Growth Collage

I've done the side-by-side comparisons for the kids again. We're also at the point where we have pictures of them at almost the same age.

I've put this one together, showing that that at the same age, they're almost exactly the same height, if you ignore Elissa's birds nest. The eyes are at almost exactly the same level.

Really, Isaac has another 6 weeks to nudge ahead, which he may well do if you look at his growth for over the last three months.


This is Elissa's collage.


This is Isaac's collage.


This is their combined collage. Looking from the right, the pairs are taken together.

Banisters? We don't need no stinking banisters!

This weekend I drove up to Umina to give Norm a hand with the maintenance on the house. I just checked, and we were last all there to do a bit of work in April 2007. One of the nice things about keeping an accurate vehicle diary is that I can tell when my car has been somewhere, even if my own memory is hopeless.

The first four pictures are from the first trip, where we painted and then replaced a few of the main bearers with new ones. We also did a bit of other painting and general shuffling around of timber.

This is a view showing two of the main bearers from underneath. The balcony is on the right side of the picture. The bearers are the two large timbers running more or less left to right through the middle of the picture.


This is one of the outside posts on the entry side, with one of the main bearers removed. Essentially we just knocked out the old ones and gently persuaded (with hammers, bits of timber, and the occasional bit of vocal encouragement) the new ones into place, one at a time. Obviously, the second bearer took the load while we were replacing the first.


The working scaffolding was partially built from timber we needed as we worked, so we started at the extremities and worked back. The scaffolding was perfect for holding us all safely, and also at the perfect height for me to smack my head against the beams once in a while, just to keep me on my toes. I think Derrick and Alan felt the same way. There are times when it probably doesn't pay to be slightly taller than the master engineer.


This is the scaffolding we used for replacing the bearers under the balcony on the stair side. While I think we worked quite sensibly, it's probably safe to say that workcover may not have given us their seal of approval.

Enough of the background, now we're on to this weekends festivities.

This is Norm while when we were about two thirds of the way through removing the handrails and supports.


I had to do most of the work, as Norm and Derrick were always sleeping on the job.*


This is the unobstructed view from the balcony. The lines are nice and clean here, but it was about to get uglier.


We wanted to remove the outermost timbers, as these were going to be replaced, and would be the mount points for the new railing. In order to get to them, we had to cut some of the floorboards, and pry the ends of them out.

Norm was working near the top of the picture to the right. Derrick and I were removing the timber which was originally nailed to the exposed timbers shown in the lower right, I was just commenting to Derrick that we should probably secure the timber before going much further with the floorboard removal, as it was getting rather "wobbly" (that's the correct engineering term). One floorboard later, and gravity took over and removed the rope option from our list of choices. Fortunately, it wasn't the timber above the power and phone lines, and no one was underneath. Needless to say, we secured the timbers earlier on during the procedure from this point on.


Here is a view with all the new exterior timbers in place. These will be where the new handrail supports are mounted.


This is a similar view from the entry side, showing the new exterior timber. We also removed the entry ramp, so that, once the final plank was removed, no one could accidentally wander onto the balcony in it's less-than-general-public-friendly state.

All in all, we got more done in a weekend than I originally expected.


More pictures:

All the pictures I took from April 2007 are here.

All the pictures I took from February 2008 are here.

All are from my phone, so the resolution is mediocre.

Footnotes:

* Yes, I'm kidding.

For more info on the inspiration for this post's title, read this. The version in my head sounds like this (found on this website). It originally got in my head, somewhere in the 80's, by virtue of being sampled on the track "Medicine Show" by Big Audio Dynamite, an album I really should get out again. Aint the Internet grand?

Dangerous things

I saw a video online recently, titled "5 Dangerous things you should let your kids do". I agree with most of it, at least in principle. Click here to have a look, it's an interesting clip and not too long.

Of course, the word "let" is key here. What you let them do, and what they just decide to do regardless aren't necessarily the same thing. I'd still estimate about 50% odds that Isaac will have a trip to casualty before he's 2. He's generally far more reckless/adventurous than Elissa was at the same age. This could just be my (admittedly inaccurate) memory, but I don't think so, or it least it's not entirely that.

Here he is playing with random tools from the toolbox in my office. Keeping the lid closed and fastened used to be enough. Seeing him play with the locks now, I'm not convinced he wouldn't get in himself. Elissa loves getting tools out too, for that matter, it could be me or Elissa he's emulating, I suppose.


Isaac servicing a computer. There's no power connected to this box,so the only real risk is the tool itself. (Not counting the risk to the computer)

Both he and Elissa love playing with the 3.5" floppy drives. It actually makes a pretty good toy. Once you get the disk inserted correctly, it rewards you with a nice loud "clunk" and pops a button out, which is just perfect for pressing. Rinse, repeat. I've probably got a dead one (or four) around the place, what's one more toy for the toybox?


I was in the bathroom downstairs, when Isaac wandered in, had a look around, grabbed the stool for the basin, and took it into the shower. He put it straight under the taps, climbed up, and proceeded to attempt to turn them on, as pictured.

When he couldn't get the desired result, he shuffled over to his right, grabbed the rightmost tap with his left hand, dangling his right foot in mid air, and had his right hand flailing around at random in the soap dish for whatever might be in there. Foiled again, it was empty.

I don't have a photo of that, as by that point I'd moved in in case he fell. The comments at the top of this post notwithstanding, I'm not totally irresponsible, there's no need to call DOCS just yet.


This video is just general purpose silly behaviour. With Isaac copying Elissa's dancing efforts. They're playing together interactively far more these days, as opposed to just playing near each other.


Note that his last action is to start climbing onto the bench seat.

He's taken to spinning in circles, as in the video, a bit lately, I'm not sure if it's the spinning itself that's the most fun, or the dizziness afterwards. He'll also occasionally put a cloth / T-shirt / pillow over his face to play peek-a-boo, as per the international I-can't-see-you-so-you-can't-see-me rules. This is pretty normal behavior, I'm sure, and quite harmless, except that occasionally he'll start walking around with his head still covered. They're only bruises, I suppose.

Cookies and chaos

Today, while Elissa and Susanne were out, Norm and Lyn dropped by. Isaac seemed to sense that there was "stuff" to be had, and woke up 90 minutes into what has typically been between 2 and 3 hours of his lunchtime sleep.

Here he is opening the first item of loot he spotted when I brought him downstairs, a new toy for the car.

It's steering wheel for backseat drivers, with various sound effects, buttons and levers. Isaac quite likes it, but I don't know how Susanne will feel about it. It may require a volume modification before it makes it into her car. Mind you, the volume modification may be to make it louder, to drown out the arguments in the bag over who gets to play with it.


Here he is once we got it open and assembled. Well, almost assembled, it actually has a rod with a suction cup for attaching to the side window. We tried improvising by putting on top of the T-ball stick, but Isaac was happier once he'd removed all the extraneous bits and just held it in his hands.


The second bit of booty was a bag of cookies, or as Isaac refers to them "Bikky bikky bikky!".


I wonder if kids can suffer from induced ADD through having too many toys to choose from? Probably not, but there are other risks:


1. Trip hazards. Most of the toys are actually put away. What's shown here is just the typical "base set" of cars and people the kids use to keep their games going happily. I think Elissa is in the picture somewhere.


2. Overcrowding. It's difficult bathing either of the kids amongst this lot, never mind both of them. Of course, they still manage to argue over them. Usually it's the Dora toys that are in highest demand.

This is an actual shot after bath time. There are still some toys not shown, on the floor and in the shower.

Needless to say, we can probably take bath toys of the wish list.