Screw Bob Dole, I Need a Gas-Powered Snowblower

In a great testament to the Tweedledum/Tweedledee of US politics, Kate can't keep Bob Dole and Al Gore straight. To her, they're one person. And we call him Bob Dole. So, Dole made the self-promoting environmental movie. Dole was the spokesperson for Viagra. Dole invented the internet. Dole won the Nobel prize. Dole was too old to beat Clinton. Dole was too cardboard and ineffectual to beat Bush. It's a fun game.



Here's a photo from early this morning, after I cleared a narrow path in the walk, and a wider one in the back to get the stroller through. We made it out for our daily coffee, through the snowdrifts. Very heroic. And I don't really want a snowblower - just looking for an excuse to mention Gore Dole.

That's One Strong Santa

Here's a shot of the family, all on Santa's knee(s), last Saturday.

Bumbo photos

It has been an up and down few days. Kate was quite sick at the end of last week, just before going on call for the weekend. But fortunately the kids cooperated by sleeping well all weekend and the patients cooperated by not going into labour during the nights. So we survived intact. We had a good visit from Greg & Jo on Saturday. I think Jo is quite smitten with Jacob, who was at his flirtatious best. Saturday was a big day as the kids also met Santa for the first time, at a Christmas party. I don't think they really noticed him though - maybe next year.

Here are a couple of photos of the kids in their new Bumbo - our latest venture into the world of unnecessary commercialism. Ah well, at least there'll be lots of babies to pass it on to after we're finished. Also, note Molly in regular shoes, during her 1 hour break from the boots & bar. We find out next week if she can come out of the boots for good (except for at night) as we're down at Sick Kids on Wednesday.

My Obsolescence

Here's a video of Molly learning to feed herself. Once they master feeding, not sure what my remaining responsibilities will entail.

Lots of Movies

In the past couple of weeks we've seen a tonne of well-reviewed movies, due to a confluence of events:
- home pretty much every evening
- don't seem to have the brain capacity to read books any more
- don't see all the well-reviewed movies in the theatre anymore so there are finally things to rent

In order from worst to best, here's what we've seen (with Rotten Tomatoes approval rating in brackets) in the past few weeks:
- Live Free or Die Hard (80%). I know, what did I expect from a series that wore out it's welcome decades ago. But the critics thought it was great action and retro cool. They were wrong. John McLane has lost his sense of humour and turned into a crotchety, preachy old fart, disgruntled at young folks who are into newfangled technologies like computers. The co-star, Justin Long, plays the young punk with much to learn from the old tough guy. Long is the guy from all the Mac tv ads and I can't believe that Apple doesn't have something in his contract to prevent him taking a role like this. In this movie, Bruce Willis is basically the uncool, old PC guy. Except, here he has the upper hand. Very weak movie.
- Sicko (93%). Michael Moore is played out. He's so manipulative, selective, self-promoting and biased that you can't believe anything he says. Even when you agree with his conclusions. I couldn't believe it when he brags in the movie about anonymously donating money for medical expenses to one of his critics. Dude, look up "anonymously" in the dictionary.
- Rescue Dawn (91%). I'm flummoxed by any talk of Christian Bale getting Oscar recognition for this role. All the acting is wooden and unconvincing. The story does stay with you though. In an "I hope I'm never taken POW during an illegal invasion" kind of way".
- Beowulf (70%). The action was good and the style was cool. My enjoyment of this movie may have been completely out of proportion due to: (a) I actually went out to the theatre and had no twin responsibilities for this 2-3 hour period; and (b) Angelina Jolie (even a semi-animated, computer-generated version) is a spectacularly naked siren/villain.
- Ratatouille (97%). It's a shame that they've created an Oscar category for animated films because there just aren't enough good ones to justify an award. Besides Toy Story and Triplets of Belleville, have there really been any recent, GREAT, animated films? Do we really need to honour Happy Feet and The Incredibles? This is a good movie, but it's not spectacular.
- Chalk (78%). Filmed in the same kind of style as The Office, this is a really funny take on the lives of teachers, and the pathetic waste of time that high school can represent. I won't remind Kate about this one when our homeschooling debate begins full force in a few years.
- Hairspray (93%). Really good musical - like an updated Grease & Saturday Night Fever. I'm not a big musical guy, but this is worth the price of admission just to see Christopher Walken and John Travolta (as an overweight woman - but not in the Norbit way) dancing together. Now that's retro cool. Plus, a good excuse to link to the best music video of all time
- Waitress (89%). Kate liked it, primarily because it stars her hero Malcolm, from Joss Whedon's Firefly series, as a bumbling, slightly socially awkward obstetrician. It's a bit on the lightweight side, but it felt real and human and just quirky enough.

None of them are supplanting anything off the Top 50 films of all-time list, but some very rentable/downloadable movies.

Back on the right track?

The kids slept well last night and again during the day today, so maybe we were jumping the gun on worrying. Then again, after a full night's sleep we woke up to Molly in the middle of the room, having rolled over a few times, off her bed, heading toward her brother. Needless to say, we spent today madly childproofing the room for semi-mobile twins.

Here are a few December photos.

- Jacob looking ready to crawl


- Molly in the "fly like an airplane" hold, granting the camera a rare half-smile

- Proof that Jacob really is growing hair. No, really, double-click on the photo, I swear you can see hair there.

- The view out our front door. There's even more snow now. How picturesque is our birdfeeder? You would almost think that I had put it up slighty askew for artistic purposes.

A Sensitive Period??

We seem to have run into a few sleep issues in the past couple of days. Molly was up last night, inconsolable from 2:30-4am and Jacob has been having trouble getting down for his daytime naps. I just spent 45 minutes with him raging at me while he was obviously exhausted. This seems to have coincided with both of them discovering the wonders of their hands. They're grabbing and holding anything they can get their hands on. They're also rolling over in every direction, making them a bit more of a supervisory challenge (especially in our no-crib world). So, they're getting to be more and more fun, interactive, interesting and challenging. Kate is about to be on call something like 9 out of 18 nights, so we may be limping a little by Christmas.

It is beautiful here. The snow continues to deepen - we've had snow on the ground for at least two weeks now. Pushing the stroller through the drifts is the closest thing I've got to a workout these days. Our outdoor Christmas lights went up this weekend so the house is looking quite festive, blanketed in white, twinkling with tacky lights.