more photos

He's got a bit of the Gerber Baby thing happening here.

"Why, mom, why?
Not why must I be naked. I'm down with that. Why must we photograph it?"

The great outdoors were a little chilly last Saturday for TUC Wednesday playoffs. Thank goodness for the sweater cousin Sandra made!
photo credit: Rebecca Ho

Here he had just woken up from a nap. In fact, I had been photographing the nap. Maybe the camera woke him up.

I don't know why I love this missed shot so much.


Again, for eye colour. Still pretty light brown. Click to enlarge

Someday, I'll get around to posting print quality versions at http://picasaweb.google.com/dion.lew.

Friday Curling

Anyone wanna curl with me, Steve, Ann, and Derek some Friday nights? The season runs mid-October to early April. Half our games would be at 7:00, half at 9:00 at the Royals, which is just North of Queen and Broadview. We're looking for someone who wants to play all the games or two someones who each want to play half the games. No experience necessary. Must be willing to lose a lot of games and feel good about it.

snap shots

Uh oh. There's been a lot of this lately.

On your marks!


Get set!










Where's "GO!"?

That hasn't happened yet. Luckily, he's not too bright. He keeps trying to move both knees as the same time. Here's hoping it's a while still. It's SO much easier when they stay where you left them. At least he can't escape the Bumbo.

While I endorse the choice of reading material, we will need to find a new storage place for it.

Dion's sense of humour. I assume it was Dion.

Adam doesn't want to recline in the stroller any more. I wonder if this will mean less sleeping in the stroller. I actually find strapping him in so that he can sit fully upright a little cumbersome.

They grow up so fast.

There are recent print-quality posts to http://picasaweb.google.com/dion.lew.

OMG, I reflected again.

Dion gave me the afternoon "off" to get some work done and to get away from a very crabby Adam. I am giving Dion the evening off to raid to his heart's content.

At the end of my afternoon's work, it occured to me that it is very important to me that my students do some meta-learning, that is, figure out how they learn best. I've often made reflection a formal part of my lesson-planning. Today, I made up a drill sheet of questions involving arithmetic operations with integers. They'll do two minutes with and two minutes without a calculator. They're easy questions. All answers are integer; every question has an operand between -4 and 4; and every operand is between -12 and 12. But I also made a pre- and post-drill reflection sheet. The true/false questions are about their results, areas for improvement, and most importantly their confidence. There is one open-ended question, i.e., what else did you learn about your skills?

The following are the my reasons for this exercise. I'm pretty much trying to convince them to put down the calculator - at least for the easy stuff. We'll work on recognising "easy stuff" later. I think that many students cling unnecessarily and counter-productively to the calculator. I think that the calculator gives them a false sense of security, because they are even more likely to make a mistake operating the calculator as to make a mistake with mental arithmetic. I think they work much faster with their brains than fingers. I expect that weak students will be somewhat better without the calculator but strong students will be vastly better without the calculator. Trust me, I will go over the numbers to see if my predictions are correct. OMG, this is action research. You can take the girl out of OISE.... I'm so ashamed.

My one data point so far is Dion. Of course, it is ridiculous to compare Grade 9's to a Descartes first runner-up but here it is anyway. With a calculator, 80 seconds gets him 16/16. Without a calculator, 80 seconds get him 58/60 and the sense that he's made a mistake somewhere.

BTW, until proficiency with mental arithmetic is in the secondary expectations, I will never deny a student a calculator or even deliberately make them feel badly about using one. Why shouldn't students have a security blanket? Don't students have too many insecurities about Mathematics already?

ding! gratz!

First, Adam learned to put his hand in his mouth. then put a toy in his mouth. then put his hand in my mouth. then today to put a toy in my mouth.

Also, Adam's hair is now coming in a little coarser. It's also coming in faster than it is falling out. Boy, do I wish I could say the same thing about my hair? Yesterday, Adam and I were people watching at our favourite spot when three nice men accosted us. They just wanted to ooh and aah over the baby. They even took pictures with him. The biggest ooher and aaher, Anthony, also happened to be a hair dresser. He complimented Adam's hair and mine indirectly - "It's coming in lovely and thick, just like yours." Whatever. He hasn't met the king of thick hair, Dion. And while my hair is technically speaking thick (as opposed to thin), it is also very fine (as opposed to coarse). Anthony also told me to massage my scalp, that my current practice of using oodles of conditioner is ill-advised, and that there are good but expensive products for post-partum shedding at Shopper's Drugmart. He also offered Adam free haircuts for life. He wants to open a salon in The Village but, in the mean time, unfortunately, he works in Burlington.

school start up

School has started up blissfully uneventfully. My classes are all cooperative but not very energetic. I need to work on that.

visitors

I got to catch up a bit with Janelle this afternoon. She's beautiful as always, no? Ryan looks a lot like her, no? Ryan's 16 weeks old today and posing with the Team Canada onesie I found for him. As soon as I saw it, I knew Janelle had to have it. Dion wanted it for Adam. He knows where they are to be found in the Path; he can go get one himself.

Adam has been wearing the pictured froggie romper since he was 6 weeks old or so. I don't know why I have so few photos of him wearing it before this - maybe none. I like it for hot weather.

some randomness

I think there's a bunch of stuff I've been meaning to 'blog but I can't think of them right now.

When I got home from school (just setting up - no classes) on Monday, I found Dion and Adam like this:

print quality at http://picasaweb.google.com/dion.lew

Adam finds our dining room table just the thing for teething pain. In this photo, he's sitting on a Bumbo that was given to us by Anthony, an acquaintance of Dion's. We were chatting with Anthony at his wife's restaurant, where they had one for use as a booster seat. I mentioned that I've been looking for a second-hand Bumbo. He said, "You wanna Bumbo? Here have this one." Hey thanks.

I had lunch today with yingy and then we spent the remainder of the afternoon at a Second Cup while she was on-call. She's doing a fellowship in paediatric plastics at Sick Kids. She did eventually get called in. And today was a such a beautiful day that I didn't want to go home. So, we went to my currently favourite people watching spot, the NW corner of Alexander and Church, where I read and Adam slept in his stroller.

If you want to have some fun with Dion, say something to him like: "So, I hear you were hoarding salary cap room in your hockey league draft." And by "have some fun with" I mean rile up.

I'm kinda looking forward to school starting on Tuesday.

not the same old, same old

I tried to pick some pictures of Adam here that were good but somehow "different" from most of the ones I post.

What's different? "Real clothes." I almost always dress Adam in a sleeper since he still sleeps more than he's awake and it keeps him looking babyish. There's nothing in this picture for scale but the "real clothes" make him look ready to walk. In the remainder of the photos of this post, he's dressed in 12 month sleepers.

just a different angle - semi profile.

with Jarrett (sp?), who also has one white and one Chinese parent and the same birthday. Jarrett has darker skin and eyes but lighter hair than Adam. Jarrett's dad, Jeremy went to Woburn with Dion.

a goofier expression than usual.

sleep, blissful sleep. A slightly different angle.

This one is just to show eye colour. They're still mostly grey but you can see brown near the pupil. It seems likely that they'll end up more of a light brown than a dark brown. Click the photo to enlarge it.

these and more of the same old, same old in print quality at http://picasaweb.google.com/dion.lew

4-month check up

Clean bill of health and growth. I've been telling people that Adam is 18 pounds, which is overstating it by only 4 ounces. I'm glad his "height" more than matches though. I'm pretty sure that this is my side of the family showing up. With his complexion and eye-shape, he will always look like his father but at least he takes after me in some way. Other than some teething pain, he's a happy, healthy guy. He didn't cry because of the vaccinations, which even the paediatrician found surprising. He writhed and jammed his fists (both of them) in his mouth instead.

0 mo	1 mo	2 mo	3 mo	4 mo
WEIGHT in lb,oz followed by percentile
7,1	9,11	13,4		17,12
25th	50th	84th		93rd
LENGTH in inches followed by percentile
20.5"		24"		27
75th		85th		95th+

And now if you'll excuse me, for some reason I feel the need for a snack!

just a couple of photos

a cuddle with dad

This was over a week ago. When I went to the washroom he was here.

When I returned from the washroom, he was here.

a very interesting book

Adam, Dion and I had much fun today visiting with Val, Giselle, Mia, Grace, Nathan, and Pam and (not pictured, Tiee and Jesse). Pretty adorable that Mia and Nathan are holding hand with the littler ones.

more of the moms and babies

in print quality at http://picasaweb.google.com/dion.lew

OMG We're Old and A Failed Good Deed.

I came across this picture today while sorting through manuals and warranties. Why it was there, I just don't know. Why I was there is easy. I'm giving our old answering machine and its manual to Kevin and Su.

I think the photo would have been taken summer 2000. These people don't look terribly young, just much younger than we do. Conclusion: We're old. I should speak for myself here but, frankly, there's no point. We've all aged. Sorry kids.


Last week, I tried to do a good deed, but the result was a failure. Adam and I were on our way to meet Dion for lunch near King station. An older Chinese couple with very little English were clearly lost on the subway. Some fellow riders were trying to sort things out but no one could quite figure it out. We were between Wellesley and College stations. They just kept repeating Yonge, College, and Dundas. We didn't know if they were asking where we were or telling us where they were going. Now at College station, at the last moment the man decides that they needed to get off. He got off but the doors closed before the woman could get out. Uh oh. So we figure that she should get out at Dundas and wait for him. Her English was even worse than his.

At Dundas, I convinced her to get out despite her protests of "me Yonge Street." That's fine except it's all Yonge Street. In fact, I got off with her to wait on the platform for the man. This seemed the only sensible strategy to me. It took a long time for the next train to come. So we made small talk - in Mandarin! Here is what we learned from each other:

• The man is her younger brother.
• She's from China. (surprise!)
• The baby is my son.
• His father is a Chinese person. (she comes in for a closer look)
• No, not from Beijing, he's Cantonese-speaking. (okay, it was a lie motivated by my ineptitude with Mandarin)
• He's also a Canadian person.
• The baby is three months old.
• I don't understand anything else she asks me.

Oh no! The man was not on the next train! What was he thinking? That was the only sensible solution, right? The woman waves and indicates that she is going. I don't know if she was going to street level or back to College Station. I'll never know. Sigh.

• Thank You!
• You're Welcome.

photos

Tons of good ones. Here are five. These and more in print quality at http://picasaweb.google.com/dion.lew asap.

My brother stayed with us for a couple of nights last week and the week before while down on business. He was very self-conscious about reading to Adam. I've seen this in a lot of parenting books, that is, what to do if you have trouble "making conversation" with the baby. Seemed impossible to me. Who is a less critical listener than a baby? Thanks for the book, Dan and Caroline. Adam enjoys it quite a lot.

everything to mouth, of course.

Adam loves to sit or stand. Unfortunately, he's no good at doing either by himself nor will he be any time soon. And it's only now and then that he's in the mood to sit in one of his chairs for any length of time. Singing to him while doing dishes can put him in the mood though.

just a headshot I like. There were about half a dozen from this "shoot" to choose from.

Dion and I _finally_ put Adam's crib together this weekend. Mostly Dion. I held stuff. Adam's been crowded in his bassinet for a couple of weeks now, especially since he's been rolling over and fond of sleeping on his front. Thanks to Lianne for the crib donation and to the RSA gang for the bedding.

Me, Me, Meme

Quoting Kristin:

"dietrich has thrown me a stöckchen - has tagged me to write 8 random facts about myself. heard about blog memes? this seems to be similar to the "5 things about me" blog meme."

Now it's my turn. And I agree, random is impossible here. But am I supposed to put stuff that most people wouldn't already know about me? This is hard.

1 - I hate the Sound of Music. I generally dislike most "break into song" musicals. It interrupts the suspension of my disbelief. I make exceptions for some comedies, e.g., Grease, but generally, I prefer musicals if all or nearly all dialogue is sung, e.g. in Evita. But let's be clear. I really hate the Sound of Music, not just because of the breaking into song. Too saccharine is at the top of the long list of things I hate about the SoM. However, now and then I sing two SoM songs to Adam: Do Re Mi and Favourite Things.

2 - I have a birthmark on my lower left thigh. It's about the size and shape of the head of a tablespoon and dark brown. I usually forget about it but now and then someone is really surprised by it, which surprises me.

3 - I like wearing socks and sandals.

4 - For special occasions, I give extra attention to my ears in the shower and I like to wear jewellery with sentimental value, usually my mother's jewellery. Otherwise, I hardly ever wear jewellery (other than my wedding band) or make up.

5 - I now make very LA Story orders at Starbucks, including recently: "for here venti extra hot hot chocolate with whip" and "tall extra hot soy milk red tea latte."

6 - I lose rolls of masking tape but end up with extra erasers all the time.

7 - I'm very prickly about my singing.

8 - I often want car rides to last longer. I'm usually feeling disappointed as I near the destination.

Your turn Gina. I also thought about picking Kevin (too predictable), Kern (has Day 3 to write still), Becky (on vacation), Pam and Jesse (already very prolific), and MarkMark (very unprolific).

This entry typifies my difficulty with blogging. It's the diversity of a public audience. I have close friends, acquaintances, relatives, in-laws, co-workers, former students, and maybe even current/future students reading the blog. It's very challenging to select content for that audience. And once selected, it is challenging to write the material, certainly in an interesting manner. There is prior knowledge to consider and things are easily misunderstood, not understood, or even offensive if they are not clearly, and thus, potentially boringly over-explained.

So fellow bloggers, I ask you: How do you handle the lines of clear-vs-concise and safe-vs-interesting? I realise that these adjectives aren't necessarily poles and that the so-called lines aren't really orthogonal either.

More babies!

I copy from Kevin's blog again:

"Rob and Rebecca are pregnant! (well, really Rebecca is pregnant and Rob is responsible for it) They are expecting their "little Ho" (her words, not mine) January 26, 2008.

You can read more about it here."

Congratulations!

Litter Reunion

It's too bad we missed several former players but the Litter Reunion on Saturday was quite fun.

Here are my pictures in no particular order. Sorry I didn't get everyone and the ones I got of some people are pretty poor (my fault - not the subject's!). Ah well. Anyway, print-quality versions are posted at: http://picasaweb.google.com/dion.lew

This just in...

Jaclyn tells me that a $75 purchase at Shopper's Drugmart this weekend earns you two Cineplex movie tickets.