Saturday, September 30, 2006

Replacement breakfast

Check out my little miss eating breakfast! She's a surprisingly neat eater. That's scrambled eggs, apple slices, and some toasted english muffin. You can't see the english muffin, because my little carb monkey is shoving it in her mouth with great gusto.

Anyway, she doesn't usually leave food on the floor, and she just about never throws plates, so I often just lay food out for her on a little plate (note for those at home: that's a very cute little grasshopper plate) and put it on a chair, where she can reach it.

Yesterday, I blinded myself- I went to the eye doctor to get an exam so that I can get new glasses to replace the ones that disappeared from my room at D*Con. At 15$ (my copay) I figured, I might as well get a new prescription.


Two hours and many very bright lights later, this is what I came home to. :D

Brooke watched Ari for me while I was gone, and apparently was a total sweetheart for her- and then fell right asleep in her lap. It was so cute, I had to take a pic.

We spent our evening yesterday helping Jaime move into his new place. Ari checked out the apartment very thoroughly for him- she even spent a bunch of time looking underneath the fridge.

Today has mostly been work for me. I did get a nice waffle breakfast at Rick and Brooke's (Jon Stewart included), though, which was cool.

More work now, and tomorrow. :P

Thursday, September 28, 2006

I got owned

Ari and her papa went to the thrift store today, and apparently he couldn't resist dressing her like a little princess. :) She likes the dress, though. She actually spent a bunch of time standing on the stairs doing a squeaky, bouncy little dance and flouncing around.

Today was a good day for me. I had a good meeting with Brian, and then I had two classes, at least one of which was engaging and interesting. Then, I had a very pleasant dentist appointment- which lasted only about 20 minutes, so I had plenty of time in my break. The class I teach went pretty well, too, even though I ran out of time to cover all what I wanted to cover.
Here's Ari reading her sign language book that Aunt Eliza sent (we read it together, too- it's not too effective like this :D). Jaime came over, and we played backgammon and scopa together while she sat and read her books.

Later, she got up and watched us play- even though the board was in reach, she didn't knock anything over. She just stood and looked at things, babbling up a storm all the while. It was incredibly sweet.

She's eating so much now, that I'm really noticing a drop in how much she nurses. Boy, does she like food.

Wednesday, September 27, 2006

Like to tore my nipple half off

Argh, I have no time. I have to meet with Brian at 8:30 tomorrow, and I have a homework due that I haven't finished because I haven't had ten straight minutes to work on it, and it's my night to do dishes, and the house is a mess... It all just makes me feel overwhelmed. Well, I'll write this and then see what I feel more up to- dishes, or finishing my homework. Baby steps, right?

Look what came in the mail today! Sort of. The art we got from Stephanie Law at D*Con, and the certificate was from the MSSI (isn't it pretty?). I've been wanting to frame them, but they're both hard-to-find frame sizes, so I ordered some custom frames from a company I've ordered from before. The frames arrived, and (this has happened before) half the hardware was missing, plus, they sent me the wrong size frame pieces for that black frame. Anyway, so the replacement came today. If they weren't so prompt and uncomplaining about sending replacement bits, I might be peeved with them. But their low prices seduce me. :) Plus, I do like their frames. I got another prettier frame to go with the original piece that Cavan gave us, but I need to cut a mat for it before I cane hang that one.

Ari and I walked around for hours today... I went and worked out at the gym again while Brooke watched her, but otherwise, she was either on me or crying at me all day long. Thank god, she did take a nap in the afternoon, but not as long a nap as I might have liked. I think her teeth were hurting her; I gave her some Hylands around bed, and she calmed right down after that. Poor little girl.

Tuesday, September 26, 2006

Sword in one hand, surcoat in the other.

Ugh- I'm about to pass out. The days I work are just exhausting. I'm looking forward to being home tomorrow.

A complication with our current schedule is that the way Thad's work goes, I don't get any time to work on Wednesdays, so anything that I need to do in advance of Thursdays has to be done on Tuesday- so, I work 9 hours and then have to come home and cook/nurse Ari/do homework.

I think I'm gonna hope that Ari naps tomorrow, though, 'cause I'm not finishing this homework tonight!

Thad and Ari went out in the bike trailer today. They went all around the town! Thad rode over to a baby thrift store and bought her some adorable warm jammies, and went and deposited his paychecks. Then, he took Ari out to lunch at a noodle bar. They had pad thai, and apparently, she snarfed it right up with great gusto.

On another note, I've decided to stop pumping at work. I find I feel kinda strange about that... The other day, though, (last Thursday) I didn't get a chance to pump because of this and that, and I wasn't engorged by the end of the day. Ari must really be eating, because that definitely wasn't the case two months ago... just another sign of how she's growing up.

Of course, so is the rank, rank poop we've been getting lately. X-P

Monday, September 25, 2006

Every other day

I'm feeling all weepy and what's the word? Verklempt. Because I just watched this documentary about these guys who fostered SIX kids that no one wanted, mostly HIV positive kids, and couldn't adopt them because Florida won't allow gays to adopt. In fact, one of their kids wasn't HIV-positive after all, and when they found out (he was like, 3 at the time) the state of Florida immediately said, "Oh, really? Well, then, now we want him! Since he's healthy, he clearly needs a mother and a father both (unlike before), and you homos won't do."

One of their kids died, and back in the day, the expert opinion was that all those kids were going to die in only a few years. I can't imagine what kind of people would have the strength to keep taking in those kids, knowing (mostly wrongly, thankfully) that they'd just lose them, but not wanting those kids to die just having lived in hospitals. The whole thing just makes me want to kick Jeb! Bush in the everlovin' teeth. With some of Rebecca's steel-toed boots.

Anyway, sorry. That's not the point of this blog, right? But this wouldn't have meant as much to me before I had a child. I wouldn't have really understood in the same way...

Whoo. Um. Yesterday was uneventful. Jaime came over, and played games with us. Thad worked last night.

Today was cool because I got to go work out! Brooke met me at the RPAC in between her classes, and watched Ari for me for a 1/2 hour while I went and weight trained. It felt good to be working out, and it meant alot to me to have Brooke take her for that small amount of time. We're to meet again on Wednesday for that purpose as well. :D

Tomorrow I teach, and tomorrow is more Pendragon!

Saturday, September 23, 2006

Everything tastes more delicious

Happy Autumnal Equinox! I hope your day and your night were adequately of equal lengths. :D

We did not get any nice french pastries this morning. Instead, we got to sleep until 11:00- I considered this a fair trade. We cleaned the house some, and I ordered my textbooks (180$- shock! dismay!) and we went for a walk with the girl.

We got outside and suddenly discovered that today was a home game- there were hordes of scarlet-clad people roaming the streets. I hear there's been a new public awareness program, attempting to get Buckeye fans to stop doing things like, y'know, rioting... harassing people... assaulting people... burning stuff...

I hope it works. Did you know that nobody's allowed to have couches on their porches in this town, lest they be used for kindling in a riot? I'm not making that up.

Speaking of kindling... we went over to R&B's to celebrate the equinox. Here's Rick trying to light a fire with wet wood and dryer lint. A copy of the student newspaper later, the darn thing finally started burning!

We had a delicious dinner:
  • steak
  • organic butternut squash
  • apples, baked with butter and cinnamon and brown sugar
  • lasagna
  • warm challah bread
It felt very autumnal. In fact, the whole evening felt autumnal- it's been kind of cold this week, and today was no exception. It was grey and damp and chilly. Pretty soon, I'm going to have to break out with my tights, and my legs will never be bare (even under skirts) for the rest of the winter. :(

Ari enjoyed the baked apples, and the squash, and the challah bread, and the lasagna. :D

Thad went to work after we got hom, and then a scary thing happened- Ari fell down the steps again- but this time, she fell and hit the crate with her face, and she was bleeding! Alot, from her mouth. She got blood all on my dress. Five minutes later, she was smiling and giggling and going up the steps again, but I totally freaked about it.

I've always thought of myself as someone who stays levelheaded in such situations and who deals with what needs to be done, but so help me, I just started screaming "Oh, my god! Oh, my god!" when I saw all that blood. :(

I have glimpsed both her little teeth, so I think she just bit herself, or somethng. I think she's okay. But boy, was that scary.

Friday, September 22, 2006

Remember, remember

Well, I figured out why my baby was probably grumpy yesterday. She's been throwing up all day, and a little diarrhea as well. Never a fever or any other symptoms, but clearly not feeling herself (plus, y'know, vomit). She took two long naps, about 2-1/2 hours each and you know how bizarre that is.

It's been a hell of a week. I came home last night, and Thad was nearly comatose, sitting in the computer chair with an asleep baby strapped to his chest. I took her and sent him to bed. Then, he worked at a school today and did Shaintar tonight. Ugh. He did wake up for a few hours last evening, but we've barely seen each other. I'm going to try to have us go eat delicious french pastries tomorrow morning. We deserve it.

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

An historic load of dishes

This is what I did last night, and this morning. I mentioned that we had a length of fabric that we'd used as an emergency sling? Well, the reason I had it is that some of the moms in my group got together to donate slings to some low-income moms. Several moms donated materials, and I mostly donated time (and those gold rings, those were mine). The fabric was donated by another mom- the blue was our emergency sling. Isn't it gorgeous fabric? It's hard to find good sling fabric, and those turned out beautifully. I made a new kind of shoulder, thinking that it would be nicer for moms with only one sling... I hope they see much use with little babies. :)

The last few days have been the suck here, though. I've been doing the lion's share of Ari care in the wake of Thad's horrific current schedule. To make things even worse than working two jobs might naturally be, the Target is ignoring Thad's availability request, so this is how the last while has gone:
  • Tuesday night: 8 hr shift, off at 8 AM
  • Wednesday day: 4 hr teaching, 1:00-5:00
  • Wednesday night: 8 hr shift, 9:30-8 AM
And then tomorrow, he has to watch the girl from 9 to 6. Suck. Fortunately, Thursday is a night off, so he can sleep and sleep and sleep, before he has to go back in to work on Friday day, and all weekend nights.

I start classes again tomorrow, and I haven't even been able to think about getting my stuff packed. Ari's been in a Mood today; very very grumpy. Maybe she's teething?

We biked up to the store today; I think I won't bother with the trailer for short distances when I'm on my own in future. It's too hard to wrangle the baby and the trailer alone. It's still totally worth it for longer distances, though.

Monday, September 18, 2006

Rest in peace, Melangalia

Well, you can't really see Ari's face here, but rest assured, she's really cute. :)

We did our big shopping trip for the month today; it was a big pain in that way that only three-hour shopping trips to big-box stores can achieve. Ari fell asleep in the car, and so I ended up doing all the shopping while Thad stayed in the car with Ari- particularly fun in the Sam's Club, what with 25-lb bags of flour and whtanot. She did get in about a two hour nap that way, which was good.

We got (among many other things) a new vacuum cleaner, so now we can clean our floors! Yay! Our old vacuum has been slowly dying for ages, so it's been a while since they were properly swept up- and we have an eater baby. Eeeew....

This is a shot from tonight's Pendragon game- we had a big fight. We pretty much lost. Ari spent most of the evening eating grapes and cheese and bread, and untying Andy's shoes over and over again.

Hmm... by, "we pretty much lost", just so this is clear, I mean "we all came within an inch of dying, and woke up in prison cells on our way to being handed over to our direst and most hated enemy."

Sunday, September 17, 2006

The turtle wants kisses

Check out my little crawler rawler! With a tongue she clearly got catty-corner from her Aunt Rebecca. ;)

Stuff from today:

We cleaned our living room (but the dining room is kinda horrible now)

We got a new loveseat. It was one of Brooke's (inherited from her papa), so we didn't have to spend money on it. Yay! This was to replace Thad's futon, which is now in the spare room, to replace Theresa's now defunct air mattress.

Look! Here it is. It's cushy.

You'll also note the Munchkin boxes sitting on the ottoman- they mark the Great Munchkin Truce of Ought-Six! For more than a year now (nearly a year and a half) Rick and I have been banned from playing Munchkin with each other because of constant bad feelings about it and fighting.

This has kinda sucked, though, and meant that we don't play much Munchkin in a group (since we game alot with R&B...). However, tonight, we hammered out a peace agreement, and had two pleasant games.

Saturday, September 16, 2006

Nature in her mouth

We spent the day out at a park, and guess who forgot the camera? We went to the Gamer's Guild of Ohio annual picnic, and it kicked ass. There was much eating of charred animal flesh and much playing of games of all types. Ari had a lot of fun crawling all in the dirt and grass (guess who's getting a bath tomorrow morning?) and meeting lots of new people. I got many comments about how sweet and well-behaved she was, which was nice to hear. I can't really take credit for that, though- my daughter is just a sweet little girl. :D

We actually forgot all of our baby carriers, including our emergency-in-the-car sling, which was kind of shocking. We own 5 carriers (3 ring slings, a mei tai and a wrap), not counting the stroller and the trailer, and we didn't have a one with us! Fortunately, on the way over to the park, I had picked up a length of fabric from a mom in my group for making a sling out of, and that worked great just tied in a knot. Ari had a nice nap on her papa that way.

Tomorrow, I shall sew it into a nice ring sling to donate to a group of low-income moms-to-be that a different mom in that group is working with.

Friday, September 15, 2006

For a dollar

We had kind of an exciting day today! It was Thad's first day back subbing, so he was up and headed out early. Ari and I were actually awake before he left, so we all got started on the day by 8:00.

I've been trying to acclimate Ari to her bike helmet, and this was me trying to fit it on her head. As you can see, she did not approve. I took this picture for posterity and then took it off her. I can see her connecting that mama's helmet and her helmet are two of a kind, though, and she was more willing to at least think about wearing it after she saw me put mine on.

We had a good morning, and Ari actually took a nap in the early afternoon- she hasn't had a decent nap in the day for nearly a week now. :P

Anyway, I was glad that I had taken the time to fit her helmet on, because guess what appeared on my front porch? It had been backordered for about a month, and I was going to email the guy I bought it from today to ask about it. Huzzah, though, I didn't need to!

It was every bit as nice as promised. I'm really pleased with the purchase. Thanks, Eliza and Phil for the recommendation, and thanks Grandparents Porter for the gift! :D

Highlights: Unlike the ill-fated Schwinn trailer, this actually was easy to put up and take down. I was, in fact, able to do so without even looking at the instructions- it was that obvious. The seats are nicely padded, and Ari could just sit in them. Plus, they have a proper harness with buckles! I was able to set it all the way up, and get my baby in it, by myself in a minimal amount of time, with very little reference to the instructions- which was good, because I'm pretty certain that the instructions included weren't for our actual trailer...

Here is Ari, doing the eater-baby thing again. She's really taken off with solids- she's eating three whole meals a day (plus snacks) if you give her the chance, these days. And she's more than a beggar- she demands that people share their food with her, and sobs and tantrums a little if you don't, or if the food gets all eaten.

This is what she ate yesterday (that I can remember!):
  1. bits of eggs
  2. english muffin pieces
  3. yogurt
  4. peaches
  5. broccoli
  6. spaghetti noodles
  7. sourdough bread (dipped in milky broth)
  8. aged cheddar cheese
  9. plums (delicious organic ones, actually)
  10. artichoke dip (w/ more aged cheddar and some edam)
  11. edam cheese
  12. ziti noodles w/tomato sauce
  13. more broccoli, steamed this time instead of boiled
And that's only what I can remember; god knows what else she actually ate. And she actually ate all those things, too- she didn't just mush them around or play with them. She particularly liked the artichoke dip, I might add.

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

Starting to breathe

Not much to write about today; school still looms. I've spent half-days at work the last two days trying to work on it.

Ari has gotten in a habit of waiting to nap until 5:30 or 6:00... this sucks, and I'm not sure how to discourage it. I think that her terrible napping is inherited from me, perhaps. As I think about it, I always remember not napping during the day, even as a very young child. I've always had trouble falling asleep for naps, and even when I do nap, I usually have nap hangover afterwards (a term which I've just introduced to the Urban Dictionary). Ari also acts pretty groggy when she wakes up for naps- and grumpy! Hoo boy!

The new organic grocery store 6 blocks away finally opened. Ari and I went over there today, and it was pretty awesome. They have really great prices on produce at the moment (grand opening prices only, I'm sure).

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Sinful delights

Well, we took Ari to the doctor yesterday. I would have posted about it yesterday, but our internet died at an inopportune moment.

In any case, Ari is (as we knew) a happy and healthy little girl. She was really sweet about getting measured, even. She's 6 ounces shy of 20 pounds and... I don't remember, some inches tall. It was kind of funny- the doctor kind of frowned at me because on their charts (based off of formula babies) she had gone from 50th percentile to like, 20th. I asked, "are you using the old charts?" and at that point, the doctor admitted that, since she was breastfed, she was probably fine. I checked it later on the WHO charts (which take breastfed kids as the standard for health) and guess what? She was still on the 50th percentile, steady as anything. :)

I'm desperately trying to get my class together before school starts next week. :P I finished my syllabus today; tomorrow, I'm going to try to get some progress on my lectures. I hope to have the first 3 or 4 in the can before classes start, but we'll see.

Sunday, September 10, 2006

Temperature issues

Guess what this is? This is Ari, listening to the dishwasher. The dishwasher is running, and she's just standing there, her little ear smushed up against the front, looking for all the world like she's trying to hear someone's heartbeat, or the distance to the band of orcs that has the halflings.

Today was the first of the last of Thad's consecutive days off for some time. He's off today and tomorrow (party!), but then he only gets singleton days off for several weeks. Singleton days hardly feel like they even count; it takes about two days for it to be worth it for him to try to go diurnal again, so the only difference is he's here late at night instead of the Target.

We also got the spare bed/loveseat moved into the spare room yesterday- FINALLY. Theresa's air mattress, which many of you have used and enjoyed, finally sprung a leak two days before Dragon*Con.

This meant that Thad couldn't sleep in the spare room after work, which meant that Ari and I couldn't hang out up there, which meant that a) Ari didn't get to hang out in her favorite place in the house, which was rough for us, and b) I never got to clean up after D*Con packing. So, the bedroom was a horrific mess and only got worse. But since Thad was sleeping in the spare room today, I was able to clean. Yay, mostly clean bedroom!

This is Ari playing with her blocks. She had great fun letting Brooke build towers and then knocking them down... it finally got to the point where Brooke couldn't even attempt to build the towers anymore, before Ari was trying to knock them down!

Ari loves the wagon for the blocks, too. At the moment, it's serving as a bookshelf for her favorite books.

And this is Ari playing with a spoon she got out of my purse. She went, rifled through my purse, and pulled this out- it's one of those long milkshake spoons. I had to take a picture; this was just too cute.

Tonight, she also discovered "pony rides"- you know, where you balance the baby on your leg and balance them up and down. I couldn't do them at all (my knees suck) but Brooke and Thad had great fun with it, and she just kept demanding that Brooke give her more horsey rides.

She's also showing more signs of talking. She definitely seems to know "mama", and she has been more and more imitating words that I say. It's very cool.

Saturday, September 09, 2006

Stale Turkish Delight

Check out my lovely new casserole, there! That's the casserole that Kathy gave me for my birthday. It's holding a tasty shrimp-dill-artichoke-tomato sauce, topped with delicious and melty gruyere, alongside lightly steamed broccoli and some orzo.

Last night's dinner kicked ass. :)

This night we had beef stew with noodles, biscuits, and spaghetti squash. It was fairly tasty, and I love my own biscuits, so that was good.

You know, there's something just really right about loving a food that much and also being able to make it myself. It's like, if I had enough butter and flour, I could somehow reach a state of perfect Biscuit Nirvana- a perpetual state of Perfect Biscuitude.

Anyway, biscuits aside, here's Ari showing how much she likes that orzo dish. How many babies get to eat gruyere and artichokes, I ask you? She loved it last night, and she loved it again (as pictured) when I gave her leftovers for lunch. She was all grins and munched up a whole pile of orzo and sauce and accompanying veggies.

I'm regularly doing lunches with her lately, and it's turning out great. I get to eat lunch more often, and she seems to really like the whole meal sized things. I don't worry much (or pay attention much) to how much she eats, so they're pretty much stress free meals as well. I just put a pile of things on her tray and let her eat or play or whatever.

As for the rest of us, we're still decompressing from D*Con. We're still not totally unpacked, but it's progressing slowly. Thad's been working like crazy, but gets two days off now (his last two in a row for weeks). Target, predictably, started scheduling him for bunches of hours as soon as we didn't need them to.

Ah, well. Even if he can only stand working there a few weeks more, it's still extra money, which we could dearly use.

Thursday, September 07, 2006

Is there such a thing as "blue ochre"?

Well, I finished uploading Dragon*Con pictures. Head over to http://changeling.shutterfly.com/ if you would like to see them.

Dragon*Con was very up and down- mostly down. We're still processing how we feel about it and whether we want to go next year or not.

Ari was a little sweetheart, though, mostly. After a while, the noise and the people would start to get to her (and her sleeping was all messed up, even though we were keeping her normal bedtime hours), but by and large, she had a blast wandering around in the sling or crawling around the gaming floor. I'm not sure what she'll be like next year, though.

In the picture above, she's playing with her new Ari book- the scrapbook I made her for her birthday. It has pretty stickers and things various people wrote for her- in addition to a picture per month of her life. She really likes it.

And this picture is of some of her very first sippy cup adventures. She hasn't yet figured out that you have to tip it up to get more out. :)

I think she's really going to do much better when I start back in the fall- papa will be able to feed her lunch, and give her water or mama milk in a sippy. Since her previous routine was 8 or 9 hours with no food or liquids, I'm jazzed about that idea.

Wednesday, September 06, 2006

Not to mention names, or anything

Guess whose baby is sweetly napping? Mine is! I fed her tuna fish and plums, and then I bathed her, and now she's asleep in her monkey bed upstairs. It was the first time I made her lunch- that is, the first time I made a whole meal specially for her (although I ate much of it myself, of course). Then, afterwards, (because she made a horrible mess) I took her upstairs, and she had her first ever bath in the big bathtub without mama being in there with her. I was sitting next to the tub, but I didn't actually get in. Exciting times. Now, for some catchup:

Ari's birthday

We had a nice, quiet party for Ari's birthday. We invited just a few people (people Ari likes, especially) and had food. We had bunches of fruit (big platters!) and also some barbecue pork. I made Ari a little scrapbook of pictures- which still needs finished- and asked people to write in it for her birthday. I think she'll like that when she's a little older.

She ate some fruit, and was generally excited to have all these people in her house to play with. She totally didn't get the concept of opening presents, of course, but we kinda "helped" her a little opening the paper, and let her grab the present out from the inside. She got bunches of books (which she loves!) and a few neat toys.

Then, we had the birthday pie! Everybody sang to her (and here's a movie) and then we gave her a piece. Before we cut the pie, though, she totally poached some of those raspberries off of it. I was reflexively about to stop her, but I figured, she's allowed to poach off of her own birthday pie. :) She was a relatively neat eater of her pie, which was really cute. Very dignified.

After pie, the birthday girl was pretty tired, so I took her up for her nap, and we stayed and hung out with people.

These are a few of my... things

We got back from Dragon*Con at 2 in the morning this morning, and Thad had to work tonight.

Theresa and George left after lunch, so we're all alone again (nice but a little lonely).

Ari seems to have a mild touch of Con Crud, so I'm nursing her as much as I can. She's also crazy wanting to eat. She demands to eat whatever I'm eating.

I've just been working on a cartoon that will go into the new version of the linguistics textbook that the department is putting out.

I promise I'll sit down and write about Ari's birthday and the con tomorrow (with pictures).