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July 11th, 2006

  1. From the archives: Maddy Turns One

    July 11, 2006 by Gail

    October 2002
    Music: “Soul Bossa Nova” by Quincy Jones

    Since I missed Melissa’s birthday, I started rooting around in my archives of the kids’ birthday videos.

    This was taken with the first digital camera I owned, the Canon A30, which had no sound and only 30 seconds of video at one time. (Amazingly, as far as I know it’s still working and the kids use it now and again.) It’s the first videoclip I ever spliced together, but still one of my favourites.

    Miss Madeleine, the middle of the five Ms, was celebrating her first birthday and at the time had a host of baby allergies that she eventually outgrew. I bought her a carob vegan cake (!) because she couldn’t eat eggs or milk, and I think she didn’t like chocolate. In fact, I think she still doesn’t like chocolate.

    Whenever I watch this, there’s a narrative in my head that calls out my favourite parts:

    1. (sparkler) What do I do now?
    2. The Sway
    3. Michael shows her how it’s done
    4. The Recoil (after touching the cake)
    5. The Shiver (which never ceases to make me laugh, even almost four years later)
    6. The Mess

    Too funny! Here’s my video of when she turned three.

    Category Redux, The Ms, Videoclips | Tags: | 2 Comments

  2. The Past Few Days

    July 11, 2006 by Gail

    … have been a bit of a rollercoaster.

    The weekend started off with some horrific news: the death of a boy in a plane crash the previous Saturday who was celebrating his 12th birthday. He was there at Vinny’s memorial in Hamburg Airport, so I must have photos/video of him, but there were so many people (including Vinny’s classmates of the same age) that it was a bit of a blur of faces and names. I met the boy’s stepmother while in Hamburg, and my heart goes out to her. And to Berit, who was in attendance at the funeral so painfully soon after Vinny’s accident.

    It was with this bit of news milling around my brain that I looked after two young boys for the evening, which was fun in the funk-clearing way that — for me — is best achieved by surrounding myself with small, playful children. They’re incredibly funny, these little people, and they make me forget the realities of adulthood while I’m with them.

    (more…)

    Category Randomage | Tags: | 4 Comments