Pictures
drorzel | May 30, 2010Looking for something else, I was reminded of some pictures I took a week or two ago. This one came out pretty well:
This also reminds me that it's a really nice day here in Niskayuna, and I shouldn't be spending it all at the computer. So, enjoy the bird picture, and I'll post something more substantive tomorrow.
drorzel | May 27, 2010Kate here with two pictures of SteelyKid at play. Here's one from last night in which she is beginning to realize the difficulties with her plan:
(Very shortly after this, she solved the problem by demanding that I put my sandals back on, and then leading me around by one hand while she pushed her cart with the other.)
And here's one from tonight where she works on recreating the fun-with-towers experience:
With my steadying the bottom, she eventually built that single column to be taller than she could reach the top of while standing. She was so pleased with herself.
(No, Appa isn't in…
drorzel | May 20, 2010How did my day of solo SteelyKid wrangling go, you ask? I can sum it up in one picture:
She's quite a handful...
(To be fair, this is part of a game that gets played even on days when I'm not about to fall over from exhaustion... But it seemed like a really appropriate picture to sum up the day.)
drorzel | May 15, 2010It's a beautiful day here in Niskayuna, and we have family visiting. So here's a bonus baby picture (also in use as my Facebook profile picture at the moment), in hopes that while you're distracted by the cute, I can sneak outside with SteelyKid and enjoy the nice weather.
Everybody say "Awwwwww...."
drorzel | May 13, 2010SteelyKid went through a phase recently where she didn't want to eat much of anything. This wasn't medically dangerous, just kind of nerve-wracking. As a result, when she declares out of the blue that she wants a bottle, well, she gets a bottle:
Actually, she got two bottles right after we got home from day care. And another at bedtime. Go figure.
Just for fun, below the fold you'll see the comparison shot from Week 10 (this is Week 92):
She's changed just a tiny bit since then...
(For the record, her appetite is pretty much back to normal. Asking for bottles is anomalous, but she's been…
drorzel | May 6, 2010This week, we offer a shot from the forthcoming "Casual Living with SteelyKid and Appa" catalogue:
If you look closely, you can see two things: 1) a small scrape by her right eye, from an accident at day care-- even SteelyKid is bound by the laws of physics, and gravity is a harsh one, and 2) her new Williams shirt, picked up when I visited there last week. I'm not actually obligated to buy new college-logo clothing whenever I visit, but it amuses me when Kate rolls her eyes at me for buying baby clothes with purple cows.
Another decent view of the shirt is here:
When I gave it to her after…
drorzel | May 1, 2010A college classmate sent me this picture of a library display in the Boston area:
That's How to Teach Physics to Your Dog prominently displayed on the top shelf. Just below it, you can see Physics for Future Presidents, and to the right, you can just make out Richard Dawkins's book on evolution. Pretty good company to be in, and even better to be on top of...
(Yes, I know, relative position in a library book display doesn't have anything to do with anything. It's fun to pretend, though...)
(Thanks for the picture, Andrew.)
drorzel | April 29, 2010SteelyKid has a cold, again, so she's kind of unhappy tonight. There's a picture of a slightly bleary SteelyKid with Appa below the fold, but that's kind of a downer, so here's some video from the other night, showing her new favorite game:
(She'll do this for hours. Well, ten minutes, at least, but it feels like hours when you're the one being ordered around and jumped on...)
Here's the Appa picture, for completeness:
Mommy and the Red Dog make things a little more bearable, but she hasn't been a happy camper today.
drorzel | April 22, 2010Most weeks, I try to find some natural-looking way to get SteelyKid and Appa in the picture together. Sometimes, though, there's just no way to get it done, and we have to resort to Kate holding Appa near her:
She's hugging her jacket because it got kind of cold this afternoon, but she's in a phase where she refuses to put her jacket on, and also refuses to go inside. Life's tough with a willful toddler.
To compensate for the lack of elegance in this week's Appa picture, here are two much better shots taken by Matt Milless of Mahi Matt Photo at last night's charity basketball game. First, a…
drorzel | April 18, 2010SteelyKid was playing with something on the floor behind my chair, so I started reading my newsfeeds. Kate was on the other side of the office, engrossed in her own computer-related program activities. After a moment or two, SteelyKid got up, and ran into the living room. Kate and I both finished what we were reading, then noticed a disturbing lack of baby noise.
"Where did she go?" Kate asked.
"I dunno," I replied, and we both got up from our computers and headed out of the office in opposite directions. We met in the kitchen, with no SteelyKid. Kate said, "Seriously, did she go upstairs?"…
drorzel | April 17, 2010Some bonus cute for your weekend:
Here's SteelyKid apparently deciding to be a wizard. She can wave a stick and babble in what might as well be fake Latin with the best of them-- don't try to tell her she can't.
drorzel | April 15, 2010The arrival of good weather has led to a good deal of yard work here at Chateau Steelypips. SteelyKid, being a sturdy and active toddler, is quite insistent that she can help with the raking:
Or, possibly, fight off demon armies with her ninja skills. It's a little hard to say. Swinging the rake around does make her happy, though, so Appa and I just try to stay out of her way.
drorzel | April 12, 2010No blogging this weekend, and not even a Links Dump for Monday morning, because I was busy with non-blog stuff all weekend. Such as fencing in Lake Steelypips:
OK, maybe that's too grandiose a name for the little decorative pond in our back yard. It's not all that large, but it is big enough to put SteelyKid at risk should she fall in, so it needed to be fenced. The actual fencing operation was dead simple, but was delayed for a bit when I forgot that I really ought to enclose the electrical outlet (for the pond pump) in the fence, requiring a second trip to Lowe's.
Between that and an…
drorzel | April 8, 2010"What's SteelyKid doing for amusement now that the weather is all nice and stuff?," you ask. Well, here's your answer: she's giving her sky-bison rides on the swing in the back yard:
"Wait a minute," you say, "isn't it, like, 80 degrees there? Why's she wearing a coat?"
Look, man, when the Empress decides she wants to wear her coat, she's going to wear her coat. There's no reasoning with a willful toddler.
Fortunately, she's pretty darn cute. And swinging is highly entertaining:
Of course, at some point, you have to call it a night, pack up your sky-bison, and head in for the night:
(It…
drorzel | April 2, 2010As I was headed upstairs to bed last night, I stopped in the library, and said "There's something I ought to be doing..." but couldn't remember what. This morning, while walking Emmy, it hit me: Baby Blogging!
It's weird that I forgot, because I went to the trouble of taking pictures and everything:
This is SteelyKid hanging out on the swing in the back yard, drinking some juice. As you can tell by the short sleeves, it's Fake Summer here, and the backyard was warm and pleasant last night after day care. I have some other pictures where she and Appa aren't cropped as tightly as they are here…
drorzel | March 29, 2010It's grey and dreary here, with an expected high temperature around 50F. That can only mean one thing: Spring has arrived in New England!
(You can distinguish spring from winter by the daytime high temperatures-- they're both grey and dreary, but winter is grey, dreary, and cold...)
Spring means mud, yard work, and a new academic term. But on the bright side, spring also gives SteelyKid an excuse to show off her spiffy spring hat:
Hope your spring gets off to a good start.
drorzel | March 25, 2010Not as nice a day today as some recent days, but we ended up running around in the backyard all the same. It's still not really spring, no matter what the astronomers say, but there are a few hardy little weeds poking up flowers that haven't quite opened yet. SteelyKid already knows what to do with these: Pick them up, and give them to Mommy.
We also took turns riding on the swing in the backyard:
Kate managed to get a smile with the ever-popular "got your red dog" game:
But by the time it was my turn, SteelyKid was tired of swinging, and much more interested in admiring the neighbors' yard…
drorzel | March 18, 2010Kate here, with some outdoor baby blogging:
I'd meant for this to be a comparison photo to this one from August. Unfortunately it's got neither Chad nor Appa for scale, and she's slouching, which diminishes the OMG HUGE effect—but not the killer cute.
One more outdoor picture and one indoor picture below the fold:
Here we have a somewhat crooked image of her joy at having her picture taken:
And here we have a Kate's-eye view of a very common sight here at Chateau Steelypips:
Yes, she's the cutest toddler in the universe, thank you for noticing.
drorzel | March 11, 2010SteelyKid says "You know what? Bacon tastes good!"
We've had a hard time convincing her that anything that isn't either 1) crunchy, or 2) goopy is food. Cooked vegetables, she'll pick up, look at, and toss aside laughing. Cooked meat is similarly rejected. This week, though, we discovered that she'll eat bacon, which evidently is crispy enough to overcome its Meat Nature. Also, bread is ok, probably because in addition to being yummy, it can be ripped into lots of little pieces that can be scattered all over the table.
Emmy, of course, is insanely jealous that SteelyKid gets bacon. It's very…
drorzel | March 4, 2010Here we see SteelyKid kickin' back in her babypod, sharing a meal of Cheerios and dried fruit with Appa:
SteelyKid says "You know, Daddy, if we traveled by sky bison, you wouldn't have to worry about the wiring in your car, and you wouldn't be faced with driving a giant rental pick-up truck to Vestal tomorrow..."
She's not always the world's most helpful baby.