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If By Yes

~ the musings of a left wing left hander with two left feet

If By Yes

Category Archives: Vids and Vlogs

In which I change the direction of the blog

31 Sunday Mar 2013

Posted by IfByYes in Life's Little Moments, Memes, My Blag is on the Interwebs, Oh The Inanity, Vids and Vlogs, Well, That's Just Stupid

≈ 11 Comments

Tags

I should leave my blog logged out more often, so much hate, why does PH hate me

Dear reader,

I’ve decided that, now that I’ve been writing this blog for almost four years, it needs to go in a new direction. Your comments on this recent post convinced me of that.

So from now on, I shall be focussing the vast majority of my posts on…

Pinkie Pie!

She’s awesome. Just so awesome. I invite you to read through the link above and truly appreciate the hard work that went into creating a Wiki page that has that much information about Pinkie Pie.

I’ll still update occasionally about Owl, of course, but I really find that he’s taken a backseat in my life ever since I discovered this:

 

So thank you as always for your readership, and I hope you enjoy my new path. And remember…

 

HAPPY APRIL 1ST

In Which I Attempt To Introduce My Son To His Celtic Heritage… In Vancouver.

24 Sunday Mar 2013

Posted by IfByYes in East, West, Home is Best, Life and Love, Vids and Vlogs, Well, That's Just Stupid

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

celtic, celtic festival, celtic music, children, colcannon, culture, east coast, fiddle music, Fiddling, heritage, irish, music, rankin, Vancouver

If you read me on World Moms Blog, you’ll know that I have been fretting over Owl’s Canadian heritage of late.

Owl has… questionable musical taste.

He gets kudos for liking Forget You and Gangnam Style. However, he loses points for constantly requesting LMFAO and Bruno Mars songs.

You try and put on something tasteful like The Beatles or Barenaked Ladies and he says “No, no like it!”

It’s a problem.

So on St Patrick’s Day we decided to take him down to “CelticFest” downtown.

I was all excited for him to hear some read fiddle music and get exposed a bit to his Celtic heritage – my maiden name is Irish, after all.

But I had forgotten how terrible Vancouver is at approximating East Coast things. Even music, which you think would be fairly reproducible.

It looked good when we got there.

20130323-185003.jpg

Of course the streets were full of people in green hats eating green popcorn, but there was a band on the stage with guitars and fiddles, and its name was “The Whiskey Dicks” which sounded promising.

20130323-185024.jpg

But then we got close enough to hear the music.

Owl had a good time dancing, at least… in a marching stomp to the TOTALLY NOT CELTIC MUSIC.

I grew up singing Barra Macneils songs.

Our neighbour used to stand out in his backyard practising his bagpipe every afternoon.

When I was pregnant, I was obsessed with listening to Great Big Sea.

This music is important to me, and Vancouver can’t do it right EVEN IN A CELTIC FESTIVAL.

We decided to go to Tom Lee Music because there was supposed to be a sort of jam session with Mairi Rankin there. The problem was that it had started at 3, and by the time Owl woke up from his nap and we got down town, it was 4:30.

Happily, the people at front of house let us sneak in for half price, so we crept in for the last twenty minutes of the session.

Inside was a small group of people clapping and stamping their feet to real fiddle music – like a secret conclave of actual Irish/East Coasters, hiding from the Vancouver rabble in their shamrock hats while singing about colcannon and teaching each other Irish love songs.

Owl listened in fascination the whole time.

This morning, he took his two plastic hockey sticks and walked around rubbing them together telling me “I play fiddle, Mommy.”

THAT’S my boy.

Murder and Otis?

29 Saturday Sep 2012

Posted by IfByYes in Life and Love, My Blag is on the Interwebs, Vids and Vlogs

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

animals, cruelty, cruelty to animals, milo and otis, movies, reviews, videos

So, I was trawling through Netflix on my day off and spotted Milo and Otis.

Remember that film?

Admit it, you think about it every time you see a pug, and you can’t hear one of those names without thinking of the other.

I adored the movie as the kid. It had talking animals and British accents, and who could ask for more?

Plus, I loved that it gave such a… graphic depiction of live mammalian birth.

Nothing like a bit of sex ed in your children’s family viewing.

I’m starting to keep an eye out for movies that would be good for Owl to watch when he’s older, so I pressed play.

Aw, it’s so cute! With the British voices, and little animal antics! How did they get that mother cat to swim after her kitten like that?

Awww.

Ahhh…

Uh…?

After twenty minutes I turned it off because… I was beginning to feel disturbed.

Continue reading →

Songify Friday

22 Friday Jun 2012

Posted by IfByYes in My Blag is on the Interwebs, Vids and Vlogs

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Friday, videos

Happy Friday, folks. Just try to listen to these Auto Tune songs and not feel happy.

and, of course, my perma-favourite

The Scientist In The Kitchen: Owl Experiments

03 Thursday May 2012

Posted by IfByYes in Vids and Vlogs

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

babies, child development, experimentation, exploration, learning, parenting, play, research, science, toddlers, videos

Alison Gropnik of The Scientist In The Crib claims that babies, especially toddlers, are like little scientists who constantly experiment with the way the world works. That’s why they’re always dropping spoons, smearing things on the wall, trying to provoke you with bad behavior and so on.

I took this video of Owl interacting with a new toy that I picked up at a swap meet. In under 5 minutes, I counted 14 separate scientific experiments, all unique, although some were repeats of previous experiments but with a new variable being introduced. It’s adorable and fascinating all at once. If you have a few minutes, check it out:

[vimeo vimeo.com/41460908]

If any of you have kids, I’d love to see 5 minute videos of their play. How many experiments can you spot? Post them on your blog, or in the comments here, and encourage others to do the same. Let’s observe the scientists at work!

The Only Thing Better Than Laughing WITH Babies Is Laughing AT THEM

12 Monday Mar 2012

Posted by IfByYes in Vids and Vlogs

≈ 13 Comments

Tags

babies, funny, videos

[vimeo http://vimeo.com/38289383]

 

Watch to the end.

 

Trust me.

 

I’m a bad parent for thinking this is funny, aren’t I?

Yet, I’m too busy giggling to care.

18 Months Later…

10 Saturday Mar 2012

Posted by IfByYes in From The Owlery, Vids and Vlogs

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

18 months, babies, child development, milestones, parenting, toddlers

Owl is a year and a half old, as of a couple of days ago. Wow.

I ran into a volunteer from my old work that day – she spotted me at my new work, while buying pet medication. There was a lot of hugging and catching up to accomplish… and we realized that we hadn’t seen each other since I was 5 months pregnant… and now I have a one and a half year old.

1 hour old

I remember when he couldn’t even hold up his own head. Now he hands us heavy packages from our grocery bags at the end of a shopping run.

Where d'you want this 3 lb steak?

We have officially lost count of how many words he says either with speech or sign, usually both. He not only knows where his nose is, but also his feet, toes, eyes, eyelashes, elbows, knees, bum, back, shoulders and pretty much every other external body part (although he is still learning “thumb” and “scrotum”, both of which he confuses with “tongue”).

He also enjoys making animal noises, which he picked up on his own from books we read him. I always wondered why parents spend time teaching their kids animal  onomatapoeia. Well, it turns out, it’s because toddlers think it’s HILARIOUS.

He can do everything listed in the 18 month section of What To Expect The Toddler Years (although our copy is a Value Village edition from 1996, so for all I know, nowadays kids Owl’s age are expected to have discovered cold fusion by 18 months), including the “may even be able to” section (which includes “identify 1 picture by naming” – are they kidding?).

When Owl was born he would stay up for 8 hours straight, screaming and fussing and clawing at the world.

WHY AM I ALIVE??

Now he still stays awake for 8 hours straight, and he does his share of fussing still, but mostly he spends it climbing on things, taking things apart, and saying “Mama? Dada? Hiiiii! Byeeeee! Der ba da. Da! Mama? Mama? Malk? Mo? MO? MALK!!!!”

THIS PLACE IS AMAZING!

A friend of mine just had a baby and PH and I are baffled by this child. He SLEEPS. Like, most of the time. Like, they have trouble getting him to stay awake long enough to nurse. He sleeps with people in the room. He sleeps when being carried around. He barely wakes up for a cold wet wipe on his bum.

We can’t help but wonder what a baby like that would have been like. A baby who didn’t wake up if someone sneezed half way down the street. A baby who could be taken to restaurants and just slept through the meal. A baby who didn’t seem to wildly resent all moments spent off of the breast, and half of the moments spent on the breast.

A baby who wasn’t born fighting everything.

But then, we wonder if such a baby wouldn’t have grown up to be very different from the toddler we have now:

Pass the BC Rolls, please.

A toddler whom we can take to any restaurant because he happily eats and looks around and flirts with the waitresses for as long as the meal takes.

A toddler who never even looks back when I drop him at daycare every day.

A toddler who never cries when strangers talk to him or pick him up.

A toddler who makes other parents at daycare say “I hope our next one is more like Owl”.

A toddler who finds the shyest, more introverted toddler in the room at the community jungle gym and tries to get her to look at him.

A toddler who does stuff like this:

and this:

and this:

Owl, you still don’t sleep well. Your father and I are very, VERY tired.

But dear lord, how we love you and your ridiculous, overconfidant, extroverted ways.

We have no idea how we made a right handed extrovert, and there are days when you wear us down to our last nerve.

But you are so. much. fun. You make us laugh every single day.

It makes me sad that you will grow up and leave us, someday. But PH is looking forward to your being a teenager who refuses to leave his bed.

Because your tiny little 23 pound body WEARS US OUT.

We’re so tired.

Owl Signs

27 Friday Jan 2012

Posted by IfByYes in 30 Posts To 30, From The Owlery, Vids and Vlogs

≈ 13 Comments

Tags

babies, baby sign, language, sign language, videos

[vimeo http://vimeo.com/35779800]

Snow Babbies

24 Tuesday Jan 2012

Posted by IfByYes in 30 Posts To 30, Damn Dogs, From The Owlery, Vids and Vlogs

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

babies, dogs, photos, snow, walks, winter

 

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

And no, Beloved Dog doesn’t knock over Owl at any point.

My baby pants-dialled me.

20 Tuesday Sep 2011

Posted by IfByYes in Vids and Vlogs

≈ Leave a comment

THAT’S RIGHT.

I found a voice mail on my phone. I listened to it. This is what I heard:

[vimeo http://vimeo.com/29244760]
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