Ivo Pushing Burl & Burl Pushing Ivo - Videos

Ivo pushing Burl in the swing on a windy day, 25 sep 08. He sings the abc's to Burl - which is what we do to give the swinger a nice wind-down cuz he's about to find his turn coming to an end. Ivo still is skipping over "tuvwx" cuz he hears "s" as "x" - so I've been adding ...q,r,s - like Sandy, t, u, v -violin, w, x, y and z. Now I know my abc's next time won't you sing with me." We're still trying to find out how z=zed works out in this song:)

Burl pushing Ivo the next day. Also a windy day. Ivo likes to be pushed "fast and straight," he also likes to go "higher." Burl does a good job while refusing to sing "row row row yr boat."

Skating and Rescue

I know this sounds ridiculous – but I’m convinced my camera is calibrated to a subtropical climate – the lens will not open unless I warm the camera up against my belly, and yes, this realization has taken several weeks and it may not be the final word but this is why I have no pics of our first skating trip at Carleton Civic Center.

It was pretty cold in there – I think it was the ice. Ivo wanted to observe, just touching the ice with his hand. Burl got suited up! Helmet, bob skates, and mittens. He slid around clinging desperately to my legs and agreed to staying on the ice so long as he was held. When free-skate period ended, poor Ivo decided he really did want to go skating. We’ll try asap.

I just looked at the extended forecast and am chagrinned to see that by the weekend, the high temp will be 9C. Eek! I’m so glad that we took advantage of today’s 21C temp and beautiful blue autumn skies!

At the park, Ivo - I mean “Bat-Ivo” – announced to strangers who were super-receptive to superheroes, that “When I’m not savin’ the day, I’m Bruce Wayne.” Later one of these folks asked Ivo what he eats to make himself so strong. Ivo replied, “I eat healthy food, makes my muscles so big.” I don’t know where he got this… maybe school?

Ivo also ran around very seriously saying “I’m off to the rescue!”

Afterwards at home, Ivo was reviewing his time at the park, chattering about how Emily “…said ‘rescue’ after I said rescue. We were two kids! I was the boy and she was the girl!”

I’m thinking of changing Burl’s name to SweetBurl.

Burl could feel the static stand up his hair, reaching back and "uh" -ing. Unlike Ivo's standing hair, it was unphotographable due to the short-fineness of it all.

I Had a Clever Title but...

Just a little bit of dissipation over here... Tired. But things are very good. I got my permanent residence visa last Monday and on Friday, I went to Maine to come back into Canada, thereby activating my new visa status.

As is the way in Autumn, at the ME/NB border, there were 7 obese US hunters in line ahead of me. They were registering their weapons. And then, the guy right in front of me was a US citizen who'd "gotten in trouble up in Centreville for buying liquor for minors." Guy was at least 40 - minors here, would have to be... 18 or younger. What a cool guy!

Burl is mimicking almost everything Ivo does - good and bad, safe and trecherous. Very cute. He understands everything said around him and if something has snything to do with him or holds any interest for him, he raises his hand or points at his chest! So we're thinking Burl may not ever need to use words cuz his self-developed sign language is awesome. When he wants to go somewhere he points out the window at the car "DE!" and then turns an imaginary steering wheel!!!

Ivo told Burl tonight, "Burly, I gotta tell you something" -at this point, Ivo held Burl's head in both his hands and turned it so they were eye-to-eye - "...you can't watch Tubbies tonight but you can watch it tomorrow morning." Ivo's new favorite song is "Head, shoulders, knees and toes." He's heard it before but only really learned it this week at school.

Ryan is starting to get some grades back - and it's all A's, baby! Comments like "Classroom ready!" appear on the curriculum he wrote, to name just one of his triumphs:) Yay Ryan!

These are pics from last Wed, 24 Sep on the old RxR bridge where the Meduxnekeag meets the St John. It was such a beautiful day - lots of spider webs on the bridge with spiders to investigate.

Oh yea, can anyone tell me/us how the abc song is sung in Canada? Specifically this part, "...w, x, y and zed. Now I know my abc's, next time won't you sing with ____?" Who -Ted? Fred?

Ivo & Burl: Indian Summer Snot Festival!!!

Oh - it's festive!!!















The weather has turned warm and sunny - giant cloudless skies - warm, like 24C. Cold and frosty at night. We wake up thinking and feeling like it's irredeemably cold - no matter what the (unnervingly accurate) weather forecast predicts. Plus both Ivo and Burl have either allergies or colds - Gail and I are thinking allergies, but it's anyone's guess. Hay, goldenrod and then mold in wet hay are the allergens people in the know have suggested... Neither Ivo nor Burl has run into any of that stuff - and no one else around here is snotty, drippy, sneezy, coughy.





















Maybe I should change the name to Fall Phlegm Festival...




















So, I've been dabbling a little more over on facebk with videos but I'll probably post them here too. Ivo is in such a sweet, charming clever phase - it's wonderful to be around him. He says things like, I a big boy, I don't need help doing anything. He narrates almost everything he does. Today he saw an ad for bread that featured a cartoon slice of bread with a red cape and face flying around. He was taken aback and asked, "...but why...why he only a bread and he have superpowers like me?"




I have been remiss in posting about Ivo's recent love of rhymes. It's been percolating for a month or two and just exploded this past couple weeks. He used to say that words which rhymed "are the same like." So he'd say "Cat is the same word like bat." When we were in Cleveland he walked into the Trivial Pursuit room and announced, "Viper, viper the same word like diaper." If I hadn't already known, that statement would have clued me in, the kid's a genius. So he now knows the word "rhyme" and often asks for words that rhyme with a word he's chewing on. This week the words he's wanting to match up are a little... tricky; elephant and other 3-syllable words. I'm starting to talk to him about syllables and beats in words. Anyway, he is now able to rhyme words all by himself and recognize when things kinda sound alike but don't really rhyme. The other day Ivo said, "I know what rhyme with Burl." What? "Girl! Girl rhyme with Burl!"

So today a contemplative Ivo came up to me and said, "Crying is like laughung - but they don't rhyme."

Just a touch more Ivo Overheard;

• "I like saving the day."


• "Flying is my favorite superpower. And punching."


• "Oh - III get it!" in a really exaggerated way, almost droll
  

Burl is soldiering on into the land of controlled verbage. ("Verbage" seems to be the new catchword during the ridiculous presidential campaign down stateside, as they say around here. If I have to see that greasy, overly made-up fake-face Palin saying "verbage" one more time... well, I just won't vote for her - umm, yea...) Back to Burly- he still loves playing and hearing "Ring around the Rosie" but I reckon his current favorite song is "Row Row Row Yr Boat." Burl purses his lips into a cute little oval and says "ro, ro, ro" when he wants to hear it. He's tremendously pleased when the message is understood. Burl bends at the waste and laughs when he thinks something is funny - quite propbably in imitation of Ivo when Ivo senses something hilariously over the top. Burl's awesome.

3 links:

• Our friend Rob in Oz put this up on fcbk. It's a poll by the PBS show NOW asking whether you think Palin is qualified to be vice-president of the USA. According to Rob, "Voting started at about 66% No, 30% Yes. It's now more like 55-45 "Yes"! The right wing has an email campaign going to turn the results around." When I voted, it was 49-49 - so go vote here if you have 3 seconds.


• This next thing is from a blog called newyorkshitty - thru NYMag. If you like vaginas, you'll probably love this as much as I do:) The title keeps cracking me up!


• and one really good, kinda long article on the badnews shadow banking horror show.
  

Pics from today- Ivo took the one of me. I have super cute pics from yesterday to post...

Birds & Bees, Burl & Ivo Style

These pics are from yesterday at the Buttermilk Creek Festival in Florenceville. It was a great time, a beautiful-almost-Autumn day...

We spent all our money at the used clothing booth. They had halloween costumes which Ivo & Burl consider street clothes. Yay!!!

Today - I killed a cat. We did other better things but they'll keep. Ivo and Burl remain 100% awesome and amazing - yes, Burl at 18 months can swing on a big-kid swing... But, I've gotta get my beauty rest - cuz tomorrow es mi cumpleanos!!!

oh man, it's getting cold here and I'm hungry all the time...

A couple things I'm reading or listening to:

• Feasting at the Table of Taipei



• Barton Gellman, author of Angler; the Cheney Vice Presidency, on Leonard Lopate

Burly Babel-On

Over the last few days, less than a week, Burl has been making all kinds of new sounds, playing around with liquids and sibilants, singing and chattering away.

His intonation and inflection are all so conversational, in combination with his body language and facial expressions, he's really good at communicating so we've kinda been wondering when he'd get around to seeing the point of expanding his vocabulary. As if he knew we were thinking about this, Burl has started to add some more words; yes, soup, teletubbies (pronounced TubTub-yeah - I'm not sure if the yeah part is actually part of his version of 'tubbies or his way of saying, "Yeah, that's it! I said it right!"), lai lai (which means "come here" and which he has been signing for many many months)... Burl says something like NumNum for NuNu, the vacuum cleaner in tubbyland.

Here are links to a few videos of Burl Babel-On:

• From 19 Sep 08 - Burl making sounds and grunting - not really sounding too language-y


• From 19 Sept 08 - earlier in the day Burl inflecting and intoning yet not many words til the end when he beckons me,"lai lai."


• From 20 Sep 08 - Burl has long loved the tubbies but seldom gets to see them on tv, enjoying them in library books and squeeky-toy form. This is about to change cuz he loves them so much andnow asks for them by pointing to the tv and saying "TubTub-yeah!" He also says Po, LaLa, 'ello and bye-bye (not new). Burl also said "yes" and "soup" several times this afternoon!


• From 20 Sep 08 - When Burl mispronounces something I've asked him to say, he seems surprised and tries to shake it off with a grinning grimace, a head shake and the word "nooo..." In this video, Burl says "TubTubTubTub..." and then realizes that's not right. When I ask him to say Lala - no problem. When I ask him to say Po, he enthusiastically agrees and says, LALA, then shakes his head and says "Nooo" It's like he's not completely in charge of what sounds come out - sooo cute!

And I do realize that all these words are recognizable only in context and only by his family... I'm just sooo excited to see him develop his speech - Plus, Burl is so proud and excited!

Ivo & Burl Return to the Farm

Today was a great day. In the morning, Gail, Burl, Ivo and I went to Landon and Eric's to play. Fun. I've been thinking that Burly doesn't/hasn't gotten much chance to play with little guys - and Eric is a sweet little guy!

Afterwards, Ivo went to school, I ran a couple errands, Burl napped and Gail made soup(s) - yum. We all went to pick up Ivo and then went back to Uncle Wayne's to pick more pumpkins and get some cornstalks and just play at the farm - cuz last night was sooo cold we didn't get to linger. Today, the high was 14C but it was beautiful, sunny-blue-sky, and NOT windy - so the boys got to run around and check things out.

My camera didn't work in the morning but did work at the farm - so, decent. We're going to something called the Buttermilk Creek Festival tomorrow!!! Ryan's got sooo much work due next week, we are gonna clear out of the house as much as possible tomorrow and hope he gets lots done:)

Pics from today...