Jacob Walks!

Jacob walked across the room unassisted for the first time last night. I particularly like Molly and Kate beaming with pride. Here's the footage...

We had a great visit to the McMichael gallery yesterday (oh the joys of Kate now getting days off!). Walking around the grounds after our visit, we came across some spiky past-bloom flowers. To impress upon Jacob not to grab them, we said "ouch" while touching them. Then we came to some asters and when Jacob reached out for them he shouted "ouch" and laughed so hard that tears were streaming down his face. He continued to find this joke funny for the next 20 minutes.

I've talked to enough people about the English election debate to realize that it's impossible to judge these things objectively. Righties think that Harper was cool under siege and that May was rude and shrill. Lefties think that May was a breath of fresh air, Layton was forceful and Harper was sinister and creepy. Neither side can imagine the other's point of view. That said:
- How many votes did Dion lose when he looked up at the camera during the culture section and said something about how important it was for us to all have fun. How could a party that was home to Trudeau choose this dweeb as their leader?
- I liked the part where May's index finger got tired from her wagging it at Harper for so long, then she switched to her little finger and started shaking that at him.
- Kate was disappointed to learn that we don't have a Bloc candidate running in our riding. I think she'd vote for Attila the Hun if he had a French accent.
- I didn't switch to the US VP debate once because I was riveted by the sheer entertainment value of the Canadian debate. I'm as disillusioned as the next guy, so that's pretty cool. Kate says it's just fun to see four people try to beat up on Harper for two hours. She suggested a reality show where 4 different people get to attack him every night.
- Before the French debate, Don Newman introduced the moderator as a "well-known personality in Quebec". How do you think the French media introduced Steve Paikin before the English debate - here's a guy who no one in English Canada has ever heard of unless they've only got rabbit ears hooked up to their tv and are one of the 8 people who watch TVO.
- Paikin was ridiculously bad. He was completely biased against Harper (how's that for objective reporting from me!!), asking his own follow-up questions directly to Harper whenever he didn't think The Four had grilled him properly and asked the most awkward debate question ever - "do you think Steven Harper is a barbarian?".
- There had to be someone from the Ontario government watching last night thinking, "Is TVO still on air", "Are we paying for it?", "Is it all as pathetic as this Paikin clown?". If you see cuts to TVO in the coming months, we'll know what started it.