Happy new year!

Today we had an expedition to Turkey Hill to find an Osage orange tree that dad remembered seeing there. We found the tree, notable for its thorns, and harvested some dead branches, and walked back. I had Oscar on my back, in Henry's carrier. I also had a Fun Meter button that I had found in the back of the minivan, set to Max of course. 

When we got home the men went out back with all the hand tools they could find and set about turning all that wood into something resembling sawdust. No one went to the emergency room! The chips were collected and set to soak in a pot full of isopropanol, to make a more efficient extraction of the dyestuff. When sufficiently extracted, the dyepot was then boiled to remove the isopropanol, which we subsequently learned was heavier than air. A little vinegar was added, and some fresh underpants, and the New Year's tradition was continued. They actually turned out quite yellow! I would totally try this again, except I don't think Osage orange trees grow in Colorado. Goldenrod would also work.

The remaining underpants were colored with Rit dye, and they are much more obviously yellow. I do not think, however, the amount of luck the underpants bring you is corellated with the amount of yellow dye they contain. I also do not think it is allowed to buy fresh yellow underpants - dying them yourself is what adds the luck to them.

Famous

The river is famous to the fish...

This was on the front page of the Coloradoan on Friday. There are two irritating things about it - one, that we like parking in that neighborhood, and two, that Eric isn't even a CSU student any more! But once he's approved for his sweet new job as lab manager, we'll be able to ride the tandem bike to school again and never have to worry about parking. 

One year old!

Someone just got a lot closer to being a real human!

Oscar got to open some nice presents just after he woke up. Then he ate breakfast and went to daycare, and cried immediately when I put him down. Eric's parents and gramma came up with Beau, and they and Eric and Oscar had a grand old time. We all went out to dinner at a real restaurant, where Oscar drank lemonade from a straw and chowed down on some lamb. Then we came home for more presents and an incredible bunny cake that Sue made. In short, he had a pretty awesome first birthday!

We didn't take any more pictures after breakfast, but I'm sure I'll be posting some from Eric's family soon. And that is what it is like to turn one!

I never understood why people had birthday parties for their very young children, since the children really don't know what's happening. But now I've realized it's really to celebrate the parents - we've been parents for a whole year now! We're not noobs anymore. And we've taken good care of Oscar too.

Go team!

Working for the weekend

Poor Oscar had a very hard day today.

Fortunately, I guess, this means he goes to bed very very early. But then there is no time for playing!

These days one of the favorite games is Where's Oscar? (Good thing we didn't name him Waldo, which was on the list.) This weekend we played a lot of that.

He also wore his hilarious polar fleece onesie, since it is still uncomfortably cold.

And he tried his hand at spinning! (More on that pastime later.)

It was a good weekend but a pretty rough Monday.

Nelson Mandela

This song has been in my head all day:

Banjo men

They play very nicely together, these two!

the real deal

Oscar is still very close to walking. Which means he won't be crawling for much longer! Here he is in full crawl. Note that his feet are kept delicately off the ground - he may be a born gentleman. That is not a euphemism.

science

I crossed a plant that expresses green fluorescent protein with one of my plants that expresses red fluorescent protein. The green fluorescent protein should be in the cytoplasm, and the red fluorescent protein should be in the cell walls, so I will be able to do some fancy microscopy to show a red cell outline filled in with green. For now, though, I can image the whole plant with a fluorescence dissecting microscope, and do a little dance in my seat in the microscope room because it totally worked!

First, the bright field, so you can see there are two plants there:

Then the red fluorescent protein: both plants express it. 

Then the green fluorescent protein: only the bottom plant expresses it. This means that the plant I used for making the crosses only had one copy of the green fluorescent protein gene, so half of the resulting offspring are green and half are not. This is very convenient for confirming that the green fluorescence is genuine and not due to excitement of chlorophyll, for example.

I took these pictures by holding our lab's digital camera up to the eyepiece of the microscope. Pretty low-tech, but it's good enough for me! These plants are the result of the first crosses I ever made in Arabidopsis, which has flowers smaller than the end of a Q-tip. To make the cross, you have to take a flower from one parent and remove all the anthers with their pollen. Then you have to take an anther from the other parent and dust it on the stigma of the first parent. All this is done under a dissecting microscope because the parts are so small! It is not my favorite thing to do, but since I am apparently capable of doing it successfully, it is not my least favorite thing either. That would be cloning....

pirate baby

high five!

Oscar has found my hairbrush! It has some very interesting textures for him to chew on. Also it is full of hair...

Meanwhile, Garage stands sentry.

while the boys are away...

Eric and Oscar are in Castle Rock still - they left yesterday and will be back tomorrow. I miss my buddies! But, I did get to eat breakfast while reading a magazine this morning. And, in the interim, I've been working on some secret projects in peace and quiet.

rolls made of bread

These are the cinnamon rolls I made last week. They turned out ok, but it wasn't really what I was going for. However, I am very impressed with myself for making rolls that look like real rolls! Made of bread!

These are the cinnamon rolls I made this weekend. They also turned out ok, and are totally what I was going for! I remembered that the true name of the roll I was trying to make is Pecan Twirls, and then I found suitable recipes galore (most of them involving pillsbury crescent roll dough, which, for this occasion I turned up my nose at).

So cute! So twirly! And of course D-L-S!

Spin cycle

Someone has found the washing machine! He admires the spinning laundry very much. Maybe Zippy the Pinhead will be his role model too...

A toothy grin

Somebody's eleven months old today! His eyebrows are still always up, so he can see more. He's almost standing by himself, and he still loves trying to eat cat food. Now that he has teeth he has a fighting chance of success with that...

children's games

Oscar and I play a little game where he throws things on the floor and then I pick them up. But it's not as willy-nilly as that sounds - there are rules involved. Specifically, he has to say "eh!" after he throws the thing, and then I will pick it up. We have played it with his dog friend, and the letter O, and a spoon... The rules are always the same. And he says "eh!" the same way every time! That's how you know he's doing it on purpose.



See also this video:
(I wouldn't watch the whole thing, it gets the point across verrry quickly. But it reminds us of Oscar.)

bath time!

Oscar has become a crazy bath boy. He will splash until he knocks himself over if I let him. I usually just draw a half-bath and sit outside and keep him from drowning but lately he's splashing me so much that I might as well get in the tub with him. He splashes and laughs and laughs and then bends over and tries to drink the bath water and starts coughing and choking until he throws up a little, and then he starts again! He especially likes when I leave the water running from the faucet a little bit. Then he tries to get his head positioned so he can drink the water, but he hasn't figured out tipping his head so the water just runs in his eyes. Sometimes he puts his hand up to the water and directs it into his mouth a little, which is cool to see. Other times he gets fed up and grabs onto the faucet and pulls himself up on it. He has even pulled the tub-to-shower knob a few times and gotten surprised when water started spraying on his head! I bet he would stay in the tub pretty much until he fell asleep, or until the water got too cold.

what a silly boy!

Oscar starts to lose his tiny mind pretty easily. Fortunately we captured it on this hilarious video. Try not laughing when you watch it!



Oscar still thinks it's hilarious to smack Eric on the hat.

Modeling

Oscar and I enjoyed the sunshine and the rainbows in my room this morning. He hung out in the jumper while I finished winding a warp - it's been two years since I last made a warp! He did a lot of posing for me in his over large shirt so I took a few pictures of him. Then I took his shirt off, since he was modeling anyway, and since he has a rash that the sunlight should be good for. He really wanted to do some more drinking out of cups!

Oscar and Butters

It was nice last weekend, so we let Oscar and all the rabbits out in the yard to enjoy some fresh grass and sunshine. Oscar and Butters got along well. Eric took a video at first by mistake, but we think it turned out pretty nice. It was a calm sort of afternoon.

Show me your moves!

At dinner the other night Oscar was being very obliging, and entertaining.

crusty little Oscar

Oscar has been making some good noises lately, here's a sampling.

Eric and Dane in the recording studio

...This is the one!
Eric and Dane have been fixing up the garage into the recording studio of their dreams (I think). They have not been listening to Pet Sounds while doing so, more fools they. They also spent at least an hour looking at foam panels for the walls to create an echo chamber. Foam is expensive!
They've made it quite cozy out there, a nice den and dad hangout.

flavors of the alphabet

Oscar got some magnetic letters from his baba yaga. The O is preferred at the moment, because he can try to rip it apart with his sharp little teeth (he has four teeth now). His favorite game is to drop the O while sitting up somewhere high (the bouncy chair, the high chair). He says "Eh!" and then I pick it up for him. How do they know that this is what to do? 

Drummer boy inna box

When Eric starts playing on the drum, Oscar will stop what he's investigating, turn around, and come crawling full tilt until he can put his hands on the drum head and stop the noise! But then he takes on of the sticks from Eric so that he can start making noise himself. They are quite a team.