Category: Wicked Little Critta!

This morning, as Liam and I were walking to his daycare along Pacific, Liam was inches from being hit by a car. My natural over-protectiveness, that makes me hover my hands right by him whenever we’re somewhere cars are, are probably what prevented something really awful from happening:

A woman was coming out of a parking garage. There’s a little ramp from the garage up to the sidewalk, then out on to the road. From the garage door, she could probably see there was no oncoming traffic. But we (or at least Liam), was obscured from her view by a planter. But as she was driving up the ramp over the sidewalk, she wasn’t even looking. She was looking down, fumbling in her purse as she drove out onto the street. She didn’t see me or Liam. I lifted Liam up high, and the car passed underneath him. The whole thing was so close that my feet were probably half an inch from being run over by her, and his feet were maybe an inch or two above the roof of her car. She turned right, and drove off. I don’t believe she had any idea we were there at all. Were I not so worried about Liam, I’d’ve tried to get her license plate. He was totally unhurt, just annoyed at having been unceremoniously pick up by me, and just wanted down again.

Myself, my heart was pounding and I broke out in cold sweat at just the thought of what would’ve happened if Liam had been even half a step further ahead of me then he was. I really didn’t stop shaking until after I had dropped him off at Daycare and took a moment to sit down…

We’re on the bus today, and all of a sudden, Liam starts saying “BUZZ! BUZZ! BUZZ!” so I look around, and I can’t see anything buzzing, or hear any buzzing. Then, I see he’s looking at the little pamphlet holder behind us on the ‘wall’ of the bus. And what does it say? “the BUZZER”. So I point at the letters, and Liam happily shouts out: “BEEEE! YOUUUU! ZED! ZED! EMMMM! ARR!” (he always mixes up Ms, Ws, & Es, when looking at his bath letters too). The lady sitting next to us is now staring at us slack-jawed. Then I ask “Do you know what that says?” and He shouts “BUZZ! ARRRR! BUZZZ! ARRR!” So Apparently, Liam’s learning how to read. Not perfectly, but the fact that he can connect groups of letters into actual words just blows me away. That seems to be a large step from just identifying some letters, which is what I’ve seen him do before.

For Liam’s 2nd birthday, we bought him a Fisher Price digital camera. It’s a great little toy – well padded for throwing, and easy to use (perhaps a little too easy – Liam figured out how to delete photos off the camera almost immediately). So because he’s now taking pictures, I’ve created him a Flickr account, where I’ll post his photos, and maybe one day he’ll post his photos. So to see the world from Liam’s point of view, check out his photos!

So I like to watch the previous night’s Daily Show while eating breakfast. Which, given that I eat breakfast with Liam, means that Liam watches the Daily Show every morning.

This morning, Liam was playing with Twitch in the bedroom when the music for the show started, and he came running into the living room, a huge smile of his face, shouting “Daily Show! Daily Show!”. Then, when Jon Stewart appeared on the screen, doing his doodles, Liam said “Jon Stewart! Jon Stewart!”

I am so proud (I’ll know I’ve truly succeeded made a monster if he ever asks for the Daily Show instead of Blue’s Clues).

I’ve been pretty quiet about the life & times of one young Liam Tannock, but there’s a few things that just melt my heart that I’d like to share with you all:

• Liam associates computers with elephants. When he sees my computer, he immediately starts making trumpeting noises (which he does for elephants). I wish I had audio or video of him doing it. This is because there are elephants in Civilization IV, which both Leah and I have been playing lately
• His belly button is a “beep-beep!”. If you ask “what’s this?” when pointing at his belly button, he’ll chirp “Beep-beep!” back at you.
• When he wants to read a book, he’ll come running up to me, then stop, turn around, a slowly back up until he trips over my legs and falls backwards into my lap.
• He loves construction vehicles. With all the work along Cambie, this means there’s lots of time where he’ll stand speechless watching diggers dig, bulldozers bulldoze and trucks haul.

So as you probably know, tonight’s Halloween. And nothing says cute like a toddler all dressed up as something. But! With me having been away, and Leah having been in midterms last week, we completely failed to get Liam a little costume. And I don’t think that we have anything at home that we could squeeze him into. So I don’t think the little guy’s going to go trick-or-treating tonight. Which might not be so bad for him – we don’t let him eat candy, and trick-or-treating time tends to be right around dinner time, which Liam hates missing, being a healthy eater. And then it’s suddenly bed-time. But! I’ve had 3 enquiries (is that a britishism? should I use inquiries?) from neighbours about whether or not we’ll be bringing him around tonight. So maybe we should. But do I have time to scramble around and get a costume for him? Probably not. And really, will there be anything left in toddler size anywhere? So I think we’ll skip the trick-or-treating tonight, somewhat sadly. But we’ll be all over it next year. Although, I probably said the same thing last year.

The other downside is that I won’t get to eat any chocolate, if Liam’s not collecting it on my behalf 😉

Today is Liam’s first full day of daycare. I dropped him off at 8:30 this morning. Leah will pick him up at 5:30 this afternoon. All day! Without either of us! Ack!

Until now, I’ve been totally cool with this. Excited even! But today? Today, now that it is really happening, I’m wracked with guilt. And worry. What if he cries? What if he’s abused? What if he gets sick? What if? What if? What if? an so on. Of course, none of these things will likely happen (ok, he’ll probably cry). But I can’t stop thinking about it. And then I feel guilty for putting him daycare. That I couldn’t come home so that Leah could start being out all day. It’s totally dumb, and completely useless, but I can’t get it out of my head today. My inner voice is plaguing me with doubts & accusations. My work is going super slow because of it. Everything I do is reminding me of Liam in some way, and it just makes me sad that he’s at daycare, not at home with Leah or me.

(It should be noted that I (rationally) think we found an amazing provider, and based on his last week’s ease-in days, he’s going to love daycare. But reality, as is often the case with me, has little ability to quell my irrational fears.)

So, in other exciting news, I spent all weekend with Liam, while Leah took her first aid course. This marks the first time I’ve spent 2 whole days, sans Leah with him. Leah, of course, was worried, but it was great! The Little Dude and I had lots of fun, going to Ikea, going shopping, going hiking, etc. And most excitingly, he started walking this weekend! It happened while he and I were at Ikea – he was investigating a bed-spread (it had a new-to-him texture, when he saw something across the aisle that also needed to be touched. And rather than crawling over, or grabbing my hand, he just turned around a walked!.

So when he walks, he holds one arm straight out, and kind of shuffles drunkenly around, which, combined with his love of keys, makes me think that he’s some sort of zombie, only one that wants keys, not brains…

So ever since I first experienced “Baby Row” up on 4th ave in Kits, I’ve been saying to Leah that a sure-fire business idea in Vancouver would be to start a high-end baby food store on that strip in Kits. An now, yet another article detailing all the options that are now appearing for baby food.

So, if you’re looking for a good business, like babies/mothers & cooking, here’s what you should do:

1. Stock high quality, organic brands of baby-foods.
2. Offer daily-made, or high-quality take-away frozen meals for proto- or recent parents
3. Offer cooking for babies courses, showing new parents how to cook meals that they and their babies can eat.
4. Sell family-friendly/baby-friendly cookbooks
5. Have “guest chefs” in. If possible, hook up with local celebrity chefs to have them create unique baby meals. What well-to-do Vancouverite parent wouldn’t want a Feenie purée?
6. Possibly, and this might be diluting the brand, sell baby-food paraphenalia: bibs, cups, bowls, high chairs, etc.

So there. That’s my top-secret business idea, now laid bare for all to read and steal. Had I any time & funding, I might well do it myself. If you do take something from my idea, let me know!

So last weekend I got a tattoo of Liam’s name on my shoulder.

Here’s the design:

Here’s the finished result: