Beach with Grandad = Awesome!

Over the weekend we enjoyed a morning stroll along the coast. No nudists jumped out at us, but we did come across a large boat that my dad took great delight in showing Dom. It was a very nice way to spend a Sunday morning...

Holidays are here!

It's holiday time! My folks just came down for a weekend! My toes are slightly cold!

Why you shouldn't put your campaign billboard near a school...

This is non-school related graffiti. When it was last vandalised (three days ago) there was a reference to the Young Nat leader who is a student at the school.

Not Summer Heights High

Overheard in a corridor, after a truck driver delivered some food to the school canteen... Teacher: Were you rude to that truck driver? Student: Yeah but no, cos he was rude to me. Teacher: Slowly, without getting excited or shouting, tell me what happened. Student: I was just sitting on the back of his truck and he told me to get off or I might hurt myself Teacher: So you were sitting on something that doesn't belong to you? Student: Yeah but when he told me to get off I did but then he said he'd break me. He can't talk to me like that miss. Teacher: You were interfering with property that doesn't belong to you? Student: Yeah but I said sweet as when he told me to get off and I said I jumped off a house and I didn't break any bones so no worries, then he said he'd break me in a minute. He can't talk like that miss it's against my rights I'm gonna make a complaint. Teacher: It's not good that he spoke to you like that, but you were sitting on his gear. There's a line that you crossed and you need to apologise. Student: I'm not gonna apologise unless he apologises to me first, he can't talk to me like that it's against my rights miss. You should tell him. Teacher: (gives up) Go back into the classroom and do your work.

Snuff Box

Debbie and I rented the Snuff Box DVD from the video store over the weekend, and have been watching bits and pieces of the show over the past couple of days. It's a very odd sketch comedy show with Rich Fulcher and Matt Berry (of The Mighty Boosh and IT Crowd fame). Some of it is very good, some of it is very tasteless. This bit was neat (with swearing):

Pulling-up power

 Dominic is now preferring to spend as much of his days as possible on two legs rather than four. He likes to pull up on furniture and be read his books whilst standing up (well, leaning really, he doesn't have the balance to stand on his own).

Of course this also means he can get himself into lots more mischievous fun. Placing cameras or other breakable objects out of reach is now a lot more difficult.

Unfortunately I stupidly left my laptop on the lazyboy chair this morning. He now has a new favourite toy...

And when Mum puts his laptop away, he has to then help himself to some more conventional baby toys from his toy box. My dreams of a tidy floor where only a couple of toys are out at a time are pretty much over now. 

Snap happy

We've been taking quite a few photos in the last couple of weeks. These are from last weekend and today:

The joys of blowdrying

 Dominic demonstrates his cool punk hairdo that can only be achieved with a good blast from a hairdryer. Of course there is nothing Dominic likes better than a good hairdrying after his shower or bath.

A profile to show off the mohawk.

With a rebel yell, he cried more, more, more.

Chewing remotes

Dominic is very interested in remote controls. He enjoys pushing buttons and hitting himself in the head with them, but chewing on them is what he loves best of all.



I particularly like the flute-style hold he's using in this second picture.



I was very happy with the way these two pictures turned out, given that I had one hand ready to steady or catch Dom should he slip (he was standing up and leaning on the sofa), and took the photos with the other hand :-)

Marking up a storm

It's senior exam time at my school, and this means piles of marking! On the plus side it also means the seniors are out for a week and a half, so I only have one regular class to teach. I have a bunch of exam cover and relief lessons (including being a PE teacher yesterday, which I found tedious and inconvenient as most other kinds of relief lesson at least afford a few minutes to do marking). Not having a junior form class is also awesome come exam time - for this first time I get to enjoy the benefits of not having to run form time in the morning, or be tied to a middle of the day watch-kids-eat-lunch appointment. Today that means that I will be able to go home for lunch at lunch time (around 12), rather than at school-lunch-time which is 12.35pm. Given how hungry I am that's a very good thing. I get to be a Maths teacher for an hour this afternoon, and again next week. I actually like being a guest Maths teacher sometimes. The kids don't always love the subject but if it's a junior class and the work is easy I enjoy the opportunity to explain something concrete for a change, and enjoy the light-bulb moment (when it happens) when a kids goes from not being able to simplify fractions to being able to do it. One seldom sees such a precise step in the learning process in English (though there are moments where a kid says something like "Aha! Owen is trying to show people exactly how bad war is so they won't keep saying it's glorious!" and it is, for them, a light bulb moment. Even though it was something I'd said ten minutes earlier. And they'd read in the textbook. And we'd been discussing as a class for 10 minutes.). English tends to be about increasingly sophisticated understanding of and ability to express ideas about texts, and that's simply not as binary as can/cannot add.

Some 9 months photos

I took some photos of Dominic on his 9 month birthday as I was unaware that Matt had already taken the traditional monster/Dom line-up for size comparison photo. It turns out the process is slightly more tricky than it used to be.

Phase 1 - Dominic lies next to monster where you placed him and figures out what you're trying to do. Duration: approx. 3 seconds.

 

Phase 2 - Dominic rolls onto his side to grab monster. Duration: 5-6 seconds.

Phase 3 - Photo shoot is turned into a game of monster peekaboo. Duration: many minutes of peekaboo giggly fun.

So then I decided to try to get a picture of him reading his 'That's not my monkey' book. He likes it when you make the loud 'ook, ook' noise for the ticklish monkey. However, cameras are distracting and I only got one shot before he grabbed the camera.

Also we got a cool new baby backpack for carrying him around in as he has outgrown his frontpack. Dominic really seemed to like it if you bounce around or run with hm in the backpack, and he is learning to kick his heels around to encourage you to go faster like a good little horserider. As long as we don't get him any spurs, it should be fine.

9 Month photo

Debbie has more photos of this milestone which she will post some time. For now, here is a boy chewing on a highlighter.



This is a few days late thanks to a pesky computer virus we're still trying to get rid of >:|

New video

As promised here is footage of Dominic mischieving about the place:
September 2008 Dom crawls from Matt Cowens on Vimeo. And mum - you can download the video from vimeo, it's only about 20mb :-)

Dominic masters climbing stairs

The kitchen is no longer out of Dominic's reach. Last weekend he sorted out crawling properly, then within a few days he was enjoying pulling up on the furniture, and he's already worked out how to climb the 2 stairs to the kitchen.

I swear it won't be long before he's going out joyriding in the car...

Dom's new robe

 Dominic has a nice new warm robe with a cute hood. It's hard to say whether it makes him most resemble Hugh Hefner, a little green Jawa or a member of a cult of some weird dinosaur worshippers. You decide...

Video of Dom!

Dominic Slideshow from Matt Cowens on Vimeo. Not really new content, but neat :-) New video coming soon...

Dominic Photos

 Dominic now likes pulling up on all sorts of things. He seems particularly fascinated with the laundry basket. How long until I can train him to hang out the washing for me?

His top three teeth are getting bigger every day. They are still quite spaced out though as they aren't all the way down yet. It gives him quite a Gollum look when he grins or opens in mouth widely.

(Gollum not Dominic demonstrates the 'Ouch, we hates teething' look.)

I tried to take a photo of Dominic with his mouth open but he saw the camera and lunged at it to have a chomp. Here is the resulting picture:

Early morning play-gym

Is just one of the roles a father must fulfil...





This is also an example of low-impact lying down parenting.

Director Dom

This is Dominic's first short film. It's all one take, and it's starring Dom (and the corner of my head), as he gets to grips with the camera itself and the film medium.