Something new

First off, if you were a loyal LtL reader and wondered what happened, I stopped posting here and started putting London's pictures on my Picasa page. On one hand, this means I usually get more pictures posted a lot more quickly, so it's better for keeping the extended family and friends up to date. On the other hand, the captions on the Picasa page are not as long or thoughtful as the posts here, and some people miss that. So I might start posting here from time to time again.

Anyway, here's your post, and this one requires a little explanation.


This past year I've worked as the technical advisor on a series of kids' dinosaur books called Dinosaur Wars. They pit all kinds of dinosaurs against each other, not just those who lived in the same places or at the same times. This is all explained in the first half of each book, which also goes through the real adaptations that each dinosaur had that suited its lifestyle.


The second half of each book is the battle, a no-holds-barred fight to the death between whatever animals are on the cover, whether it would make any sense for them to fight or not. The first page of the battle always has the headline, "PAIN" When my complimentary copies of the books arrived, I read them all to London, using my best professional wrestling announcer voice, and he loves them to this day.


A couple of nights ago, Vicki spied on London in his room. He had set Baby Tiger and Simba, the Baby Lion, on the edge of his bed, brought in his little blue chair from the living room, and was reading them a couple of Dinosaur Wars books.


As he turned each page, London would hold up the book to show the baby cats what was going on, and then slam the book down on his lap and yell, "PAIN!"

When London figured out that Vicki was watching, he told her that she could take two pictures--but that was it. He also told her what he was doing: reading his baby cats some "dinosaur Bible stories".

The rest of the portraits

Well, here we are, only about a month late. Sorry if this is the first time you're seeing most of these. Family members: we own the copyright on all of these, so there is no problem with having prints made wherever you like.









My favorite is the hat picture, which I thought had a classic feel. I punched it up a bit with software:



London has been keeping us in stitches lately with his words.

He has been very curious about speeder bumps.

The following exchange was unsolicited and apropos of nothing:
London: When someone's head pops off it goes KABOOM!
Me: Yeah?
London: Yeah, and then you can't talk anymore.

Back in December he and I were playing a game, in which we'd taking turns asking, "What do a two and three make?" "Twenty-three", and so on. After we'd done high numbers for a while I switched things up and asked, "What do a one and an eight make?" He said, "One-ty eight!"

He came home from school one day with some kind of pigment all over his pants.
Me: Did you color on your pants?
London: Unh-uh.
Me: Did you get color on your pants?
London: Uh-huh!

We were eating something and he broke it in half and showed me both halves.
London: That's two halfs.
Me: Two halves?
London (exasperated): NO, two HAFFS, not two haves!

We were driving to preschool one morning.
London: What's under the road?
Me: Rocks.
London: Rocks?
Me: Yeah, it's pretty much rocks all the way down.
London: All the way down?
Me: Well, the world is made out of rocks.
London: The world is made out of rocks?
Me: Yeah, you know, underneath everything. The world is a big ball of rock. But it has other stuff on the outside, like water, and air, and trees, and plants, and animals--
London: --and toy stores!


We have two new additions here at Casa Wedel, both goldfish. Pictured above is Fred the Shubunkin. We also have Jennifer the Comet. The big aquarium also has a Mystery Snail, which London named Sly. When he found a smaller snail in the little aquarium, he named it Sly, too. I call them Sly the First and Sly the Second. He calls them First the Sly and Second the Sly.

Here and there

I was doing pretty good about getting pictures up at Christmas and then I kinda pooped out. Still tons of cool pictures to show from the Wedel half of Christmas, which I WILL get to.


In the meantime, London has been having much fun playing with his new Lego trucks.


I used my Christmas money from Terry and Carla to buy a spotting scope, and my Christmas money from Mom and Dad to put up a bird feeder in the back yard (thank you cards will come someday!). I have not gotten any non-fuzzy bird pictures but I did snag our local squirrel from about 30 feet out.



Today I flew to South Dakota, where I'll be filming for a dinosaur documentary for the next couple of days. On the drive to the Super 8 Motel in Hill City we went past Reptile Gardens--that ought to bring back some old vacation memories!


I've owned a digital camera for 6 years now, so I don't know why it didn't occur to me sooner to take some pictures of the gorgeous Southwest scenery that Californians fly over every time we go anywhere.


For you geology geeks out there, check out the laser-straight fault line cutting through the mountains in the above picture.

London has been keeping us in stitches with his words. About the only TV show we watch as a family is America's Funniest Videos, which London calls "the funny doggy show". If there is a particularly good video that makes him laugh, he will say "again" and we will use the jump back button on the remote to show him again.

The other night there was a commercial for the Miss America pageant. London said, "Those girls have not any pants on!" After the commercial was over, he said, "I wanna see the girls with not any pants on again." Sorry, dude, not this time.

London has been talking about "smooks". We don't know what smooks are and he can't tell us. Apparently sometimes they are good guys and sometimes they are scary guys. By trial and error drawing we discovered that smooks look like ghosts, of the white-sheet-draped-over-little-kid variety.

I have a ton more funny sayings written on the pad by the fridge, but that's in sunny SoCal and I'm in the Hill City Super 8, so you'll just have to be patient. It's 2 degrees out there tonight, but tomorrow the temperature should soar up to 5 or 6!

London feeds geese!

Today Mimi and Papa took London to a little lake near the library to feed the ducks and geese. We took some stale Cheerios and old bread, and London had a ball feeding all the birds.


London and Mimi and Papa were mobbed by dozens and dozens of hungry, honking waterfowl.


As we started to run low on munchies, most of the birds departed for greener pastures: the two guys in the background who showed up with some food of their own.


Our holdouts were a mob of big fat geese, who came after London and Mimi for the last breadcrumbs. One of them bit Mimi's finger, but fortunately Mimi had a glove on so it didn't hurt. They backed London up right against the tree, but as we were driving away I asked London what his favorite bird was and he said, "The one that chased me!"



London ran all the way around the lake. I walked, and took pictures.


London has been plagued by croup since he was a baby. He had a respiratory evaluation this summer and we learned that he has a narrow windpipe. Every night before bed he gets 9 minutes of steroid aerosol through a nebulizer mask. His mask is shaped like a fish, so he calls it doing his "fish face". Vicki and I use it as time to read him books before bedtime, and so does Papa.

Presents for London--and a big one for Daddy

On Saturday morning we had a little Christmas celebration in Claremont. We read the Christmas story, sang the only two carols London knows ("We Wish You a Merry Christmas" and "Jingle Bells"), and opened the gifts that the three of us had gotten for each other. London passed out the packages.


His first Christmas presents were a Transformer and a package of five little die-cast jet planes. He brought the little jets on the plane when we flew to Oklahoma City that afternoon.


Yesterday we went to church with Mimi, Papa, Aunt Sarah, Uncle Dan, and "my cousins Abby and Caty". As in, "Do you think that my cousins Abby and Caty will wait for us?" and "I want to go with my cousins Abby and Caty!"


Then we went back to Mimi's and Papa's house, where London's Great-Grandma Onie and Great-Grandpa Bud celebrated Christmas with us. If I tried to list all the stuff London got, I'd probably crash the internet. His biggest present was this Thomas the Tank Engine toy laptop, but his favorite in time invested in play is a battery-powered Thomas train that he has been chasing across one floor or another for most of the past 24 hours.

Last night London went to spend the night with "my cousins Abby and Caty" in Glenpool. It was only his second night away from both Vicki and me. He handled it like a champ; honestly, he played so hard with his cousins that I don't think he had time to miss us very much. We had time to miss him, though.


Since Vicki and I had the today off from parenting, we drove down to Norman, met Todd and Anna Ruth for lunch, and then went to the Oklahoma Museum of Natural History. The entrance gallery to the Hall of Ancient Life is under renovation and set to reopen in March. We went to see the reconstructed head and neck of Sauroposeidon--all 39 feet of it--which was mounted the first week of December. Most of it is still behind the barriers, but also above the barriers, so you can get some idea of what it will look like when the gallery reopens:


This is something that I've been dreaming of seeing for more than a decade, so it was a pretty great day.

Stay tuned--lots more Christmas to come!

Christmas in Claremont

Last week London made Christmas sugar cookies for the program at his preschool. We don't have a rolling pin, so we flattened the dough under a piece of wax paper. Worked just fine.


At the Christmas program he and his classmates made bracelets...



...wore reindeer hats...


...and ate pizza.


Then, as the light of the setting sun painted the snow-clad slopes of Mount Baldy...


...he slept, and dreamed of Christmas morning.

London at church

The fountain outside our parish hall. There are goldfish in the pool and we always stop and look every Sunday. London looked very sharp today in a dress shirt from Mimi.

Christmas season

Although London loves his new Legos, he still likes to build with his Duplo blocks. The other day he told me he was building a castle. When he was done I told him it was a very nice castle, but he said, "It's not a castle. It's a church!"


We have two weekly rituals. One is Friday Night Fish Stick Picnic. The other is watching America's Funniest Videos on Sunday nights, or as London calls it, "the funny doggy show." It always makes London laugh out loud.


London normally speaks without a noticeable accent, but somehow he figured out how to do a Southuhn drawl. Out of the blue a few months ago he started folding himself in half and saying, "Yuh see mah bahttum?" There is no predicting when this is going to happen, and sometimes he goes weeks without doing it. So it's always a surprise, and never follows what's been going on, which makes it funnier. We usually crack up and say, "Yes, we see your bottom, Silly Man!" Which makes him fold in half again and shout, "YUH SEE MAH BAHTTUM!?" This usually goes for a few cycles until we're all helpless with laughter.


Last weekend we set up our Nativity. It's the first we've ever had.


We've been reading about the first Christmas for London's bedtime Bible story. He knows the story by heart and he thinks it's very sweet that baby Jesus was born in a manger.


Last night we set up our Christmas tree. Mom and Dad sent a box of ornaments from when I was a kid. London had fun hanging bulbs.


This is maybe my favorite picture of Vicki and London, certainly my favorite since London was a newborn. Merry Christmas to you all!