[C] Year in Review

Another year, another decade... faster and faster, as if we've wandered into Wonderland. At least we have the arbitrary annual earmarking of holidays and New Year's Eves to give us pause from what is otherwise just one big huge blur. Here is our annual look back, a brief moment of reflection before the cycle begins anew. We saw lots of family in 2009. Resolution for 2010 is definitely to see more of friends! Hoping for many A+ reunions this year, wherever they may be. And wishing everyone a sense of peace, love, health, and happiness every day.

As for E, I think her new year spirit says it all. More underwear headwear!

[C] Halloween Buzz

Boo! - or, more appropriately, buzzz! - from our Queen Bee. Hope your Halloweens were appropriately ghastly. Ours kind of was, actually, with E's cold keeping us home-bound, and we ended up haunting the T-dot instead of T-burg. Despite our disappointment, we managed to make of the weekend the best we could: we did lots of decorating, carved a pumpkin - in not particularly spectacular or creative fashion, but it got the job done - and went trick-or-treating from room to room in our apartment instead of from door to door in the neighborhood. All around, a pretty successful save, and the important thing is that a much-improved E ended up enjoying the festivities. Halloween is definitely topping her favorite-holiday list now, much as it did for her dad back when he was a trick-or-treating kid. Happy recovery from all those sugar highs!

[C] Naked Pleasure

Can you remember when the simplest things in life made you the happiest? Today E and I walked down the street to our favorite neighborhood cafe, which was celebrating its fifth anniversary with free ice cream and balloons. When you're two going on three, there is nothing better than ice cream (and when you're an adult, free is always good). Throw in balloons, and you're talkin' heaven. All the way home E was walking on air, then decided it would be fun to tear through our apartment buck naked while yelling at the top of her lungs, "Let's do it! Freak it out!" I am unsure of the meaning or derivation of "freak it out," but evidently it is reserved for especially exciting occasions. Now, it's entirely possible that this ecstasy was the result of a pralines-n-cream-induced sugar high, but there was something so fantastic, so pure, so joyful - and so infectious - about seeing such unadulterated pleasure (although I managed to keep my clothes on). Would that we all felt like that a lot more often...!

Luckily, attired for modesty here

[C] Yearbook Yuks

OK, I have now officially spent way too much time playing around with Yearbook Yourself when I could have been sleeping or editing or doing any number of more productive things. Why does this stuff amuse me so much? Here are a few of my favorite faux photos... ah, memories.

[C] Beach Baby

E took to the beach - well, I guess the expression "like a fish to water" is appropriate. Her first time at the shore was a big splash. Sandwiched between a string of stormy days, we lucked out with just a slightly overcast sky, which made for a very comfortable afternoon. E enjoyed picking up (and dramatically discarding) shells, making footprints in wet sand, building sand castles (which is perhaps overstating the architecture somewhat), and barely escaping the grasp of many foamy waves. In reality, the closer call was avoiding aggressive seagulls dive-bombing for our lunches, but all in all it was a perfectly pleasant trip to the seaside. Here's hoping for many happy returns...

[C] Under the Sea

Things I do to amuse myself... I mean, to entertain my daughter. My latest masterpiece is a montage of Little Mermaid characters, as rendered in Wikki Stix. Clearly the artist (that would be me) intended to comment on the neodialectic tension between traditional children's "fairy tales" and their manifestation in patriarchal narrative, and to critique the commodity fetishism of contemporary pop-cultural production. Oh, and there's something deep about the human condition in there too. Yes, this is indeed the apogee of art as we know it.

Ariellie: Amusement. 2009. Wikki Stix on melamine, 10" x 7" (25.4 x 17.8 cm).

[C] Toronto Reunion

During H and N and C's recent visit to Toronto (see sidebar slideshow) we celebrated C's fifth birthday, made cookies and dyed Easter eggs, took a ferry ride to the Toronto Islands, ate at our favorite restaurants... it was a wonderful weekend full of fun and lots of laughs. It was particularly memorable seeing C and E play together, but it flew by way too quickly. Which is the only problem with such a reunion - it only highlights how far away we are from our dream of an A+ cul-de-sac. Whatever happened to being neighbors with your friends and family? These days we all end up living where we work rather than the other way around, and when work takes you so far away from loved ones, you gotta wonder whether it's worth the trade-off. Sometimes people who are farthest away somehow still remain the closest people in your life, but it sure would be a whole lot easier and a whole lot nicer if they were right around the corner. Until then, I'll take what I can get and be grateful for it.

[C] Orange Scavenger

I have just discovered a new artistic outlet. And a fun way to spend a day or two. And an excuse to use my camera's macro function. In any event, it's a current favorite activity for me and E. We've been on a scavenger hunt for colors lately, searching for images to add to a photo collage. I got this idea from my friend J, whose Greenday provided the original inspiration. In honor of H's upcoming visit we chose orange, her signature color, for our first foray. This is a great exercise in observation and awareness, whether you're two or thirty-something... amazing what you see when you really start looking. Most of these pictures were taken right inside our apartment. What color should we try next?

[C] Winter of Discontent

Our poor blog, so neglected, so forgotten, so overgrown with weeds. I blame winter. Not because there's any particular correlation, but because I am in the habit of blaming winter for all manner of ills lately. This has felt like the longest cold season ever, and I am altogether sick of it - literally. I learned recently that every ten miles further north is supposed to mean a day more of winter. It certainly makes sense... and makes me ask again WHY we live in Canada?! Oh yeah, employment, and thank god for it (see Massive Earth-wide Economic Meltdown). Of course, I wonder how much global warming has messed up the meteorological formula. At least we're finally approaching astronomical spring, if nothing else. Hang in there, E, we shouldn't be under house arrest for too much longer...!

[C] For Future Reference

I wish I had the artistic talent to animate the series of moments that comprise toddlerhood, flashing by in fits and bursts like the choppy frames of an old motion picture. Luckily someone has done it for me. I came across these two films by Jeff Scher, which capture perfectly the fleeting impressions a parent experiences as days turn into months and years. But almost more apt is how he describes "the omnivorous now in parenting, and the constantly shifting challenges and demands of the moment, that creates a kind of rolling amnesia for everything yesterday." It is a relief to know that I'm not the only one who can't remember exactly what happened when, even milestones that seemed so unforgettable at the time. In some cases, this is a good thing. Who wants to relive a trip to the emergency room, for example? But in most instances, I feel it simply justifies the ridiculous number of photos that I take - almost ten THOUSAND pictures (and counting) will sure as heck make for a pretty good archive someday...

- C

[C] Inauguration Fever

How fabulous is our new First Couple?!

- C

[C] Year in Review

Between E's birthday, my birthday, and the holidays all in December (not to mention our early-Christmas family-reunion Thanksgiving last month), it has been a real happy-merry-b-day-x-mas-celebration-x-travaganza around here. Oh - well, except for a hair-raising mid-blizzard two-tow-truck trip to the in-laws' for the holidays. Oh - and of course there was also E's emergency hospitalization due to pneumonia. Both unwelcome surprises at the end of an otherwise pretty pleasant 2008. Even in spite of the aforementioned, E's second year still proved to be much cooler than her first (two nights in the hospital sure beats 86). And as for me, now squarely and numerically in my mid-thirties, we shall see...!

- C

[C] E Turns Two!

The Night Garden gifts were very well received, particularly the talking plush Makka Pakka doll. And the Thomas the Train praline ice cream cake was a big hit, if somewhat alarmingly colored. But the best part of all was the joy of seeing E's excitement on her special day. Thanks for everyone's happy birthday wishes... E is now officially two!

- C

[C] Yanksgiving

There are plenty of things I am thankful for this Thanksgiving - still such a Yank, I really need to set my internal holiday clock a month earlier for Canadian Thanksgiving... or maybe I'll just continue to celebrate twice every year. Because there are never enough days to be grateful for the many good fortunes we have enjoyed. E. is our greatest and most hard-won joy, our families continue to offer infinite love and support, and every friend is a blessing - especially my three oldest, dearest, and closest ones. Happy Turkey Day, you crazy turkeys! Love you guys.

- C

[C] We Are Women

"We think http://iowaplus.blogspot.com/ is written by a
woman (75%)."

Well, everyone will be happy to learn that a web site gender analyzer is 75% certain that IowA+ is written by women. Not bad, but I gotta wonder which quarter of the blog hints at our masculine selves? All the talk of FREE BEER from a few days back must have skewed the results. So much for artificial intelligence...!

- C

[C] If They Mated

OK, I just spent waaaay too much time fiddling around with this "make a baby" diversion I came across on the web. The results?


Not quite our E, but not bad for some photoshop morphing. I suspect Conan's take might have yielded significantly more shocking results. The real E is like our own personal experiment in Mendelian genetics. It is fascinating to observe which of her parents' traits are emerging in the age-old dance of dominant and recessive. Especially as she begins to develop her own very distinctive personality, aspects of mom and dad (and grandparents, aunts, cousins, assorted other relatives) make themselves felt in her mannerisms, expressions, preferences, and of course appearance. E may have started out looking like a mini-me, but her dad's genes aren't going down without a fight. And I am somewhat dismayed to discover that she has clearly inherited his sense of humor! Can't wait to see how our little pea turns out...

- C

[C] Lost in the Night Garden

This clip combines my favorite show with E's favorite show and is one of the funniest things I've seen in a long time. Or maybe it's not really that funny and my sense of humor has just been warped by months of all-toddler all-the-time television. Sadly, I stopped watching "Lost" toward the end of last season... I stopped watching anything other than Treehouse TV, for that matter. Just ran out of time for leisure (moving will do that), and the time never came back (motherhood will do that). Now if you turn on the tube in our house you'd think that pre-schoolers ruled the world. Of course, if the world were like the Night Garden it might be a pretty nice place to hang out.

- C

[C] Sex and the Small Town

The other day my sister-in-law M. likened us four gals to the women of Sex and the City. Which begs the question: is small-town Iowa really all that different from mid-town Manhattan? The answer, of course, is yes. Yes, it is. Nevertheless, I couldn't help but wonder - which of us would be Carrie, Charlotte, Samantha, and Miranda in our real-world version of SATC?

- C

[C] YES WE DID

I may live north of the border now, but I have never felt as proud to be an American as I do tonight. I was pretty proud of Chicago too. What a thrill to see President-Elect Obama cast his vote at the same elementary school in Hyde Park where we voted in two previous elections. And what an amazing moment in history!

- C

[C] New Seasons

There's something about the start of every new season, that instant when you realize the next one is coming and you get a rush of excitement thinking about everything good it will bring. Like now, for example. I love autumn, but as the last leaves cling to branches, bracing determinedly against colder and colder winds, the approach of winter is undeniable. And suddenly one has visions of building snowmen, warming up with hot chocolate by the fireplace, trimming trees, riding in horse-drawn sleighs, and the joy of reuniting with family. The thing about this anticipation, though, is that it is fleeting. Because once the thrill is over and the novelty is gone, all that remains are the cruddy parts you overlooked earlier - frostbite and frozen eyeballs, trudging through slush to get groceries, shoveling out a car buried in a bank of snow, holiday travel. And who ever really rides in horse-drawn sleighs, anyway? Then the long wait for another new season begins again... For the moment I'll try to hold on to that feeling of looking forward to the coming winter while it lasts.

Note that none of this applies to people living in the constant bliss of Southern California climes ;)

- C