dadbloggit

He's not sleepy

2010-02-04T12:12:00.000-08:00

The CD player plays 'Mr Tambourine Man' as Oliver settles down to sleep.

Oliver: Why did he say he's ready to go anywhere?
Me: Well, maybe because he is.
Oliver: And maybe the tambourine is magic!
Me: Magic?
Oliver: Yeah, he can use the tambourine like a frisbee.

The animal world

2009-03-26T10:37:00.000-07:00

In the car:
Me: Oliver, do you need to go to the bathroom?
Oliver: No.
Me: Did you just fart?
Oliver: No. Uh, maybe a squirrel farted.

Mimi: Okay, who farted?
Oliver: Not me!
Me: I think it was some kind of furry mammal (rubbing Oliver's hair).
Oliver: I'm not a mammal.
Mimi: Yes, you are, because you have hair and a four-chambered heart and warm blood.
Me: And so do squirrels and cats and dogs.
Oliver: (looking around the room) Everything is mammals except lamps and radios and walls.

Science

2009-03-26T10:36:00.000-07:00

Outdoors on an early spring day:
'Flowers mix air and electricity to make oxygen'.

'I'm going to zip up my jacket now because I've got enough oxygen'.

At toothbrush time:
'I put a filling in my tongue to make it extra tastebuddy'.

Anatomy lesson

2009-02-24T08:11:00.000-08:00

Oliver: Where's your biggest bone?
Me: I think it's your femur, in your thigh - it goes from your knee to your hips.
Oliver: Or your butlers.
Me: Butlers?
Oliver: (points to buttocks) Yeah, these are your butlers!

***

Oliver: Where are your large and small einsteins?

Recent quotes

2009-01-12T11:40:00.000-08:00

On hearing Mimi make reference to Miami during dinnertime conversation:
Oliver: 'Mommy, where is your ammy?'

After I repeatedly failed to get past the Easy level battle in Guitar Hero III:
'Daddy, I wish you would rock, instead of Tom Morello'.

Before falling asleep:
Oliver: (impatiently) When is it going to be morning?
Me: In about 9 hours.
Oliver: (sighing)

[pause for about 30 seconds]

Oliver: Daddy?
Me: Yes?
Oliver: Eight hours now?

Familiar game, new name

2008-12-18T06:29:00.000-08:00

I arrived at Oliver's school to pick him up and found him playing cards with this friend M.

M.: Do you have any fives?
Oliver: No. Goldfish!

And M picked up a card from the deck.

Inquiring minds

2008-12-05T12:02:00.000-08:00

This afternoon I went to talk to Oliver and his preschool friends about the Dutch holiday of Sinterklaas (St Nicholas), which is on December 5 each year.

Some of the kid already knew me, so I figured it was a good idea to go around the circle and get introductions, although it dissolved halfway into 'Do you know what HIS name is?' and discussion of twin brothers who were allegedly aged 4 and 5 and the differences between their outfits.

It was generally chaotic but entertaining, given the various attention spans and inspired lines of questioning.

Who knows what today's date is?

'2008!'

'December the twelfth!'

December the 5th? 'No, December the five.'

On the subject of Holland:

'I've been to Holland! No ... it was Costa Rica!'

'I went to my grandma's farm once!'

On the chocolate initial letters that people give each other (for the first initial of their first name):

Girl: So I'd get a W because my name starts with W!

Me: What's your name?

Girl: L____.

Recent quotes

2008-11-26T07:51:00.001-08:00

(on being congratulated for behaving well at school)
'Yep. You gotta keeeep your ... self-control'.

'They're called boxed shorts 'cause they're shaped like a box'.

The case of the missing rabbit

2008-09-08T13:30:00.000-07:00

After spending most of Saturday on a family shopping trip, Oliver and I were relaxing in the den/playroom, watching one of his favourite DVDs, when he asked,

'Daddy, where's Bunny Wunny?'

This is a pastel-coloured Beanie Baby rabbit that he acquired quite a long time ago but has only recently begun taking to bed and carrying around outside the home.

My mind immediately raced back over the past hour or so. I didn't remember bringing BW inside from the car (although I did carry in two umbrellas, a jacket, two caps and a large cardboard box when we came home). I checked the car, the table by the back door, the dresser in the front hall. No Bunny Wunny.

Then I remembered that Oliver had needed to use the bathroom while we were at the supermarket just before coming home and that I had placed the rabbit on top of the towel dispenser.

Not wanting to alarm Oliver, I told Mimi what I suspected. She got my glasses, I took her car keys and I drove back to the store.

The single-occupancy men's washroom was locked and I waited outside for what seemed like an eternity while sounds from the other side of the door suggested that the occupant might be leaving very soon ... or maybe not for a while.

A clanking belt buckle.

The sound of the towel dispenser. Maybe the toilet-paper dispenser.

More belt buckle.

Then, a ringing cellphone, followed by muffled sounds of a man talking, perhaps giving a moment-by-moment account of his ablutions to an interested caller.

The towel dispenser again.

Finally, a man emerged.

'Flush doesn't work,' he said as I looked around the small room, inside and behind the trash can.

No toy rabbits at the service desk either.

I returned home, feeling slightly sick that I would eventually have to tell Oliver of the loss and that I had failed him.

Bunny Wunny was on the bench in the front hallway.

Marine life

2008-08-25T12:47:00.000-07:00

Oliver and I went to the pool on Saturday and because I hadn't checked the schedule for recreational swimming, we were an hour early and walked in on an aquatic exercise class.

At first I thought we'd have to wait but a lifeguard said we could use a quiet corner of the pool. This meant using the deep end, and Oliver was not only willing to wear a life jacket, he also wanted to wear flippers.

Walking back from the flipper bins near the shallow end, we caught the attention of the instructor:

Instructor: You need to walk like this! (goes splay-footed) Think of Daffy Duck!
Oliver: SEAL!
Instructor: Or a penguin!
Oliver: No, a seal! I'm Sealiver!

And so Oliver found a new animal to pretend to be, splashing and barking in the pool, and I was renamed Seal-a-dad. He's still a bunny on dry land, however.

Little animal

2008-06-06T07:39:00.000-07:00

Oliver's currently into pretending to be different animals.

Oliver: I'm a bug!
Mimi: Hmm, as long as you're not a bedbug!
Oliver:(joyfully) I'm a bedbug!
Mimi: Oh, look at that glee!
Oliver: (suddenly straight-faced) The glee's gone.

The park emerges from winter (finally)

2008-04-24T13:23:00.000-07:00

Setting a course for warmer climes.

The first swing of spring. We have liftoff!

Car shopping

2008-04-24T13:18:00.001-07:00

Oliver examines an SUV.

Hmm, perhaps something more fuel-efficient (powered by dad).

Oliver's first koan

2008-04-24T13:16:00.000-07:00

'What sound does a microphone make?'

Makeshift bike seat

2008-04-04T08:12:00.000-07:00

Mimi, Oliver and I had seen this appalling contraption in use around the neighbourhood but yesterday was the first time I spotted it parked and unoccupied.

Yes, that's a milk crate with part of the top and side cut away to allow a child to sit in it.

There appears to be a piece of plywood forming the seating surface (for comfort or perhaps to avoid an incriminating waffle print on the child's behind) and the roughness of the sawn edges is mitigated by the application of duct tape. I couldn't tell how the crate was attached to the bike.

Bilingual

2008-03-11T11:27:00.000-07:00

Oliver: (describing the day's lunch) And there was corn. In French, corn is cone.

The power of metaphor

2008-03-11T11:25:00.001-07:00

Mimi: (in the course of a discussion on parenting) Put yourself in Oliver's shoes ...

Oliver: (suddenly very distraught) No, Daddy! DON'T PUT YOURSELF IN MY SHOES! YOUR FEET ARE TOO BIG!

Faster than a speeding camera shutter!

2008-03-05T12:45:00.000-08:00

It's ... SuperOliver!

Some assembly required

2008-02-26T06:17:00.000-08:00

Oliver, watching me put together his new chest of drawers from Ikea:

'Thanks for screwing that up, Daddy'.

Bathtime boardgame

2008-02-19T10:31:00.000-08:00

Oliver arranged some of his foam letters on the side of the bathtub to read HANDLE one evening while with a babysitter.

Me: Did you do that the other night?
Oliver: Yep. (adds an R and an S to make HANDLERS)
Me: Hey, now you can play Scrabble!
Oliver: Yeah, I wanted to play Scravel.

Beatrix Potter, as read by Oliver

2008-02-19T10:28:00.000-08:00

(reading from his Beatrix Potter mug)

'Once upon a time there were four bunnies. Their names were Floppy .. [after some prompting] Mopsy, Carlton and Peter'.

It's probably no surprise that Oliver should think of a streetcar line on encountering the name of Cottontail.

Oliver can read this! (Without being prompted!)

2008-02-12T12:49:00.001-08:00

I think it's a good indication of how many of the words he recognizes come from signs on the transit system.

Oliver's non-combat forces

2008-01-03T13:11:00.000-08:00

"What's this?" demands Oliver, holding up a clenched fist with the thumb and index finger extended. He knows what it is and he knows that I know, but I play dumb and guess: "A letter L?".

"No, it's a gun!" he trumpets, and Mimi and I both wince. The idea of guns, as toys or otherwise, has infiltrated his circle of daycare friends and I am appalled and saddened that they seem to have embraced it.

I think he first mentioned last summer that he and another boy "sometimes play guns". It was funny when he told me that "sometimes me and D. fight hats", as I pictured them engaged in a kind of fencing duel using toddler-sized ball caps. The clearest way of expressing my dismay at the time was to say that "Guns are stupid. All they do is hurt people and break stuff," at which point Oliver seemed to defer to my world knowledge.

But the "hand gun" appears from time to time and I wonder who or what it is that makes children as young as 3 years old aware of violence and militarism. I find it just as unsettling that camouflage is a popular pattern for children's clothing. Are we meant to be desensitizing toddlers to warfare? They may not realize its purpose, admittedly, but I saw a more explicit expression of military chic at Old Navy: pajamas intended for small children, featuring a pattern of charging green plastic toy soldiers.

Now, I remember playing with such toys myself but I don't think war or military paraphernalia should be fetishized among the pre-school set. I'd like to delay some of Oliver's exposure to geopolitics and history for some time yet, and despite the prominence of peacekeeping operations, I'm not ready to explain concepts like "army" and "soldier" in terms of merely "helping people" as I have done with the emergency services.

Explanation

2007-12-18T07:53:00.000-08:00

Oliver points out that the switchplate on the bathroom light is missing one of its four screws.

'I think it fell out when they put the house down'.

Short answer

2007-11-09T07:30:00.000-08:00

Oliver: Mommy, I like that tissue box.
Mimi: Well, when it's empty maybe you can make something out of it. I used to do that when I was a little girl.
Oliver: And me too.
Mimi: You were a little girl too?
Oliver: No, I was a little boy. But I'm not a little boy anymore. I'm a big, big, big, big boy.
Me: Really? Where did the time go?
Oliver: It's on the clock!

The food chain of the animated universe

2007-10-29T12:26:00.000-07:00

There's something I've noticed about the animal characters in children's cartoons. Pretty much any animal can be anthropomorphized to some degree, but the idea of animals as food is either ignored or handled in such a way that any food animal is carefully depicted as non-living or not having any kind of personality, for lack of a better word.

For example, the Berenstain Bears refer to eating salmon, although no fish is ever depicted, to my knowledge. The bears of Bear Country are the humans of their own world, owning non-talking cats and dogs as pets.

Likewise, the bears of Little Bear live peacefully with other talking animals, such as cats, snakes, ducks, owls and so on, but are shown occasionally catching, cooking and eating fish.

Timothy Goes to School depicts animals who are sometimes each other's enemies in the real world getting along as friends; aside from an episode in which Yoko the cat brought sushi to school, animals-as-food doesn't seem to come up. (I suppose it could have been vegetarian sushi.)

On the other hand, an informative non-fiction show such as Henry's Amazing Animals doesn't gloss over or disregard the issue of (real) animals eating other animals, presenting it as a fact of their real-world existence.

Wildlife

2007-10-29T10:15:00.000-07:00

Oliver: (pointing to a boulder on someone's lawn) What's that?
Me: That's a rock.
Oliver: Actually it's a kind of animal. It has sharp teeth.
Me: Is it asleep now?
Oliver: Yeah. It comes out at night.
Me: Really? What kind of animal is it?
Oliver: Um, it's a camel. It has one hump and two humps and three humps and four humps and no humps.

Oliver explains the weather

2007-10-26T12:36:00.000-07:00

Oliver and I were walking one evening when I pointed out how bright the moon was, compared the fogginess of the previous night. He asked why the moon had been foggy, and after I had told him something that was probably scientifically inaccurate, about moisture and clouds, he presented his own interpretation:

I think it's scary animals. Scary animals in the clouds. With sharp teeth.

Cheeky

2007-10-23T07:43:00.001-07:00

At the dinner table:

Mimi: If you eat two carrots and two pieces of cucumber, you can have a fry.
Oliver: Can you put one fry on the side of my plate, in case I need it later?

On the subway:

Woman in elevator: (after Oliver pushes a button) Smart boy. Are you smarter than your dad?
Oliver: Yeah. I'm also a little taller.

Fun with words

2007-10-17T13:34:00.000-07:00

Oliver's playing around with words a lot these days (turning 'huggy' into 'huh hee', for example), which I don't always find amusing, but he came up with a winner the other day while on the swing at the park:

'I'm in a hot-air baboon!'

2007-10-12T09:03:00.000-07:00

One day when we were coming home, there was a police car in the park near our house, so Mimi and Oliver went to investigate (the reason remained unclear, but at least Oliver got to explore).

The next day, Oliver and I had this exchange:

Oliver: Why was there a police car in the park?
Me: Umm, I think it was to check that everything was okay.
Oliver: And there was a computer in there. That's cool.
Me: Yes, that helps the police officers do their work.
Oliver: Yeah. If someone is in trouble, they have to make an e-mail.

***

Talking about a classmate:

'E's mommy is going to have a baby. I think he's not wearing any clothes now. Just a diaper.'

***

Oliver spots the 'om' symbol:

'That says three! And that means me! A three and an O!'

21st Century Boy

2007-09-25T07:34:00.000-07:00

Oliver, echoing our dinnertime conversation:

'I haven't looked at Greg's Facebook either'.

Difficult question

2007-09-25T07:23:00.000-07:00

At pajama time

Oliver: Daddy, why do I have nipples?
Me: I'm not really sure.
Oliver: Because the people put them on me.
Me: The people?
Oliver: The people from the nipple store. They grew them small.

Thoughts on identity

2007-09-14T08:26:00.000-07:00

Oliver made two comments recently that I associate with each other.

First, I was giving him a bath when he pointed to himself and asked 'What colour am I?'.

I was pretty surprised to hear this and didn't really know how to respond at first. I paused and said, a little awkwardly, 'You're Oliver-coloured!' and then 'Skin-coloured'.

After all, skin comes in all sorts of colours, right?

For the record, Oliver's background is European and Asian. Or white and Asian, if you prefer. I'm not sure that if Oliver had pointed to me and asked what colour I was, I would have said white, because I think I would prefer that he think of people in terms other than colours.

But I don't know how realistic that is.

A few days later, we were walking to a neighbourhood park after dinner. It was overcast and getting dark and Oliver pointed to three girls walking together some distance away on a street perpendicular to the one we were on. I was not wearing my glasses and could not see them clearly, but I had an impression - or made an assumption - that they were black. These girls were talking and laughing as they walked and Oliver asked me something about 'that brown one'.

Feeling that I was evading his question, I asked whether he was talking about someone wearing a brown piece of clothing. No, he replied, it was the face he was referring to. He asked why her face was brown and the only reply that came to mind was 'Well, people are all different colours, Oliver'.

I feel torn between wanting him to be colour-blind (as in not believing that appearance matters, much) and wanting him to be aware that some people will focus on issues of ethnicity, sometimes inappropriately.

Perhaps it's too early for that - maybe he's just noticing what he sees and not thinking about anyone's identity in group terms.

Sodor railway official in 'toys for good behaviour' scheme

2007-09-07T13:37:00.000-07:00

The box car, caboose and stop sign have returned, with nice new shiny unchipped paint, much to Oliver's delight. (I don't think he's noticed that they're completely new.)

We gave them to him this morning as a reward for sleeping through the night, and specifically for not waking up and requiring one of us to lie in his room to get him to go back to sleep.

Emerging consciousness

2007-09-07T10:35:00.000-07:00

I really should have blogged this immediately after it happened, because the details have already escaped me. At dinner, Oliver was quizzing Mimi and me about what constitutes the groups known as 'people', 'boys', 'girls' and 'kids', and how they overlap. I think he understood that boys and girls are kids and that kids are people, but when I asked him if boys could be people, he shook his head and I thought of him leading a protest asserting that 'Little Boys Are People Too!'.

Thomas recall update #2

2007-09-04T19:25:00.001-07:00

To make up for the delay in returning the box car, caboose and stop sign, Sir Topham Hatt has sent us the Sodor recycling cars as a goodwill gesture.

After-dinner surrealism

2007-09-04T19:20:00.000-07:00

Oliver (making smacking sounds): I'm just eating gum.
Me: But you don't have gum.
Oliver: Yeah.
Me: So it's pretend gum?
Oliver: Yeah. It has a flavour.
Me: What does it taste like?
Oliver: It tastes like ... Canada.
Me: ...
Oliver: I was born at Canada.
Me: Oh?
Oliver: It has a lot of old Subaru taxis. They're black and silver and ... no, just black. You can't touch the dusty Subarus. You can touch my cars. Okay?

Confusion and delay

2007-08-20T12:14:00.000-07:00

The latest news on the recall of Thomas the Tank Engine toys is that box car, caboose and stop sign are still in the shop for new paint, per Sir Topham Hatt's orders, but we have been reimbursed for the cost of sending them there.

The Oliver English Dictionary (new instalment)

2007-08-20T07:34:00.000-07:00

rack roof, roof racket
A device for securing things to the tops of cars

beemerang
Type of curved stick that returns when thrown

Imaginative

2007-08-20T07:30:00.000-07:00

Partway through our attempts to get him out of his pajamas and into clothes, Oliver insists on wearing his pajama top like an apron around his chest, with the sleeves tied at the back.

Oliver: You can't see my tummy. There's a baby in there.
Me: Hello baby!
Oliver: He can't hear you. I think he's eating yoghurt right now, from a bowl.

Navigation

2007-07-17T07:17:00.000-07:00

Oliver playing with his cars, pointing to his London taxi:

'This one is going to England, and the others are going to Home Depot'.

More Oliver English Dictionary entries

2007-07-17T07:13:00.000-07:00

chest
a state of being shirtless
Oliver commenting on shirtless man jogging past: 'Is that safe, with that chest?'

forwith
advancing
'This car is driving back and forwith'

Our first recall

2007-06-15T07:54:00.000-07:00

I have mixed feelings about the recently announced recall of some Thomas and Friends wooden railway toys regarding paint containing lead. Obviously, safety is the top priority and toys posing any kind of danger should be eliminated. But as I consulted the website of the RC2 Corporation, looked over the list of items affected and attempted to get a real human being on the phone to answer my questions, I felt a sentimental attachment to the things we were going to have to return for replacements.

The three items Oliver has that are being recalled are the box car, the caboose and the stop sign. They were all part of his first set of Thomas toys: the figure-eight track with bridge, the configuration that started it all. These days, Oliver's less interested in 'making new tracks' than in creating traffic jams with his cars, but he was once completely obsessed with the wooden railway, and it would have been much more difficult to take any of the trains away then. These days, the entire collection is in a box in the den/playroom and Oliver occasionally takes some items out, but he used to be virtually inseparable from 'Thomasandboxcarandcaboose' (in that order), taking them downstairs for meals and clutching them tightly as he fell asleep in his crib.

He won't have the originals of these first railway carriages anymore, but as I sealed them in a sandwich bag to mail them, I noticed the worn paint and felt that it was the right thing to do.

I was about to photocopy the return form when a co-worker noticed I had the recalled items in a sandwich bag. 'Oh, you have those?' she asked, adding 'I have a whole bunch too. What are we supposed to do with them?' and I was happy to provide the link for the recall notices and forms: http://recalls.rc2corp.com/recalls_Wood_0607.html

(The address for Canadian customers should read 'Traders Blvd East, Mississauga', as I informed their customer service department, although I didn't see that they'd missppelled Mississauga until I was off the phone.)

I mailed them on Friday and it was not until Sunday morning that Oliver asked where they were. I decided to tell him that box car and caboose needed to go to the shop to be fixed because their paint was bad and this explanation seemed to satisfy him.

Time

2007-05-25T09:10:00.000-07:00

Oliver: I'm little.
Me: You're getting bigger.
Oliver. Yeah. I'm two.
Me: You're almost three!
Oliver: Yeah, I'm a quarter to three.

One-liner

2007-05-14T07:11:00.000-07:00

The scene: the changing room after swimming. Several boys, about 12 years old, are goofing around. One puts his shorts on his head, another dares him to walk home with them on.

Oliver, until then quietly drinking some milk, stops, points and says:

'That's not a safe place for his underwear!'

The whole changing room erupts in helpless laughter, and I feel proud of his timing and his sense of the absurd.

Cheeky

2007-05-03T08:10:00.000-07:00

Oliver is now able to climb out of his crib.

At the park:
Me (helping Oliver onto the climbing frame): Up you go, little monkey.
Oliver: I need your help, big monkey.

Thoughts on behaviour

2007-04-10T16:55:00.000-07:00

I love our son Oliver, I really do.

But sometimes I just can’t stand him.

He’s nearly three now and we’re trying every day to impress upon him the importance of behaving nicely, asking for things politely and most of all, not being violent. These lessons we are attempting to teach him are coinciding with a phase he’s going through in which he can be extremely wilful, stubborn and insistent on doing things his way.

Or he can be compliant, polite, considerate and gentle. It all depends on his mood, what he’s paying attention to, how much sleep he’s had, the time of day, the phases of the moon, the tides … who knows?

Oliver likes things to be done just so, except when he doesn’t seem to care. His current mantra is ‘”NO, I’LL DO IT!”, usually intoned when one of us makes the mistake of closing the door, turning the light on or off, taking his slippers off, etc., without giving him the option to do so first. It’s one thing for him to assert some independence, but we often ask him to do something and he will either refuse or ignore the request, then loudly take offence when we start doing it for him. He will even want to start all over again, no matter how impractical.

His only expression of remorse or concern for our feelings is an occasional “Are you happy?” or “Are you my friend?”, and that’s only because he’s heard us make those inquiries of him at other times.

Perhaps we’re expecting a self-awareness and an ability to analyze his own behaviour that he just doesn’t have. That may be why bribing him from time to time, or taking away certain privileges, doesn’t seem to have any long-term effect. We can’t reason with him if he’s seeing his own behaviour as a way of eliciting a response.

He sometimes says “I wanna behave nicely” when we’ve made it apparent that he’s misbehaving, but he can’t resist pushing our buttons by doing things we’ve told him not to do. Perhaps the answer is not to be stern with him but to maintain a neutral response, which I sometimes find difficult to do, not because I feel like I’m about to lose my temper but because I find it hard to keep a straight face.

Oliver's thoughts

2007-03-30T13:00:00.000-07:00

On music:
'I just wanna listen to Gordon Lightfoot'

'What's it saying?'
(in response to Lightfoot's 'I'm Not Sayin'' as well as James Brown's various interjections like 'Heh!')

At the dinner table:
'What are you guys eating?'
(you guys is his newest pronoun)

'Is there blood on your knife?'
(we have no idea where he got that from)

Manipulation

2007-03-08T09:29:00.000-08:00

Oliver's now insisting on being allowed to 'listen to one music' after breakfast as well as after dinner.

The other morning, I came back inside after starting the car to find that Mimi had brought Oliver downstairs to get ready to go out (a bit of a struggle, some days) and that Vince Guaraldi and Bola Sete's From All Sides was playing on the stereo.

Mimi: I bribed him.
Me: With ... jazz?

I guess there are worse ways of making him compliant.

Perceptive

2007-03-08T09:07:00.000-08:00

Oliver, watching Dora the Explorer's baby brother and sister (a/k/a the Super Babies) crying to wake up the giant teddy bear:

'Where are their tears?'

It seems the animators decided not to draw them. I had a sense that Oliver was uncovering a form of deception.

A request after dinner

2007-02-26T10:06:00.000-08:00

Oliver gets out of his chair and asks (we've been working on getting him to ask for things nicely)

'May I listen to some music please?'

- Sure. What would you like to hear?

'The horn. Miles Davis, Sketch...es of Spaiiin'.

I'm not sure if it's the connection to Spain (he's fixated on that country on his placemat of world flags and his anthem-playing soccer ball) or a fascination with the image of 'the man with the trumpet', but Oliver seems to be developing an interest in jazz. And Mozart horn concertos.

He's also started requesting 'beelabaa', which Mimi initially compared to scat singing but which now seems to be his word for jazz, specifically jazz featuring lots of insistent tsss-tsst cymbal work. Miles In The Sky currently fulfills this need.

A request at dinnertime

2007-02-26T10:02:00.000-08:00

Oliver, blowing on hot macaroni to cool it down:

'Steam, go away!'

New mode of transport

2007-02-14T12:29:00.000-08:00

It was snowing heavily this morning, so we decided not to drive to daycare and to take the bus and streetcar instead, although we considered taking what Oliver called a 'taxi crab'.

Desk job

2007-02-14T12:22:00.000-08:00

Oliver must have heard me say something like 'It was pretty quiet at work today' a few times, because at the end of the day he often spontaneously says 'I did nothing at my office today' (even if he does tell us who and what he played with).

Phrasebook

2007-02-08T07:43:00.000-08:00

glacias
A Spanish expression of gratitude.

Random notes on Alternadad

2007-02-05T19:34:00.000-08:00

I plan to write a review of Alternadad by Neal Pollack, but for now I'm just going to make some notes of passages I want to mention in the review:

'When I have Elijah in the car, I tend to listen to college radio so I can expose him to bands whose music I don't know'.
(Is that really why any parent would do that?)

While watching Sesame Street:
'Always remember, son, that Baby Bear sucks'.
'Ba-bee Ba Suh!'
(Never too early to get your kids started on superficial, toxic bitchiness, I suppose)

'We are not going to be those people who stop going to rock shows just because we have a kid'
(more his view than his wife's)

More lexicon entries

2007-02-05T19:32:00.000-08:00

silvral
A greyish-white colour.

umblerra
A thing that keeps you dry when it's raining.

Winter scene

2007-01-24T06:55:00.000-08:00

Oliver: Cats pee in snow, right?
Me: Yes, if they're outside and there's snow.
Oliver: And they have to wear snowsuits.
Me: Really?
Oliver: Noooo. They have to wear hats.

Dictionary update

2007-01-23T11:21:00.000-08:00

brekfix
The first meal of the day, often includes soy-oy-o such as granola.

rabbly-oli
A kind of pasta stuffed with cheese or meat

A bedtime favourite by Maurice Sendak

2007-01-15T12:13:00.000-08:00

'Shwee read Where the Wild Fingers Are?'

More words of Oliver

2007-01-08T13:09:00.000-08:00

cramra
A photographic apparatus.

fermoderner
A temperature gauge.

hostibal
A medical facility.

snignal
A device conveying a message, esp. on a railway.

strinky
A toy consisting of a stretchy spring.

tackies
Early term for a chauffeured vehicle available for hire.

The Oliver English Dictionary

2006-12-28T08:09:00.000-08:00

A guide to the more obscure words in the Olivernacular

The first of several instalments

beelabaa
A phrase common during the babbling era, of uncertain origin and significance, but still in occasional use. Also kizzick-kizzick, ducka-ducka, gibby-gibby, obby-bobby

eary
Folded, as of the ears under an improperly donned hat. My ears are a little eary.

huggy
1. to embrace; 2. a means of transportation involving being carried. Let's huggy to the park. From early Oliverese huck, later hugga.

lellow
The colour of a banana.

loud
Said of the ears after a great noise is heard. My ears are too loud.

moderner
A device for listening to one room while in another.

playplen
An enclosure in which an infant plays.

shutta [rhymes with 'foot-a']
Verb implying obligation. We shutta go to the den.

shwee
Verb of suggestion with unsubtle hints of expectation. Shwee go to the store?

soobuck
Archaic: A vehicle to carry children to a place of education.

stop stein
A notice found alongside roads, ordering vehicles to halt at that point.

suggle
Obsolete word for a sleepy embrace.

whistle-cloff
An auditory device found on locomotives. Perhaps from a reference to an obstructed one in Thomas and Friends.

yo prem-prem
Interjection indicating that all is well. Often said for no apparent reason.

In the holiday spirit

2006-12-19T07:44:00.000-08:00

Oliver: (adopting a lower voice than usual) Ho ho ho! Christmas tree, everybody!

At the pool

2006-12-19T07:39:00.000-08:00

On seeing a four-month old baby in a floating ring, Oliver turns to me and says in a low confessional tone, 'I wanna go in a boat too'.

Oliver and I notice a woman swimming laps in the fast lane.

Oliver: Daddy, what's she wearing?
Me: Well, she's wearing goggles to keep the water out of her eyes so she can see underwater and a cap to keep her hair in place.
Oliver: (somewhat impatiently) What's she wearing on her nipples?
Me: Umm ... a bathing suit, I guess.

New word

2006-12-15T08:16:00.000-08:00

Oliver likes to call boxer shorts 'boxicles'. I think I prefer that.

He says so much these days that is what Mimi calls 'bloggable' that it's becoming difficult to keep up.

'I'm enjoying unseasonably warm December weather with bear!'

Story time

2006-12-08T12:16:00.000-08:00

Oliver reads Dick Bruna's Miffy (the first in the series, describing her birth to Mr and Mrs Bunny) aloud, from memory:

'There's Miffy's daddy ... he cares for her ... and a cauliflower ... Miffy, I need you to not play with babies. Theee end.'

Why, yes ...

2006-11-17T08:16:00.000-08:00

... I am king of the castle, in fact.

... Raise the drawbridge!

Steps? I'm going to climb up these tires!

Language barrier revisited

2006-11-09T09:19:00.000-08:00

Mimi: Oliver, can you say ... what is it?
Me: Goederenwagon.
Oliver: ... gggôôhm.

Language barrier

2006-11-08T06:54:00.000-08:00

Last night, before bedtime, Oliver took an interest in a Dutch reading primer given to him by his oma. Mimi suggested that it would be more useful to speak Dutch to him without the book, for example, by referring to the toy trains he was playing with.

I got as far as describing Thomas the Tank Engine as a blauwe trein and then I couldn't come up with the Dutch word for this:

Upon which Oliver, adopting the slow and slightly condescending tone some might use with someone learning English, said:

'Can you say boxcar, daddy?'

Goederenwagon, that's what it's called.

Captured on film

2006-10-27T06:38:00.000-07:00

A rare moment in which Oliver agrees to wear a hat and mittens without protest, possibly because he gets to hold his BMW as part of the deal.

Name game

2006-10-17T13:35:00.000-07:00

Some time ago, I called Oliver 'Ollington Bear' because he looked a little like Paddington Bear in his yellow raincoat. Mimi later upgraded that to 'Sir Ollington Bear'.

He seems to have decided lately that he likes the name:

'Sir Ollington Bear has a wet diaper'.

(pointing)'My mommy and pappy'
What's your name?
'Sir Ollington Bear. Not Oliver'. (pause) 'Give me money?'

Vision

2006-10-12T12:43:00.000-07:00

'The streetcar has glasses!'
(I think he's referring to the split windshield)

Oliver has noticed that the animals in his books, when shown in profile, appear to have only one eye. When I tried to explain a picture of a cat with one eye open and one closed, he countered with 'THE CAT DOES NOT HAVE EYES!'

At the park

2006-10-09T18:56:00.000-07:00

On a ladder
'I wanna climb like a monkey. I'm gonna climb it my monkey self'.

After hugging his ten-month-old neighbour, Oliver turns to his parents, tilts his head and asks:
'Should we take a picture?'

The quotable Oliver

2006-10-04T06:20:00.000-07:00

On the way to the swimming pool
'Hey, red car! What are you doing in the street?'

After swimming
'That man is changing his bum.'

Outside the arena
Oliver: The Zamboni is going back in the garage.
Dad: Yeah, back to the ice rink.
Oliver: The ice cream garage.

Dinnertime conversation

2006-09-29T13:34:00.000-07:00

Oliver: Shwee make a phone call?
Mimi: Who would you like to call?
Oliver: Daddy.
Mimi: Well, Daddy's right here, but okay, what would you say to daddy? How about 'I love you'?
Oliver: Yeah. (burps loudly, then points to juice box) Watermelon!

Photo update

2006-09-22T12:03:00.000-07:00

Some recent pictures.

Out of my way!

I'm on my car phone!

A vintage Mercedes for a stroller? Sounds like a fair trade.

Going for a drive.

How much a litre?! Stop the pump!

Back on the road

Ah, here we are!

Questions, questions

2006-09-21T11:00:00.000-07:00

Oliver has started looking for confirmation:

Did I close the door?
Are you coming upstairs, mommy?
Were you raking in the back yard, daddy?

I am very impressed by his use of the past tense in that last sentence!

He's also started referring to himself in new ways, based on things we've said about him:

Where's that boy running to?
Who's that climbing monkey?

Creative expressions

2006-09-06T09:17:00.000-07:00

On a wet Saturday spent indoors:
'I can feel the rain going by'.

On hearing someone whistling in the park:
'Someone birding!'

Summer update

2006-08-23T09:36:00.000-07:00

Oliver retreats to the country ...

... gets lost in suburbia ...

... and orders a new bathroom to replace the baby tub.

Beverages

2006-08-11T08:36:00.000-07:00

In trying to get Oliver to switch to drinking milk from a sippy cup or regular cup rather than a nipple (he seems to have no problem with this when we're not around), we've been giving him chocolate milk (which he drinks with a straw) and calling it 'cappuccino' (Mimi's excellent idea).

He may be a bit confused by this when he's older.

'Baby red car!'

2006-07-17T13:08:00.000-07:00

These toys seem to be getting bigger and bigger ...

Enlarged vocabulary

2006-07-07T06:34:00.000-07:00

Oliver no longer says 'Yes' - it's always 'Oh yeah!'

He has a preposition, 'foo', that can be either 'for' or 'from':
'That's foo Mommy' (pointing to something belonging to Mimi)
'Foo Sophie' (pointing to a book received as a gift)

Some new neighbours down the street were demolishing their porch and showed Oliver and me an old wasps' nest. I made the mistake of comparing the honeycomb part to a waffle and when a piece of it fell to the ground, Oliver began clamouring to get the 'waaffwwwwe!'

This morning he pretended to sit on the potty, then stood up, closed the lid and said 'Bye-bye alligator!'.

Stop or I'll cough again!

Different ways of waking up

2006-06-26T12:38:00.000-07:00

On Sunday afternoon, Oliver woke up from a 2.5-hour nap and was seriously upset by ... something. He didn't want to be held, he thrashed around on the floor and would ask for things and then refuse them. At one point he kept saying 'Bus schoolbus!' and 'Schoolbus bus!' but he didn't want either of those toys.

We decided to let him calm down on his own, which he did eventually. I can only guess that he had a nightmare of some sort.

This morning, he woke up in a good mood and asked me 'Sleep ... well?'.

Back to nature

2006-06-23T06:23:00.000-07:00

A few days ago, Oliver was fascinated by the sunlight passing through the trees and the light and shadows moving on the side of his playpen as a result (he was not in it at the time). Late in the afternoon the next day, as I carried him on my shoulders in the park near our house, he directed me here and there ('That waaay!') as he was searching to find that effect again on trees, lampposts, shrubs, fences, etc. I could only tell that I was not in the right place whenever he would say 'Sunnn!' in a pleading tone of voice.

It's nice to know that he enjoys simple things and that, for a while at least, he can forget about wanting to go to the corner store in the hope of getting to play with the spare change dish on the counter.

I guess it looked like chocolate

2006-06-21T13:43:00.000-07:00

Oliver was probably still thinking about his birthday party when we were at the park later. I started a sand castle on the edge of the sandbox and when he noticed it, he pointed to it and said 'Cake? Party, party?'.

Not a winning ticket

2006-06-14T10:54:00.000-07:00

These things really are just for babies ...

Oliver expects lottery tickets to produce 'sumic' (music) when they are checked on the terminal at the corner store. It's not about the money for him (although he remains fascinated by coins).

He's moving away from using his name when making a statement or asking a question (as in 'Soccer ball Oliver' or 'Sit Oliver?') and starting to use 'I' instead ('I see you, Daddy!'). This past weekend, as he struggled to climb into a sandbox, I heard him say 'I can do it, Oliver'.

He's also beginning to find that adults enjoy coffee in various forms, as we discovered when we went out for brunch on Sunday: 'Mommy cappu ... cino?'

Toddler news

2006-06-09T12:23:00.000-07:00

You want trucks? You've come to the right place.

I'm not sure I really want to go down this slide.

Oliver now knows a new form of transportation: the 'lemonzine'.

More weekend pictures

2006-05-25T09:40:00.000-07:00

As the photos in the previous post might suggest, the weather was overcast, grey and a little chilly for much of the long weekend, but Oliver and I did do some exploring and we found a new big park - no playground, but lots of open space and paths through the woods.

Oliver in 'get off my land' mode.

It's the cold air making his eyes water, not the dandelion puff. I hope.

The sand at our nearest park was wet and churned up for some reason, which made Oliver's off-roading difficult.

It was colder than it looks in this picture. And yes, he should have been holding on. It's hard to take trucks, cars, keys, etc., away from him.

Scenes from the long weekend

2006-05-24T09:09:00.000-07:00

Why four wheels are better than three.

Sailing the seas of sand.

'Lellow Beetle!'

A walk in the woods.

Music time!

Sunday sleep

2006-05-21T18:34:00.000-07:00

Oliver started napping at about 5, an hour after our usual Sunday swim, and as at 9:40 he is still asleep. I changed his diaper and put him in a sleeper around 9, at which point he asked for the 'lellow car' (a yellow toy Citroën I bought for 25 cents this afternoon in a sidewalk sale).

I brought him up to his room and he seemed to sense that I was trying to place him in his crib - he began crying 'Daaa! Dyyyy!' - so I lay with him on the futon for a while. Soon he seemed to be fast asleep and I began trying to move away, but without opening his eyes, he uttered a curt 'Snuggle' (or 'Suggle', as he sometimes says) and I stayed with him for a little longer before I could move him into the crib.

Oliver has discovered a new vegetable he likes, which he calls 'fergus' (asparagus).

Car trouble

2006-05-16T09:03:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was one day I really should have brought the camera with me when I took Oliver to the park.

He climbed into the little car that was there. Like a lot of hand-me-down toys in parks, this thing was not in great condition, and we soon discovered that the front wheels were so bent that it could not be moved forward or back.

At one point, Oliver climbed out and I took the opportunity to flip the car over and bend the wheels until the rod connecting them was more or less straightened out. If I had taken a picture, the caption might have been 'See, your front end is all out of alignment here'.

That seemed to take care of the problem. Oliver got back in and I pushed him around and out onto the path around the playground (he pointed to the gate and said 'Open, Oliverrr?' in the same way he asks for many other things these days).

Then we hit an uneven join between two slabs of sidewalk concrete and the left front wheel turned and snapped right off. That would have been a photo too.

Outdoors

2006-05-10T11:14:00.000-07:00

'Maybe I'm pretending to be an archaeologist, maybe I'm squatting for another reason'

Notes from this weekend

2006-05-08T12:30:00.000-07:00

Oliver and I went to a park on Sunday and for a while, the only other kids there were both named Oliver as well: a local 1-year-old and a 20-month-old visiting from Guelph. There were a few instances of 'Oliver, can you let the other Oliver have the truck/go down the slide, etc.?'

He's starting to identify some cars by the people we know who drive the same model. A neighbour of ours named Julie drives a Mini, so now every other Mini on the road is 'Judie car'. Any Mazda3, whether it's a sedan or a hatchback, is 'baby Jack car', after the one belonging to the parents of Jack , who lives nearby.

Music

2006-05-02T13:40:00.000-07:00

'And now, my Sandbox Symphony'

Scenes from a restaurant

2006-05-01T11:44:00.000-07:00

We went out for dinner on Sunday evening - it was nice enough to sit outside and we hadn't been to a restaurant with Oliver for quite a while.

For some reason it took over half an hour for our appetizer to arrive (I would have thought that something like hummus and pita bread would be prepared at least partly in advance) and so Mimi and I took turns watching over Oliver as he wandered around on the sidewalk and in front of the store next to the restaurant. When the food finally showed up, Oliver promptly flung the basket of pita bread onto the floor. Fortunately, the replacement arrived in a few minutes. At first, Oliver protested at being in the high chair but soon discovered he liked Mimi's Burmese chicken and noodles. The man from the store had given Oliver a balloon earlier, but he didn't seem to mind much when it popped.

Soobuck!

2006-04-28T10:59:00.000-07:00

I just saw about a dozen yellow schoolbuses parked outside Roy Thomson Hall. If Oliver had been with me, I'm sure he would have been getting very excited and saying 'Soobuck!' (which has so far been interpreted as 'shoebox' and

subak, the Korean word for 'watermelon').

Discoveries

2006-04-27T13:08:00.000-07:00

Oliver found out that pointing at an 8-year-old (that's Daddy's guess) and saying 'Baby' will greatly amuse the 8-year-old's older brother.

Also, Uncle Barry now has a name: Unky Bear.

Rainy weekend

2006-04-24T10:18:00.000-07:00

No biking or swimming this weekend, but we invited our friends Dennis and Milena over for brunch on Sunday (waffles for all!) and Oliver had a great time playing with their little girl, Skyla. So much so that he had a three-hour nap afterwards (which Mimi and I really appreciated).

They brought tulips and now Oliver keeps pointing at them and saying 'Dennis!'.

'A photo? Okay, but I don't have time to pose. I have to go dap some puddles!'

Dap!: something Oliver likes to say when he stomps in puddles.

dadbloggit

He's not sleepy

The animal world

Science

Anatomy lesson

Recent quotes

Familiar game, new name

Inquiring minds

Recent quotes

The case of the missing rabbit

Marine life

Little animal

The park emerges from winter (finally)

Car shopping

Oliver's first koan

Makeshift bike seat

Bilingual

The power of metaphor

Faster than a speeding camera shutter!

Some assembly required

Bathtime boardgame

Beatrix Potter, as read by Oliver

Oliver can read this! (Without being prompted!)

Oliver's non-combat forces

Explanation

Short answer

The food chain of the animated universe

Wildlife

Oliver explains the weather

Cheeky

Fun with words

21st Century Boy

Difficult question

Thoughts on identity

Sodor railway official in 'toys for good behaviour' scheme

Emerging consciousness

Thomas recall update #2

After-dinner surrealism

Confusion and delay

The Oliver English Dictionary (new instalment)

Imaginative

Navigation

More Oliver English Dictionary entries

Our first recall

Time

One-liner

Cheeky

Thoughts on behaviour

Oliver's thoughts

Manipulation

Perceptive

A request after dinner

A request at dinnertime

New mode of transport

Desk job

Meta

Phrasebook

Random notes on Alternadad

More lexicon entries

Winter scene

Dictionary update

A bedtime favourite by Maurice Sendak

More words of Oliver

The Oliver English Dictionary

In the holiday spirit

At the pool

New word

Story time

Why, yes ...

Language barrier revisited

Language barrier

Captured on film

Name game

Vision

At the park

The quotable Oliver

Dinnertime conversation

Photo update

Questions, questions

Creative expressions