Exercise Challenge!

I've got a growing list of things to get around to once I'm finished school. It's a file on my desktop called 'afterApril22'. That's the day of my last exam (perhaps my last exam ever) after which I will suddenly have a lot more free time. Top of the list is to start exercising again. Last year at this time I was going to two fitness classes a week, during the summer I did lots of walking & some biking. But the past two semesters I've been too busy to fit any classes into my schedule & I've used the weather as an excuse not to get out for walks. Consequently, I'm not feeling all that fit & I know I've gained weight. What I used to refer to as my 'bagel' (the flab around my navel) has become a bundt cake. Running for buses leaves me breathless & I'm feeling a lot of aches & pains.

Today I started thinking, why wait until I'm finished school to start exercising? It just reminded me of a joke apron that my dad got as a gift years ago, emblazoned with, 'My diet starts on Monday'. I will have a lot more free time after April 22nd, but if I can get in some exercise it now while I still have two weeks of classes to go, things will be a cinch later, right? So, today I dusted off the stationary exercise bike that I bought a couple of years ago & have rarely used. I hopped on & rode for about 22 minutes.

My goals & how you can help, after the jump...

What I've been watching lately

Couldn't resist listening to this one: a great old country super-group singing a song about reincarnation (?!?). Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings and Kris Kristofferson perform the Jimmy Webb song "Highwayman" live:

More videos & links that I've found interesting after the jump...

Review: Melissa & Doug Lacing Beads

What is it?

Melissa & Doug Primary Lacing Beads

Read the review after the jump...

Countdown

Not the most thrilling reads, sadly.

It's end-of-semester crunch time: today I have a phonology midterm, then several articles & chapters of reading to do for all my courses, next week I have a report due on a neurolinguistics article, the following week I've got a big research proposal paper due, as well as another phonology problem, then near the end of April an exam in my speech science course. Taking three courses at SFU while contributing to Vancouver Mom, doing a little freelance writing, posting articles here daily--oh, & parenting a toddler--has stretched me. There are a lot of things that I should be doing or would like to be doing that I've been able to shove to the back burner, put on the after-April-22-when-I'm-free list. I'm kind of looking forward to getting at that list.

Wordless Wednesday

The Name Game

While reading the Baby Name Wizard blog, I came across this post on namer's remorse & the paradox of choice in relation to naming children. I can relate to this, having given our son a fairly unusual name. I agonized over the choice & we didn't settle on his name until he was a week old. It feels like such a huge responsibility to give someone a name that they'll probably use for the rest of their life. How will people react to their name? What will the initials spell? (This one in particular was an important consideration for us, as Sprout's last two initials are CK. Oli's affinity for names starting with F would have resulted in a potentially profane-sounding set of initials.)

List #18: Things I hate about my neighbourhood

A collection of crud on 16th Ave, a block east of our house.

I love living in Mount Pleasant, I really do. But there is room for improvement. Check out my list after the jump...

Linnaeus 19.2

This week's update on Sprout's emerging language skills, favourite toys & food plus the latest photo.

Confessions

Confessional. Palermo, Italy. By Emilio Labrador

Now that I've been posting daily for about five months, it's become a routine. Which is not to say I write a post every day, but I produce enough content (often in small batches when I find the time) to schedule something for every day of the week. Though I feel like I've got that down pat, I'm still always looking for ways to blog better. I like having regular themed posts--Monday lists, Wordless Wednesdays, Friday reviews, a Linnaeus X.x update--this helps me structure the week.

I've thought of another theme to run with once a week: Confessions. I try to keep my posts here pretty positive, even the reviews, which are usually products I use & love, but always my honest opinion. However, I think there's room for a little humility, a bit of self-deprecating humour, some honest admissions that I'm imperfect/weird, just like the rest of you.

So, without further ado, I bring you the inaugural Confession of the Week:

Review: Uprising Bread

What is it?

Uprising Bread

Why is it good?

Our household staple is the Cracked Wheat & Sunflower loaf, 650g of dense wheaty goodness. We're big fans of  German-style heavy bread here: Sprout actually prefers the denser stuff to the fluffy North American loaves. This stuff fits the bill, while coming in a nice pre-sliced sandwich shape. One of my personal pet peeves is bread that shreds when you spread peanut butter on it--Uprising breads hold up well. I love the nutty sunflower seeds in there (that's probably the reason why there's 5g of protein per slice) in sandwiches & particularly when fried up as french toast.

More reasons to love Uprising Breads after the jump...

Spring Fashion: Advice from Carson Kressley

Photo courtesy of
Save the Children
on Flickr

Not counting that snow incident last Wednesday, Spring weather seems to be here. & since it's spring, time of the old Spring Cleaning, I think it's time to think about my wardrobe again. Hopefully I can put away the sweaters, turtlenecks, toques & woolly scarves soon!

Thursday I got the chance to take part in an online Q & A session (Sponsored by Tide Pods) on fashion & fabric care with celebrity stylist Carson Kressley, who you might know of from Dancing with the Stars or Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. Read more about what he predicts will be hot for Spring, plus what I've seen, after the jump...

Wordless Wednesday

Garden 2012

Now that the winter weather is over--please keep your fingers crossed on that one--it's time to get gardening! Last year, we had a lot of prep work to do to get our garden off the ground As Oli & I are such procrastinators, this is where we were at in early June last year:

Babywearing in action!

This year, since the garden bed is in, it's just a case of deciding where to put things, plus a little fine-tuning of the existing 'infrastructure'. That was my achievement this past Saturday: during one of Sprout's naps, I added another 'pole' for the beans to grow up & moved the attachment points at the bottom. Here's a shot of my handiwork (the faint white lines are the strings I adjusted), with Oli playing in the dirt, er, weeding:

A boy & his dirt.

I'm quite excited that we're going to be getting stuff in the ground at least two or three months ahead of when we did last year. (Read: I'm quite excited that Oli will be planting things. I will contribute on a one-off basis, but tend to lose steam on the recurring work like weeding, watering & pruning. Heh.) Our garden was actually quite fruitful last year, despite planting in June or July. We hope to do more offset planting of things like lettuce & tomatoes so that we can harvest gradually, rather than all at once. We're also going to move things around a bit, like the zucchini, which kind of took over a large swath of our bed last year. I think trying to grow it in a container might work, as long as we can water it enough, so that we can move it away from the rest of the garden when it gets gigantic.

There are lots of gardening ideas floating around here, among them:

• planting wheat somewhere
• trying watermelon again
• providing space for someone else's bees
• buying some ladybugs to combat the aphids if we end up with the severe infestation we had last year
• growing some hop vines to use in Oli's homebrew
• adding flowers to the yard, like hollyhocks & more bulbs rescued from a demolished house
• generally taking out more of the lawn & turning it over to productive herbs, veggies, fruits & nicer plants than grass

Are you going to grow anything this year in your yard/planters/community garden plot? What have you had luck with in the past? Do you have any suggestions for us? 

Le Sigh

One day away from the Spring Equinox & this is what I see out the window at school:

List #17: Subjects I've studied in post-secondary

Photo of SFU's AQ from Flickr, courtesy of Gordeau.

I've spent near half my adult life taking part-time or full-time courses at various post-secondary institutions. I went to Emily Carr for two years, way back in the dawn of time when it was still a college. (since then it's changed to an Institute & now a University) Then I went to Capilano another two years, while it was also still a college. Following that I transferred to Simon Fraser University, graduating in 2001. I went back in 2010 & am currently taking a few courses. So I've studied a lot of different things.

Here's my list, in no particular order:

Sleep & Weaning

Gradually over the past few months, Sprout has stopped falling asleep while nursing. It used to be the fail proof way to get him down, but these days, unless he's really exhausted, it calms but doesn't knock him out. For a while this meant putting him in his crib awake, where he would alternate playing, babbling & crying for up to two hours. We'd take turns going in to calm him down several times before he finally succumbed to sleep.

Bit by bit the time needed to get Sprout to sleep has decreased. Most nights lately he has been wide awake when I lay him in his crib, but he he's gone to sleep in about 15 minutes with hardly a peep & no crying. Thankfully, his naps have evolved in a similar way, though it usually takes a little longer for him to fall asleep during the day than at night.

Linnaeus 19.1

As I go into my last month of the semester, I'm getting really busy with midterms, projects & assignments, so I'll keep this update relatively brief.

Review: Tide Pods

UPDATE: Please click here to read my post on how Tide Pods made us itchy & gave my toddler a rash.

What is it?

Tide Pods laundry detergent.

How does it work?

As the name suggests, the detergent is packaged in individual pods. You just toss one into the washer with the clothes as you would any other detergent.

Weather WTF?

I know as a Vancouverite I can't really complain about the weather. Living here, I never have to walk to the grocery store in hip-high snow uphill both ways, like in Winnipeg or Montreal or Edmonton. (Wait, do they have hills in Edmonton?) However, I feel that we should not be getting snow at this point in the year, less than a week away from the official start of spring.

Exhibit One: my view from the sixth floor of the SFU library yesterday:

Wordless Wednesday

Whoops!

Whoops! Forgot to schedule in a post for today! Sorry if you were disappointed not to have the usual 9 o'clock a.m. post from The Sprog. I'll be back to my usual programming tomorrow. Now back to my Phonology lecture... Bartholomae's Law & feature trees in Sanskrit. Woo hoo.

List #16: Things I want to start making myself

There are more hiding in the cupboards too.

After writing the list of things we make that many people just buy, I started thinking of a lot of things that I'd like to start making myself.

1. Beans from dried. We rarely plan meals much in advance & don't usually want to wait as long as it takes to cook beans from their dry form. We have tons in the house right know though, so we really should get on this.
2. Almond milk. Now that I'm lactose-intolerant again, I can't face going back to soy milk as my default cereal accompaniment & hot drink additive. I've tried almond & rice milk recently, but they aren't as prevalent & they're pretty expensive. I think it's time to try making some almond milk myself. That way I could possibly make it more creamy than the skim-milk-like stuff that comes in the tetrapaks.
3. Play structures for Sprout. I hate the look of the plastic slides & climbing thingies (think Step 2 or Tykes), so lately I've been thinking about designing & building my own out of wood. I think it'd be great to build a little picnic table too.
4. Undies. It's so hard to find underwear that fit well & aren't hideous. Last time I found a style I loved they were discontinued within months. I think I'll have to try to copy them myself.
5. A shower curtain. I've been meaning to do this for years, but always found one in a store that was pretty good, so I haven't tackled it yet. 
6. Paintings. I used to paint a lot in high school & when I was in art school. Then I just kinda... stopped. I've done five paintings since then, all for my nieces & nephew. I have a few ideas bouncing around in the back of my mind, things for Sprout's room.
7. Cosmetics. I'd like to try my hand at making lip balm & maybe some moisturizer. I hate how much Latin & chemistry you need to learn just to understand what it is actually in the bottle of goop you're smearing on your face. 

- - - - - - - -
Why Monday lists? Reading the lovely Chloe's blog, Tea Swamp Park, I found an idea I had to 'steal': a list of all her Halloween costumes, with quite a few photos. She got the idea from Hula Seventy's List Project. I've decided to do the weekly lists for a year that Hula Seventy is doing. 

Spring Forward

Photo by Natalie Barletta on Flickr

Did you remember to change your clocks forward an hour before you went to bed last night? Or are they finally on the right time now, since you didn't bother changing them in the Fall? (like one of ours...)

Linnaeus 19.0

Sprout's had some kind of bug this past week, leaving him rather listless & clingy some of the time. He had a fever on & off for a few days & there were a few rough nights, so none of us are well-rested at the moment. Particularly unusual for Sprout is that he wasn't all that hungry for some of the week either.

It's illnesses like this that make me glad I'm still breastfeeding him. Even though he's not that interested in eating, he can still get some nutrition & antibodies from my milk, not to mention the comfort. I have to admit, though I hate seeing him sick, I loved having him sitting on my lap for a solid hour or two straight while we watched videos & scribbled with crayons. I'm glad I was able to just sit with him for a while--he had a bit more energy after our cuddle & seemed somewhat recharged.

Happily, though he's still not feeling 100%, Sprout's vocabulary continues to grow quickly. I find it constantly fascinating to watch him start to learn to use particular sounds (he's getting better with L & S, for example). His words are evolving--not necessarily in a linear fashion--to eventually become more like we say them. An example is the word park. He originally said it like pok, then started to add in an O for the R sound: paok, but lately it's become more like pike as that O has shifted to a Y sound. 

Another notable language thing this week is that he identified some balloons as orange. He has been using the word balloon for months & he's not confusing them with the fruit--they weren't inflated & so aren't a similar shape. I was pretty excited that he's starting to get colours. It's the only one I've heard so far, though.

Hide & go seek is one of Sprout's newest games. He'll get a huge smile on his face, squeal & run off to stand behind a chair (where I can see his legs). A few seconds later, he'll peek out from around the chair & squeal when he sees me. He also decided to climb on top of the SPUD bin, under the microwave, as you can see in the picture on the right.

The favourite toy of the week award has to go to Sprout's ukulele. He carries it around the house, strumming & sometimes singing like a little ukulele minstrel. Fairly often he'll bring it to me, deposit it in my lap, insisting that I play it. Sadly, I can't play any better than Sprout can. Papa is the musical one in this household.

He also loves reading The Lorax--now that he knows the story (we've read it daily since getting it from the library about a week ago)--he'll sit through the whole thing quite contentedly.

Review: Diaper Dude bag

What is it?

Diaper Dude Messenger I bag

How does it work?

A basic messenger-style bag, the Diaper Dude has a large clip so you can open the strap, clips on either side so you can attach it to a stroller, lots of pockets inside & out which are sized for diapers, bottles & the various other things you're going to be carting around as a parent.

Why is it good?

Read the rest of the review after the jump...

What I've been reading

This week I've been doing A LOT of reading for my courses, mostly fairly technical scholarly articles on first language acquisition. Though I find research looking for neurolinguistic evidence to support the various stages of language acquisition fascinating, I imagine you might not want to wade through the acronyms & citations. Here is a small selection of the more fun things I've been reading about this past week.

Got dryer lint?

Photo from Flickr, courtesy of ausserirdische sind gesun

I'm always looking for interesting upcycling tips. Found this one on FB, I think it was. Crafty uses for old things: dryer lint modelling dough! With three households sharing the laundry, we have a large collection of dryer lint in many colours. I'm going to try this recipe. Besides the cool upcycling aspect of it, I think it'll be good because Sprout won't be so tempted to eat it.

Pink-washing
PhD in Parenting is one of my favourite blogs ever. Annie's recent post questioning Estee Lauder's breast cancer 'prevention' campaign is brilliant & full of useful links.

Investing in early childhood
My friend Suzanne posted an article on FB about investment in early childhood & what a group of women in the village of Inverness, Nova Scotia are doing about the shameful lack of investment in our children. This part just killed me to read:

A report released in January by the Canadian Paediatrics Society... Are We Doing Enough, showed that for every dollar spent in the early childhood years, the government could see $4 to $8 in return to society. It noted, in particular, the provincially funded early learning and childcare program in Quebec, which undoubtedly played a role in increasing the number of women in the workforce by four per cent, and in increasing the provincial GDP by $5.2 billion.

The idea that publicly funded childcare is somehow too expensive is just SO WRONG. Quebec has been proving the rest of the country wrong on this for YEAR now. When will the government come to their senses on this issue?!?

Wordless Wednesday

Main St. & 13th Avenue

Reconstructive surgery

Sprout loves his books, sometimes a little too hard. Most of the ones we have are board books & thus fairly impervious to his enthusiasm. The ones that can't withstand his curiosity are the flap books. We got one from the library & while he was reading it by himself in his bedroom, he decided to pull off one of the flaps.

So I decided to try some reconstructive surgery on the book. I needed to reinforce the 'gate' & replace a part of it that Sprout may have eaten (we couldn't find it anywhere).

It was fairly successful, I think. Here's a shot of the flap, still 'in traction' while the glue sets.

List #15: Things we make ourselves rather than buying

Oli's latest batch of  ginger ale:
a little fizzy & spicy without overdoing it.

This list was Oli's idea. We are diehard DIYers in some ways, making quite a few things ourselves that I think most people just buy from the store. Sometimes we do it to save money, sometimes it's to make things to our own specs (less sugary pop, better fitted clothing, etc) & a lot of the time it's because we just enjoy making things.

1. Baked goods like cookies, brownies & muffins
2. Pizza (once in a while)
3. Fries: why buy them precut? Are people afraid of knives?
4. Root beer & ginger ale
5. Beer (though Oli's brewery doesn't produce anywhere near as much as we drink)
6. Curtains
7. Pillow covers
8. Hats, gloves, mittens, scarves
9. Pants, shorts & skirts
10. Shirts & dresses
11. Blankets (sewn & crocheted)
12. Cloth baby wipes & diaper inserts
13. Baby gates: these are a lot easier & cheaper than you'd think. The one I built on our deck is damn sturdy, too.
14. Salad dressing: I've never figured out why people buy 'Italian' dressing. It's oil & vinegar plus spices, people!
15. Toys: I made a set of doll clothes for my nieces & a puppet for Sprout at Christmas
16. Gift bags & cards
17. A ring sling & wrap carrier 
18. Shampoo & conditioner (baking soda + water, apple cider vinegar + water)
19. Deodorant
20. Vegetables: growing our own food last year was awesome & I can't wait to do it again. Though truth be told, my input didn't go much past constructing the garden beds & shovelling soil into them.



The stockings are all handmade too,
by my sis, my grandma & me.

21. Gifts--I really like giving people things I've made myself, like this apron for Sprout's best friend.
22. Decorations like my triangle bunting

- - - - - - - -
Why Monday lists? Reading the lovely Chloe's blog, Tea Swamp Park, I found an idea I had to 'steal': a list of all her Halloween costumes, with quite a few photos. She got the idea from Hula Seventy's List Project. I've decided to do the weekly lists for a year that Hula Seventy is doing. 

Minimizing: my electronic 'diet'

Cartoon by Dave Walker

While reading through my Google Reader stream, I came upon a post by The Minimalist Mom which had a cartoon in it. The cartoon was apparently free to use for bloggers, so I followed the link to see more. I found the site of Dave Walker & a few more cartoons. There I got the idea two write this post.

For the last few months I've been trying to become a bit more productive in the use of my computer. A big part of that is gradually reducing my Facebook time. This is easier said than done because a lot of my family is on FB, not to mention all my friends, at least to some degree or another. I get news there, I ask for advice, I hear about events... but I also waste tons of time just surfing, reading useless information & plain old voyeurism.

Since I'm on my computer for several hours a day, every day of the week & FB is often open in a tab somewhere, it was difficult to estimate how much I was actually using the site. So when I found the app RescueTime (sorry, can't remember where) I downloaded it right away. RescueTime keeps track of what apps & sites I'm using & sends me a report at the end of the week to let me know how productive I was. I've customized it to categorize my use of OpenOffice & Blogger as productive writing time, for example. Adobe Reader is also in that category, as a lot of my course reading is PDFs of journal articles or eBooks. Using FB or Google Reader is in the not-so-good category. Getting a weekly report has helped me whittle down my FB time to under an hour a day. I suspect in some of my worst weeks, before I started my 'diet', I was probably on FB for at least double that much time.

Another way I've been pruning my less-than-productive screen time is by editing my Google Reader subscriptions. Just a few months ago, I was probably sifting through maybe 70 blogs, many of which  post daily. The topics ranged from politics to crafting to parenting to personal finance to fashion to home decor to environmental issues & more. But it was a huge time suck just to sift through all the posts, even though I wasn't reading every one. So I started deleting the subscriptions to the blogs I wasn't reading much.  I also cut out anything that was too focussed on product reviews, giveaways & basically just the whole business of making you want to buy more stuff. I don't really need a constant diet of beautiful photos of well-curated, spotless show homes or gorgeous, thin, young models in expensive clothing in my RSS feed to make me feel inadequate, thankyouverymuch. Then I got more ruthless & started deleting the blogs that were nice, but I wasn't really learning anything from. Now we're down to 45 subscriptions in total, about ten of which are friends (in real life) who rarely post. I look forward to seeing how this affects my productivity score in RescueTime in the coming weeks.

Have you ever gone on an electronic 'diet'? What did you try to reduce? How did you do it? What were your results?

Linnaeus 18.3

Sprout got a Lorax stuffie at the movie
preview on Sunday

This past week hasn't been too eventful in Sprogland. We spent a lot of the last weekend in North Vancouver for a baby shower, a house party & a movie preview. Though we planned to alternate taking Sprout out of the theatre to have breaks during the movie, he sat through the entire thing. This kid's attention span never ceases to amaze me. Monday through Thursday Sprout spent most of each day with Papa while I was at school, going out to the park & the baby gym once in a while.

Mmm... Feesh!
We went out for Japanese food one night this week & Sprout tried some tuna nigiri as well as some chopped scallop with roe. It's the first time he's had raw fish & he seemed to like it. He also ate quite a few California rolls & yam tempura maki. I'm glad we can take him to pretty much any kind of restaurant & he'll eat whatever we're eating. This is exactly what I hoped the Baby Led Weaning would result in: a baby who's got a pretty adventurous palate.

Chatty Sprout gets a needle
Thursday we took the little guy to Ravensong Community Health Clinic for his 18-month immunizations. This time was the easiest yet. He got slightly upset at the weighing & measuring (he's a bit over 26 lbs, about 33" tall) but when he got his one needle, he didn't react at all. He was a tad wary in the office there & a little shy with the nurse, but no crying. When she went through the checklist of developmental milestones, like self-feeding, drinking from a cup, walking, etc, everything was normal. Then she asked if he had at least 10-15 words. I said I'd stopped counting a month before at over 100, estimating his current vocabulary to be around 150. She was amazed & she'd never heard of a child his age with such a vocabulary.

I'm very proud of his language skills, but I can't really claim much responsibility. Both Oliver & I are very language-oriented adults--interested in writing, avid readers, studied languages & literature at university--& according to our parents, we started talking fairly early, so I think maybe there's a genetic component there. Also, Sprout's temperament is such that he likes to sit & pay attention to things for a while, so reading is one of his favourite things to do, which has probably encouraged his vocabulary. I think the majority of his words are from his books.

Playtime favourite
This week Sprout hasn't had any obvious favourite toys other than books. He did spend quite a bit of time pushing his swiffer through the house, however. I took a section out of the handle to make it baby-sized, since we don't really use the thing. Sprout loves it, categorizing it--along with brooms, shovels, crochet hooks, ice scrapers, etc--as a stick, which he pronounces, dik. It still makes me giggle to see him toddling around the house repeating, dik! dik! dik! I wonder how long it's going to be before he starts pronouncing consonant clusters properly?

Sleep: you win some, you lose some
Our efforts to get Sprout napping in his crib without a fuss are paying off & he's going to sleep easier these days. His nap time still varies quite a bit from day to day, going down anywhere from 1pm to 4pm, sleeping for two or occasionally three hours. His bedtime is still  a bit later than I want--10ish--so I end up staying awake later that I should because I want a few hours to myself after he's asleep. Getting him to sleep at a regular time & keeping it from drifting later has been one of the most challenging things, I find. If he goes to bed a bit late one day, then he sleeps late, then naps later & then isn't tired until at least as late as the previous night. One late bedtime can have a ripple effect on the whole week, unfortunately.

There was one night of crying & thrashing at around 2am, so none of us got a proper sleep. Our usual solution with late-night wakings is to bring him to bed with us. I'll nurse him back to sleep while dozing a little. This time he couldn't be comforted by the 'magical' boob & seemed quite uncomfortable, so we resorted to Tylenol & he went back to sleep shortly. I'm guessing it was either bad gas or his two-year-old molars coming early. (A few days before we see any new teeth come through the gums, he usually has one or two rough nights. I think this might be the stage where they're breaking through the bone. ) It would be nice if he finished getting his full set of baby teeth soon. Then we'd get a few years' reprieve from teething issues.

Review: Dr. Seuss' The Lorax

Like many people, I've been a Dr. Seuss fan since my childhood. I grew up reading The Cat in the Hat, Green Eggs & Ham, One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish & And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, among others. The Lorax, just in case you didn't know, is a story with an environmental message. I've always intended to add a copy of it to Sprout's growing library. I'm not a huge movie fan, but I did get excited about getting to see a sneak preview of the latest version of a Seuss story on screen. Plus, the screening was at 10:30am on a Sunday--it fit into Sprout's nap schedule perfectly! 

Nifty: booster seat also prevents theatre
seats from folding & 'eating' your toddler.

Sprout loved taking the Seabus over to the theatre in North Vancouver. When we arrived, we got our Buddy Holly style 3D glasses (including kid-sized ones for Sprout), picked up our free refreshments, grabbed a booster seat & sat near the front of the theatre. After a short spiel by the sponsors, Seventh Generation, the movie began. Predictably, Sprout kept taking his 3D glasses off. I guess the annoyance of having something sitting on his face was too much--he preferred to watch the movie blurry. He did sit through all 95 minutes of the film, half the time on his booster seat, then on my lap. 

Directors Chris Renaud & Kyle Balda kept The Lorax movie true to the ideas in the book, while wrapping another layer around the original story. Our hero, Ted (voiced by Zac Efron), lives in 'Thneedville', which is run by the evil O'Hare corporation. Ted goes on a quest to find a real, live tree (there are none in his town) for a girl (Audrey, voiced by Taylor Swift) he has a crush on. The story Seuss wrote forms the basis of the tale told to Ted by The Once-ler. The curmudgeonly Lorax is played perfectly by Danny Devito. 

The movie was fairly fast paced & appropriately Suessically colourful. I noticed a number of little pop culture references for parents to chuckle at, slipped in by writers Ken Daurio or Cinco Paul. I think anyone three or four years old & up would probably like it. Sprout was definitely a little young for a movie, though he seemed to enjoy most of it, except when he got a little upset in one scene as the Lorax flew away. 

I haven't seen many 3D movies & don't really feel it adds that much to the experience. That said, I think Art Director Eric Guillon managed to use Seuss' characteristic no-straight-lines style as a jumping-off point for The Lorax's digital animation, resulting in a film that's got touches of photorealism in the midst of all the stylized fantasy. 

I liked the environmental message in the film & how it empowers kids to do something about it. I like how there is an anti-corporate message in there. However I was annoyed to see the usual gender stereotypes trotted out for us again. You know: 'boy meets creative dreamer girl, he falls for her, then goes on a quest to get her the object of her heart's desire'. Aren't we past the whole knight-in-shining-armor story yet? Wouldn't The Lorax have been better if Audrey had just gone off in search of the tree herself?

My verdict: If you've got kids or you're a Seuss fan, celebrate what would have been Dr. Seuss' 108th birthday on March 2nd by seeing The Lorax. Then stop by the Sprog Blog here & let me know what you thought in the comments section below!

*Talkshop Media gave us free passes to see an advance 'Green Carpet' screening of the Lorax, sponsored by Seventh Generation. We also received free popcorn & drinks, plus detergent, baby wipes, coupons, a Lorax stuffie & three cloth bags from Seventh Generation.

Package in the mail

Yesterday my latest (& likely last) addition to our diaper stash arrived in the post: a dozen Babyland diapers that I bought on eBay a couple of weeks ago. I love getting packages in the mail, even if they're not really for me. This order came with a nice surprise: a free travel size wet bag. (it's the denim print thing on the left of the photo)

Our current in-use diaper stash (in case you were wondering) includes 22 Babyland one-size pocket diapers with microfibre inserts, five other assorted pocket diapers also with microfibre inserts, four Bummis diaper covers, 15 hemp/cotton inserts I made myself, a few other inserts & doublers I've bought plus a hemp/cotton prefold. Definitely enough.

Some of the prints I ordered from eBay looked great online, but now that I've got them they're kinda funny. The cream coloured ones you see in the previous photo have bunnies on them... all wearing dresses. The green print with bears & balloons also looked great online. Once I saw them in person I laughed: can you see why?

Maybe we could buy some for a gift? LOL