Steelykid!
drorzel | March 10, 2011"I do not, for one, believe that the problem was that the band was down. I believe the problem may have been that there was a sky bison on the stage that was in danger of being crushed by a toddler.
"Alright? That tended to understate the hugeness of the animal."
(A tiny bit of context. And no, we're not going to play "Stonehenge" tomorrow.)
drorzel | March 3, 2011When I told her it was Thursday, and thus time for a picture with Appa, SteelyKid sprang into action with a very definite idea of what she wanted. As a result, there's a lot going on in this week's Toddler Blogging photos:
This is my favorite, which was an intermediate step on the way to her final vision. To unpack it a little for you, though, we have:
First and foremost, we have a big collection of stuffed toys being carefully arranged. This is all SteelyKid-- when I said I wanted a picture with Appa, she said "No, all my friends!" Then she started arranging them.
You can also see a remnant…
drorzel | February 25, 2011We're having our umpteenth winter storm here, which means everybody has to work at clearning snow away. And I do mean everybody:
OK, I did most of the work of clearing a path to the door, but SteelyKid insisted on helping sweep some snow up with her little broom afterwards. The color's a little wonky because it was getting dark, and this was taken with my cell phone. Had I had time to go in and get the good camera, it would've been a million times cuter, but you get the general idea.
Between making a snowman, clearing the door of her house, making snow angels, stage-falling into the snow…
drorzel | February 25, 2011Since people have asked about the lack of Thursday Toddler Blogging to this point, here's an update: We had a bit of a meltdown last night at dinner, which ended with SteelyKid asking to go to bed an hour earlier than usual. This morning, she slept in, and we got a bunch more snow overnight, so there wasn't time to get any pictures. We'll get something later tonight, I hope.
If you're desperate for a cute toddler fix, here's a rerun:
That was at a Union basketball game a few weeks ago. Sadly, the season is over, so we'll have to find another venue to drill SteelyKid on her ball-handling…
drorzel | February 17, 2011Look, sir, look, sir, Mr. Knox sir!
Let's do tricks with bricks and blocks, sir!
-- Dr. Seuss
Sadly, the only trick SteelyKid has really mastered with bricks and blocks is piling them into a gigantic obstacle in the middle of the floor. Well, that, and building tall narrow towers then knocking them down. And, I suppose, you don't need much more that that when you're two and a half...
drorzel | February 10, 2011Appa appears in all the weekly Toddler Blogging pictures, but he's not the only stuffed animal in Chateau Steelypips. the others were getting a little resentful of Appa's blog time, so here's the full cast of characters:
In the back row, from left to right, we have: SteelyKid, Baby, Audrey, Appa, Dolly, Lorax, and Mommy. In the front row: a green bird whose name I don't know, a reindeer left over from Christmas, Dijon the knit giraffe, Bertha the Big Bear, and Emmy.
SteelyKid was sent home from day care with a fever today, which has kind of thrown a wrench into everything, and made her…
drorzel | February 6, 2011I'm taking some flak in the comments to yesterday's book recommendation request post, so let me illustrate what I meant with an example. Lots of people recommended the Andrew Lang Fairy books, which are freely available online. I looked at the first story in the first book, which is plenty entertaining, but also has this bit that stopped me short:
Hardly had [an evil sorceror] reached his own house when, taking the ring, he said, "Bronze ring, obey thy master. I desire that the golden ship shall turn to black wood, and the crew to hideous negroes; that St. Nicholas shall leave the helm and…
drorzel | February 5, 2011One of the books in SteelyKid's regular rotation of books to read at naptime and bedtime is this book about a girl visiting characters from fairy tales to ask them what makes somebody happy ever after. It's not the greatest, but she enjoys it.
It occurs to me, though, that while the book references a couple of classic fairy tales-- the girl in the story visits the princess from "The Princess and the Pea" and the frog prince, and also a fairy godmother-- SteelyKid has never heard any of the original stories, and thus is unlikely to appreciate the references (even accounting for the fact that…
drorzel | February 3, 2011Given that the snow banks on the sides of the driveway are taller than SteelyKid, it might not seem like time for golf. If she's going to reach her goal of being the first toddler to win an event on the PGA Tour, though, she can't afford to take time off from practicing:
Swing coach Appa says "You might consider holding the club with both hands..."
From that range, though, she could hardly miss. Which gets us to the most important part of the game:
Jumping up and down after making a shot is the best part of golf.
drorzel | January 27, 2011Since we had a Mommy-for-scale picture last week, I thought it was high time we had another Daddy-for-scale picture. So, here's SteelyKid before going off to day care this morning:
(Photo credit: Kate)
She's been more than 0.5 Kate in height for a good long while, but now she's coming up on half a me. She's a great big growing toddler, all right.
drorzel | January 24, 2011We've had three pretty decent snow storms here recently, which is nice. Unfortunately, the middle one included a good deal of ice, so we now have a thick layer of snow, covered by a half-inch of ice, with another several inches of snow on top of that. Which makes getting around quite the chore.
However, if you break out big pieces of the ice layer, you can stick them back into the ice so they stand upright, like the bony plates on the back of a stegosaurus. which is pretty neat:
Of course, the real highlight of going out to play in the snow is coming back inside where it's warm, then running…
drorzel | January 20, 2011There have been a bunch of times in the last couple of weeks where it was brought home how big SteelyKid has gotten compared to Kate, so this week, we have a Mommy-for-scale photo:
The stylish headband SteelyKid is sporting is from today's Tu B'Shevat celebration at the Jewish Community Center, where she goes to day care. (Learning a whole new set of holidays is an unexpected bonus of sending her there; happily, this one isn't major enough to close the JCC, which happens a lot...) The kids made these this week, and she's been talking about her band for a few days now, so she was very happy…
drorzel | January 6, 2011It's really flattering when your kids start to imitate you:
This is SteelyKid playing with the toy laptop she got for Christmas in her basement kitchen. Sadly, not only is she imitating her father's computer-addict tendencies, she's also copying my poor laptop-using posture. We'll have to work on that.
For the traditional Appa-for-scale photo, here she is a little bit earlier in the evening, showing Appa how the trains work:
Appa, having the power of flight, is disdainful of rail travel.
(I really need to do an Appa FAQ, to go with these posts, but the Avatar fan site link will suffice for…
drorzel | January 2, 2011I had vaguely meant to do a year-in-review post yesterday, like every other blogger running on the Gregorian calendar, but SteelyKid blew that plan to bits by refusing to take her nap until 2pm. It's also kind of difficult to say much of anything coherent about 2010. It was a good year in a lot of ways-- How to Teach Physics to Your Dog officially came out in 2009, but most of the stuff about it was in 2010, and I sold a second talking-to-the-dog book over the summer-- but there were also parts of it that sucked-- pretty much anything to do with politics prior to December, for example.
If I…
drorzel | December 30, 2010I nearly forgot to post tonight's Toddler Blogging photos, which would've been a Bad Thing, as you can tell from this picture. Toddler Blogging is Serious Business:
That's not the best Appa-for-scale picture, but I love the intense look on her face. This was taken in our spiffy, newly refinished basement, which is the new permanent home of SteelyKid's kitchen:
Here, she is holding forth on the virtues of chili powder. Appa's perched on the back of the futon we have down there, because he's not entirely convinced about her cooking.
You can get a better sense of the room, and the…
drorzel | December 28, 2010I'm slowly sifting through the Christmas pictures, many of which were rendered blurry by SteelyKid's constant motion, but there are some good shots in there:
This one shows her playing with the wooden train set she got from Grandma and Grandpa (the same gauge as the Thomas branded ones they have set up at Barnes & Noble stores, though without the price-doubling connection to a tv show, which is fine by us). She spent a bunch of time running the train around and over and under the bridge, which was really cute, as you can tell.
(This was taken before I got the fancy flash unit, if you're…
drorzel | December 27, 2010I spent a lot of time on my feet over the weekend, probably more than I should've given my ankle. Thus, I plan to spend most of today lying on the couch with my foot up and on ice. I've got a bunch of things to work on that I can do from this position, but extensive blogging is not one of them. Thus, an audience-participation thread:
If you celebrated some solstice-linked holiday in the last month or so, what was the highlight of it for you?
This could be a gift you received, a gift you gave, or just some moment that was particularly nice. If you've got something you'd like to share, leave…
drorzel | December 26, 2010My big Christmas present this year was an external flash unit for my camera. Which means that, among the 354 (!!) pictures I took while at my parents' were a bunch playing with different flash settings. Why? These two pictures should give you the idea:
The first is taken with the flash angled straight ahead, and the second with the flash angled upward so it bounced off the ceiling first. I definitely think the second looks better-- there isn't the same glare off SteelyKid's forehead, and the background is illuminated more uniformly.
Both of these show SteelyKid watching "Rudolph the Red-…
drorzel | December 23, 2010I foolishly neglected to get an Appa picture this morning, but I wouldn't want to deprive you of your cute toddler fix for the week. And, of course, it's important to get at least one picture of SteelyKid playing with her spiffy new kitchen out:
We gave this to her last night, and it was a huge hit. It's got a stove burner that lights up and makes noise when you put a pot or pan on it, an oven, a sink, a fridge, and a cordless phone. And a bunch of fake food.
We had hoped to reveal this to her at the same time as the refinished basement (where it will be living permanently), but alas, the…
drorzel | December 16, 2010SteelyKid has started to demonstrate a real flair for decoration, which she proudly shows off here:
That's Appa decked out with the three bead necklaces we have for SteelyKid to play with. She tends to take the longest one, the white beads, and wrap it behind her so she has one loop over each arm. She refers to this as her "backpack," and we have a few pictures of her dressed up like this. tonight, She decided Appa needed the backpack which didn't work out so well, given the disparity in size. So he got the smallest (red) necklace as a belt/ backpack thing, and the other two wrapped around…