Another Victory

Portland has done it again...

this city has gone just one step further in asserting that it is,

quite certainly, the best city in the nation.

Besides having the best music, the best thai food and the best coffee...

Portland now has 

the best airport.

Welcome to Portland International Airport

This airport could have easily surpassed Chicago's O'Hare and 

New York's Laguardia by simply having all of the terminals 

located within the same time zone

but no, it doesn't stop there.

Portland airport boasts the latest in toilet technology-

dual flush toilets 

 that allow you to select different quantities of water,

depending on your needs 

(This is not a joke)

Recently, Portland has gone even further by coming up with the

most wonderful invention in the history of parking lots.

Green and red lights glowing above the rows to allow drivers

to quickly and efficiently locate an open parking place,

thus eliminating processions of cars

with frantic drivers circling the lots looking for The Best Spot.

Just another wonderful feature to lower your stress level right before

you have to get in line to wait for airport security 

to rid you of your coat, shoes, belt, change, cell phone, computer,

safety pins, containers of liquid larger than 3 ounces, 

and fire arms.

Good work Portland.

Oh, and why were we at Portland International Airport?

Because Grandpa Jack is in town!

More on that to come...

Music and Food

Last night life reached a whole new level of wonderful.

We got to see Mason Jennings in concert.

It was a fantastic show. 

If you haven't heard of Mason Jennings,

feel free to fall in love with him here

The night before, 

we went out to see Shoeshine Blue,

one of our favorite local bands.

We were joined by some friends

and some friends of friends

Shoeshine Blue sounded great

and we all had a really nice time listening to music,

chatting, and drawing on the restaurant's chalkboard tables.

And now for baby updates:

Orin has been trying a whole array of new foods lately.

His favorite (by far) is pear.

I slice up the juicy inside parts and put it in his mesh

 baby feeding contraption.

He loves it.
In fact, he likes pear so much that he has now rejected

banana (his former favorite).

Maybe his interest in banana will come back.

I have read that you should offer a food eight to ten  times

before giving up on it,

so banana may have hope left.

I will let you know what happens.

If you are really bored...

Tonight I was online with my brother and I noticed that he had

a new picture posted to represent him on his ichat account.

It was a creepy looking baby.

When I asked him what the picture was all about

he told me it was the VW depiction of what his and his girlfriend's

baby would look like

"My future spawn" he said

(my brother loves the word "spawn")

We decided that further investigation was in order.

So Casey and I logged on to the VW Routan Babymaker3000 website,

plugged in some pictures, and, just like that, we

got a picture of our own creepy-looking baby

Although for low-grade programming software,

I don't think it was all that far off.

So if you are bored and have a couple pictures handy,

feel free to make some babies by following this link

Filler

For the last couple weeks I have been ruthlessly neglecting 

my camera: not bringing it with me,

letting the battery run out and not recharging it,

and spending long stretches of time not 

knowing where it is.

We have reconciled, however,

and things should be back to normal soon

(for better or for worse)

That said, this blog has no purpose except to empty

the memory chip of its few measly pictures:

This is Orin and Brady, looking fascinated.

I don't remember what it was that fascinated them,

but it probably wouldn't have interested you anyway.

One thing I have learned from being a mom

is that the washing instruction tag

on the toy you just bought is way cooler

than the toy itself.

We have been doing a pretty large-scale redecoration/

clean-up of the whole house.

It has made us feel organized,

 proud,

and, at times, manly.

While not working on the house or being fascinated with tags,

we have done some sight-seeing

gone for a couple hikes

and posed as a large hotdog.

As for baby updates,

I think that in my food post I forgot to mention,

Orin has started using a sippy cup.

It is surprising after his early-childhood bottle trauma

(I am referring here to the time that Orin rejected

the bottle after 8-10 seconds and we never tried it again)

that he would ever trust a plastic bottle-like object again

But he took to it quite well.

(although it is not clear whether he actually drinks from it)

He can even hold it by himself.

We also gave Orin his second and third foods:

avocado and banana, in that order.

The avocado got pretty bad reviews,

but the banana went over well.
Speaking of culinary delacacies:

The dogs had their birthday the other day

...well Egg and Purple did,

we just felt bad for Atlas and included him too...

I made them a dog-food "cake"

and we gave them each a toy they had forgotten they had

(hey, the economic crisis has been hard for us too)
If they knew they had been scammed,

they didn't show it.

So, maybe tomorrow, maybe the day after

I will come up with something more interesting to write about.

Or, if I can't think of anything,

I will just post a bunch of cute pictures of Orin

and it will all be okay.

Like this one of him mid-bounce

celebrating Obama's victory

Moving on

Good news.

Somebody got the memo.

~Deep sigh of relief~

New Tastes

For the last couple months, 

while sitting on our laps during mealtime,

Orin has been showing increasing interest in food.

In the earlier months, this wasn't much of an issue.

Lately, however, Orin has learned to grab at things

with pinpoint accuracy.

Needless to say, there have been some spills,

so we decided to begin banishing him while we ate

to a highchair where he could entertain himself with something

that wouldn't require a massive clean up effort afterwards.

Unfortunatly there was one thing

that we failed to consider,

namely, that toys that do not splatter

are no fun.

It was clear Orin was going to need something better

to do at mealtime:

It was time to start him on some real food.

First, we introduced him to the spoon.

After several attempts, he got it oriented in the right direction

Then, we mixed up a little rice cereal

It took Orin a while to learn how 

to tackle this new culinary experience.

Although his skills were lacking,

his enthusiasm never waned.

Even when the cup was empty,

Orin wasn't ready to let go of his new favorite pastime.

I could tell it was the beginning of a long and happy relationship

and a new promotion to Most Important Appliance

 for our washing machine.

Happy Halloween!

Although this video has nothing to do with Halloween,

I thought it would be a good time to post it,

just in case you need some holiday cheer. 

Now, moving on to Halloween:

This year we were going to make Orin a polar bear costume.

Later we changed "polar bear" into "snow cougar"

to go with Orin's cougar screeches, which

he loves to demonstrate his unmatched ability to produce.

However, when Halloween rolled around,

Orin had already worn his snow cougar costume so often that

we decided we needed a new idea.

So for Halloween this year Orin was

a Stew.

Unlike most babies in their first costume,

Orin seemed to actually enjoy being a stew.

He even got quite into sampling himself...

and, just in case you can't see the details in the last picture,

I will provide a close-up of the tongue-action

Maybe a dash of salt...