Cake is serious business

As you can see, Tommy takes his cake very seriously. It's important to eat cake properly -- any unseemly enthusiasm could diminish his stature as a future world conqueror.

(I'd kinda forgotten that I had pictures still sitting on my camera from Tommy's birthday.)

Tommy conquers the Maritimes!

With Tommy's conquest of Ottawa progressing so well, he's decided it's time to expand his efforts. Here we can see him making sure that his minions are safe by verifying the quality of... I dunno, I guess those are stairs? Huh. Dunno why he's doing that. I wasn't there, so I can't really comment, but now I feel bad for the poor kid if the only thing they'll let him play with is stairs.


Undaunted by the lack of play equipment, Tommy managed a coup and captured a portion of the local harvest, to help feed his growing army. Here he surveys his haul, and it pleases him. Unless he's actually waiting for the Great Pumpkin? I guess that could be what's going on too. Really, I don't know. I'm just making stuff up here.

Tommy hungers!

Why yes, my son is planning to chomp your face. Why do you ask?

The Many Moods of Tommy

here we see Tommy being both happy and excited. I'm not entirely certain what he was excited about, perhaps the dinosaurs on his PJs, but whatever it was, he's pretty excited about it. So excited, in fact, that he distorted space and time around himself and caused the walls to appear tilted! It was in no way a problem with the camera being unlevel. That would be silly.


Here we see the other side of Tommy's personality, as he carefully examines something, deep in thought. Still happy, of course. Even though he's terribly ill. Really, it's a hard job, raising this kid.

Also: Tommy asked me to say "Happy Birthday, Nanny!"

Another playground shot

To make up for the long delay, here's a picture of Tommy being pleased with the local slide's solid construction. He was checking it to make sure that his minions would be safe while exercising. In no way was he giggling with delight as his mommy played with him on the slide or pushed him on the swing. Nosiree, this future world conqueror is all business.

Thug 4 Life, Yo!

Tommy went through a brief thug phase a week or two ago and absolutely insisted on wearing that hat every chance he got. As you can see in the picture, it makes him look quite rough and tough (and only mildly goofy with the ear sticking out sideways). In the end, though, he decided that the thug life really wasn't for him, because he's such a good and kind and caring boy at heart. That and the hat was actually a size or two too small and apparently caused him pain. That might have had something to do with it too, I suppose.


Here you can see Tommy humouring his grandpa by pretending to be amused by the story he's reading. As I'm sure you can tell, Tommy wasn't actually having any fun at all. No siree. It was practically torture.


Here's one from my aunt & uncle's 50th wedding anniversary. It's actually a pretty bad picture of Tommy, but it's such a good picture of Mom & the girls that I figured I'd post it up anyway. D'ya think Mom enjoys spending time with the grandkids?

So much cuteness, so little time...

Tommy decided to pack as much cuteness as possible into the weekend. First, we have him in a rare quiet moment at his cousin's birthday party.


Now we see Tommy pretending to be a walrus. I actually think he was doing this specifically because I had the camera out -- as soon as I pointed it at him, he stood still and struck a pose so I'd have a chance to get a decent shot. Then he got overexcited and ran around like a madman, but still, even standing still long enough for one picture is pretty good for Tommy!


Finally, we have Tommy at his friend Graham's first birthday party. It looks like such a calm, peaceful scene, doesn't it? You'd never know that this shot was actually as his grandpa was threatening to dump him on his noggin. Tommy doesn't seem too worried about it anyway, probably because daddy actually does dump him on his noggin regularly. (Very gently, of course. You wouldn't want to hurt your child when you drop him on his head...)

On a mission!

Quick pic update... This was at my aunt & uncle's cottage a few weeks back. We have more to post, but our Internet access at home has been down for two weeks, which makes it hard to post pictures... We'll post 'em up soon though.

Our son the prophet-in-training

It seems like every time you turn around, prophets are doing things to water. Moses parted the seas, and Jesus went for a stroll on the surface. Noah just kind of floated around on top, actually, which isn't all that exciting. Still. My point stands, prophets can't seem to stay content with just drinking water and then... uh... passing it along, if you know what I mean.

Tommy is preparing for his future role as a prophet by causing the water to raise right out of its container and follow his arm. Some heretics might try to tell you that this is caused by a common phenomenon called "splashing", but ignore these anti-Tommy heathens! Their lack of faith shall be sorely punished!

Raaar!!!

Tommy's learned how to make animal noises. One of his favourites is Raaar!!!, a noise which can be used for scary lions, dinosaurs, or frogs. I'm not sure why frogs would roar, but we're all amused, and that's the main thing.

At any rate, the other evening, Tommy started roaring at his mommy over and over and over again. After about five minutes, I pulled out the camera and took this little video. He was temporarily distracted by the camera, but luckily he decided he wasn't done with scaring Mommy.

Update #3

Pictures from May...

Tommy learned to get up on the kitchen chairs and thinks that sitting at the kitchen table is lots of fun,


Storytime. Take 2.


And again, at the table.

Update #2

Some pictures from the month of April...

Tommy likes hats. I know we've mentioned this before, but he was most impressed with himself for putting the hat on himself.


Story time with daddy. 'nuff said.


Cool cat.
Tommy is beyond cool with his new sunglasses.

and again with both the glasses and the dino jacket. How cool is that?

Catch up #1

So, after being thoroughly berated about not updating the blog recently, I took a look at my camera and realized that I haven't downloaded pictures since the end of February. All the pictures since then have come from Chris' camera. So here is a bit of a catch up from the pictures on my camera.

Update #1: March photos.

Fun with spaghetti.
Tommy learned how to suck up spaghetti strands. An important life skill.


No, this is my chair. Get your own.
Thomas has claimed the leather recliner as his own. Apparenty Daddy gets to sit on the foam SpiderMan chair from here on out...


Monkey in the middle.
Tommy was still learning the finer points of playing ball. Here he is chasing the ball between Grampy Lloyd and Grammy Mary.


Easter Bunny.
Tommy got a bunny towel from Grandma for Easter. Here he is proudly showing it off.


Books are great, but I'm not giving you my cane.
Thomas is of the opinion that everything belongs to him and is there for his amusement. Even Grampy's cane which Thomas snatched out of his hands and ran away with. He was immune to Grammy's bribery attempts.


Stay tuned for update #2 - April.

Tommy invades the Summer Kingdom

The weather has certainly turned around here in Ottawa. Two weeks ago we were wading through several feet of snow, and today our front lawn is completely snow-free and it was twenty degrees Celsius. Tommy decided to take advantage of the weather by storming the neighbourhood park.

Here you can see Tommy surveying his new swing set, making sure that it's solid and stable and can be trusted to bear the weight of his minions (once he recruits them).


Next, Tommy makes sure that the sand in his new kingdom is up to snuff. Can't have substandard sand! That would be shameful!


Here's Tommy getting a ride from his mom, after performing an extra-thorough check on sand quality... by eating some of it. Actually, rather a lot. Apparently he wanted to be really, really sure that the sand was good.


Finally, his hard work complete, Tommy decides to allow us to place him in a swing and push him. As you can clearly see, the experience was horrible for him. He certainly didn't enjoy it in any way. The delighted shrieking and hysterical laughter were purely to make us feel better.

(For some added fun... Take a close look at the last picture. Notice the halo behind Tommy's head? It may look like lens flare from the glare off his head, but I assure you, that's a halo.)

Fun in the sun

With a stronger sun and warmer temperature, the kids at playcare have been outside having fun.

Tommy, helpful as always, has decided to try to do some shovelling. Perhaps a smaller shover would help.


Driving is also fun. He can't wait to get behind the wheel of a larger vehicle...


Note the wonderful yellow rain boots sticking out from under his wind pants. Oh the joys of being a kid. When did you last get such joy at putting on your yellow rain boots?

Tommy has a hat

Andrea picked out a hat for Tommy the other day, and every time he notices it he immediately gets intensely excited and demands to be allowed to put it on his head.

Seriously. I'm not joking. He gets really, really excited and yanks the hat away from whoever's holding it and puts it on his head. He only takes it off long enough to jam it on someone else's head and laugh at them, then he grabs it back and puts it on again.

Normally I try to write something funny to go with these pictures, but this time, I thought: "What's funnier than a 16-month-old boy going this nuts over a hat?" And then I answered myself: "Nothing. Except possibly if the hat had fruit on it." (The hat doesn't have fruit on it.)

Tommy finds the snow intimidating

Up until now, Tommy's been delighted with every opportunity to play outside, gleefully jamming his little plastic beach shovels into the snowbanks and withdrawing them once again. He seems intensely satisfied when he has the chance to do this; from the look on his face, he seems to feel that he has personally accomplished something extraordinary by spearing the snowbank. Exactly what it is that he thinks he's accomplishing, I'm not entirely sure, but the fact remains that whatever he thinks he's doing, he finds it deeply satisfying.

After the 52 centimetres of snow on the weekend, he seems a little more nervous about the snow. In fact, after being brought outside, he spent almost every minute of his time out there trying to convince Andrea or I to bring him in. He was so worried about the snow that he actually refused to walk along the path, even if it meant getting closer to the front door (and thus safety). So after being plopped partway down the path, he was forced to simply stand there and wait until I picked him up and carried him back in the house.



Of course, when you look at the situation from Tommy's point of view, I suppose it's more understandable... I'd be pretty worried if this was how I saw the front walkway...

With food like this, who wouldn't be happy?

We gave Tommy some delicious pasta for supper tonight. As you can see, he enjoyed it... perhaps a little too much. We're still trying to convince him that the best way to eat food is to put it in his mouth, and that smearing it across his forehead is in fact not helpful. Progress on this front is slow.


Once he'd gotten cleaned up a bit, Tommy was delighted with the whole experience. Or perhaps the grin is because the couch and ottoman had just been cleaned and Tommy's relishing the anticipation of smearing drool, formula, food, and other yuckiness across our furniture again. Either way, he appears to be happy, and isn't that the important thing?

Gravity is so overrated

In case anyone's wondering, the reason we haven't been uploading pictures isn't because Tommy's not doing anything cute or fun... The problem is that he really likes the camera and wants to show his appreciation of it by eating it. Which means that the minute we pull the camera out to chronicle whatever cute and/or funny thing he's doing, he stops doing it and rushes the camera. Here's an excellent demonstration of the problem.



Tommy is shown here learning to defy gravity. All it takes is determination, iron will, and a handy daddy to hold you upside down.


As you can see, Thomas is quite smug about his accomplishment.



And here we see Tommy doing his best tough guy pose. I certainly wouldn't want to run into him in a dark alley!

Tommy is a dolphin

Thomas is learning how to talk, and he's actually making excellent progress. He's able to hold quite lengthy conversations on a surprising variety of topics. Unfortunately, he's only learned how to speak Dolphin; his English language skills are a little lagging. He also demonstrates his progress in learning Fartinese.