A daddy break...

So occasionally, we do pop a little something on here that is a bit unrelated to the kids. I'm taking this opportunity to talk about a trip I was able to take to Indio, California last week to attend the Coachella Music and Art Festival with our mutual best friend Kerry. Holly thought that this would be a great chance for me to recharge and do something special midway through my leave. I love my wife.

I had a really good time. I got to see about 20 or so bands play, some of which were absolute favourites that were not coming to Canada any time soon. I was able to soak up the sun - all 38+ degrees of it. I got to see a part of North America that I'd never visited before. And of course I got to sleep long, uninterrupted hours every night for a week. OK, so maybe not that last part. But I suppose I could have . . . :)

The trip lasted from the 13th (travel day: Ottawa - Montreal - Chicago - Palm Springs) to the 19th (travel day: Palm Springs - L.A. - Chicago - ...oops, flight cancelled due to lightning and hail - night in Chicago airport - Washington D.C. - Ottawa) so I was actually on the ground from the 14th to the 18th. Literally, as the first four of those nights were spent tenting at the Coachella site. Mornings were spent relaxing/recuperating/preparing to beat the heat. Acts starting hitting the stage around noon and each day's headliner typically played until 1 am or so. Here are a bunch of pictures from the adventure.


Our jazzy and high-tech Coachella wristbands...the keys to the kingdom!

A self-portrait of the intrepid adventurers, front row for Broken Social Scene.

A view of the crazy throng of people as they milled into the concert venue at the start of each day.

Here's an aerial view of half of the car-camping area: about a 2-football-field-sized space filled with spots where a vehicle could back in and pitch a tent behind the vehicle. Obviously, lots of people camping this way. At the far back of the lot, there are a couple of white tents - this was the general store for the campers while the concert venue was closed. About a football field further behind those white tents are where we camped. So, lots of walking.

An aerial view of the Mojave Tent. This was one of the smaller places to catch a concert, believe it or not.

The al fresco food court by the general store - where we ate before the concert venue opened for the day...well, until we discovered the grocery shuttles that took us to stores where we could get comparable food for 65% cheaper :)

Lineups for the showers. Actually, they were a lot longer at peak times in the morning.

One of the dumbest things I've ever seen. These folks decided that the best thing to do in the narrow walkway between rows of cars in the car camping area would be to set up a horseshoe pitch. Seriously. You can just see the horseshoe above the tallest white SUV-like vehicle.

These water trucks did laps through the grounds all day, every day. The water sprayed was meant to keep the dust down. It was very dry and the heat got up to 35-38 degrees over the weekend so a lot of staff were wandering around with bandanas over their mouths to keep from breathing it in.

A sunset picture on Sunday. The only day we saw clouds of any kind.

A lemon tree. We also saw grapefruit and orange trees on the side of the road. And a palm tree that seemed to have a bunch of dates clinging to it.

So Kerry and I looked pretty normal. Lots of others, not so much. Here are a couple of people who may look pretty out there, but were not the minority (that would be Kerry and me).

Wow.

Man or muppet?

Yes, kids. There were quite a few kicking around the ground. Not enough wearing appropriate ear protection, if you ask me. But then again there's no way I would have brought kids to Coachella. This was part of a sustainable energy info site where a DJ stage was partly powered by people see-sawing, swinging and running in hamster wheels. This couple decided to entertain their kids while helping power a little Erol Alkan reworking of MGMT's Congratulations. Sweet.

The grounds also featured a number of giant art installations, which all lit up and/or did crazy things at night. Here are photos of what were supposed to be like giant dandelions (in front of Interpol's performance on the Main Stage) and some weird flagella-like things which were solid yet wiggled and shimmied as if the wind were blowing them. Weird AND cool.



In the foreground is a large pagoda-like structure which offered great shade during the day. Behind it is a Giant Wheel that made for a great backdrop to the concert grounds as well as a great way to get an overhead view of everything.

This is not an art installation. A camper left their site in this state after pulling out on the last day. Impressive.

Oh yeah, I suppose I should post some pictures of the artists I actually saw...just to prove I did partake in the music part of things.

Excision at the DJ tent. Didn't really know much about this guy (Albertan industrial dubstepper, as it turned out), but this just shows the electronic tent off a bit. Lots of bass, great light show and packed noon to midnight.

Gogol Bordello on the Main Stage. This shows how big the stage is as well as how easy it is to keep track of the action on the gigantic screens. It was a hyper-energetic show that had the crowd going crazy.

Crystal Castles at the Outdoor Stage (well, the Main Stage was outdoors too, but I suppose they had to call it something). The lead singer had broken her ankle and was performing in a stabilizing boot and with a crutch. Didn't stop her from stage diving though. I believe someone got clocked on this manoeuvre and needed attending to afterward. One of the shows I enjoyed the most.

Leftfield in the Mojave Tent. I was reasonably excited to see these house/dub legends but nobody else was (the tent was really empty). I had plans to bounce around and see some other shows, but then these guys blew me away and I pretty much stayed for the whole thing. Awesome.

Kanye West on the Main Stage. This picture was taken from quite a distance away and it was solid people between me and the stage. Scads of hits, bombastic performance, elaborate choreography and a great way to close the festival.

Thanks again Holly. I can't wait to see what you end up doing for your next big solo adventure! Thanks also to everyone who helped make Holly's time easier while I was away :)

P.S. I should also mention that I'm very proud of my t-shirt collection and that I carefully selected which shirts to wear in order to elicit a response from my fellow concert-goers. My picks from days 1-3 scored two comments and one extended discussion, one per shirt. On day 4, though, my "Keepin' it Riel" Louis Riel number scored a discussion, three high-fives and scores of "Louis!!!" chants. Well, at least from the Canadians. Americans gave me an endless string of puzzled "That ain't Che. I don't get it" looks. Thanks for the shirt, mom:)

Addendum: I've been asked a few times what my favourite shows were and I completely forgot to address that in this post. Here are my top 10, in grade order:

A+ : Crystal Castles, Mumford & Sons (just found out they're NOT playing Bluesfest...BOOO!

A : Leftfield, Arcade Fire, Robyn, Kanye West

A- : Brandon Flowers, Erykah Badu, NAS & Damian Marley

B+ : Lauryn Hill

A visit from GG

We had a very important visitor in late March and we’ve been remiss in not posting any photos. My grandfather, Grampa Frank to me and GG (great-grampa) to the boys, visited for a few days from Peterborough, ON. GG isn’t able to travel very much anymore due to some health issues and the need for dialysis and oxygen but Auntie Melody and my dad made special arrangements and were able to host him at Auntie's house for an extended visit. It was a real treat for us as we haven’t been able to get to Peterborough in a while. BIG thanks to Auntie and Dad for all of their work to make the visit happen!

GG was in spectacular form – telling stories, laughing with the boys, even lifting 30 pounds of Leo onto his lap for a photo! We all had such a nice time visiting with him and catching up. We had one afternoon/dinner visit and also a brunch visit: yummy food + family = awesome. It is a rare gift to have four generations of the Morrison clan in the same place so we enjoyed every minute. Here are some photos:


Auntie Melody and Max playing with some awesome dollhouse furniture.


GG and Nana


Sunday brunch - L-R Leo, John, GG, James, Laramie, Grampa Wayne, Auntie Melody & Max.


Leo getting into the sauce (he loves all cans and bottles!).


Four generations of Morrisons. Leo's covering his ears...Dad must be singing.


Leo feeds GG a pickle. Typically, Leo doesn't share delicacies.


GG, Max and Laramie about to read a truck book.

The Stardom Boys' Must List

Holly has a subscription to Entertainment Weekly, a magazine that publishes a weekly "Must" list, a set of films, TV shows, books, etc. that MUST be experienced. So I figured I'd publish a version of the Must List for the boys. Given that Holly and I are big pop culture-heads, it's no surprise that our kids will likely be exposed to a lot of pop culture as they grow up (although hopefully, we can shield them from the tiger-blooded Charlie Sheen for a while). Here goes:

Film

Well, the boys still haven't watched many movies. I think Max and I sat down to watch Cars in two sittings in January and Cinderella in two February sittings. If memory serves, Leo joined us for Cinderella, part 1. Movies with Max are interesting. First of all, I was warned that after watching Cars, Max would be obsessed and need all sorts of merchandise. That was definitely off-base. Max certainly had a hard time with some of the faster and more anxiety-inducing moments, like when a police car was chasing Lightning McQueen (our hero). Max kept nervously asking "What's happening?" and "Is he going to get him?". I only had to distract Max through one scary point involving a psychotic combine harvester. Regarding Cinderella, the anxiety came back as Max worried whether the cat would catch the mice ("Why is the cat chasing them?!" "What is he going to do?!?!?"). Worse yet, though, was trying to explain to Max why Cinderella's family wanted to be mean to her. Yikes. Anyway, we're easing him into it. Max really wants to see Snow White but I'm not quite ready to go down that road just yet.

Music

I'm a little embarrassed that my sons seem to be completely foregoing kids' music for grown-up music (or, as a friend of mine calls it, kids' music in 2020). Max got into the habit of requesting a small number of songs from our collection so much that we created a playlist just for him on the iPod. It currently consists of:

Boom Boom Pow (Black Eyed Peas). Yes, the classic persists. Leo even sings "Boom Boom Boom" and "Get get get" now. Full disclosure: I was too slow on the uptake to get a clean version of the song. One day, I heard Max say "Jackin' my style I'm on election now" and I immediately ripped the clean version off of iTunes to replace what I had. Oops.

I Gotta Feeling (Black Eyed Peas). I think Max started listening to this one because the easiest way to find Boom Boom Pow was to go to the Black Eyed Peas playlist and this just came up. One week, at our Saturday playgroup, Max was wandering around shouting "Tonight's gonna be a good night" at the top of his lungs for quite some time. This was met with a few laughs (friends) and stares (strangers). He also pretends he's the drummer, slapping his lap with his hands, but not really to the beat. Leo mimics him and it's awesome.

Forever (Chris Brown). Max doesn't know about the whole Rihanna thing and I'm not telling him. He demanded this song once he realized that in the intro, someone counts "1, 2, 3, 4!". In fact, for a while, he called it "1, 2, 3, 4". Since then, he's actually picked up on some lyrics. Kind of. "It's you. And me. Moving at the speed of two-a-time-a-T." Now even Leo tries to make the sound before the drumbeats, that Max once called "someone's cellphone".

Nothing Better (Postal Service). This is probably my favourite on the list, although it's bordering on getting overplayed :( Max keyed into this one when he realized that the word "surgeon" is in the song. Was that last summer already? Maybe. Definitely when Max was in a "doctors rule!!" phase. I believe he was also once playing surgeon with Auntie Laramie and, inspired by this song, wanted to repair her broken heart. It was cute.

Wishery (Pogo). Weirdest song on the list? Maybe. This guy slices and dices movies/TV shows and splices the shred of audio and video together to make music. Max's recent interest in Snow White made me think showing him this video was a good idea and I guess this is what happens when your dad exposes you to electronic music in your youth. We'll see how that turns out.

Leo's been piggybacking on this list a bit, but he's also really into many of the songs we're learning through his Hush-a-Bye class. "Sleeping Bunnies" is one of his favourites (kids lie on the ground and then spring up and hop around), as are some Row, Row, Row Your Boat variations (when I ask him to row now, he sits down facing me and grabs my hands so that we can row together...super cute:). The class has also given me a couple of lullabies that have been worth their weight in gold. Leo's really keen on joining in at circle time whenever we go to playgroup - he really loves to hop, clap and dance along. Plus, he and Max love playing band together at home.

TV

Yes, the kids watch TV. Let's get that out of the way. Leo is almost solely infatuated with Elmo's World, a 20-minute segment in the Sesame Street of today, which doesn't quite look like Sesame Street of old. I think Gordon, Bob, Luis and Maria are still alive and kicking. Not sure what happened to Olivia and Linda though. Leo's also really keen on 4 Square, a Canadian 20-minute show broken into four parts to expose kids to rhythm, rhymes, movement and song. They always have a couple of episodes on planes, which is nice.

Max is into quite a few shows and his tastes seem to vary from week to week. Please check the end of this post for the hierarchy of his likes:) I should mention that when Max last had a well-baby checkup, his doctor insisted on not exposing Max to more than 2 hours of TV daily. That really made me think - we tend to average 45 minutes or so a day. Has Max ever seen, say, 3 hours of TV in a day? Maybe at daycare? Maybe when he's sick? I'm thankful that most of our playtime happens away from the TV so that it's kind of out of sight, out of mind. With good weather around the corner, it's going to be even easier to dodge TV:)

Books

Both kids are crazy about books. At least once a day, I realize that I haven't heard from one of them in a while and it turns out that they've parked themselves by a stack of books, just leafing through them. I have a feeling that once Max learns to read, we'll lose him for hours at a time. Over the past month or so, we've hit the library more and more often (again, weather-related). I think right now, I have a dozen books checked out. The only bummer is that Max and Leo aren't entirely into the same books so it's hard to read a book to the two of them and keep both of their attention right to the end. Unless they're tied down at the table or something.

Leo's big love is lift-the-flap books. About anything. Seriously. Gardening? Are the flaps in it? Oh look at this book - I lift a flap to see...plankton! There was one book about a Rabbit trying to take a nap that Leo was asking for at bedtime every night for a while. We also have some large ones that are all in the same vein: opposites, colours, shapes, the alphabet etc., just with a different set of characters attached (e.g., Winnie-the-Pooh, Peter Rabbit, Arthur).

Max is definitely into longer stories now, especially those that are part of a collection, where he can get used to the characters from book to book. Arthur and the Berenstain Bears have been the easiest to find at garage sales and such so we've got a few of those on our shelves. However, as for my favourite authors that I like to inflict on him, the top of the list includes Amy Krouse Rosenthal (especially Yes Day and Little Pea) and Mo Willems (especially the Knuffle Bunny series). Max also loves Judith Viorst's Alexander books, that I grew up on, so that's kind of cool. To round things out, he's a big fan of most big Richard Scarry books (Busy, Busy World, The Best Word Book Ever, Cars, Trucks and Things that Go and What do People do all Day?), especially for reading in the car.

Online

Leo doesn't really get access to the computer, for obvious reasons. However, he certainly loved the iTunes 9 visualizer growing up (minbending planet/black hole making) and now, he likes checking out videos on the Sesame Street website. Max also likes Sesame Street, but he's not limited to wanting Elmo. He also likes Oscar and Cookie Monster (or, as Leo calls him, NUMNUMNUM) videos. He also used to check out stuff on the Treehouse TV website but most of his computer time has been spent at Starfall, which really helped him out with his alphabet sounds. I think his favourite letter was Z because of the whacked-out song at the end. Plus, he learned to use the laptop's track pad on this website, so that was pretty cool.

Stage

Well, nobody in this house has seen a play in a while, except for some of the creative play that happens in the living room every now and then. However, Max and I have been discussing acting a lot lately; what it is, who does it and where. He seems really interested in acting (not fireman-interested, or pilot-interested, but curious enough) so we'll have to see how that develops.

The Top 20

So I decided that I would try to rank Max's interest in a variety of TV and literary characters at this point in time, given that it seems to be changing all the time. Plus, I just like ranking stuff. Below is my Top 20 chart of characters/shows/book series that Max likes, in the sense of "if I presented Max with two books to read/shows to watch/toys to play with centered around these characters, the one that would attract his attention more would rank higher on the list". I tried to bounce this list by him and he confirmed most of it (THAT process was interesting...after all the hypothetical questions, I got "So when are we reading all of these books?" Oops.). He claimed Backyardigans were much higher on the list than I had them, but then I showed him a program this morning and he cried because it wasn't what he thought it would be. Oops again.

1 - Berenstain Bears
2 - Max & Ruby
3 - Dora the Explorer
4 - Arthur
5 - Sesame Street
6 - Franklin
7 - Chirp
8 - Dinosaur Train
9 - Harry and his Bucketful of Dinosaurs
10 - Handy Manny
11 - Madeline
12 - The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That
13 - Caillou
14 - Bob the Builder
15 - Backyardigans
16 - Winnie-the-Pooh
17 - Diego
18 - Rob the Robot
19 - Lightning McQueen (from Cars)
20 - Thomas the Tank Engine

I'll have to update this list from time to time now. And I suppose Leo will have his own down the line...

Catching up on February pictures

Here's the last batch of February stuff we wanted to share.


So we've started getting Leo to work on drinking from a cup... Generally, it's not quite this bad. However, whenever he decides that his food would be more interesting in his cup, things can get out of hand pretty quickly.

Max had a PJ day at his school and so he brought his friend Monkey-Monkey with him. I was the duty parent that day, so I also got to rock pyjamas AND had the honour of whipping up a monster batch of pancakes for the kids. At pick-up time, it was like I was the crazy uncle for a bunch of children going home with their parents: "yeah, so your kid is completely hopped up on syrup right now. Have a great afternoon!!!"

One day, we were babysitting our friends' daughter Grace. The boys needed a bath and the last time we had a little lady in the house, she hopped right in. This time, well, let's just say Grace was NOT interested.

Our first big outing after Max got over his gastro-thing was to get out to the Aviation museum. You've seen the kids in the Museum's dress-up gear before, but this picture of Leo (saying "cheese", of course) couldn't go without sharing.

Later in the month, we visited the Museum of Civilization, which is a lot trickier now that Leo isn't content just sitting in a stroller. The last two times the kids have been, Holly and I have each lost Leo at least once. Here, the kids are visiting an exhibit in Canada Hall which is a reproduction of a lounge in the Vancouver airport in the 60s. The actual lounge is here, below.


Our last big surprise of February came a few days after we'd wrapped up administering Leo's ear infection antibiotics. Leo developed a crazy body rash (tough to see here in the picture, but it's pretty much all over). So now he's listed as being allergic to penicillin too (great, just great. Can't wait to try to get that first dose of Biaxin into him). Oh, maybe that's not clear - the "too" here refers to Max being listed as allergic to penicillin, not other allergies of Leo's:)

Max and Leo recently discovered the kitchen appliances we keep in our bottom drawer in the kitchen. For some reason, rather than using them to help us cook or bake, they decided to turn them into band instruments.

A new family member!

Dear new cousin Hannah,

Welcome to this thing called life. Things are going to be confusing for a while, but eventually you'll get used to things like food, light, sleep and noise. But those are just the basics! Crawling's pretty cool. Books are awesome. Solid food...yum yum yum. There's also this thing called Elmo's World, but you're a first-born, so you probably won't find out about that until you get a sibling, and then it will be like non-stop. Oh yeah, and in a month or so, you'll be able to do this thing called smiling. If you could throw a couple of those smiles your parents' way, I'm sure it would be much appreciated.

We're really looking forward to visiting you sometime soon. We don't know much about girls. Mommy says she is one, but she just looks like a grown-up to us. Someday, we'll show you all sorts of fun toys like skid steers, robots, fire trucks and the top shelf of all sorts of furniture.

Your cousins,

Max and Leo



Here's Hannah Olivia - born March 15 just before 6 a.m., weighing 7 lbs, 1 oz.

A weekend well spent

We had a low-key but fabulous weekend at Casa Stardom so I thought I would share a few photos.

Friday night, Nana came over for dinner and then babysat the boys so John and I could get out to a movie. We saw “The Adjustment Bureau” with Matt Damon and Emily Blunt. It was frothy fun. We did get to see it in an Ultra AVX theatre so the seats were huge and comfy and the sound was great.

On Saturday, I took the boys to our regular Saturday playgroup at Hilson Public School near our old house. It is a great group of parents and kids. It was pouring rain on Saturday so it was great to have somewhere to take the boys to run around for a few hours. All of the mums and babies (now toddlers) with whom I hung around while I was off with Leo come to this playgroup so it is a great way to see friends and stay connected. After playgroup, I had a great squash match in the early afternoon.

After Leo woke up from his nap, we headed off to Carlingwood Mall to pick up a few things for dinner and get the boys a treat: a Booster Juice and a ride on the mall's mini carousel. It has three seats so we treated two other kids to rides too. Actually, a complete stranger treated the boys and a little girl to the second ride. I told the boys that I didn’t have any more loonies (the truth!) and this woman just gave me a loonie “to keep the kids happy”. It was a lovely random act of kindness.

Max has really been getting into cooking and helping us cook lately. When he gets into cooking mode, he dons a Cars apron and pulls out a little blue Rubbermaid stool so that he can get up to the counter. Max helped me make dinner on Saturday night and then, after dinner, the boys went to bed and Kerry came over for an impromptu games night. Super fun!

On Sunday morning, we woke up to a winter wonderland with a blanket of fresh snow. After Max helped me make French toast, we headed out for a walk in Hampton Park, where the boys enjoyed an awesome ride through the snow and visited with a bunch of dogs out for a walk. We warmed up with some hot chocolate and then (miracle of miracles) we all napped for part of the afternoon. Max hadn’t napped in more than two weeks and he was waaaayyyy overdue. After our nap, we headed over to Nana and Auntie Karen’s for a lovely Sunday dinner. After dinner, Auntie Karen offered to take the boys so we could play a game with Nana. Four games of Settlers in one weekend – heaven!! The boys enjoyed chocolate cake and videos and we capped the evening with our regular Sunday night dance party:)

Here are some photos:


Max with his heart-shaped French toast (his request).





The boys have so many awesome aunts that it warrants cool aunt t-shirts.


Leo and Auntie Karen enjoying the dance party.


The boys rocking out - Max with his axe and Leo on the mic.

The big 2-0

That's right - Leo turned 20 months this past Thursday. And that day, he treated us with a special gift: saying his name for the first time. He can't really say "Leo", so instead, what he says is "LIE-LOW". As in the Disney movie Lilo and Stitch. It's so cute.

Here are a couple more videos:



This is Leo at Ottawa's Asian superstore, waving at the fish in the tank. Tilapia, I think. Good thing he and Max didn't look up - a woman had just ordered a fish and the fishmonger was busy smashing it over the head with a mallet. At least it's fresh!



This one's a bit longer, but definitely worth it. This is the first time I'd ever seen Max read an entire book to Leo. OK, he's doing it by rote memory and not reading per se, but considering that I didn't even know that Max knew this book, it was a little shocking to see it happen the first time!