Well I had a great day with Holm yesterday. I still have to clean up

His mom brought him over early and he and I played with his cars and played with the computer mouse (he realized he could make the pointer move on the screen) and pushed his stroller up and down the building hallway. After a brief nap and a light lunch we phoned Sand and said hello. He always says "hi" on the phone to her, and then babbles on in his own language.

Then it was the "get-baby-dressed-to-go-outside-in-the-snow" game, which always takes some time. A nice walk with Holm in the stroller (except for the sections of sidewalk which had not been cleared of snow properly) down to Kensington market where I did some grocery shopping. Kensington market is a mix of Latin, West Indian, Middle Eastern and Portuguese food shops with some cheap clothing stores thrown in, and hides just behind Toronto's original Chinatown along Spadina.

Holm loves grapes. He goes crazy for grapes. So I bought him grapes, and also pomegranate and strawberries. Strawberries are completely out of season, but there are these new strawberries from California that are always huge, look perfect, bright red, often taste pretty good, and are almost certainly genetically engineered. But the Chinese lady who ran the shop came over and gave Holm a nice big strawberry because he is cute (wish I got that kind of attention from girls ). I ate a little too and it was delicious, and the price wasn't bad, so I bought a pint basket.

Afterwards we walked over to Jumbo Empanadas, a Chilean empanada shop. (Empanadas are filled pastries, filled with some kind of meat or vegetable mixture. Very tasty.) Holm loved the beef empanada, so I bought him another one for his mom to give him for dinner the next day. He would say "bye" and wave when people left the shop, and when we left too. As we were loading him back into his stroller there was a big white Lab (a kind of dog) tied up outside the shop, and Holm was really impressed. He kept saying, "dog!" over and over, even after we had left.

On the stroller walk home we bumped into a couple of people I knew from the uni, but Holm made it pretty clear as I chatted with them that it was time to go, by waving his hand and saying "bye". That's often his signal that he's tired.

Back home he didn't end up sleeping. I put a DVD of the movie "Spirited Away" (a wonderful animation) on for him while I cooked dinner, and he would wander over to see what I was doing in the kitchen, or lie on the Thai triangle mattress watching the movie sucking his thumb, or climb over the back of the triangle and tumble over it onto the mattress, repeatedly with great delight

Once he came up and started pointing to a photo of his mom (and sometimes to one of me, but his mom took precedence ), because he was probably missing her. He loves his dad it is easy to see, which is a wonderful feeling for me. He misses me too when I'm gone for long, which is not a wonderful feeling for me at all but hard to take. But his mom is the foundation of his world. I have no problem with that at all. That's the way it should be for such a little kid. He's just 21 months old.

Dinner was salmon and green beans and boiled carrots and orange juice, and a snack of grapes and strawberries and milk. Holm saw me pouring the juice for him and said, "juice, juice"! That's the first time he used that word I was very proud, a new word!

By the time the movie ended we did a bit of wrestling, which consists of me lying on the floor while Holm crawls over my face or bites my feet or whatever. It's very fun. I tickle him and he laughs and he sort of bites me back, and I end up getting drooled on quite a bit, but you really don't notice that very much after you've been a parent for a while.

Then suddenly tiredness took over Holm. He got into that "frantic" play mode which only happens when he's tired, at the end of the day mostly. He had only had a short morning nap and no afternoon nap, so no wonder. At 8pm he crashed in the play pen I use as a crib when he is here, after I sang him a song or two. Hmm, I think I sang him "Mining for Gold." He likes hearing songs he knows, it's comforting I think.

He was asleep within a few minutes. His mom came at 8:45pm and we managed to get him into his snowsuit and out the door before he woke up in front of the elevators in her arms.

wow...you guys ate a lot!

You are really good Dad mate ! I like when the baby suck their thumb

Hey zoozoo I love my little boy so much and I want to be a good dad to him while also taking care of myself. Children are the only thing I have ever seen that I could describe as a miracle, in terms of impact on me (and NOT in a religious sense). He is just totally amazing. It is completely unimportant if he's not especially good at this or that (of course I would like him to be good at things), if he turns out to be straight or gay, whatever, just totally unimportant. He is just perfect the way he is. (Of course I want him to be reasonably happy in his life.)

But as to the "nice family" unfortunately that is not the case. Oh nobody in his family is not nice, everyone is fine, but mom and dad have split up.