Cooper tests out the kit in Santa Ynez over Thanksgiving ...

 

 

Some spring frisbee at Carkeek Park in Seattle ....

 

Cooper gets percussive with his solo ....

 

At barely 2, Coop has already surpassed me in yoga moves... >  
Toddler Yoga from JAF Seattle on Vimeo

Cooper pretends that big scary waves are not breaking right behind him and focuses on his sand castle...

 

Cooper enjoys some ball and amuses the gallery at the Bethany beach house this summer ....

Cooper recently realized he can combine his favorite word ("no") with the sound a cat makes, and the result is Cooper's version of Meow.

Featuring an unfairly cute version of Peekaboo!

 

 

Our tour of Seattle's new Olympic Sculpture Park led to a couple of conclusions. 1, why didn't we think of this before? 2, don't open an outdoor park in the midst of your city's wettest, coldest winter in years. It's debatable whether the grass will ever really recover from the first weekends' trampeling. 3, the sculpture is not the strong suit of this new park, but it doesn't matter.  It's a fine space, the only real path to the waterfront in Seattle and a welcome addition to our town. More pictures to come...

He made it! Dodging a tenacious ear infection and nearly napping through his party, Cooper turned 1 last weekend and crossed the finish line of the baby race. He promptly started knocking off milestones, clapping his hands for granddad (clapping, a first) and trying to make us laugh by imitating sounds (coughs are a favorite). He also stopped sleeping and eating the last few days, but we hope that's temporary.

Cooper put on his "I <heart> my dads" onesie and took to the streets this weekend for his first ever Pride parade. We're usually observers rather than marchers. But families from our adoption agency --- which is supportive of gay & lesbian parents --- were pulling together a contingent; and with religious conservatives increasingly targeting the right of gays and lesbians to adopt (including, according to Dan Savage's article in the Stranger, in my home state of Virginia) it seemed a good time to join in. The organizers placed us right before the Seattle Bears contingent, which Cooper seemed to enjoy ... More pics here.

It's been too long since I dredged up a fresh link from the WWW (or, um, posted anything here at all...) but here's a good one: The Museum of Food Anomalies, filled with scary carrots and ghostly HoneyCombs. Beware! (Thanks to Diane at MSN's Lifestyle Filter for the discovery)

At last! proof of concept ... here's Cooper's swell onesie with a graphic via Stencil1 (see previous post...)

 

Really, one day I'm gonna make some happening threads for Cooper. And until then, I will think about it and gather resources, like Stencil1. Some fabric paint, a white tshirt in baby size, and I'm done!

Daddy-blogger Dutch has come up with a great list of local stores/artists creating all the toys and clothes a parent (or kind friend or relative) could want to give their kid this Christmas --- without stepping foot in a mall. Dutch also makes the case for ignoring the whole season; check it out for either purpose!

A sweet-and-sour tale of revenge against an alleged Web retail scammer, PriceRitePhoto. Thomas Hawk's crusade has been splashed across lots of blogs in the last few weeks, but I came late to the story and courtesy of one of my favorite sources of interesting creative stuff, Ze's Blog.

Just in time for Cooper's first Halloween, Redgunblack cooks up an iron-on R2D2 costume for babies! (Thanks to MSN's Lifestyle Filter for the tip)

The magazine business in America thrived for decades before someone (well, that would be Michael Goff) managed to launch a glossy monthly for gays & lesbians. No one has yet created the equivalent, must-read experience online. But maybe blogs will fill the void. Recently launched Queerty,  edited by the talented Bradford Shellhammer, is one of the first/best efforts not totally focused on porn or near-porn. (That said, watch what you click on from either of those sites -- you'll usually be just one or two clicks away from a work-inappropriate graphic popping up on your screen.)