omu", which is his own version of "oma". "A" for apple and "K" for Kaspar, but he does not say "Kaspar", that one is still too hard for him, I think... he only points at his own chest. It's funny watching him studying the pages of text and getting so excited when he finds one of the letters he knows!

My mother has this story, that's always been a little hard to believe! It's bout me, at the age of three writing a happy birthday card for my dad and being able to spell happy birthday only by being told what letter comes next. I've always had a hard time believing it. However, if Kaspar has got pretty much a fifth of the alphabet memorized at 19 months... he might not be far from being able to spell. We just have to work on his penmanship. Hi, hi!

pointalism

I've got this guilt complex about the blog now. Not only that... I often find myself procrastinating.... doing other stuff, when I could be updating the blog. Kind of like Kaspar, when he's about to be taken to bed. He'll walk to the bathroom a half a dozen times - first asking to brush his teeth again, then asking for lip balm or cream for his hands or another bath or simply pretend he has to go pee over and over again.

I wonder if every parent has experienced this feeling of - what's wrong with my kid? I had that exact feeling, when last November out of the blue, Kaspar began to draw. No it was not that he was drawing per say, but rather that his drawings consisted mostly of little miniature doodles, dots and points. Pointillism. I had never seen a sixteen month old kid drawing like that. Most kids take a pencil in their fist and just draw a continuous line, gesture like shapes that cover most times not only the piece of paper, but also the table or floor beneath the paper. Not my kid!
Now, here is the strangest part... In the very beginning my faint attempts of asking what he was drawing (at that point he was not really talking yet) were actually gratified with an answer. He brought me over to the window, pointed at the gray sky and made little squeaky, squally noises. The gray sky was full of birds flying high above us. It took me a moment, but I figured it out - the noises he was making were the same as the noises we had heard the seagulls make at the park the previous day.
Now we communicate freely! If he sticks his nose against the paper and tries to smell it - it'a flower. The noise of a fire engine - an obvious one. The hand motion of throwing something against the floor, followed by a thumping sound - ball. And who said you need signing classes for kids. They invent their own signs. You just have to be patient enough to decipher them!

For Christmas, Kaspar got a large box of markers, pencil crayons and these paint sticks that are more like very oily and wet crayons (all washable, thanks to very wise gift givers!) Even though I try to watch him, he's discovered ways of getting to the markers on his own. Occasionally he hides a marker, while we draw and pulls it out later, when I'm not watching. He's a sneaky, smart little fellow! He'll draw with the marker, make some marks on the table or the chair, then pull me over to show them to me, yet, as he's wisely pointing them out to me he'll say "NOOOO!" in his most honest and serious sounding voice, and shake his head just like I do, when I'm telling him not to do something.

Now that several months have passed since those first few weeks of drawing, Kaspar has begun to draw like all kids do. He scribbles, and draws large and often goes over the page. But, if you ask him, what the little birds look like in the sky, he still goes back to drawing dots on the page. I love watching him and interrogating him about what he's drawing. :-)

boots

i love this picture &
kaspar loves the boots.

liar, liar....

Yeah. I’m a liar. I’m glad someone called me on it, or else you might not have seen the next entry until the following month or something. My brain is not in the “blog” mode yet. I actually forgot that I was blogging again….. an then of course, we’ve been on a trip and I’ve been feeling sick and all that jazz……

Kaspar has been thoroughly spoiled this holiday season, because everywhere we go he’s got play mates galore! It’s hard on us. Well, not the days with the kids, but the following days at home. Then we become the play mate substitutes. For instance, yesterday he took my hand, pulled me down onto the floor, I thought – ok, let’s play. However, he had something else in mind! He wanted me to crawl under the coffee table so that he could look at me through the glass from the top. Yeah. This was shown by not so gently pulling my hair in the direction of the coffee table and down. He’s devised a way of communicating, that involves a lot of physical contact, yet leaves him off the hook for having to speak. Smart little fellow!

Well, I took a few days off work after a nice mellow New Years’ eve with some friends and a hundred oysters (yum!). We went to Ottawa for a visit with friends of ours who are here for the holidays from Latvia and Kaspar hung out with Rudis & Inguss for a day. Here is Kaspar and Rudi just hanging out right after Rudis’ christening.

Then last week-end we attended a marvelous wedding for our friends Julija and Zanis ( and here is Zanis blog, which I found by fluke one day, while looking up info about orchid care ) The wedding was so spectacular that afterwards I felt like I had been on a holiday. I was involved with making wedding rings for them as well as doing the flowers, which all added up and kept me rather busy day and night the few days just before the wedding. Steve ended up picking up a lot of slack and Kaspar missed me, and clung to me like a little koala, when I did show up at home. At the wedding though, he was a doll. He was so happy to be amongst a crowd that as soon as I put him down, he’d dash through the legs of people and out the door, into the long hallway of the Latvian center and down and up the hall… It was hard to keep up, considering the high heals and my inability to sneak through people’s legs and under people’s drinks.

back... back.... back........ back........

It’s been close to four months since I wrote the last entry and what excuse do I have? I’ve been busy. Yes. Really busy!!! Most of my friends would just say – what else is new. But I’m sticking to my story! Besides "busy" takes on a whole other meaning, when you have a one year old at home. Really, it does!!!

At the end of September, after two weeks of missing blog entries I got short emails from family and friends inquiring when they "might see some new pictures of Kaspar", "would I be posting something soon" etc. Then, eventually, some began to worry and started calling or emailing and asking if we were ok. Thanks for caring, yes, we we’re fine! We’re kicking! We’ve been busy and I just ran out of time. Between juggling work and home and Kaspar and jewelry and laundry and dishes and the few volunteer projects I have had on the go… well, you get the picture…. Eventually all of you gave up, I think. And then, I gave up, too! I even thought about pulling the blog off the site and just calling it quits, but, then out of the blue a good friend emailed me a short note. It simply read "I miss bloggy". And it hit me – darn it, I MISS it, too! I miss writing it. I miss the comments. I miss the interaction… So, tonight, on the last day of this year 2006 the blog of Kaspar (even though, it’s mostly about me, who am I kidding?) gets resurrected. With a whole slew on new years resolutions, a whole stack of good thoughts and wishes to all my family and friends and people on the planet out there, everywhere……… I’m back.

So, what is new? I hate that question, even though, I am the first to use it on my friends and I’ll come clean - my answer is always the most predictable one – nothing…. It’s not all that true. Kaspar, for one, is bigger, taller, louder, faster, skinnier, more talkative, with more hair, more teeth, more demanding then the last time I blogged. He has leaned to pose for the camera. He has leaned to dunk things in the toilet and learned not to do that, too. He has developed a true love for books and loves to make the sound of an ambulance, as he’s reading about one, or just hearing one go by somewhere in the distance.

He has gone through a phase of love for celery, blueberries, black figs, melons, boiled carrots, apples and currently - raisins. I cannot complain. Raisins are definitely cheaper then fresh figs! It’s all transitional. I keep hoping for a meat or butter or cream kick, as I’m having a hard time making that kid gain a pound or two, but so far I’ve had no luck. He’s tough to please. He’s a picky eater. But all he eats is fruits and vegetables. Some mothers’ dream, I’m sure.
Kaspar has also gone through several colds and we’re just getting over the last. I’m amazed how true ring the experiences of other parents, who warned me that meeting other kids seems to be all about picking up another bug or two. The last cold started with the kiddy Christmas party a couple of weeks ago and got every one of us sick within 48 hours. Yeah, we spent the Christmas season recovering!

Christmas seems to have escaped me this year. Not only it’s been way too warm to feel like Christmas, but we’ve also been too busy and preoccupied with work to think about entertaining and this has lead to a total ‘lack of Christmas’ feeling for myself. Yes, Christmas has always been about having people over, cooking, baking, cleaning, decorating, sending cards, wrapping gifts... And I have managed to be too busy for all of the above!

Kaspar, however, has been spoiled silly for Christmas. Just this morning Steve and I had a little ‘discussion’ about the concerns we have regarding the piles of gifts (mostly new toys!) Kaspar has received. Being a parent is tough. You have to have a plan in place to deal with these things! And I don’t mean just the new toys… New toys simply mean having to organize and get rid of some of the old ones. Yeah. That means I HAVE more work to do! Argh… Then there are new clothes and closets and drawers to organize. These things seemed hard enough when there was just me, but now I’m doing it for all of us.

Anyhow… I’m going to stop right here, so, that you do not have too much to read the first time back. And I do hope to continue later tomorrow or the day after. Yeah, you can call me on it. I know, I do have some pending translation work, some pending jewelry work….. but….. I hope to be back for good….. later :-)

nonsense

I was taking the subway to work this morning (Which happens rarely these days, because usually I'm on my bike!) and I could not help but listen to several conversations of people sitting or standing around me. It's amazes me, listening to the way people talk about things.... their every day lives. One woman was describing shoes she had seen on the internet to her husband "They were so beautiful! You know, that dark navy blue colour, I think it's called midnight blue. Pump heel, a little rounded toe, classical really. I think I should order a pair! What do you think?" He yawned and looking a little perplexed, said "What do I think? (pause) About what?" I almost laughed out loud, while she calmly repeated the entire description all over again. People-watching is a fascinating past time! I can relate to the old Portuguese men, who sit on the bench, on the sidewalk, sipping an espresso, just watching the world go by!

some pictures

Here is a good one! While Steve has been at home, they've been often going to the park during the day. Kaspar always brings back something.... It's either shoes full of sand or pants full of sand or pine cones in each hand. I love this gorgeous weather we've been having, too!

This one was taken, while Kaspar's grandparents were visiting. I don't think Granpa trusts that Kaspar will make it all the way down. :-) He's looking a bit tense, I think. Kaspar has done these stairs hundreds of times, however, he is getting a little too sure of himself these days. I will admit to that. A few days ago, while a friend was over visiting, he decided to try stepping down the stairs the same way the adults do it. Thank God she was sitting right there and dove for him fast enough that all Kaspar got was a big scare! And of course, we both had our hearts in our stomachs, too.

Showing off and entertaining seems to be his specialty, these days! Grandma had just brought him a gift in this colourful bag and as it often seems to happen with children, Kaspar was more interested in the bag and the paper then the gift itself. Grandma made him the most amazing sleeping-bag in the shape of a ladybug, with all the parts - legs and eyes and antlers, the works! It's fabulous. Kaspar does not use it to sleep, but does love to pull it over his head and hide in it. I'll try to catch that on film (symbolicly speaking) one day.

healey lake

It’s raining. The sky is a steely grey, almost the same colour as the wet asphalt. A grey fall day. September. Who would have thought that the last long weekend of the summer will feel so fall like? After a superbly busy night and morning (Steve’s been stressing over a mix of some film music and I’ve been trying to get Kaspar back on his feet!), we are on our way to meet some friends at a cottage. I’m so glad we have some time off, even if taking week-ends off makes us extra busy during the week! Kaspar is fast asleep in the car seat and I’m enjoying the luxuries of the modern world – a laptop plugged into the cigarette lighter of the car panel. Spectacular!

It’s ironic that we never managed to take a week-end off during the heat of the summer, but now for the second week-end in a row while it rains and gets cold at night, we are spending time out of the city. Grabbing the last opportunities of cottage living this summer!

We spent last Saturday and Sunday at Emils & Markus’s parents cottage. It was interesting having a 3 year old, a 13 month old and a 10 month old - 3 boys - all hanging out together. They did not interact in a way that would have made sense to you or I, but they watched each other intently and picked ideas up from one another almost immediately. It was interesting, observing the dinamic of these three boys! Emils, being the oldest, really knows the ropes. He keeps an eye on his little brother and was always ready to show Kaspar and Markus some new trick with a truck or ball or something. However, his own toys were not for sharing. In fact, they’re not even called toys – they are TOOLS! And don’t you dare try to suggest otherwise. Emils is a true workoholic, at his young age! He likes to put on his tool belt, grab his chain saw and go to work cleaning up the trees around the cottage, raking the earth, digging and building. He goes about it with such intent and serious attitude, that one cannot but admire this kid’s concentration and eagerness! Markus is about the same size as Kaspar, but he’s still crawling and has just begun to stand up, while holding on to something. This proved to be a bit tricky, because Kaspar is still far from knowing his own limits, let alone knowing the limits of another child. Markus had to be saved a few times from Kaspar’s grabbing hand or a toy flying through the air, aimed right at his head. Steve and I had the chance to practice our parenting skills with the constant reminders - “Kapar, be gentle!” or the favourite “No, Kaspar, hair is not for pulling!”

I’ve always loved going to Erik & Christina’s cottage, because it’s a real rustic cottage experience, with an outhouse, no hot water (only recently installed running water) and my absolute favourite part – it’s on an island. There is something magical in arriving at the cottage by boat! Kaspar loved the boat, too. He immediately got intot the sound of the motor of the boat and began humming along in tune. He loved turning his face to the wind and watching the white foam of the water left begind the boat. Even wearing the life jacket was not an issue anymore. Since we were last at the cottage, Eriks has built a perfect little guest house (they call it ‘bunky’ and steve’s convinced that such a word does not exist) where we were sleeping. I think their family has just outgrown the cottage during the last three years, so having the guest house built was just the next logical step for them. But was it ever amazing for us! It was beautiful… we had privacy and space and we could listen to the rain drumming a symphony on the roof od the little house, while we slept and in the morning we were woken up by the birds and the sound of little waves lapping the shore of the lake.

The week-end was cool and cloudy, but, as it often happens with weather issues, the sun came out a couple of hours before we were planning to leave. The Sunday ended up being beautiful, sunny and warm. I managed to sneak in a nice long swim, before packing the boat and Kaspar spent some time fishing around in the water with his hand off the edge of the dock. It’s great to have friends who invite us along to such beautiful places!!!