odin and us are looking after a relative's labrador retriever while they are out of town.

i guess to show he is the friendly and caring type, odin decided to put together a bouquet of dried leaves and weeds and presented them to "smokey" with a "here, take these and we'll be friends" look on his face.

one has to wonder if there's a direct relationship between his apparent belief that sharing is caring and his becoming a barney'er? he certainly didn't learn it from us :-) joking!

caterina ( and here and here ) and her daughter isabelle have been following odin's adventures for quite some time and included this wonderful postcard along with a movie and fingerpuppets ( and yet again, odin and us thank you for sending such wonderful gifts )!

the gifts came all the way from caracas, which is the capital of Venezuela.

[ see the postcard project slideshow and visit "postcards from budapest" for the current postcard project address. ]

auntie m sent this card from freeport, maine home to l.l. bean, maker of the world famous "bean boot".

it's surprising to see they now have 9 stores in japan. of all the growth markets for the outdoor equipment and clothing retailer, japan would have probably ranked last on my list.

[ see the postcard project slideshow and visit "postcards from budapest" for the current postcard project address. ]

i was rummaging through some boxes and found this polaroid taken by one of the nicu nurses. it's not dated but i'm guessing that it's day 8 which was the very first day we were able to hold odin ( our nicu had a "no holding while on the high oscilating ventilator" rule ) so it was a very special day.

and until today i forgot that there was a picture of me holding him ( always being the one taking pictures does have a downside ). so i'm quite happy to have "rescued" it before it completely deteriorated.

odin is bundled in multiple layers of blankets because he basically had no ability to regulate his temperature at that point and the nurses called him "lil' peanut". it seems impossible, but the layers of blankets made him look bigger than he actually was.

i guess i look sort-of relaxed, but in truth i was dog-tired since i hadn't slept in 8 days, and i was completely and totally freaked out that his vitals were going to go all wiggety wack while i was holding him; at that point he was regularly "forgetting" to breath ( actually his brain stem wasn't developed enough to control breathing because, well, he wasn't supposed to be breathing yet ) and i hadn't quite gotten used to the phenomenon.

chris and terra carmichael sent this fantastic postcard featuring their preemie twins cooper "blue bomber" blu ( 2 lbs 5 oz ) and quinn "mad dog q" malcolm ( 2lbs 8 oz ).

you can visit their blog to see coop and quinn, much larger now, monkeying around. amazing!

[ see the postcard project slideshow and visit "postcards from budapest" for the current postcard project address. ]

kris has gone on a Top Secret Mission ( possibly related to the Big, Big Changes? ) for two days, which incidentally is the longest time she's been away from away from odin since circumstances beyond her control kept her from him for the first four days after his birth.

so, we ran around the house and played dodgeball and jumped on the Big Boy Bed and wrestled on the furniture and threw toy cars down the stairs and ran around the house and played guitar and harmonica got fingerprints all over the scanner as we investigated The Strange and Curious Machine ( kris has the camera ) and ran around the house and ate a scrumptious dinner of mashed sweet potatoes, peas and baked pork chops and had a bath where much water was splashed from one end of the bathroom to the other before falling fast asleep at 6:30 p.m. ( him, not me ).

all-in-all it was a very fun day, with only the occasional plaintive interrogative, "mamma?" well, that is until i had the bright idea to call her so he could say "hi"; but my plan backfired when upon hearing her say "bye, bye odin!" his eyes filled with tears and The Frown Face appeared.

i've been meaning to get back to the postcard project for quite some time ( which, i know, will provoke guffaws of laughter from the long time visitors who remember that's what i say every couple of months :-) ) and this postcard of the chapel at lawrence university in appleton, wisconsin is a good place to start if for no other reason that it was sent by fellow preemie parents and flickrites "nathan's story" and nathan is celebrating his first birthday.

happy birthday nathan!

nathan's parent's probably didn't know that kris and i were married standing next to lake michigan on the grounds of björklunden which is a goreous 425 acre estate owned by lawrence university in lovely door county, wisconsin ( by all accounts it was The Greatest Wedding of All Time - seriously - just ask anyone who attended ). curiously, björklunden also has an authentic and rare stave church which some might remember is also the style of odin's Magnificently Metaphorical Birthday Box.

funny how life works, sometimes.

and yes, i'm thoroughly embarassed that this postcard closes with "Have a Merry Christmas!" gah.

[ see the postcard project slideshow and visit "postcards from budapest" for the current postcard project address. ]

odin will bounce the basketball when asked, but we still have a lot of work to do on his dribbling skills.

but he does seem to intuitively know how to do a jab step. and he even slam dunked today for the first time with a little help from his pops :-)

we've come a long ways 322 days ( he's actually sitting next to a miniature basketball in that photo )!

for the snowdeal show ® history buffs, odin comes from a long line of basketball players of some repute including grandpa snowdeal and auntie m ( who i am sure someday will tell him of the maine state highschool girls champion game where the announcer was repeatedly forced to declare "and snowdeal passes to snowdeal who passes to snowdeal! ), so maybe he'll carry on the legacy that i was too clumsy and lazy to do myself.

although the humble banana was, quite literally, odin's first solid food his interest in the fruit has waxed and mostly waned over the months as he seemed interested in eating only protein, blueberries and cheerios ( pretty much in that order of preference ).

but now monkeys are cool and he knows monkeys eat bananas and so thanks to the powers of toddler logic, bananas are back on the menu.

it's amazing to think that by the time odin reaches adulthood some believe that bananas as we know them will no longer exist ( obviously, some disagree ).

well at least there's a bit more time for us to relax on a saturday afternoon and ponder the economics of peeling bananas. i'm a peel-from-the-stem kind of guy, but given his interest in all things simian we should probably teach him how to properly peel a banana just like monkeys ( and many other cultures ) do it.

the world, i think, is divided between those people who dunk foods in liquids and those who do not. i'm not a dunker, but kris is and she's tricked odin into thinking that it's fun to make all sorts of foods mushy and sopping with milk. i guess i'm in the minority since, at least according to a recent poll 35 percent of the population are admitted dunkers regardless of the cookie type while 50 percent will at least consider dunking an option but it depends on the cookie. and a mere 16 percent of us are pretty much never moved to dunk.

of course dunking oreo cookies is a favorite activity. and graham crackers. even grilled cheese sandwiches!

who knows, maybe someday odin will have an enthusiastic and strongly held opinion about whether or not graham crackers are better in a bowl of milk or dipped ( neither, i say! crackers and cookiesmust be crisp when eaten and washed down the gullet with milk! ).

odin has never appeared to suffer from the relatively common fear of being swept down the bathtub drain, but he does seem perpetually perplexed about where all that water goes.

it must be staggeringly difficult to put all the pieces together when you're missing key pieces of knowledge about gravity and plumbing, but i suspect he's putting together quite a fantastical "just so" story.

big, big changes are afoot on the snowdeal show ® and things have been a little quiet lately, but i wanted to take this opportunity to thank everyone for visiting the flickr photostream and blog.

if all goes as planned we'll resume regularly scheduled programming soon with a Really Big Adventure.

and as with all good plot twists, you'll never, ever guess what comes next :-)

every so often we try and find something that odin enjoys more than his dessert staple of frozen blueberries and tonight the challenger was edy's toffee almond ice cream dibs. surely any sane toddler would enjoy ice cream bits covered with chocolate, toffee and almonds over boring ol' frozen fruit.

but not odin. to him, apparently, there is nothing quite as consistently yummy as your humble vaccinium corymbosum ( although some of his relatives might argue that vaccinium_angustifolium is The Bestest Blueberry ).

and yes, i knoooooow that the phrase is technically "just deserts" and actually references an obsolete meaning of the word 'desert', so go prove your etymological prowess elsewhere :-)

seriously, who knew that crawling on table tops was so much fun.

here odin displays his his best "can't you tell i can't hear you because i'm not looking at you" expression.

we're trying to convince him that playing in the yard is much more fun, but he's steadfast that playing in the street is the funnest thing a toddling toddler could do.

i have to admit that it's kind of cute to see him devise tricky strategies to foil us in our attempts to corral him.

i wonder if anyone makes toddler-safe radio fences? joking!

60 degrees F?! could spring be near?

finally the end of rsv season!

yes, it's true that odin has always been quite strong willed and yes it's true that we've been working on getting past no for quite some time and yet it's true that he's been known to not so subtly declare his independence, but lately kris and i have had the first glimpses that perhaps we really haven't seen nothin' yet and The Terrible Twos may be nigh.

recently we've seen much more intentional and persistent "boundary testing" and today was the first time that i can recall that he had a World Class Meltdown because we wouldn't let him go outside before changing his diaper after waking from a nap ( we're travelling so we're being a little lax with the elimination communication ).

of course, he's been upset in the past when things didn't go his way, but usually it passed quickly. today was sustained and dramatic and no amount of reassurance that we could go outside after a diaper change would assuage him. he wanted to go out without a clean diaper and we were BIg Meanies for not complying. Very Big Meanies. sigh.

hopefully odin won't decide to call up loki or thor to exact revenge at 3 in the morning.

Terrible Twos [ dr. greene ]
Temper Tanrums [ dr. greene ]
Development 18-24 Mths: The 'Terrible Twos' [ raisingkids ]
Terrible Twos and Your Toddler [ about.com ]

you can click on each image for a brief description.

the result of the days of living dangerously?

not exactly. unless shoving red crayons up your nose is living on the edge; his countenance is what you'll see if you take his red crayon away.

and the scratched cheek? no, it's not result of a round of fisticuffs with a cousin. rather, odin took a tumble into a tree while out toddling.

so, really there's no need to call the authorities.

eating, while standing on the edge of a smooth wooden chair with slippery socks.

what possibly could go wrong?

we're working on getting him to sit while eating when we travel without a highchair. obviously we still have some work to do. but we're also trying to get him to learn how to fall. and that's going quite well :-)

no toddlers were seriously injured during the taking of this picture.

to help pass the time on the 7 hour drive to the yoopee kris' newest obsession is the puzzle known as sudoku ( and yes, my favorite way to pass the time it to take photos while driving :-) ).

i must be living under a rather large rock because until a few weeks ago, i had never heard of the game which has apparently been all the rage for quite some time. and while the mathematics of sudoku is interesting ( who would have thought that an algorithm used in x-ray diffraction microscopy could be used to solve the puzzles? ) it probably would be best if i didn't start given i had to check myself into puzzler rehab after a particularly brutal tetris bender years ago.

no sir, i am not going to download the sudoku macintosh dashboard widget or the sudoku susser and i am certainly not ever going to print out the self-described "horric" puzzles from the daily mail.

well, i guess it's time to let the cat out of the bag on this one. the march/april issue of mothering magazine is running an article on kangaroo care and they've chosen to include 8 (9?) photos of odin doing the 'roo.

and while most of the pictures are of kris and odin, i'm honored that my ugly, hairy chest will be featured as well which is, i think, a milestone for parenting magazines who generally seem to believe dad's don't exist :-)

first parents magazine and now mothering magazine - i think someone from parenting magazine needs to call. or maybe wired which he's been reading for for awhile ( and did craig newmark really comment on that post? geeky inquiring minds want to know. update: i can confirm that it really is craig, who i might add is something of a hero of mine. i can only hope that odin will grow up with his brand of nerd values. ).

in any case, it looks like the magazine trifecta is now in play.

we don't have a copy of the magazine yet and we're leaving for da u.p. for awhile tommorrow which is the real reason why i had to go with any ol' magazine for this post. you can blame fellow flickrite peter norby for doing the networking that made this happen :-)