Internet Commentator

Hi-5

Happy birthday to my son Isaac:

Five today!

Happy Birthday...

...to my daughter Zoe:

Two today.

Mea Culpa, Mea Maxima Culpa

I committed a grevious slander over at Most Sincerely Folks when I casually lumped in The Backyardigans with Hi-5, Max and Ruby etc. as examples of kid's tv programmes with bad, (my exact words were "genuinely awful") music. How could I be wrong, How wrong could I be?

The opposite is true. This series, new to this side of the atlantic, is my kids' current favourite. Each episode features a number of original songs from a chosen musical genre (not necessarily related to the storyline) and these are generally very well executed. This is how kids tv music should be done. I thought I had seen the best, the other day with the "The quest for the flying rock" episode featuring a trek to the top of a Mayan temple accompanied by a rousing disco soundtrack with the characters pulling off a series of impressive disco moves, including the "funky chicken". But, this was topped yesterday with "Surf's up" - a search for Tiki beach, famous for the perfect waves - major, major kudos to the producers for choosing Fela Kuti style afro-beat as the musical genre!

The Crib

Our new house is still not quite finished outside but getting there. The scaffolding came off the front yesterday so I thought I'd post a couple of pics:

Compare to original image:

Enlightened self-interest

Perhaps this qualifies as "Freakonomics"? I noticed that when I offer my (18 month old) daughter Zoe a biscuit (cookie) or something equivalent, she immediately requests another for her brother, (4 year old) Isaac. I was discussing this with her mother and grandmother the other day and they both opined that she was a sweet, generous girl. I, of course, agreed but then an alternative to this altruistic hypothesis suggested itself to me. Given Isaac's ability and tendency to just grab whatever Zoe has off her, it occurred to me that her strategy might have been to protect her property from this depredation by obtaining, at no cost to herself - it would still be categorised as a biscuit "for" Isaac - an equivalent item for her brother thus forestalling the grab .

Finally...

Moving into the new house tomorrow. I said it was almost finished exactly a month ago and it still is almost finished, but at least it's now habitable (and connected to the interwebpipe to boot).

Gratuitous cute kids picture

While I'm uploading photographs...

It's been a while since I posted any pictures of my mini-brood and they were looking so cute this morning that I thought I'd share:

I.McG:04

From:

to:

..in four years. Happy Birthday Isaac!

Blog Nepotism

My cousin Kathy, (she may not realise that her first appearance on this blog was way back in June 03!) now has her own curiously titled (vanity) blog. As I've recently explained to her how to link to this interweb thingy, I thought it only proper that I should add hers, and her husband's more conventionally titled blog, to my blogroll.

Mr & Mrs Friel

Congratulations to my sister Aimee and her husband Fergus on their wedding (for which I acted as stand-in father-of-the-bride):

[No particular reason for the blurry picture other than I liked the way it (accidentally) turned out]