Here Is Pointer

How are you today, sir? Very well, I thank you. Run away, run away.

Oliver makes an initial impression of being a kind of cautious, precision-loving kid. You wouldn't expect this level of focus from a 14-month-old, but if there is something to be explored, the exploration is frequently intitiated with Mr. Pointer. His focus, often accompanied by a low groan or grunts, allows him to smash peas with a single press, skewer carrots into new orange fingertip, and start an art project with the exactness of a master painter.

Eventually, though, the focus, precision, and Mr. Pointer himself are replaced by flat-palmed rigor. Peas flying. Carrots smashing. Paint a la Jackson Pollock.

The photos above I took tonight as he disected his dinner. I should have taken a picture of the floor under his chair to show the aftermath of focus lost. Gross. (Grosser is that he tried to eat it off the floor later in the evening before I had a chance to clean it up. Ew.)

The photos below are from an art project in school. They called it "body painting." Just stripped the kids down, taped paper on the floor, and dumped out some tempera paint. He started out quite timidly, but had his fair share of paint on the bod by the time he was done. Can't quite figure out why the teachers would want to go through all the trouble, but I'm sure glad they did because it looks like good fun. Believe it or not he didn't come home with a drop of paint on him.

The unfortunate thing about this particular art project is that it was oversized and thus defies my plan to digitize all of Oliver's works of fine art with my scanner. I guess I'll have to really wimp out and take a photo of the work. It was pretty funny: Just days after I had posted my art-saving dilemma and plan, I read this amusing column on The Daily Babble. What's a mom to do?

Portrait of an Artist

It is so cool that at Oliver's daycare, they do real art activities. I got to witness it in action on his birthday this year. I posted some photos to The Oliver Chronicles, but they had also taken these shots at school, where they laminated them, added captions, and hung them on the wall for a period.


He just had his quarterly "parent/teacher-conference" and "progress report" last week, so they sent home everything that he's created in his mere 6 weeks there along with these action shots. It's already quite a collection of original works, not including the valentine he adorned with his cute little footprints.

Of course, being as unsentimental as I am, I feel the conflicting sentiments brewing already. "Clear the clutter." vs. "Aw... my babies first fingerpainting". "If you don't use it, lose it" vs. "I wonder if I should use an acid free mat when I frame this crayon drawing".

And then my love for technology entered the picture and I thanked the heavens for the inventor of the affordable All-In-One printer/scanner/fax/copier that allows me to preserve his greatness in a format where it will actually get seen with relative ease. No, I'm not going to just pitch everything as soon as Windows tells me it's captured. We'll keep the hardcopy as backup, as I'm sure they will be worth something someday -- plus the scanner seems to be cutting off the edges a bit. But I do like the idea of scanning them in to create more of a catalog of work. Much more palatable for my organizing sensibilities. Plus, then I get to share them more easily with all of you. Please feel free to open the bidding at a level commensurate with Renoir.

With that, let me unveil The Winter Blues: A Frigid January by Oliver James Weinstein -- and for other great art, please see his Daddy's website (oh, wait, he doesn't have one -- Eric, get busy!):

Happy Valentine's Day!

I had thought of many titles for this post and many ways to frame it, but really wanted to showcase Oliver's awesome valentine he made at school, so I thought I'd tell you about Oliver's second-ever Valentine's Day last Saturday -- and let's just preface it by saying it wasn't all roses and chocolate.

Friday night involved pizza and beer (both in the "lots of" form) and a late night, so Eric and I woke up a little peaked as my Grandma Carnes would have said -- that's phonetically pee-kid (oh, the irony continues). But none-the-less we trekked up to Bubbie's house in Riverwoods for a Valentine's Day lunch with the whole family. It was great, actually -- a spread of comfort foods from cottage cheese and peaches to grilled cheese and tomato soup. Problem was, Oliver wasn't comforted by any of it. He just wasn't having any of it. Not interested and crabby as hell. So I take him out of the high chair and am sitting on the couch in the next room when it begins. The vomit. The hurl. The milky, parmesan-smelling, chunk of cracker barf.

Keep in mind that this is our first adventure in throw-up. Spit-up, as any parent will tell you, is a much milder and completely acceptable beast comparatively.

Let's just say thank goodness Bubbie and Poppa have hardwood floors because carpet would have been a disaster. He seemed to improve after that and by some grace of god, I had thrown in an extra set of clothes for the trip. But, no sooner did our original clothes come out of the dryer than he was up for a repeat performance -- this time on Daddy and in the kitchen. Poor kid. It really is horrible. Long story short, we get home, he does it twice more over the course of a few hours and finally goes to bed. We worry all night that he's going to choke on it and die in his sleep, but he makes it and we go about our business.

The weekend and into the week were pretty spotty with more incidents of lost lunches -- oh, and the all-night heaving session I had on Sunday and Eric on Monday. Details are unwanted. I understand. TMI, you say? I understand. I wish I could have skipped it, as well.

Overall it's been a rough week, but we got through it. He's feeling much better. Not eating as much and Er and I are about the same (don't you just hate it when NOTHING sounds good?). I handled it all much better than I thought I would, to be honest. I didn't completely freak out. And I didn't run away and leave Eric to clean it up. In fact, I found myself rushing to help because my baby wasn't feeling well, and well, I hate that.

This does not mean that when I see the following (a not-uncommon occurence in our house) that I rush quite as fast or at all for that matter. (Sorry, I couldn't resist.)

Photo released with permission from Cub and Junior (origination unknown):