a rapid learning curve

oh boy. what a rapid learning curve this kid has! it seems like it's only been a few days since he began crawling fast enough to get around, yet, today he's already pulling himself up to a standing position. his legs are still oh so very wobbly, but he loves to stand. and as long as there is something to hold on to nearby, he'll be standing. before i know it, he'll have the kitchen drawers and shelves figured out. argghhhh! he's now got the 'getting out of bed safely' down packed, but this morning he took the first five steps towards what we like to call 'cruising the furniture'. yeah! he got off the couch, all by himself just fine, and then moved sideways along the couch, towards his rabbit toy, (just like this frog, but imagine it being a rabbit) a good five or six steps. it's the rabbit. i blame the rabbit! years ago.... well, it was probably two years ago, i was visiting a friend in montreal and we found a shop in china town that sells the old metal 'wind up toys'. the sorts of wind up toys, like i used to have when i was a kid. i used to have a chicken that pecked and jumped. i bought a rabbit, that jumps and moves forward, when wound up. kaspar loves the rabbit. it's the toy that taught him to speed crawl. he liked it so much, that all i had to do, was wind up the rabbit and place it on the ground in the opposite corner of the room and kaspar was there in less then a minute. it was a good game to play just before bed time :-)

i lost my train of thought. a furnace repair man just called. he's coming over to take a look at the furnace. it was just replaced a month before we moved in, but our landlord is on top of it and wants to get a maintenance check in before the summer. wow. totally on top of it. i'm impressed.

it does seem like we're getting summer very soon. today i was out in a sweater. we went for a walk for about an hour and forty minutes. it was warm. i think the thermometer was at +14 in the shade. it must have been a few degrees warmer in the sun, because i definitely did not need a jacket! the crocuses are out in full bloom. and there are two hyacinths poking their heads out, about to bloom in the front of the house. what a nice surprise! we'll have tulips, too, but later. and kaspar is thrilled about the change in weather, too. for the third day, he's been sitting in the stroller and pulling his hat off constantly. in fact, we lost one of our favourite hats just yesterday, or the day before! he pulls it off, and just as i turn my head it gets tossed off to the side, somewhere... be it bushes or the traffic.... he does not care. just the act of pulling it off and tossing it seems to be good enough for him :-)

speaking of mischief. today goes down in history as kaspar's first temper tantrum! my mom laughed at me, when i told her about it. she insists, that i was absolutely unreasonable with my temper tantrums as a young child! apparently, as the story goes... one day, as i'm down on the floor, feet kicking, screaming on top of my lungs, my grandmother (may she rest in peace!) goes out into the yard, grabs a stinging nettle and spanks me on the back of my bare legs. that cured it! i never fell to the ground screaming ever again. i'm hoping we won't let kaspar get to that point. yikes. today, he simply wanted to go out. and made the mistake of opening the door (leaving he screen closed) and telling him - yes, we'll go outside! we'll go for a walk! we just have to get dressed first. the 'dressed part' did it. he did not want to go and get dressed. he did not care that mommy still had a bed head. he did not care that he had no pants on. he wanted to go outside. and that was that! so, i had my child kicking and screaming and pounding the floor until he hit his head on the floor, too, and then there were more tears and louder screaming and more pounding. and i was the bad guy. i tried picking him up, but had no luck. he was screaming and kicking his belly up and ooooohhh.h.h.h. it was hard! harder on me, i think. but i'm sure he would beg to differ.

here is a good picture for his current height. yes, the top of his head is higher then the kitchen table! and here is his mr. rabbit... always reaching for it!

mozy

did i mention this allready in my last blog? kaspar's now really crawling. no, i tink i forgot to... well, here it is! he's not just slowly crossing the room, when necessary. he's not dragging himself and complaining all the way. he's chasing after me, when i go to the kitchen. he's crawling down the hall and following me in to the bathroom. he's even learned how to slip off the bed safely with feet first, just so that he can follow me, when i leave the room. if i do manage to slip out unnoticed, before i know it, there is his sweet little face poking around the corner in the doorway. he's very funny, a bit like a puppy, following me everywhere. if he finds himself in the room alone, he crawls out into the hallway and then freezes and listens intently... where might she be? and god forbid, i have gone upstairs. i immediately hear about it! otherwise, he'll just mozy on over to the destination of choice... be it kitchen, livinroom or office or even the bathroom. the bathroom door has to stay slightly ajar. i learned it the hard way. when the door is closed, you can end up in a situation, where kaspar is having a fit behind the door, and the only way to reach him is to crush him with the door opening in his face. yeah. he doesn't get the 'back away for a moment' concept yet :-)

music

i've just spent the last hour watching video clips from this google site. some of the stuff out there is absolutely hilarious. a friend of mine sent me the link and a few selected clips and i've been hooked. 'look around you' series (you can do a search) is pretty good. but consider yourself warned - it might just eat up hours of your precious time :-) i needed a little 'pick me up' tonight, when kaspar went to bed, so... i spent an hour here and ended up in tears. i mean laughing to tears!

it's been a weird day. last night i slept like a log. i'm assuming that my son did, too! we slept in until 9 am. that hardly ever happens! and the rest of the day had it's ups and downs. but in general, kaspar's doing better. we've conquered the fever and found out from our family doctor that his blood test came back allright. we've got this illness by it's horns, so to speak.

however, he had this strange episode of crying for almost an hour at about 6pm. i'm beginning to wonder, if that's just his way of making sure i stay at home. :-) yeah, i had planned to go out for the night. my mom was ready to babysit. and then kaspar woke up and just cried. and grandma said - oh no, he must still be sick. and i tried everything imaginable. and nothing helped. and i gave up on going out. and five minutes later he found the button on the back of the rocking chair and all his worries disappeared into thin air. and we spent the next two hours crawling on the floor. he was crawling under things and i was franticly trying to get there just ahead of him with my wet cloth in hand, making sure that all the dust bunnies are out of his way. he made it all the way under his crib and back out!

but, i'm exhausted from the excitement of the night. i think this was the first time he has crawled as much or as fast. i still have to finish a piece for a client before i can call it a night, so, keeping the blog short. here is a five or four day old picture of him, looking miserable....

sick & tired

oh. i’m tired. so very very tired. last night sleep was a deficit. kaspar slept, but barely. kept waking every half hour or just tossing and turning. i didn’t sleep much at all. between the times, when i was holding him and the times, when i was trying to make sure he does not wake up, i might have had a few minutes of shut eye. finally at 6am my mom gave me a break and i slept for an hour. bless her soul, i don’t know what i would do without her!!!

yeah, he’s still sick. we finally went to see a doctor (just our luck, that our doctor was away this week) at the ‘just for kids clinic’ on monday. he appeared to be healthy, said the doctor, but due to the prolonged fever made us take some tests. oh. it’s absolutely grueling having to hold your screaming child while his blood is being taken from the tiny arm. and the vein is so very small, that it makes you wonder how the nurse can even see it. and the needle going into the arm so big. oh man! he was hot and sweaty from screaming and i was too, just from listening him scream. i had a massive headache afterwards, too. and kaspar developed a runny nose and a cough. I don’t think it was the needle. not the heat. i’m blaming it on all the other sick kids in close proximity. germs, germs, germs!!!

the clinic had a small-ish sized waiting room with a large structure in the middle of the room, like a small play house. the room was packed full of sick children and their distraught parents and the temperature in the room was a good 5-6 degrees above 20+ celsius. yeah! imagine… it was like florida on a hot spring day! and all the kids were dressed for winter, hot and miserable and sick. we had to wait for our turn to see the doctor for about an hour and a half. it was pretty bad. i took kaspar out into the hallway for most of the time, because it was a little cooler there and less intense. the kids, who were old enough to be crawling, were on the floor of the waiting room on all fours. do you have any idea how much dirt a sweaty palm can pick up? or the knees of a white sleeper? boy, oh boy…. were those floors dirty. one of the kids, wearing a pale blue sleeper was gray in minutes! no, i’m not exaggerating. he was so dirty that one might wonder if he had been living in the same sleeper for months. it all happened right in front of my eyes. crazy!

these days i really admire women that bring up two, three, four kids on their own (or mostly on their own). there was this one mother at the clinic, waiting. she was probably my age. pregnant – probably at least six months. she had a year old and a three year old with her. apparently there was another older girl at home and then the one she was expecting. and she handled it just fine. i was so impressed with her ability to cope and handle the kids and the heat and everything. it was amazing. no, forgive me. SHE was amazing!

anyhow… i could talk about the four hour long hospital experience for another day or two, but i’ll spare you. I do have to say one more thing, though. the doctor was awesome. thorough. nice. intelligent. listened. asked questions. absolutely great!

but, speaking of doctors. do any of you have a good family doctor, who still accepts new patients? or maybe you can beg, plead, coerce, threaten or pay off your nice family doctor to accept two more very nice patients  we’re losing our family doctor. she’s going back to school and closing her practice. i’m devastated. i had heard that getting a new doctor can be very hard, but i had never imagined that it might be this hard. i have been cold calling many of the doctors in our neighbourhood (wider neighbourhood – all the way to spadina and bloor!) with no luck at all. there is simply one answer: we’re not accepting new patients! misery oh misery. i want a family doctor! i don’t want to go to the hospital every time kaspar is sick. help…

what else have we got on the go at this household? i’ve finally done taxes. not only taxes for myself, but for steve too. and not only for this year, but for 2004, as well. yeah. the pregnancy really threw us off last year. we never did taxes for 2004. yikes! i feel like i’ve just moved a mountain and i want someone to give me a pat on the back for the job well done. i don’t think most of you understand the undertaking of having to do taxes for steve. the man piles all his bills in a box for the whole year (this time for two years), without any rhyme or reason and then come tax season, he has to go through them all, record them, count them and file them accordingly. it’s nuts! it took me about 18 hours to get it all organized. after two years in a box (and i’m sure before the box, it must have been at least a week in a wallet in the back pocket of the pants!) some bills become unreadable! the ink simply is not meant to last the torture  but, i’m proud to say, i’ve organized a file for future tax dealings for steve. i just hope he’ll use it. or i’ll have to start charging him accounting fees. hi, hi, hi!

oh boy. i’ve done quite the rant today. must be the lack of sleep. anyone looking for an apartment or a station wagon? our basement neighbour is moving out. just found out last night. and we’re trying to get rid of our old car. probably both, in fact. but that’s a story for another day. i think i will go for a nap now.

the little things

whenever i open up my last entry, i'm always surprised - has it really been five days since i wrote? maybe i'm missing an entry. maybe i deleted it by mistake. maybe someone infiltrated the blog and stole my last post... oh. time. time. time. the days pass so quickly. i was going to write on monday. but i had to set up and resp for kaspar. and that was no simple task. well. maybe i'm exaggerating just a little. but, i did have to do some research and organize the whole thing and read a bunch of forms and fill out a stack of applications and make a few appointments. did you know that the canadian government adds 20% to whatever we save for kaspar every year? not bad! free $$$. well. maybe free is not really the right word. i assume that the canadian government expects this cash to go back into the school system by the time kaspar is 18 or so. and if by some fluke it does not, then the government will tax me up to 60% of whatever we decide to take out for other reasons. all these rules and regulations. who can figure it all out. i just hope this kid of ours will want to go to school, when he's 18 :-)

on tuesday i was going to write, but i procrastinated for a while. my christmas cactuses... ( by the way, i'm planning to officially apply for a change of name for this species for plants! my cacti have been blooming non stop from november of 2005 until now. it's hardly fair calling them christmas cacti!) well, i noticed that all the fallen blossoms were starting to look like a mess on the shelf in the window. i began cleaning up and giving all the plants a little shower time and some extra soaking. then i had to bleach some spots on the shelf, because the red blossoms actually have some strong dyes in them and by the time i had that task finished, kaspar came down with a fever of 40.4 degrees celsius.
go figure! it must be teething, because otherwise he seems to be healthy, even our doctor could find nothing wrong with him. but due to the high fever he had his first taste of real medicine, which knocked the 40.4 down to 36.1 within about half hour. he went from hot and red to very wet, cool and pale. i could finally put him down, out of my arms, onto the bed... and we both slept long and hard.

wednesday i tortured kaspar by keeping him indoors. after such a high fever, i thought, i'd better be safe then sorry. but every time he'd hear the door bell he'd start calling out and waving his little hand in the air. it seems as though the waving of 'bye, bye' has become a sign for 'going outside' for him. it makes sense in away. we usually wave 'bye, bye' to dad, when he goes outside... so, why would it not mean 'going out'? then, the post man came with a package. i had to sign for it. kaspar practically jumped into the postman's arms. he wanted to go outside so much that he was willing to give himself over to a complete stranger and was thoroughly disappointed, when i locked the door behind him and we stayed on this side of the glass. but i did make up for the indoor time with a whole day out of the house yesterday. we left at about 10am and only returned at 4pm. kaspar was thrilled! exhausted, but thrilled...

spectacular

oh. today was a spectacular day! the sun was spilling over. the air was brimming with spring. the dogs and kids and parents and birds were out chirping and chatting and laughing and strolling. the funeral home barometer was reading +20 at times, but never went below +16. we went walking, too, and walk we did... until kaspar began to look drunk with sleep. he began by rubbing his eyes, then leaning further and further back, once in a while trying to straighten himself, as though to say "i'm not falling asleep, no i'm not!" and finally after a half hour fight he passed out in the stroller. this is a very rare sight! these days he likes to watch the world go by. he doesn't really sleep in the stroller anymore. but we spent a long time out and about and finally bloor street did him in. he was so tired that he fell sleep clutching a toy and i took him from the stroller to the bed (in the back door, up the stairs..) he never woke up and never let the toy go. an hour later he woke up still holding on to his toy. amazing!

his top front teeth are growing by the day! they're coming in so fast and so big. frightening, really! he still won't let me touch them, so a picture will come, when he begins to show them voluntarily to the world. today was finally a day when he was acting somewhat normal. yesterday was one of those days, when he slept more then he was awake. the day before that, he did not allow me to put him down for more then a minute at a time. and on friday he would cry whenever anything touched his mouth (which meant, he did not really eat anything else except breast milk, and was cranky from hunger!) i cannot wait until this teething period is over. at least he does not drool as much, anymore. i don't have to change outfits every couple of hours. :-)

today has been one of those days that makes one feel extremely positive. the weather. people. lots of love in the air. and i keep thinking about something i experienced a few days ago, too. something that moved me to tears, really. a friend of mine called. she had found out about the juno nomination, about the ticket prices being expensive and offered me (out of the blue!) 300$ (to have - not to borrow!), so that i could go to the juno's if i wanted to. it moved me to tears. yeah, i hung up the phone and i cried. not because of the money. i did not really want it or need it. not because of the idea that i could go. because i don't really care about going or not. but, just that she thought about me, and felt for me on that level... and because she's not even close to being rich. and she's not my best or oldest friend. she made me feel so extremely blessed that i have friends like her, that there are people out there in the world, who are willing to share their last penny with their friends. we live such busy lives that so often we forget to think about others on a deeper level... we live considerably well and yet we rarely see the need to share our wealth with others... she made me see it!

here's only the beginning

i've always known my house is very far from baby-proofed. but yesterday i still thought that the day, when kaspar might be old enough to cause damage is still a few months off. was i ever wrong.... just take a look at this picture.i left the little bugger for approximately 3 minutes in the living room, playing with his toys, while i went to the kitchen to add some milk to my tea. and i came back to this site - him turning the knobs on steve's stereo. just wait 'till dad sees this one! ha!!! priceless, just look at the innocent face! it's unfathomable how fast he manages to find the little things around the house, that are not meant for him. i cannot tell you yet, if i'm happy or saddened by the fact that he's crawling. :-) it's great to see him become mobile and grow. but, it's going to be such a pain having to chase the kid around the house. i can just see it... i can!

yeah, he's moving more and more. becoming more independent. also adding more and more bruises to his repertoire. the night before last he fell out of our bed. i was so glad it's low, just a mattress on the floor. he did have a scare, but didn't really hurt himself. however, now he knows that the edge of the bed is not to be fooled with. he did learn! with just one fall, he figured it out. now he bounces around and rolls, but as soon as he comes close to the edge, halts to a full stop and starts whining.... as in almost asking 'come save me!'.

he's also babbling a lot more. he's picked up this one word that my mom and i use around him a lot. it's 'see' in latvian 'redzi'. for the last three days he's been often babbling 'edzi' 'edzi' while playing. i think it might just be something he's picked up and now is using it without really knowing how to use it.

his front teeth are growing so fast. since they broke the gum a week ago, a nice visible edge has appeared. they look so big. the gum is almost see through and it looks so painful. i'd hate to be in his shoes! i have a feeling it still is painful. he's reluctant to bite into things. the last few days he's only been holding the things he used to chew on....

well... i've got to go. steve's back. he's working on a movie tonight. have a great day, all you fellow people across the ocean. :-)

wake up call

what do you do between 5am and 6am? most people sleep, i presume. most normal people... most of those without insomnia, at least... not i! this is kaspar and me (of course behind the camera) at 5:30 this morning. yeah. his favourite time to play is about 6am or so. some mornings a little earlier, some a little later. and i'm no game at that hour. i try really hard, i do, but very often rabbits get called ducks and elephants go galloping not horses and chickens say quack, quack... how can anyone keep up with a kid at that hour of the morning, or, night i should say? the big elephant pillow is my favourite toy. at least i can lay my head on it during those early morning play dates :-)

elliott brood got the rising start award at the indie music awards. unexpected victories! they play tonight. in a couple of hours. i'll try to make it out, i think. last chance to see them in toronto for a while. they have most of the next four months booked on the road, less three and a half weeks. the price of fame!

it was a gorgeous, sunny, warm day. we spent most of the day out, even though kaspar had barely slept last night. he was in an awesome mood, though. i love going out with him - he loves company and is always better outside the house, then he is at home. (i get the feeling he gets bored at home!) both of this top front teeth have fully broken through the gum (that's teeth no.3 and no 4), little white jagged lines. he probably will start feeling better now... knock, knock, knock!

lethargic

that's a word, isn't it? lethargic. yeah. it's a word. and that word describes me. (sometimes i have to be careful with some words. last week was a good example - i was trying to say octogenarian, but i said octovarian. and i had no ovaries in mind, believe me!) but tonight i feel so very lethargic, that it took me 45 minutes to simply sit down and write the first word for this entry. oh. boy.

it was one of those crazy days, when you wake up feeling like you have so much to do, that you just jump out of bed and get to it. i did. shortly after 7am. i had to get the extra 45 of sleep, because i was pretty much up from 3am until 6am trying to keep kaspar out of the four corners of the crib. he was thrashing and turning and fussing forever. he'd corner himself pretty much every 15 minutes and wake me up complaining about it. i'd put him back in the middle of the crib and within about 15 minutes it would be the same thing all over again. steve, of course, slept soundly through the whole ordeal. lucky bugger! so, at 6am it was daddy's turn. they came downstairs to hang out and watch cartoons while i did a 45 min snooze sandwiched between two pillows. but by 7:30 i had a coffee in one hand and a mouse in the other and i was workin' away. the TOAE applications (that's toronto outdoor art exhibition) were due today. it's been two years since i've been in it and i would very much like to get in this year. so, i've been working, working, working. this morning i still had to go through about 150 pictures, write artist's statement, resume, biography, fill out forms, burn cd and get the whole thing ready by 2pm. it was rough. especially after i realized that half of my carefully shot pictures were blurry and it was -10 outside, and my only diffused light source was the great outdoors. but, i did it. i did finish the applications and sent them off to 401 richmond with steve. he was on his way to independent music awards night (it's not the juno's, not yet) i don't really know what these indie awards are all about. i've never heard of them. but i suppose that elliott brood didn't make them up. they're nominated. i'm sure i'll hear all about it tonight, when steve gets home. last night they got home from barcelona. spain was superb, i hear!

well. all that hear-say.... but i'm lazy tonight. after getting all the work done in the morning, i spent the rest of the day hanging out with kaspar. he was a bit on the cranky side. a bit feverish. a little 'not himself. who knows what was up his sleeve...

action

i'm trying to capture some action, here. it's not an easy task. kaspar has turned into the energizer bunny. once he's in this jolly jumper, there is no stopping the kid. i never thought this was possible. a few days ago he discovered that the jolly jumper is not only intended for lounging around in... i feel very sorry for our basement neighbour. i keep trying to put carpet and foam under the kids feet, but the thumping can be felt throughout the house. i don't understand how his little head can take so much jumping. at times i try to curb the activity and divert his attention to some other seemingly fun activity, but most of the time it fails. as soon as i try to take him out of the seat, he squirms and screams and it doesn't take long before he's won the fight. (frighteningly enough, him winning the fight happens way too often, these days!)

we've just had an absolutely crazy week-end. on saturday we had dim sum and two parties to attend. kaspar participated in only one of the events, but was so burned out by the end of the day that he fell asleep at 5pm and did not wake until 10pm. however, at 10pm, he wasn't sure what to do with himself. my mom was good enough to entertain him for two hours in the dark (just the nightlight on) until he got tired enough to go back to sleep. i was the lucky one. i got to go to my friend elviga's 40th all by myself. it's awesome to have a night out now and then! and it's even more awesome to have a grandmother baby-sit. i don't think i would trust anyone to baby-sit at this age.

kaspar has now proven countless times (including this week-end)that he will not go down for a nap, when there is entertainment to be had. he's going to be a social butterfly, if this continues. looking on the bright side of things - at least he's a very good sport about it. he spent the day at the party, missing first his noon nap due to the car trip, then his 4pm nap because there were too many women paying attention to him at the party, and during all this time he did not get cranky or upset or distressed. he was on his best behavior. by the very end, he did fall asleep in my lap, holding my finger, quietly zoned out. because of all the messed up saturday schedule, sunday was even more odd. he slept for three hours in the morning, then for an hour in the early afternoon and finally fell asleep at 5:30pm and did not fully wake up (except for eating) until 6:30am this morning. go figure!

i've got two deadlines on march 1st, which is the day after tomorrow. i only figured that out today. i kept thinking - it's only the 26th - four more days until the end of the month. so, instead of working, i lounged around with kaspar all day yesterday and borrowed two movies from my favourite neighbour and watched both of them last night while waiting for kaspar to wake up (which, of course, he never did!). today, i've had this panicky feeling in the pit of my stomach... got a lot done. i'm still hoping to make both of the show deadlines but the end of the day on wednesday. knock, knock, knock...

it's weird. march first. and i feel like the winter has just hit us. it was snowing today. a bit of snow, now and then, most of the day. snow and rain always throws me off, a little. makes me a bit sleepy and lazy. kaspar was just the same, today. slept a lot. march should ring in spring. it should, it should, it should... i wait impatiently for spring. for sweater weather. for crocuses and tulips in the yard. for that pale tint of green in the trees. but for now, it's snow, and i have to get back to work in the studio. a few more hours before i can call it a night!