You make me happy when skies are grey.

You Are My Sunshine

I find it interesting how routines find their way in to our lives. They sneak up on you. One day you just realize that you missed something, "Hey, I didn't get to take a picture of that construction site for my time lapse project. Damn you, El Nina!". They are like a comforting blanket that we wrap around us to keep the winds of change at bay.

Our family has several routines in place that comfort and appease us; Friday night date night, Wednesday music night, Sunday morning pancake breakfast. There have been a lot of changes in my day-to-day schedule over the last several months. The absence of a regular 9-5 job has left me bereft of many of my old routines. I miss that comfort, not to a Rain Man degree, but I certainly miss them. So, Hazel and I are finding our new routines together. It seems like we both feel more at-ease on the days we adhere closer to a schedule.

My favourite daily activity is our walk; we are amblers. Sometimes we have a destination and others we just pick a direction and head out to see what adventures will come our way. Hazel's abundant curiosity is contagious. I watch her to see what sorts of things peak her interest and then I see those things in a new light. She is like a little spotlight focused on the things I forget to notice.

We are very lucky to have a large, hilly park near our home with lots of deciduous trees. More days than not we end up at least passing through this park. It is a perfect looking glass to see the signs of the seasons changing. A few weeks ago we started taking the extra Sunday morning pancakes to the park with us on Monday to feed the birds. Hazel loves watching little animals move around our feet and I love to watch her when she does.

Still Falling in the Net

Fallin in the Net

The last two weeks have brought a boon of new areas in Hazel's development. I have been dreading some of these things for a while now.

In retrospect, the first few months of my stay-at-home dad time were pretty easy. We found a pretty nice routine. Get up at 7 or so. Get the coffee ready for mom and dad, Fix a nice bottle of milk for Belle, see mom off for her work-day, lay Hazel down for a nap, have some quiet time, go for a walk, rinse, repeat...

All of a sudden she has started teething, eating solid foods, chatterboxing, grabbing at the facial and head hair, and, most devastatingly...crawling! Up until now I could set her down on her back anywhere I pleased while I read a magazine article or made myself a mess-o-potatoes without a care in the world. Just check in every few minutes or so to make sure she was smiling. That the the sum total of my concerns...to make sure she was smiling. Now I can't set her down for more than five seconds without her rolling off the edge of the bed or grabbing an extension cord. You set her down and the first thing you know she if off crawling towards the nearest vertical surface she can find to try and steady herself against for her next big trick...standing! But as soon as she gets herself up in an awkward splits-type stance halfway betwixt a kneel and standing she topples over and bangs her head on whatever she is on top of.

Lord begordy! Whatever hair she hasn't already yangk out is now falling out from the worry.

Thank bejesus for my bastient...the pack'n'play in cahoots with the arched playmat. With some adjustment to allow for her new height range, I can now leave her to her own devices for upwards of 15 minutes at a time.

The pack'nplay's forgiving sides are made of mesh that catch her falls and are breathable when, in her moments of frustration, she parks her face against it's walls. Also, it's floor is as forgiving as that of the floor of a bouncy-castle you might find at your county fair

Thanks you pack'n'play for your forgiveness and arched play mat for your beautiful support arms that give my baby the means to challenge herself in this time of growth.

I hold you as you pound the keys

Oh Gal (Lo-fi version)

In the last few weeks before our daughter arrived, once we had completed the preparations on the house I started getting antsy. My thoughts drifted towards filling the house with music.
"What instruments do children play?"
"What did I like to play with when I was a kid?"
I went on an Amazon spending spree to snatch up every noise-maker I remembered ever playing while I was growing up. I got wood blocks and kazoos, triangle-chimes and that ribbed wood thing you rub a stick across to make a frog-like sound. I filled a basket full of these things plus all the shaker eggs, tambourines and cow-bells I had in the studio. "This is our child's gateway to music", I pronounces to my wife. She gently explained that our child would not be able to use them for a long time but I held steadfast. "Investments", I called them. “Investments in the future”.
Fast-forward six months...
Once I became a, mostly, stay-at-home dad, I tried to figure out ways to spend as much of my limited time down in the studio tinkering. Luckily, Hazel, our lovely daughter really enjoys watching and hearing me play music for her (especially the banjo). Now when she is fussy one of the best methods I have to calm her down is to take her down to the studio and sit her in front of the basket full of noise-making nick-knacks. She does not quite have the coordination down yet to get A and B together but she loves to wave the mallet around and every once and again she hits something that makes a noise like the ones I show her and then she does her darndest to repeat the results.
The other day I was sitting at the piano with Hazel in my lap, as we have done on many occasions before. While I was trying to flush out an idea I had she slapped at the keys like she usually does but actually started to get them down hard enough to move the hammers to the strings and made a sound. I stopped what I was doing and listened to her play for a bit and then I began playing something way down on the low keys while she continued on the middle ones. We were making music together. It was random and spare but it is a moment I will remember.
We have laid out a pretty diverse and lush palette for her to draw from when and if she chooses. For that I am proud. I am looking forward to seeing what sorts of things she comes up with on her canvas.