December 23, 2009
Sing-a-long
It's a feel-good family post. So deal with it.
Seasons Greetings, all! Got some homegrown Christmas tunes for you.
The first is Nathan in the annual Alphonsus Academy Holiday Concert. He was selected as a soloist for the second grade's rendition "Silent Night" and he did it masterfully.
The only problem is that the audio levels were way off in the church. The piano is much too loud. (I have tried to EQ it down a bit.) Nathan kicks it solo style around 1:10. "All is calm" and "SleeeEEEEeeeep in heavenly peace" rather pegs it as him.
"Silent Night", Nathan Tolva and Mrs. Durkin's Second Grade Class, AACA
Next up is an impromptu family sing-a-long. Robyn and I heard Charlotte "singing" Feliz Navidad from her bed (behind a closed door) so we crept up and started recording. When her verse ended I piped up from the hallway, which caused her brothers to join in from behind their closed door. Recording continued, hilarity ensued.
You'll have to turn up the volume pretty high, at least at the beginning. Note how at one point Charlotte asks herself "How do you say [unintelligible] in Spanish?" Pardon the muffled giggling from Robyn and I. And enjoy the remix with Señor Feliciano.
"Feliz Navidad", The Tolva Family
And yes, I did just put an audio recording of me impersonating a horn section stab on the open Internet.
Merry Christmas!
Posted at 9:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
August 27, 2009
How to enjoy a night in the wilderness, in 7 easy steps
Posted at 8:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
January 11, 2009
An African Abecedarium
My son and I have finally finished a project that grew out of my photos from Africa this summer. It's an abecedarium, a primer for learning one's letters, using photos from Ghana and Kenya to illustrate.
Click here for a larger version of the slideshow or just watch below. The pages themselves are fairly liberally licensed, so feel free to make of them what you like.
(You know, there really aren't many words in English that start with "x" and that weren't coined by ad agencies desperate to seem hip.)
Posted at 5:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
August 1, 2006
Hack your children
Yesterday Parent Hacks featured my post on how to create a LEGO mosaic manually (or mostly manually). Asha Dornfest has created a really wondeful site applying the hacker mentality to parenting. The site has exploded in popularity, presumably because geeks can reproduce and even take an interest in what they spawn.
Parenting as a community of interest on the Internet has grown immensely in recent years (or maybe I am just paying better attention). Federated Media just created a metablog that combines parenting-related posts from many of their major properties.
In addition to straight tips and tricks, Baby Roadies and The Sneeze provide some hilarious dad perspectives on the parenting arts.
Birthin', surfin' ... a perfect match. I mean, they're both just a series of tubes.
Posted at 8:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
May 29, 2006
Such great heights
OK, so, we didn't expect that to happen.
Today Planet Earth and two flabbergasted parents welcomed Charlotte Mae Tolva, a beautiful, healthy 7lb. baby girl. Robyn and I are still in a bit of shock. We felt nearly certain that this baby was a boy and that he'd join his brothers in a lifetime of mayhem and dastardliness. But no. Baby Charlotte skipped our anniversary last week in favor of a different holiday. She arrived just in time for most retail shops to be closed for the Memorial Day observance and so prevented us (or rather our families) from buying anything remotely girl-like that we can bring the little darling home in. You see, we own only boy-gear (most of it threadbare) and didn't even bring a "safety" outfit to the hospital. But maybe closed baby shops is a good thing. I fear a crazed orgy of girl-stuff purchasing from relatives and friends.
Oh, and I suspect The Darnedest Things blog category is going to start filling up rapidly once we introduce the big bad brothers to Charlotte this evening. Check back for their trenchant insights into boy-girl relations and anatomical differences.
Welcome, sweet little baby. You're the best kind of surprise.
Posted at 2:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
May 12, 2006
Names and bein' a kid
With thanks to Baby Roadies for the idea, here are the 10 worst names for our soon-to-arrive child based on Chicago streets:- Wacker Tolva
- Hubbard Tolva
- Elston Tolva
- Irving Park Tolva
- Lawrence Tolva
- Damen Tolva
- 31st Street Tolva
- Randolph Tolva
- Fairbanks Tolva
- Sangamon Tolva
- Superior Tolva
- Sedgewick Tolva
- Ogden Tolva
- Locust Tolva
- Balbo Tolva
- Racine Tolva
- Archer Tolva
- Bryn Mawr Tolva
- Grand Tolva
- Weed Tolva
And with thanks to Solider Ant here are 10 things that "make me feel like a bright-eyed little kid again":
- Dunkin' Donuts vanilla long johns
- Organizing space-theme LEGO minifigs into battalions
- Playing organ notes with the foot pedals
- The Superfriends
- Cassette tape dubbing
- Playing short-ball "tennis" on the driveway
- Choose Your Own Adventure
- The Magikist Lips
- Raiders of the Lost Ark
- Playing with my own kids
Posted at 5:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)
February 26, 2006
Weakened warrior
I saw Curious George with my son this weekend. Of all the plush sleeping aids that I had as a child I now retain only two. The first is my original blanket, now ripped, fringeless, and still smelling of decades-old urine from a bit of a bedwetting problem. (I don't want to talk about it, 'kay?) The other is my Curious George doll. Oh how I love(d) that monkey. One of my favorite childhood memories was when my mom, a nurse, would perform surgery on his armpits when he'd fray. We were fully smocked in operating room fashions. But I digress. The movie stayed true to the George I grew up loving and it manages to weave in at least parts of most of the books. I loved the ending where a triumphant Man In The Yellow Hat saves his museum by transforming it from a dusty, dull repository to an interactive, lively experience through the power of, yes, curiosity. Oh, and he and George end the movie in a rocket ship. Museums and rocket ships, wow. Where's my yellow hat?
Staying in the spirit, my son and I built a great fort in the basement last night for movie watching, goodie-eating, and hiding from mom. We slept in it. Wow, was this a mistake. Nostalgia gone too far. My son loved it, slept sound as a rock. I slept little, alternating between being frozen stiff and just stiff from the comforter-on-concrete amenities. No bedwetting, though.
As a sidenote and just to worry my readers a little more that this is becoming a parenting blog (it's not), my old post on cyborgs and toddlers is on the front page of Parent Hacks today.
Posted at 5:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
