Pictures
drorzel | November 18, 2010Fashion's been on our minds this week, what with the whole Rock Stars of Science thing rolling out yesterday, so this week we have SteelyKid modeling the latest in toddler headgear:
This was the culmination of a game that started with her putting her napkin on her head, and declaring it a hat. We moved on to me having to wear a towel on my head, and then her getting the towel. I really like the way this one turned out.
Of course, it wouldn't be Toddler Blogging without Appa for scale:
Here, we have SteelyKid kicking back with Appa and, um, a can of tomato paste that she found in the kitchen…
drorzel | November 14, 2010We had freakishly good weather today, so I went outside to get some raking done. SteelyKid came out with me to help:
We also got some video of the Dinosaur Leaf Attack game we were playing, but YouTube is struggling with the file for some reason or another, so I can't post that. The important bits are in this picture, anyway: leaves, SteelyKid, big smiles and laughing.
I'm going to focus on this, and try to pretend that football didn't happen today.
drorzel | November 11, 2010Here we see SteelyKid kicking back with Appa, among some of her many, many toys:
Navigating the living room is getting to be kind of difficult, what with all the blocks and cups and balls and other things strewn all over the place...
In other news, SteelyKid is in training to be a genius. Don't believe me? She's been practicing:
She still needs to work on the hair. And, you know, a comppletely revolutionary theory of space and time. But cut her some slack-- she's only two and a quarter...
(I couldn't resist...)
drorzel | November 4, 2010Welcome to this very-carefully-posed edition of Thursday Toddler Blogging:
That's Kate and SteelyKid reading The Cat in the Hat,shot from a slightly odd angle so as to hide the wicked shiner that SteelyKid is sporting, thanks to a tumble down the stairs on Tuesday morning (while I was getting ready to take her to the doctor, no less-- Tuesday was Not A Good Day). She's doing just fine, but it's really a terrible look.
This also continues the playing-with-the-camera trend of the last week or two, as this was shot without the flash. The angle is also chosen to put the lamp on the end table out…
drorzel | November 2, 2010If you're in the US, go vote. Preferably for a candidate who isn't barking mad, but ultimately that's between you and your conscience.
If you're not in the US, or you've already voted, enjoy some cute, as SteelyKid is first skeptical about the idea of lots of kids in masks visiting the house:
Then happier once she heard about the candy:
(She's home sick today, and thus somewhat less cute than these pictures from Sunday. But, you know, even when sick, she's pretty cute.)
These are also another flash/no-flash pair, which is a slightly better comparison than the previous round, given that they…
drorzel | October 28, 2010Inspired by the anti-flash-photography article in the morning's links dump, this week's Toddler Blogging offers you a choice of two different pictures. Here's one with the flash:
And one without:
(Appa's been feeling self-conscious about SteelyKid's growth lately, and asked for a little forced perspective in the second shot. SteelyKid was too busy reading Dr. Seuss to notice.)
A proper comparison would, of course, use the same composition and framing. No such plan survives contact with a toddler, though-- by the time I switched modes on the camera, she had lost interest in the book she was…
drorzel | October 21, 2010This week, we see Appa and SteelyKid with all the essential elements of bedtime:
From right to left, we have: Goodnight Moon, the Winnie-the-Pooh collection I've started reading to her after her bottle, and the brown-and-white doggie she has adopted as her essential comfort animal. This was apparently a Valentine's Day promotion from some chain store a few years back, as Kate learned while finding a backup doggie on EBay-- we can't do bedtime without it, and don't want to think about what would happen if it got lost.
Despite the giggling and laughing that accompanied the picture-taking, she…
drorzel | October 17, 2010I'm always taking pictures of SteelyKid going about her business, so a little turnabout is fair play:
The "camera" she's using is actually a small calculator that my mom gave her. She also uses this like a phone, to carry on lengthy conversations with her great-grandmother and sometimes friends from day care. She'll also sometimes just punch the buttons to watch the numbers change on the display.
Basically, it's a toddler iPhone. A whole lot cheaper than a real one, though...
drorzel | October 14, 2010I didn't think I'd make it back in time for this week's Toddler Blogging, but things wrapped up earlier than expected in Buffalo, so I made it home in time for dinner. And a celebratory reading of Moo, Baa, La La La:
That's really about all I have the energy for. In case you didn't know already, New York is a rather big state to drive across. It's good to be home, now I'm going to fall over.
drorzel | October 7, 2010SteelyKid has a new friend, who she shows off in this week's Toddler Blogging:
She's a huge fan of Goldbug in Richard Scarry's Cars and Trucks and Things That Go, so when we found out that there's a plush Goldbug toy available on the Internet, it was a real no-brainer. She recognized it immediately, despite Goldbug-the-toy being approximately 100 times Goldbug-the-character.
Unrelated disgustingly cute toddler babble story:
Today was the first break we've had in a week of dreary rain, so we celebrated by stopping by the playground after day care. For a little while there was a really bright…
drorzel | September 23, 2010SteelyKid has been expanding her repertoire of songs lately-- it now includes "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" and "The Alphabet Song" along with "Ring Around the Rosey," "The Wheels on the Bus" and "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes"-- so for this week's picture, she decided to get in touch with her inner Bono:
Irish shirt, check; big sunglasses, check; open mouth, check. Get a world leader or two in the picture, and nobody would be able to tell the difference.
drorzel | September 16, 2010For this week's Toddler Blogging, a shot of Family Reading Time:
SteelyKid looks very serious, because she's going about the important job of locating Goldbug in Richard Scarry's Cars and Trucks and Things That Go. Grandma and Grandpa still have the copy of this that I loved when I was little, and introduced SteelyKid to it. If you're not familiar with it, it contains lots of very busy road scenes, with lots of different types of vehicles, and each drawing includes a little gold bug somewhere-- driving a bulldozer, riding in a car, hiding in a teacup. SteelyKid has really taken to the "Where…
drorzel | September 13, 2010SteelyKid returns today from her weekend at Grandma and Grandpa's, and there's going to be a surprise waiting for her:
She hadn't exactly outgrown her crib yet, but she was getting kind of big for it, so we decided to move her to a big girl bed. It's a "captain's bed" with drawers underneath the mattress, bought from the local unfinished furniture place (and finished by them, because we're not that fond of the smell of varnish). A closer look at the bedspread Kate bought to go with it:
Before you say "Why'd you buy her a bedspread from the boys section?" remember two things: 1) Kate and I…
drorzel | September 9, 2010SteelyKid goes to day care at the Jewish Community Center, which is closed today and tomorrow for Rosh Hashanah. Here we see her calling all her friends on the phone in her play house to wish them a happy new year, and let Appa offer his own greetings:
The two-day closing is, as you might imagine, kind of inconvenient for us But it's all good, because SteelyKid is going to celebrate the holiday with a few days at Grandma and Grandpa camp, so here's a special Toddler Blogging shot, with bonus grandparents for scale:
(Both of these were taken with my spiffy new telephoto lens, the Canon 55-…
drorzel | September 5, 2010We had a Barfy Toddler Incident yesterday, making a mess of Kate's spiffy new car seat, but that seems to have been a passing thing, perhaps caused by an excess of cranberry juice while on campus yesterday morning greeting new students. Thus, we went ahead with our plan to take SteelyKid to the zoo today:
We only went through the part you can walk through-- it didn't seem like we'd have much luck getting her to sit still for the "safari ride" through the rest of it-- and a lot of it was kind of shabby and depressing-- small chain-link enclosures, animals scrambling for food from visitors,…
drorzel | September 2, 2010For this week's Toddler Blogging, SteelyKid demonstrates her mastery of bubble technology. Appa is not that impressed.
Her other big new trick is bossing us around in great detail-- she'll put something on her fake grill, close the lid, turn the knobs, then say, "Daddy! No touch! Hot!" pointing at the grill, followed by a very clearly enunciated "Be careful!" complete with finger-wagging. That's a little harder to get a good picture of, but I'll see what I can do for next week.
drorzel | September 1, 2010Rubber dino, you're the one,
You make bathtime lots of fun
Rubber dino, I'm awfully fond of you
Doo-doo doo-de-doo
Rubber dino, fearsome roar,
Good thing you're a herbivore
Rubber dino, I'm awfully fond of you
doo-doo doo-de-doo
Every day when I,
get undressed next to the sink,
I find a
Little fella who's,
cute and yellow and extinct
When I squeeze you, water squirts,
Then I giggle, 'til it hurts
Rubber dino, I'm awfully fond of you
Doo-doo doo-de-doo
You're my favorite bathtime toy,
Watch out for that asteroid!
Rubber dino, I'm awfully fond of
Rubber dino, I'm awfully fond of,
Rubber dino…
drorzel | August 31, 2010Back in July, I did a post looking at how the fountain in our ornamental backyard pond shoots higher when the level of the pond drops. I set up a simple model of the process, which worked surprisingly well, but I said at the time that I really needed more data to say whether that agreement was real or accidental. Well, yesterday, I got some extreme data:
The leak in the pond has gotten worse, I think, and the water was barely covering the top of the pump box at all. A very rough calibration of this image, using the fact that the brick is 2in high, gives a height of the spray of about 62in,…
drorzel | August 29, 2010I am planning to buy a telephoto lens for my camera. From time to time, I want to take pictures of the various critters Emmy chases in the back yard, and that would be a whole lot easier if I didn't need to get so close to them. And, of course, I strongly suspect there will be outdoor sports in SteelyKid's future, which will demand some zooming for action shots.
My camera is a Canon Rebel XSi, their entry-level DSLR model. Back when I bought it, I flagged this telephoto lens based on a recommendation in some "DSLR essentials" article or another. It still seems like a reasonable choice, but I…
drorzel | August 19, 2010Many of SteelyKid's first words have been transportation-related ("Truck! Vroom Vroom!"), which makes the four-level wooden parking garage she got from her Aunt Erin even more awesome. And it's pretty awesome:
As you can see, she grasped the idea almost immediately. That's from last night, after we got it put together. Below the fold, you can see her demonstrating how to work the elevator for Appa:
Being both larger than the garage and capable of flight, Appa's not terribly interested. SteelyKid loves it, though, and that's the important thing.