syrup, sugar, and sunshine
On Saturday, Nate and I headed out to the Coral Woods Conservation Area for the Festival of the Sugar Maples. This is a yearly program run for two weeks by the McHenry County Conservation District.
It's a half-mile hike through the snow in Coral Woods with four stops detailing some of the history of maple sugar and maple syrup: from Native Americans sugar production in a hollowed-out log to modern sap collection. At the end, where they have an evaporator set up, you can sample the syrup they do make from the sap being collected. As the program only runs for two weeks there's only enough syrup to give out the tastes at the end, so none to take home.
This years warmer temps and sun made for a great time. Nate was very interested and participated at all the stops. He also received a number of complements from people in our group with how articulate and involved he was. By the time we were done with our tour, the number of people at the park had probably quadrupled. So we had clearly arrived at just the right time.
During the drive home, I failed to keep Nate awake (and who could blame him after our morning), which re-set his clock and left 
helloheather and I with a lot less time to work on house stuff. So...
Off Nate and I went again; this time to the Crystal Lake Nature Center. It's a small but fun building that is part of the Veteran's Acres park. We read books, looked at some of the animals they have, and then hiked in the slush and snow around the pond.
It was a good Saturday. The kind of hints-of-spring type day (we heard sandhill cranes flying north while at Coral Woods) that really can reinvigorate.
familial update
We received very little of the big snow fall that came through the Chicago area. In part because a lot of it was due to lake effect and in part because the storm seems to have tracked further south. But even so, people on the south side of Crystal Lake got more snow than we did, so we must have been right on the edge of a snowy band.
Nate went through a growth spurt not too long ago, where he grew over an inch in just 2.5 weeks. He was hungry all the time (no wonder) but now the appetite is more normal, so I think things have slowed.
I made a ha-ha-lame joke last night about how it's better to be European than Europoopin' and then had to explain the joke to Nate. He loved it and I'm just such a great dad, right? (You should have seen the look helloheather gave me...)
Nate's time at his new preschool seems to be going very well. A small class of kids more his age was definitely a good change. Our school-art-on-display collection is growing again, which I love. Having stuff on the cabinets, doors, etc. is so cool. When helloheather cleaned house (we had completely run out of space to display stuff) it felt so empty and naked in the kitchen.
Child number two is rapidly approaching his or her birthday. We've changed doctors (yes, somewhat late in the game) but we're both very glad we have. The previous practice was not being supportive or informative. The new doctor also delivers at the hospital 5 minutes from our house rather than the one 25 minutes away. An added bonus.
My parents (and paternal grandfather) felt the 3.8 earthquake we had in northern Illinois on February 10th. They were only 5 miles away from the epicenter though. People as far away as Madison, WI felt the quake actually, but neither helloheather or I woke up.
We did have an addition to our family, photographically speaking, at Christmas. Thanks to a generous gift, we're now the owners of a Canon T1i Digital Rebel. It's a very good upgrade to the Rebel XT that we've been using since 2006. The auto-focus is faster, the ISO range expanded, a bigger and brighter viewfinder, the shutter is quieter, and it has a big and detailed LCD. Exciting stuff.
on fort building
helloheather went on a retreat to Oregon, IL this past weekend, being gone from Friday evening until late Saturday evening (having driven 2 hours in the fog at a snails pace).
This was the first time Nate and I were home alone.
We did not thwart the bumbling efforts of two would-be criminal types. John Hughes would not have been impressed.
Still, we had fun. I built a fort in our front room on Friday night and Nate and I had a camp-out. He did ask if we were going to have a camp-fire but alas, prudence dictated no open flame in the foyer.
I built our fort out of the kitchen chairs, a blanket, a couple strong clips, and our Therm-a-rest (tm) sleeping pads. It was fun. I have very fond memories of my dad building me a fort like this when I was a kid and it was nice to be able to do this for Nate.
Most of the time we just hung out. We played a lot of Cars (tm) which he's /really/ into right now. This was, in part, because I gave him a new car ("Sheriff") as a gift for the weekend. We also visited with another dad, who's wife was on the weekend retreat, and had lunch with him at the Burger King (which has a play area).
We had so much fun with the fort that we slept there again Saturday night, even though helloheather had returned home.
catch-up post #n
I was off work from December 23rd through January 4th and it was a really great. helloheather and Nate and I relaxed and spent a lot of quality time together.
Christmas was busy, as usual, with events every day from the 24th through the 27th. But, despite the big snowfall, and the driving around, it was really all very good. Nate was a trouper and really seemed to enjoy visiting the family. Lots of photos need to be posted.
We visited the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum after Christmas, mostly to see the Butterfly Haven they have there. I really thought Nate would enjoy it, but he was not impressed. There were other exhibits he liked though, and overall the visit was a good one. Also, with so many people being off work the week between Christmas and New Years, we had no problems driving into and out of Chicago.
Nate and I also spent a lot of time outside in the snow over break, which was really great. I'm very glad we've had all the snow and that it's been cold enough to keep it from melting. Though, I did hear on the news last night that, if it warms up on Wednesday or Thursday, it'll be the first time since Christmas that we've been at or above 32 deg F. So, it's been a little chilly!
Being back at work for a full week (last week) was tough. It's really easy to get into a habit of being lazy and family-oriented around the house and very difficult to get back into work-mode mentality. However, I've managed to chase the mid-day blues away a bit by bringing a DSLR to work and walking around in the cold and snow. Boots and thermals have been a must.
So 2010 is here and the end of March is rapidly approaching. I'm still not really ready for all of this but it's certainly not waiting for me to catch up.
Another hit to (our) film photography
Whenever I shot film (which was quite a bit this summer, at least a dozen rolls) I would use our local Target store for developing. Their next-day service: develop the film and scan the negatives to CD all for about $3.70 including tax. This was great and let me populate my photoblog with some nice photos.
Recently I've given Nate one of my film cameras, an Olympic Stylus Epic, and set him up with a couple of rolls of black and white film. He's prefectly happy to just press and press and press the shutter button photographing nothing or photographing us. He was having a ton of fun and I was planning on freeing up some space in my film/beer storage fridge.
This weekend helloheather went to Target to shop and to drop off his first roll of Ilford XP2 only to discover that our Target store is no longer developing film. Now they only have a send out service and it takes 7-10 days. My experience with send-out services has been...less than pleasant. I'm expecting the scans to be pretty bad. I'm expecting the negatives to look like they've been walked over by a dozen people.
For better or worse, the world of film is certainly not doing well... I enjoyed using it this summer as it, once again, forced me to slow down a bit and consider the shot. It helped too that I was limiting myself to a single focal length (50mm). I enjoyed the color palette I was getting from (expired) Kodak UC 400. And yeah, I cleared out a little more space in that fridge. But I especially enjoyed the 1-day turn-around CD's for so little money at a location that was right on my route home from the train.
I guess if we want to shoot any more film we're going to have to go just a little bit further and pay a little bit more.
Happy Thanksgiving
Happy Thanksgiving everyone. To celebrate, Nate drew this turkey and wrote his name (!!)
preschool
Nate started preschool back on September 9th and he's been going two days a week in the morning. Near as I can tell, everything is going really well.
It started off with a few tears, mostly because the week before, we all had visited the school in the evening, and he thought we'd be staying again. On his first day, after he started to cry a bit, his teacher quickly shepherded him off to a distraction. I understand it is important for her to maintain some semblance of order on the first day and I understand that getting any child into the routine can be good for everyone, but I didn't get to say goodbye to him before he was hauled away. It's silly to be bothered by this, I know, and yet I still am.
But there were no problems after the first day, and now he can barely be contained in his drive to get into the classroom to begin his day.
I said "near as I can tell" before, only because I'm pretty sure he's being trained by CIA agents in proper techniques to resist divulging sensitive information if captured. I don't really know what he is actually doing at school. Questions about his day, his activities, etc either go unanswered or are returned with a very teenage-sounding "nothin'." I realize this is fairly common for preschoolers and so I just roll with it. I'm grateful that the teachers send home a little newsletter at the end of the week so we have some idea of what has been going on.
Every once in a while little snippets make their way out: he'll start singing a song we've never heard before or he'll say some series of sentences that we've never uttered. helloheather and I will just look at each other and smile.
Today is class picture day for Nate. And that by itself is something that amazes me.
Nathan at Three
I've been struggling with what to say to describe Nate at three years of age. I read through "Nathan at Two" and was intimidated by my own post. I really like it; it was written from the heart and with very little editing. The words swept onto the page.
We've had a busy late spring/summer. It's been difficult to sit down for a bit and contemplate his 3rd year.
Nate is three years-old now. When I think about his first few weeks after his birth I can't help but think of the blooming of the hostas in our yard. I think about, of all things, the All Star Game and the night I sat watching the tv with him, fast asleep, on a pillow on my lap, the sun setting behind our linden tree and the warm air skittering in through the open patio door. He was so small...so fragile...and I was so afraid.
And now, as the hostas again are blooming, he sits and reads books with us. Now he asks question after question after question to the point where he has so much momentum going that he'll ask us things like "what's 'milk' means?" even though he has been drinking milk for two years. He is amazingly curious and perceptive. He knows, right away, when helloheather and I are starting to have an argument and does everything he can to stop it or distract us. It's sobering and sometimes frightens me to think of what else he has absorbed and is absorbing.
As most children his age, he pushes the boundaries. We try very hard to respond appropriately to these forays into freedom. We try to be firm but fair and we try to be instructive throughout. It's tough though and sometimes we fail. If nothing else, Nate keeps us on our toes.
His love for books continues unabated. We seem to run through these phases where I forget how much he loves to read and we end up playing cars or pirates or "chase me" or whatever game he wants and then have only time for a single book in the evening. So the pendulum will swing back and we'll end up reading a dozen books together and he'll ask questions the whole time through. He doesn't just sit there and have a book read to him...he participates and he is engaged.
He's figuring out the rules of this universe, and we're trying to figure him out as well. He's so enthusiastic that sometimes it takes my breath away. Happy Birthday, Nate.
summer solstice
Yesterday was the summer solstice and so we will receive one second less light than the day before. Tomorrow: 9 seconds. The march to the maximum rate of change at the equinox has begun.
Length of Day - 15h 16m - Tomorrow will be 0m 9s shorter
Source: http://www.wunderground.com/US/IL/Crystal_Lake.html
I always get a little melancholy around the summer solstice because it seems like I'm just getting into a summer stride when our evenings begin to peel away like that of the skin of an apple. Slowly as we revolve and rotate, the length of our day is stripped and discarded. And so I have striven to celebrate our summer solstice each year. I want to revel in the maximum amount of light afforded us on this day.
Sunday I was awake close to, but not at, sunrise in order to view (and photograph) the last event of this years Great Galena Balloon Race. The weather did not afford us much sunlight, however, and we had to make due.
After arriving home in the early afternoon, we hatched a plan to eat an early dinner and headed out to a CL institution: The Freeze. Nate had his very first ice cream cone last night and I think that is celebration enough. He enjoyed the ice cream and was amazed when I took a BITE of my cone. (He actually said "wow!" when I showed him what I had done.)
We followed up ice cream with a visit to Veteran's Acres for swings and playground equipment and a pond with various bull frogs, turtles, fish, ducks, and one confused goose (who seemed to treat a mated pair of ducks as friends, if not parents).
While we missed the actual sunset of solstice, this was a very successful solstice celebration.
swing low, sweet chariot
A couple weeks ago, I completed my one really big task for this summer.
It feels really good to have it done. I, of course, couldn't have completed this without lots of help from my father and the fathers-in-law. They were all quite patient with my "measure ten times, cut once" assembly procedure.
It was completed in time for the Big Visit of 8 adults and 8 kids. We had fine weather and even a little rain didn't keep us from the back yard for too long.
Yay! 
mixed media
Nate was given a gift recently: a big book of Thomas the Tank Engine stories. It has little illustrations around which the text flows. Nate doesn't recognize any of the engines though and keeps asking again and again what their names are. Having only experienced Thomas on the TV I can imagine the images on the page are off just enough to cause confusion.
-----
The other night he was asking in a very earnest (and not whining) way to watch "Lightning McQueen" and specifically "the race and the lady singing and Lightning McQueen comes out of Mack." (By which he means the beginning of the movie which features a Sheryl Crow song.) But we were eating dinner and were not going to be watching tv any time soon. So I thought I would offer a treat/compromise. I grabbed the soundtrack (a recently acquired item that he had not heard) and started to play the Sheryl Crow track.
Poor guy, he was so confused. He was looking around and around for a TV thinking I had put the DVD in somewhere and he just couldn't quite find it. When I explained to him it was just the music he wanted none of it. And I can't blame him. I should have know that it was not a good substitute. It would be like asking for ice cream and instead being shown pictures of someone else eating ice cream.
taking advantage of what we have
Nate and I went to Moraine Hills State Park on Saturday for a morning of outdoor exploration.
Every visit to the state park makes me want to go back for more. We are rather lucky in McHenry County to have a rather large number of conservation areas and three state parks. These are areas we need to take advantage of more often.
On Saturday, Nate ran ahead to the end of a wooden walkway (one that extends over the bog/wetlands area at Moraine Hills) and sat down. When I caught up with him a small snake was wiggling by and into the grass below. We also saw a Great Blue Heron take flight from its nest on the edge of the waterway. (Actually, I missed the take-off because I was busy shooting a macro photo of what looks like part of a jawbone from a critter.)
I discovered today, on the website FreeSound.org, user Tom Haigh (aka audible-edge) made a recent (March 14th) recording of the ambient sounds of Moraine Hills.
http://www.freesound.org/samplesViewSingle.php?id=69252
I think it captures the park quite well.
big river
I put Johnny Cash's "Live at San Quentin" album (the 2000 re-issue) in the CD player tonight while Nate and I were hanging out and playing.
After the first track, "Big River" finished, Nate, who had been quiet, (as he often is when listening to music new to him) suddenly said "He's real real happy."
That boy amazes me almost every day.
saying cheese
Packing up after the end of our Cousin's Camp-out weekend in July.
Nate saying "cheese!" in the most earnest way!
I know, I should be fixing cetan.org and posting all these wonderful (to me) archive finds there, but I'm lazy and this works...
holding on
The other day, Nate fell asleep clutching my hand to his body as if it were a stuffed toy. I marvel at the simplicity of this act and power that it has over my psyche.
He is so full of energy and of life. His joy seems limitless and his innocence is infectious. I want so much to write down and preserve all that he's doing right now...it is the source of so much amazement in my life... I can feel it all slipping away so very quickly.
....
It will not be long before affection from his father will be looked upon as a burden...something to suffer through... I will love him and He will, God willing, love me, but not as a boy...as a man. I know it's absurd, but I lament this change already, if only because I cherish it so much right now.
This is a rambling mess of an entry, I apologize. The words are just not coming together.
Audra Mae's cover of "Forever Young."
May God bless and keep you always,
May your wishes all come true,
May you always do for others
And let others do for you.
May you build a ladder to the stars
And climb on every rung,
May you stay forever young,
Forever young, forever young,
May you stay forever young.May you grow up to be righteous,
May you grow up to be true,
May you always know the truth
And see the lights surrounding you.
May you always be courageous,
Stand upright and be strong,
May you stay forever young,
Forever young, forever young,
May you stay forever young.May your hands always be busy,
May your feet always be swift,
May you have a strong foundation
When the winds of changes shift.
May your heart always be joyful,
May your song always be sung,
May you stay forever young,
Forever young, forever young,
May you stay forever young."Forever Young" - Bob Dylan