First Birthday extravaganza

sugar rushes are fun!
Originally uploaded by Wingates.

We all gathered at G'ma and G'Dad's last night for Oliver's first birthday party. It will still be a few days until the actual event (Feb.2), but we'll be out of town next week and it's never too early to celebrate. Especially when you've never had a birthday before.

We arrived in the early afternoon and Cora helped Sarah decorate the cake. That meant a fair amount of icing was ingested during the decorating process. Once the early sugar rush set in, Cora started running around the house while we all hung out and loafed while Grandma slaved away in the kitchen.

Oliver wore a new outfit-a slick nylon jumpsuit that Grammy Stella sent for Christmas. He looked quite stylish and Grandma couldn't stop squeezing his chunky legs.

We opened presents and enjoyed a fabulous dinner and then unveiled the cake. There were quite a few candles on the cake, and when Oliver saw a burning cake coming his way he started squirming in his chair, ready to head in the opposite direction. But once the candles were out and the ice cream and cake were safely on his plate he was happy to indulge himself. As you can see, the cake and ice cream eating soon devolved into a chocolate-sugar-fueled-face-smeared-plate-licking-kid-fest. Both of the kids had a ball, and we all did too. Kate and I were too uptight to let Cora have that much fun when she was one. Then again she had barely started eating food when she was that age. We practically have to hold Oliver back from digging into our plates he's so eager to eat grown-up food already. Once the carnage was over G'ma and Kate bathed the kids, got the chocolate out of their hair, we took them home, and tucked them into bed. A great first Birthday.

Roofers...

Things have been relatively quiet around here....Cora and Oliver both weathered their sicknesses pretty well without taking nosedives.

We've had a stack of shingles in our yard for two weeks now, waiting for the roofers to come give us a new roof. They dropped off the shingles and have not lined up a time to actually use them. The tarps are holding up well so far, but I imagine there's only so much sun, wind, and buckets of rain that tarps and duct tape can withstand. Since our house is at the top of the "T" in a T-intersection, our yard is highly visible to all the cars that stop there. Word must have spread in the "shingling" workers pool that our house had a large amount of shingles sitting in the yard with no one to use them. A guy approached Kate last week and offered to shingle the roof for cheap. This morning as I left our driveway a truck pulled out of another driveway nearby. He backed out and blocked the road and gestured for me to roll down the window. I did, and he pointed to our front yard.
"Do you have someone to put on those shingles?"
I assured him that we did. It feels like we're being staked out by opportunistic shady shinglers.

As soon as I got to work I called our supposed roofing company. Evidently our work order got lost in the shuffle. So hopefully the roof will soon be out of our yard and on the roof.

Winter bug

psychedelic ollie
Originally uploaded by Wingates.

The winter bug has descended and taken Cora and Oliver down. They're both fighting colds or some sort of sickness. Cora has a classic cold and Oliver keeps running a high fever with no other symptoms. Cora has been out of school for two days so Mommy has been on double duty.

Oliver is still crab crawling happily with occasional balancing moments. He'll probably walk in a month or two. He has stopped talking (he had a total of three or four words) and has chosen to go back to his native tongue of baby babble. He's doing that quite a lot with great enthusiasm. It's clear that he knows exactly what he's saying to us, we just don't understand him yet.

before...

the eye
Originally uploaded by Wingates.

after!

the new 'do
Originally uploaded by Wingates.

It had to happen eventually

New haircut profile
Originally uploaded by Wingates.

Yesterday, as I picked Cora up from school, her teacher April personally escorted her to the car. This never happens. Bad sign number one. As April helped Cora into the car she asked me casually, "Will you and Kate be home this evening? I would like to give you a call." Very bad sign, ominous even. Surely a death blow. Then she turned to Cora and said "Why don't you tell your daddy what was happening this afternoon. I'll give him a call tonight and we'll see what you talked about."

April then shut the door, leaving me confused and obviously concerned. Just as I began to turn back around, April mimed with her hands a pair of scissors across her forehead and mouthed the words "She cut her hair." Three other teachers were standing by the fence, all smiling from ear to ear as we drove away.

Cora had a hat on because it was cold outside, so I couldn't see the damage done. I figured it was significant though. I asked Cora how her day at school had gone and if she had done anything unusual. On to me as usual, she talked about the playground and lunchtime. Then with a flourish she whipped off her hat and said "And I cut my hair!"

I must admit she did a pretty good job. The picture is after the visit to the barber. She had hacked the front bangs to the nub and then cut back the sides to just over the ears, leaving the back long like a supermodel mullet. It looked stylish in a weird way. She was quite tickled about it.

One self-haircut is fine, and probably to be expected, but it's not a habit we want to encourage. So we tried not to appear too amused and insisted that we go to Fantastic Sam's where people are trained to cut hair. We all agreed that would remain their job in the future and Cora would concentrate on other skills.

The funny part is how cute her new haircut looks. She has a little pixie cut and it looks great.

On another note, once again, as Cora was brushing her teeth today, she came up with another pearl.
She said, "Daddy, I had a dream last night that I was a giant chicken."
"Yeah? What did you do when you were a chicken?"
"I got baked in the oven."

Big Week

We just finished an exciting week. Cora went to the dentist on Wednesday--her third checkup--and discovered that she has big teeth underneath the baby teeth in her lower jaw. She is very excited about them and is telling everyone that her big teeth are pushing on the baby teeth. It will probably be a while before they start getting loose, but it's still a reminder that her body is only getting bigger and older.

Another reminder is her new bed, which she is sleeping in tonight for the first time. She inherited it from Anne, who won't have room for it in Asheville. It's a big girl bed, big enough for adults to sleep in. She has a new set of Pooh sheets that match her pajamas and she's snuggled in for the night. Quite a big coming of age week for a four year old.

We helped Anne pack the moving van today and she's heading to Asheville tomorrow for the next chapter in her life. It will really sink in soon that she's not just down the road, but for now it doesn't feel real yet.

Science lessons

This morning as Cora was brushing her teeth for school she turned to me with an excited expression. She gets her most inspiration for deep thoughts when we are on a deadline. She said, "Did you know, plants breathe out the air that we need to live. And we breathe out the hydrogen peroxide that the plants need! Isn't that neat!"

sunny day

sunny day
Originally uploaded by Wingates.

We enjoyed an afternoon of unseasonably warm weather today--it was probably mid-60's all day, San Diego weather.

Oliver got his own photo shoot while Cora was at school. Check out the set at the flickr site. Click on the picture and then "view as slideshow". Also check out the "new Camera" set.

Happy Anniversary to Us!

Five years today....yeeha!

New Camera!

eyes
Originally uploaded by Wingates.

Thanks to Pop Pop and Grammy Rena, we now have a new camera--a Panasonic fz20. As you can see, it is a considerable step up from the old point and shoot variety. I have to figure out how to use it, but in the meantime it is still making some beautiful pictures. Click on the picture to go to our Flickr site and see the set of pictures we took today.

Wingate Bobbleheads

Wingate Bobbleheads
Originally uploaded by Wingates.

We are now a commodity. Immortalized. The Wingates are now bobbleheads. And we're also mostly African American, Cora being the sole exception. That could only mean that Pop Pop and Grammy Rena are in town with Christmas goodies gathered throughout the year; you never know what they're going to bring.

They rolled in last night after a full ten hour day on the road. Cora was so anxious to see them that she kept running back and forth to the door. I offered to read a book to her when I got home and she said "No Daddy, I have to watch for Pop Pop and Grammy Rena." We had a wonderful evening together once they arrived and then put them to work today.

Standing!

Oliver stood up on his own for about ten seconds on Tuesday. He was playing by the couch and picked up a toy with both hands. He was so absorbed looking at it that he must have forgotten he couldn't stand yet. Ten seconds up, then.....plop on the diaper bottom. We'll miss the crab crawl. We'll also miss the butt swivel, when he sits on the floor and spins around with his legs like a gunners turret, surveying the 360 degree landscape.

At this point--almost one year old already!--we are starting to discern some of Oliver's passions. Food and music are the two frontrunners. He grunts and lunges whenever we eat apples, bananas, or drink water. Gimme some! Cora got a bucket of instruments for Christmas, mostly percussive ones like a hand drum, triangle, wooden strikers, clacker thingies, a penny whistle, a tambourine, and some other stuff to create racket with. On three separate occasions now Oliver has crawled over to the music box, dumped everything out in a pile, picked out the appropriate instruments and begun to play them. The first time he chose the drum and the matching drumstick. Then the triangle and the matching striker. Then the wood strikers. He gets completely absorbed.

Then when we were at G'ma and G'dad's and they were playing music at New Years he couldn't get enough of the music they were playing. He listened contentedly for a while and then crawled up to the instruments, intent on playing them himself. His technique is quite good already; he fans his fingers in a gentle strumming motion. There is obviously a strong genetic pull toward music in his blood, but it's amazing to see him approach instruments as if he's played them before. (Insert parental comments here--He's a genius!)