Digging through recent photos it has become clear to me that my daughter is not not always the angel she at first appears. Take the photo below as an example. The photographer is pleading with her to be reasonable and not climb stairs at the tender age of 10 months, and all she can do is giggle her head off..
I've known for some time that my son has a mischievous streak to him. It wasn't until I captured the photographic proof below that I realised my daughter has inherited the same sense of humour...
Transporting 2 children by bike brings a new set of challenges compared to a single child. With Liam alone we used a Römer Jockey child seat, as shown below (not actually ours, I grabbed the pic from eBay).
We have 2 of these, so theoretically we can bring both kids anywhere we want to cycle. However, for visits to the Freibad, where a significant amount of towels, floating toys, sandwiches and sand toys are required, or indeed any situation where the adult:child ratio is less than 1:1, this is not applicable.
Thus once Rosalie was old enough, and the weather sunny enough (=end April) we splashed out on a Chariot Captain XL, shown with contents below.
The kids love it, and I'm impressed too. It's far easier to pull it than I had feared, the suspension soaks up the bumps for them pretty well. Uphill is still a struggle, but fortunately there's not too much of that on our regular routes anyway. The luggage space is pretty impressive, all "necessities" for the swimming pool can be brought along, including the (deflated) life-size dolphin.
The only catch is that Liam is so keen on cycling himself these days that he refuses to be carted anywhere less than 5 kilometres distance...
As the weather has warmed up in the last few weeks, we've put out Elektra's paddling pool, which is filled with cold water. She loves to jump in to cold water on her return from a walk in the sunshine.
However we hadn't counted on Liam's enthusiasm for a cold bath al fresco. He spotted the water, and within seconds his clothes were off and he was in.
Footnote: we tried the same trick with Rosalie, but she was not having any of it - anything less that 30C is out of the question for her...
The advantage of being able to sit up while eating is clear - it's even easier to smear your food around the house...
Notice the detail of boots on wrong feet, the whole look is simply captivating. It's just bound to catch on.
About the same time as her brother was learning to cycle, Rosalie was using her artistic creativity to enhance the pavement outside our house. As the video below shows, the biggest issue was to first choose the right colour of chalk...
Liam has been using his Laufrad since his second birthday, and his bicycle plus stabilisers since Xmas 2007. Today was lovely and sunny, so against Heike's advice, I let him have a go without the Stützräder.
A video of how he got on is embedded below. He was hesitant at first, and agreed after an attempt or two that it'd be wise to wear a helmet. Then he suddenly got the hang of it, and was off cycling towards Rosalie at top speed!
I think I learned to cycle about age 6, so it can't be my natural talent that he's inherited :-)
Liam celebrated his third birthday today, first at home with a candle-lit birthday breakfast, then with his classmates in the Kindergarten, then in the JumpInn indoor playground.
A slideshow of Picasa photos is embedded below:
Everyone has an opinion about who to vote for in the US Presidential election. Apart of course, from Scott Adams, who considers himself not well-informed enough to vote, and me, who has not as yet made the effort to understand the candidate's policies.
Up to now I've been of the opinion that replacing GWB with just about any other US citizen would make a marked improvement. Indeed, opening the rules to allow Arnie into the White House would have my support, if only for the amusement value of a half governor, half cyborg combat chassis running the White House.
The candidates all seem agreeable enough on first inspection. McCain has been vocal in renouncing torture, Clinton obviously cares about the healthcare disaster, and Obama seems like a generally nice guy. But that's somewhat less than an understanding of their policies...
But now, thanks to an online questionnaire from Der Spiegel, I don't need to make the thinking effort - I have discovered that I support the policies of Barack Obama, followed by Hillary Clinton, then John McCain.
Here's my political profile:
Disclaimer: I'm disenfranchised enough already by being non-resident in my country of birth, and a non-citizen in my country of residence, so please don't point out the bleedin' obvious fact that this election has nothing to do with me ;-)
Is it just me or does he look like he wants to catch those deer heads in his butterfly net?
We were in Dublin at the weekend for my 
niece Alannah's Christening party, or more correctly her welcoming party, as she didn't get any water poured over her.
Unfortunately my camera batteries died in the church, so I didn't get any pictures of her there, but we got a few of the party back at my parents house later. It was great to see all the assembled aunts, uncles and cousins again, there's nothing like a good family bash for that.
Liam and Rosalie had a great time too - Liam is always thrilled 
when he meets up with his Irish cousins. Here are Rosalie and Oran enjoying a bit of sofa time together.
Definitely a fun weekend, and once again congrats to Alannah on her welcoming ceremony.
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