Why Does the Sun Shine?

This song has become a favorite of Felix's. He learned it from listening to Renae and me sing it to him. The day after I took this this little video I found the original version on the internet. It's by Tom Glazer, from and album called Space Songs, released in 1959. Some of you may know this song from a They Might Be Giants cover.

We spent Thanksgiving Day in Puyallup at Felix's Aunt Rachael's house. What you see him holding in the picture is about what he ate for Thanksgiving. Maybe not quite that limited, but he wouldn't eat any Turkey. I worry about the nutrition he is not getting due to his picky eating; he won't even eat a kids multivitamin. It's gotten to where I have to crush his multivitamin in his cereal without him knowing. He'll read this some day- I pulled one over on you, son. Renae recently purchased the book "Deceptively Delicious", it's the book Jerry Seinfeld's wife is getting sued over. I think it's misnamed, I think it should be called "Deceptively Nutritious". Wouldn't that make more sense? What is the deal with... Never mind.
Natalie gave Felix an early Christmas gift:

They light up when he walks and they feature Transformers. Awesome.

Felix Enters the World of Politics

I had planned a post-election post, but then... well things happen, or don't happen. Anyway, my intention with this blog is and has been for it be about Felix exclusively. Well, I guess I can't say that as Renae started the blog. I can say for my part, I try to keep this free of items that don't directly pertain to Felix, so I did grapple with posting anything regarding the election. But this election will affect Felix as the president-elect will be a very different president than the current tragic failure. Obama will be replacing a president who once bragged that he ran against peace and prosperity and won. That win gave W a mandate to deliver us from peace and prosperity, I guess. Mission Accomplished. In the wake of his disastrous tenure, Bush and his neocon ideology leaves America (including my son) two unresolved failing wars, the magic trick of turning the largest budget surplus into the largest budget deficit, the worst financial crisis since the 30's, a massive expansion of the national debt, a massive wealth redistribution that has created a wealth gap that rivals that of the Gilded Age, an impending depression, and Al Qaida stronger than before his presidency. It is an extraordinary legacy, one that all of us and, most importantly to this blog, my son will have to pay for.
On election day, Californians narrowly passed the bigoted Proposition 8. In what is surely just a coincidence, California is now on fire. Last Saturday, in cities across America, rallies and marches took place to protest that decision. We picked Natalie up from her party house in the U district and took her and Tru to Seattle's rally at Volunteer Park where an estimated 6,000 people partook. The march that followed would have been a little too much for Felix so we walked over to the playground. On the way Felix found a very special stick that he put in his back pocket. After about an hour or so of play and 1/2 mile walk back to the car, Felix realized he no longer had his stick. He was very upset and explained to us that the stick was "very important to me". Some of you may remember a post from about a year ago (Nov. 2007) that Felix assigns a back-story to sticks he has found; so we knew how important it was to him. We drove back to the playground- the playground surrounded by trees, in fall- and with Natalie's assistance, Tru found his stick.

On a lighter note, Renae got this idea to blow up pictures we took on our 2003 trip to Europe and frame them. While laying them out Felix came by and saw a blow up of a portrait type picture of Renae and me taken on a water taxi in Venice. He snatched it up, walked out of the family room, and said "I'm gonna hang this in my room". This is a picture of him slumbering soundly under that picture.

Halloween IV

Our Halloween began a little early. The Sunday before Halloween some friends of ours invited us to go along with them to the Pumpkin Prowl at Woodland Park Zoo. Apparently it is an annual event, and as I was told by a participant from a bygone year, it was pretty lame. I'm not sure what it was like the year they went, but I thought it was pretty cool, and more importantly so did Felix. Our friends, Kendra and Mike, have a near two year old son, Finn, and they brought the 5yo son of a friend of theirs, Gabe.

This is the best picture I was able to get of the three boys together, that's Finn in the hat, Gabe in the green, and our Trumie in the black hoodie. Sorry, I should have tried harder. Anyway, Finn is still a little young but Felix and Gabe had so much fun together running through the haunted-house decorated Zoomazium, looking at the hundreds of pumpkins the zoo had lining the paths, and collecting the various goodies being given away at the stalls.

Felix has reached the age where he is fascinated with superheroes, thus he chose Batman as his costume. Above you see him standing next to our attempt at a graveyard in our front yard. The skeleton lights up. Felix really enjoyed going door to door, though initially he was a little shy. At the beginning of the day we had rain, but a little before dark the sun came out. It evaporated the water on the ground and caused an eerie mist throughout our neighborhood, it was great. I tried to take a picture of the house, with the mist; this is what I got: