test garvin wordpress

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGWlril35bI&hl=en_US&fs=1&&w=640&h=385]

Josh bought Art some ice skates (Josh loves ice skating even though he's from Arkansas). Arthur immediately wanted to put them on and wobble around the room. And a pre-bed nature show a couple days ago.

Today Art turned four.  That means that four years ago Art was brought into this world after over 30 hours of labor and pushing and eventual surgery.  He was healthy and nice and squishy.  Now he's healthy and tall and bony.  Because he is now old enough to really know  what a birthday can be (!) we collected his friends for a morning of mayham and spent hours last night getting ready. But what were we getting ready?  Well, Grandpa Tim had sent us a "cardboard castle" - twenty 2'x2' boxes organized into a three story castle of connected rooms that he had made for his grandkids in North Carolina and sent on to us - and last night Ben and Uncle Josh reassembled the castle in our basement.  It took three hours but it was worth it.  More on that later.  Meanwhile I was decorating Art's chair (a Parker family birthday tradition) and making a cake.  That took me nearly three hours because of all the mixing and cooling and chocolate melting and frosting and decorat...

Look at the brute strength needed to get through that icing! opening a couple presents in the morning. Art has had snakes on his mind alot lately (we've been watching David Attenborough nature show on reptiles). So Jessica made an exact life-size replica of a green amazon anaconda.

When my brother Josh and I were kids our pops used to get a bunch of old refridgerator boxes and other big ones and made a little maze for us. It was a highlight of childhood and super duper fun. My dad now lives in North Carolina and recently built a big castle for my step-sisters kids out there, and a few months ago he broke it down and had it shipped here. I got a call one day, "Mr. Garvin, we have a delivery. Where is your loading dock?" So funny. I stored the boxes in our garage and last night, the day before Arthur's birthday, my brother came over, read books to art and tucked him in, and then we worked into the wee hours building the castle listening to Bob Dylan and drinking Summit. It was real fun and real nice of Josh to come over and spearhead the construction of the thing. Papa had even written us instructions labeling each box with numbers and a grid. While Josh and I were working on the boxes Jessica stayed up equally late making literally one of the tasties...

Lewis just peed in the potty. This according to sources but as yet unconfirmed. Check back soon for more information. --Sent from my handheld device.--

Here's Lew with Grandpa Bill, Jessica's uncle's father. So technically not a grandpa to Lew, but he is indeed a grandpa. Lewis seemed to have fun playing with Bill throughout the evening.

Standing at the top of the stairs in Nance and Brian's kitchen Art said, "I have to make a poop, Mama!" to which Aunt Deb gushed in her ticklishly witty way, "Your kids are so creative!  Always making something!"

Jeff Wheeler at the Strib took this nice photo of me working hard. With every "Go Wolves!" I'd feel a pom pom on my back and smell a thick cloud of beauty products.

Below is a slide show (with descriptive captions!) of some of Art's recent drawings. I'm thrilled to see him drawing more often. I love to see what choices he makes and also to see him shake his fear of "not knowing how". http://picasaweb.google.com/s/c/bin/slideshow.swf

The Morning  First of all, let me just say that Nature Day may be my favorite day of the week.  We have a family schedule nowadays and Monday is Nature Day when we either go to a zoo or on a walk outside somewhere lovely, anything to do with nature.  I LOVE going on a nature walk with the kids!  Art is just on fire when we're out there!  Discovering, pretending and asking questions.  Today we went to Woodlake Nature center and started our time in the Interpretive Building where all the taxidermy is.  We touched a fox, otter, beaver and swan and saw an owl hanging from the ceiling!  That was especially fun because Lewis's joke lately is to point somewhere and say, "Ow-wool!" and laugh when we say, "There's no owl up there!"  Well, today he got to point and there was an owl! Later Developments So, now BOTH kids are sick.  Both kids have ear infections and at one point today Art had a sore throat.  Eventually he was so pumped with medicine he it was imperce...

Lewis is sick, Art is happy. That's been the story the past two days around here. Lewis has an ear infection in both ears. He's been limp and super snuggly for the past few days, which jessica and I guiltily love. He's on antibiotics and stuff so he'll hopefully be back to his normal happy self soon. Art, however, has been in a terrific mood lately.

So, Lewis is enjoying a language explosion, adding new words every day.  Today he said ho duh (hot dog), the other day he said cackoo (cracker) and he's been saying gew all week (juice).  He also has a two word phrase - au go! (let's go!).

If my life were drawn like a line on a piece of paper, tonight that line would have peaked. It was wonderful to celebrate my book and my work with so many friends and family. And I sold nearly 30 books! (My friend and fellow photographer Ginger Pinson took these lovely photos) http://picasaweb.google.com/s/c/bin/slideshow.swf

Ben and I saw a movie recently that ended with a mother gazing at her son while he ate his dinner.  Sometimes I just like to gaze at one or both of the boys while they are deeply involved in something.  Or not.  Tonight Art, Lewis and I went to Ben's book signing event at the Pioneer Press building.  We called it Papa's Party and on the way back I put Art's car seat in the front (I was driving Bubbe's old Tracker, made before child-killing passenger side airbags).  While I was driving through the night and streetlights I wanted to gaze at Art just sitting there next to me.  At a stoplight I started the video camera (resting on the parking break, not in my hands!) and now I have that moment captured. [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4jjK7YoS0M&hl=en_US&fs=1&&w=425&h=344]

I use google voice now for messages on my cell phone and it transcribes and e-mails me messages. It's super cool although often entirely inaccurate. For instance, below is a message Jessica just left. Do you have any idea what it's about? Below you can play the real thing. "Hey Ben, This is what I want to see if I had one of those mobile phone. Both on the say the what I was really today and whatever and note to self do not bring granola bars and a snack for the tickets after you vacuum the car picnic, so that was what I have. That was my slightly. Woody thing i was gonna say and just Do You Wanna Balloon." https://clients4.google.com/voice/embed/embed...

I took Art, Lewis and Art's friend Evva to a park yesterday after school.  Evva and Art have known each other since ECFE (baby class) when they were just over one year old.  They are friends. It was nice because Lewis and I could hang out while Evva and Art busied themselves.  At one point they just dashed out to the huge field adjoining the park and chased some Canadian Geese around.  I was nervous that the geese might get aggressive and then I realized that they would hiss and beat their wings before they would bite (the geese, that is) which would undoubtedly scare at least Art away.  Probably Evva, too. We had snacktime at a picnic table.  I brought raisins, crackers, apples, clementines, granola bars and water. Before I got the camera out for this picture Art was hugging Lewis and giving him a kiss. This is another hug.  Ben said over and over as he got this picture ready for the blog, "This picture is so weird!  What are they doing?"  It's hard to navigate a hug...

Did I mention that Lewis says Gackoo (Parker/Garvin for pacifier), cheese, boo-boo and today he added a very important one. Hot Cocoa! However he skimps on the consonants. He says, "Ha co-oh".

The other day I took dictation from Art.  For the life of me I can not remember the context.  I know he was composing either a letter or a message or an email or... I can't remember exactly, but I wrote it down for him word for word and here it is: To you, Delivery. Garden package. Ball toy.  War. Nodee foat. Nodee banacko.

Yesterday Jessica took the kids on a nature walk while I stayed in bed (was sorta sick). This photo below is how Arthur arrived, asleep with his animals in the bike trailer. I transferred him to his bed and he woke up and was excited to tell me about all the things they found on the nature walk. Paraphrased: "Papa, we, we, we saw a centipede! It had a LOTTA legs. And we lifted a log up and a lotta beetles came out of holes." And this is how Lewis arrived after Jess and I returned from a run this morning:

Yesterday I took Art into work with me. He loves going there. I'm not entirely sure why, but as soon as I told him he was clearly extremely happy. We saw some of my work friends, went to the coffee shop for a cookie, and listened to really loud 'booming music' in the car (also known as Pictures at an Exhibition by Mussorgsky, Art's very favorite music). While in the office he peed in the potty. After he finished he studied the bubbles. "Look, Papa," he said. "That looks like a giraffe!" I know this might be too much information, but his pee bubbles did look like a giraffe. And then as they dwindled he said, "now it looks like a snake." I just loved that.

On Sunday I had my first signing. Not nearly as impressive as it sounds, but still pretty fun. Especially since my brother Josh showed up, whom I love. Did you know that josh!? Norton, my publisher, also showed up. As did three friends from the paper which was a fun. I sold eight books! The staff of Borders treated us like important people and made us some free fancy mocha's. It was really fun. I have one more scheduled for this Friday, Nov 20th at the Borders in Roseville from 7-9, please stop by and say hello! Josh reading a book. Look at him go.

I just get a little tickled when I set the table for Art, Lewis and myself. Three levels of fork.

Lewis had his 18 month check up last week. He handled himself very well - sat on the scale, got measured, ears and eyes checked and belly squished. All is normal and well! He was measured for height on the paper first, which gave him an extra 1 1/2"!!!  So at first we got this for his percentile: Taller than 100% of other kids his age!?!?! They remeasured him standing up and he was just over 34", 98th percentile. Ben said, "Where's that extra 2%? I wanna take 'em out! Then my kid can be 100th again!!!" Lewis didn't mind either way. He had a fine time at the doctor's office. It should also be known that he is quickly adding words to his vocabulary. He says banana (nanna), apple, bubbles, stool, Mama, Papa, owl, baby, tree, ball and maybe another. Oh! He says, "Uh-oh!" and "No", too. In fact, he was pointing to something and saying it was an owl and I said, "Is that the owl?" and at first he said, "Uh-hu...

Tonight Art, Lewis, my friend Lena and I went to Bubbe's for Chicken Rice!  Art's old favorite, chicken and green pepper stir fry.  While Art was snarfing helping after helping he asked, "Is this chicken died?" (meaning dead).  I told him that yes, it was.  "Why is it died?"  I liked Bubbe's answer.  "Because it wouldn't stay on your plate if it wasn't!"

Okay okay, I know this isn't really kid-related, but it's certainly Papa-related! My book arrived today! It's super exciting and looks great. I haven't found any mistakes yet... They will be in all local bookstores next week. And for those interested, there will be a book release event/gallery show next week at the Pioneer Press ( 345 Cedar Street, St. Paul ) on Thursday, November 19th, from 4:30-6pm. I hope you can come! [updated] --I'm doing two readings in coming week. The Borders in Woodbury this Sunday the 15th from 1-3pm and the Borders in Roseville fri the 20th 7-8:30pm. I don't know what the hell I'll be reading. Maybe the title. "Welcome everyone. Ant Farm!" For those who are out of town you can buy books on Amazon and other places. But I'm also happy to personally sign and ship books, which takes out the middle man (I make more money!) and you get a nice signed book. $28 ($25 for book + $3 shipping). Here's a link to purchase t...