Munchkin winning streak

Today was a nice day. I got to sleep in until 11:30 (ah... blessed sleep that I'm not getting right now), which was really awesome. Ari got two naps! Decent length naps, too!

On a side note, I've been saying for ages that Ari would probably sleep through the night if I wasn't working (and therefore causing her to have to eat all night long). Well, I was 100% right about that. The only time she's woken up in the night in the last week is sometimes when I go to bed (because I disturb her) and about 7:00 in the morning, at which point she nurses and then sleeps till 8:30 or 9:00. I really want to get a smaller size mattress and try putting her on that, instead of having her in our bed. A queen is just way too small for three, and all of us are feeling it. Plus, it'll probably make the transition to her own room a little easier, when we eventually get to that stage.

This afternoon, we went over to Jaime's to make use of his swimming pool. :) Ari just loved it. The first time Thad tried to take her out of the water to dry off, she cried and tried to leap out of his arms back in the water.

Last time we went swimming, she mostly was a little barnacle on me or Thad, but this time, she really got into it. She splashed and kicked and generally had a super time. Check out Thad helping her "swim" there while she holds her floaty d6 in one hand. :D

And here we are, finally getting dried off (d6 still in hand). Thad's farmer's tan is very much in evidence here. ;)

Ari arrived home totally tuckered out from her swimming experience. She didn't go to sleep until well after 11, though. She just spent ages flopping around the bedroom in a state of exhaustion. Fortunately, it was that "I'm so sleeepy" kind of exhaustion. and not a "I'm so tired!" kind of exhaustion. The latter always makes her grumpy, and this was just a sort of good natured flopping around.

Finally, she fell asleep in my arms peacefully, not even any nursing, and was totally out when I took her upstairs to bed. I was able to just lie her down without any fuss.

Mystic ninja (with claws and flames)

We spent all day cleaning up the basement (thanks, all y'all who helped)... it's not quite done still. I took some "before" pictures, but I'm not quite ready for "after" pictures yet. Probably tomorrow. Anyway, not much to say about today... We spent alot of time cleaning. Picking things up; organizing them, throwing things away. We moved so precipitously after Ari was born that everything just kinda got shoved in there and left (remember that, Mom?). It was beyond High Time for it to get cleaned out.

Ari's been utterly refusing to nap the last couple days... I don't know what's up with her. No nap yesterday, no nap today.

You know something I love about her though? I love how, when she's falling asleep at the breast, she hums, just a little, into my boob. It's startlingly adorable.

Tomato soup on my baby's face

Well, here (finally) is a picture of our new car, Zorya. She's a little Ford Escort who would really like us to get our butts over the the BMV and get her some real license plates, instead of this tacky temporary stuff she has to put up with now.

I'm very much more coherent than I was this morning, but I'm still kinda having a hard time keeping a straight thread of thought going in my head. Given the aformentioned 3-1/2 hours of sleep (no nap, alas) this is not overly surprising.

This is Thad keeping his baby on a leash. They were having so much fun. :) She was pretty playful today, despite not napping for any significant period of time and only having gotten four hours of sleep the night before.

She particularly got great amusement out of being taller than me when Thad held her. We noticed this when he carried her up the stairs and I followed- she got one look at me and was consumed by giggles! Sweeet baby giggles...

She also got scared for the first time that I can remember today. The story goes like this:

Our landlord came today to replace our air conditioning units upstairs, which is a great relief (let me tell you) because it's been as hot as a tamale-festooned rattlesnake in Hades up there. Well, not really, but I kinda liked coming up with that image.

Really, the air circulation up there just kinda sucks (alas) and we're lucky that it's actually been fairly cool and kinda rainy the last few days. Anyway, out of a desire to get out of our landlord's way, and also to eat food without having to try to cook in our zombified state (tired+fire=bad), we went for a walk and to get some lunch.

Post-lunch, we were wandering past this vintage shop and decided to go in and kill some time. Thad went and looked at trenchcoats (something he's been doing without much luck for a couple years now) and actually managed to find a decent looking one (with a liner and everything) that actually fit him! He decided that This Is The Year to finally do the Sandman costume he's been wanting to do, so we went over to the Army surplus store to get him a gas mask.

Sidenote: This is going to be an awesome costume! I'm going to be Sandman's girlfriend/partner, Dian Belmont. Ari is going to be Sandman's eventual sidekick: Sandy the Golden Boy. It won't even be that hard to put together, and the ensemble will look awesome. Plus, we'll have Baby Costuming Power, and everyone knows how potent that is!

Anyway, we got home, and Thad started putting on what he has for the costume (he lacks only a tie and an appropriate gun) and when he put on the gas mask, Ari started acting frightened! She was crying and trying to get away from him and crawling into my arms. Of course, as soon as he realized what was happening, he took the mask off so she could see it was him- but I don't think she can really remember "it's Daddy under the scary bug mask" yet.

We had a nice (if kind of out-of-it) day. Thad even let me go out with some mothers from my mom's group, all by myself.

Grapefruit hair

Ari's sleep has been very messed up of late. She woke up in the middle of the night last night and was up nearly till Thad got home. I didn't get to sleep at all till then. Ari woke up after only four hours (I only got three because I waited for Thad to get home and then we talked) so I'm a zombie.

I'll do a better update later. Maybe I'll get a nap inbetween now and then.

Morning food and the North Broadway exit

Sorry yesterday's entry was so disconnected... I was pretty loopy by the end. Ari didn't get to sleep until four in the morning. She was back up at 10 AM, and wouldn't nap (fought and fought) until about 2:30 PM, when she finally succumbed to the power of the booby. She did get a decent nap at that point (2 hours) but that was her last nap for the day.

It was another nothing day, but we had a nice evening over at a friend's house. She has two walking around (running around? :D) boys and a little girl with the new-baby smell still on. We had a nice evening, with dinner and kids running around. It was really cool to watch Ari playing with her boys (who have awesome names, by the by- Johann and Sheamus). It was the first time that I've seen Ari actually play with other kids. She wasn't just playing in the same space as those boys, she was actually playing with them... at least a few times.

It was also neat to see someone parenting older kids like that; it's kind of a mental disconnect for me, how Ari is now vs. how she will be. Up 'till recently, we've very much been in that little baby space where she can't ask for things she doesn't need, and I just get used to giving her everything she asks for. She's not in that place anymore, and it's just going to get more and more complicated... Ah, well. I just trust that I'll figure it out somehow when the time comes. Patience, and calm, and a sense of humor, right?

I think this week has been my official First Week of Summer- I remember when I was in public school still, every summer, I spent the first week doing nothing much. I watched TV... read... laid about... And then, the "nothing much" got to me, and I had to start doing something useful. I think I needed the "nothing much" for a little while, but it's time to get to doing things before I go spare!

Sir Quintain

Well, it's two in the morning, and guess who's awake? I think the timestamp claims it to be earlier; I sat down about two hours ago to start writing an entry, and the girl fussed (which is fairly usual), but wouldn't go back to sleep (which isn't).

I blame the heat in our room- that room gets pretty hot even when the outside isn't, and the only thing that keeps it liveable is the air conditioner unit- which busted this afternoon. Just gave up the ghost altogether. Our landlord is going to bring us a new unit soon.

She's been really sweet of late- check us out reading in the picture! She loves that faces book Cheri gave her.

Ari's so much fun. Today, we were all three lying on the couch, and she just kept giggling while her papa tried to teach her how to do an evil villain laugh (unsuccessfully, I might add). Oh, and on the food tally, today she ate: a piece of black olive, a piece of pasta from some pasta salad, some persian melon, and some waffle fries.

She really liked the olive, too! It was so cool to see.

Wet fuzzy baby

Ah- at last, the quiet of an asleep baby.

We didn't get as much done as I might have liked today (again), but there was exciting stuff. We took Ari to the pool today and tried out her swimsuit. She looked really cute (I cursed my forgetting of the camera!) and had a pretty good time. She was totally willing to splash around- the only thing is, she's too young to learn to close her eyes on command yet, so she can't deal with water in her face. We have the same problem with bathtime hair rinses.

Thad also got to meet some of the moms in my mom's group at the pool. That made me happy, but I think he was whatever about it. :) I guess it was a whole lot of, "who are these people I don't know?" And "Holy estrogen, Batman!" for him.

Ari fell asleep in the car on our way to the Walmart. We had intended to shop but ended up only getting spare car keys made. Thad went in to do this while I waited in the car with an asleep baby- and then he waited while I took the non-functioning keys they made back in to be remade.

Ari passed out again around 7 o'clock- definitely on the late side for a nap. And by passed out, I mean, sitting upright in my lap asleep passed out. I literally couldn't wake her up again. She woke up at 8:30 with her papa, and therefore I had some trouble getting her to bed.

Jazz and Ribs (need I say more?)

Today was the Jazz and Ribs festival. We didn't go till the evening, but the rest of the day was a bit of a wash. We cleaned up a very little (although Thad kicked him some ass on those dishes), failed to go to the Walmart, and didn't let Thad get a nap.

The festival, though, was everything I could have wanted. :D By that, of course, I mean that it involved a LOT of dead pigs in barbecue sauce. And laying around in the grass chatting.

Here, Thad and Ari and I are dancing by the ATM truck. All the photos in this entry are courtesy m'lady Brooke, by the by. I left my camera home.

Here Ari is, eating part of the "blooming potato" we bought. Wondering what a blooming potato is? Well, you take a power drill, and you take a potato, and a slicer, and a vat of hot oil, and... well, you come out with what's in the picture I linked to. It's like very hot, very fresh, kind of thick potato chips that are all linked together. Delicious!

When we sat it down on the grass, Ari went straight over there and pulled this piece off the pile and started eating it. She seemed to basically like it, too.

Here she is with a rib (well, a denuded rib). She didn't actually try to eat the rib at any point, but she did play with it for a long time. She also got rib bits and barbecue sauce all over her- I couldn't take too much exception to that, though, given my own rib-eating style.

Last we have a really pretty shot of the festival and the LaVeque Tower (known by those who know me as "the building where a malevolent entity would open a gateway into our world, if such an entity were inclined to do so in Columbus"), framed against the sunset. A lovely end to the day.

Thad's working today, and will again tomorrow- but at least I'll be watching the girl, so he can sleep mornings. Oh, and I think tomorrow we will go swimming!

Miss Cheesy Foot

Well, I didn't get to write yesterday, because I was playing in the first session of our new Changeling game until near onto midnight. I don't think I've mentioned Changeling yet in this blog, but Changeling is our favoritest RPG ever. We like it enough that we played it every week (sometimes twice a week!) for like, four years straight. We even like it enough that Thad wrote and I edited and coordinated a full book-length fan supplement for the game (which- vanity, vanity- is pretty much used as if it were a canon part of the game by just about everyone who knows it exists). It has, however, been a year or more since our last Changeling game broke up.

At first, I was happy for the break, but now I find I'm glad to get back to it. I'm playing a troll for the first time ever which is cool. My character is muscle for a money changer at a faerie market.

Anyway, lest I digress into talking about my character, let me just stay that we were up late and I had a presentation in the morning and writing did not happen.

On that note, today was the last day of the MSSI. All we were doing was having our group present. To give you an idea, the first group to present took 1-1/2 hours. The second group took 2-1/2 hours. Guess how long we took? Four hours. To our credit, there were four of us and only three in the other groups. And our text had complicated scribal stuff and complicated watermarks and complicated illuminations- but still. Four hours, man!

After the marathon presentation of doom, we had a really nice little reception ceremony, with little pastries from Mozart's (in the library! Gasp! Shock!) and little certificates of achievement that Pasha made for us. They have the date written in complicated Church Slavonic dating, and little illuminations out of the manuscripts- mostly ours; it was the prettiest- on the side. Pasha did a really cool thing and had these complicated numerological codes in the illuminations, unique ones for each of us. It was awesome.

After I got done at the MSSI, I said "Screw this! I'm going home to my monkeys!" and didn't pump. So, I went home. I got lunch and fed my baby, and then Thad and I went over to the milk bank to give them the last pumped milk I'll be giving them. I'll still be pumping in the fall, but they won't take toddler milk, so I'll probably try to find someone to donate to privately. I'd hate the milk Ari won't drink to go to waste, y'know!

Then, Thad and I went shopping. In our new car- I'll post some pictures tomorrow. We bought some shelves; some for my upcoming attempt to clean our basement, and some for the organization of our horrible, unwieldy stack of games.

After shopping, Thad went off to play Shaintar and I went out to the Jazz and Ribs fest with some of my MSSI compatriots. It was awesome. Thad and I will go back tomorrow for much fun times. While at the fest, Ari ate:

• part of a blooming onion
• fried potato bits
• a little baked beans
• funnel cake

She actually tried to eat the WHOLE funnel cake. She picked it up and tried to munch on it when our attention was momentarily elsewhere.

Wow- long, busy, tiring day. I'm off to squirt water up my nose and then sleep.

P.S. Huzzah the start of summer!

No more nuggets

I suspect this will be kind of a short entry; I'm kind of woozy-headed from trying to put the girl down and I'm also hungry. My professor was sick today, so we didn't have lecture after all. I spent the morning finishing up my presentation and got to come home early!

Ari was pretty fussy, though- we think she's teething again. Poor little girl. I wish we could get her napping better; she's been so tired these last few days.

On another note, our car didn't get quite finished today, so we had to walk to the grocery store. Ari was happy for that, at least.

Well, I'm off to forage.

It's not about making points

This is what I came home to this evening- Thad was not actually asleep, mind. He was just very, very tired. When he got in this morning, he very sweetly let me get one more hour of sleep- so he was an exceedingly tired monkey when I got home. Since Ari only got six hours of sleep last night, she was a fussy britches for him today, too.

I actually managed to remain conscious during lecture today. It was a pretty interesting guest lecture about this database this guy created in order to allow scholars to search and compare manuscript descriptions. Tomorrow is the last lecture for the MSSI- then on Thursday, we present. I'm totally not ready. I'd better get ready, of course, because on Thursday, we present. !!!

Jeff took this picture of Ari holding on to my legs, but he missed the really cute shot. She was totally hugging my legs and looking all cute at Jeff. Of course, as soon as she saw the camera, she started trying to crawl towards him.

She ate more food today- yogurt and watermelon and orange and even *gasp* a bottle of milk. She was so funny with the yogurt. I would feed her a taste (I had made a bowl for myself to eat), and she would make this horrible face. But she kept eating it. Masochism? Poor short-term memory? I'm not sure what that was about.

Maybe she's just like her pickle-juice drinkin' mama and loves her the funky tastes.

I'm DOOMED

Guess who decided to wake up at 6 AM? The horrible irony is, she'll be tired and want to sleep again around 8- just when I'll be having to start getting ready.

I have no idea how I'm going to get through three hours of lecture without falling asleep.

Kevin Smith overuses parens too

Mum and the girls left this morning, as was previously mentioned. I did finally manage to get one picture of Ari and her grandma- it's a lovely one, too. Ari's such a little sweetheart. She woke up early today, so she got to see everyone off after all.

She also went to the BMV (do any other states call it that?) with Thad and the previous owner of our new car. We are the official new owners! I have the title in front of me, and am on hold to the insurance company to change our insurance over as I write. I haven't actually seen the car again, though, because Thad immediately dropped it off at our mechanics to get the work done that it needs. We should have it back on Wednesday.

I've just realized that next week will mark the first time since Ari was born that I will a) be home and b) have access to the car. I can take her to playgroups and the zoo willy-nilly!

Check out Miss Ari eating some melon here! Thad has started trying to feed her some solids during the day, since she won't take a bottle. I got to appreciate the after effects of this meal at a diaper change much later in the evening.


And here she is, napping in her high chair for her papa. I actually have a series of these (taken by Thad, of course) of her in different poses. We'll pretty much take what we can get with her, nap-wise!

I came home early today because I needed to write up my part of the report for the MSSI, but I didn't get any work done. I got an email from a friend that made me sad, and I couldn't concentrate. Now that I've finally gotten the girl down (and written this) I'm faced with the decision- do I try to get some work done? Or do I go to bed?

Low bridge

Well, my family are leaving early in the morn'. Thad's also headed out early in the morn, for to go buy our new car. It's all terribly exciting.

We had an okay, very slow day. Thad slept until 4:30 in the afternoon, so he didn't get up until my family got back from church. Basically, we played a game of Arkham Horror with Elaine and Lori, ate some fish, and are now going to bed. Repeat comment about how much earlier my family sleeps than I do.

Ari was a little non-napping sweety, and passed out utterly at about 9:20- the little darling was literally falling asleep in her chair.

A whole Jack Buster and a pam-cake

Today was a pretty busy and exciting day! My family came into town yesterday. That's part of why I didn't write yesterday, although more of why I didn't write is that I fell asleep nursing Ari to sleep. This was unfortunate- I didn't get to brush teeth or squirt water up my nose†, and I ended up sleeping in my clothes. I hate sleeping in my clothes. Thad has been under strict orders to wake me up if I should fall asleep like that, but he never ever does. If I ever ask him why he didn't wake me (per my standing orders), he always says "but you were asleep!" and looks at me like I'm crazy. *sigh*

Today, we went to breakfast, and then I went to work, and then Ari napped, and then Mom took us shopping, and then we made ribs, and then Thad went to work, and then Ari wouldn't sleep, and then she DID sleep, and now I'm writing this. My family are all asleep, and I should be too.

Amazingly enough, though, it's not actually that late by my standards. It's barely after midnight. My family go to sleep so much earlier than I'm inclined to!

Anyhow, there were many exciting baby things today. The major thing is that she ate today! This is the list of all the things my baby ate:

• yogurt
• blueberries
• cornbread
• cheerios

And she didn't just taste them, either. She ate baby spoonful after baby spoonful of yogurt, and she just kept popping those cheerios straight in her mouth. This was also on the heels of yesterday's adventures with kalemata olives (which she liked!), tzatziki (which she didn't), and greek lemon potatoes. My baby is an eating food baby!

Next on the exciting list is that she was unquestionably responding to music today. Lori brought her flute, and was playing for Ari- Ari was hanging on every note, and getting excited and dancing in time. It was really cool.

Well, I'm off to bed. Tomorrow should be calmer, I think.
______
†I apparently love footnotes lately... anyway, I don't think I've mentioned the whole "squirting water up my nose" thing before. I'm apparently sensitive to some plant that grows in Ohio. I went to a doctor, and they did an allergy test, and I didn't come up even a little allergic to anything. All I know is, as soon as things come alive in the spring, I'm congested with dry membranes and a constantly bleeding nose. I end up sniffing and poking my nose (and with painful blood clots up in) all the time. Flushing my nasal passages with saline daily helps, but I suffer greatly if it's not daily. It goes away as soon as things die in the fall.

It's really just because it's pretty

Well, I shouldn't stay up too late, so I won't dally long here. Let's see... Ari was sick last night. Shortly after I went to bed, she suddenly started stirring, wouldn't take the boob, and then threw up all over the bed and promptly plopped straight back down (in the middle of the throw-up: eeewwwww) and passed out. She slept through me changing the sheets out from under her, and she slept through the whole night. She didn't wake up until after 8 AM.

Awesome, you say? Well, only if you share this country's obsession with getting babies to sleep all night†. For us, it's a problem. Ari won't take a bottle when I'm gone, so she doesn't eat for 8 or 9 hours during the day. She compensates by eating all night long, every couple of hours. So, you can imagine how concerned I was that she wouldn't eat all night, especially since I had to work today, and she had thrown up her last meal.

Fortunately, when she woke up in the morning, she was hungry as anything. I fed her all I could in the morning (it even made me late to class). After lunch, I told my group mates that I would come back to work in the afternoon, but wanted to go home early for my baby. They said to just go home, so I did. Ari is just fine now- and has been all day- it was only complicated by my being gone for work and her refusal to eat if I'm not there.

We got our mechanics to look over another car- a '93 four-door Ford Escort. This one looks like it might be a keeper. It'd need a fair quantity of work, but the price of that plus what they're asking is still reasonable. It's a four-door hatchback. I just look forward to possibly having a car again.

Anyway, I'm off to try to clean the house again- mom and my little sisters arrive tomorrow morning.
______
†Sidebar: this is the number two thing I get asked about when strangers want to talk to me about my child. Number one: how old is s/he? Number two: is she sleeping through the night? It seems an awfully personal question, if you ask me. I usually respond that she isn't, but since we co-sleep and breastfeed, I don't care.

Twice to bed

This is a picture of a bathed, night-diapered, jammied, ready-for-bed little girl. I include the picture partly because it's sweet (but then, what picture of her isn't? says the doting mama) but also partly because this never happens. We don't usually bother to jammy her, and she only gets bathed when it occurs to me to do so. It so happens that it occurs to me to do so maybe 3-4 times a month... I'm so lazy that way. But it's not like she really gets dirty- and she does get spot cleaned.

This was also an interesting night because I got to bathe as well- I even washed my hair. This was the inaugural shower for the solarveil sling. Ari was very skeptical of the water falling on her, but she was mostly happy to let me shower, provided I was scrupulous about keeping the water flow mostly on me- I can do this because we have one of those vertical stream kind of shower heads, as opposed to the diagonal stream kind you get most of the time.

Anyway, washing my hair was a bit tricky (picture me leaning my head waaaay back so as not to splash soapy water into my nursing baby's face) but here I am, hair washed and all showered up!

In other baby news, Ari is really, really taking to solids with the advent of her new teeth. Yesterday was cherries (and this morning was cherry peels in the diaper- eeeew!), the day before that was honeydew melon, and today she ate some peach. I was eating a peach for first dinner, and she was all over it. Finally, I pulled the peel off a piece and offered it to her. At first, she only poked it and then licked her fingers. Apparently, it passed muster, so I bit off a chunk and gave it to her. She actually sat in my lap and nibbled on her little piece of peach until it was too small for her to get at anymore.

This makes me feel very positive about my decision to do "child-led" solids introduction. She really was just waiting until she could feed herself. It's very cool.

Anyhow, I'm off to try and clean the house some. My family are coming on Friday (I think I mentioned that), and we won't get much cleaning time tomorrow as we're having people over for the advent of a new Thursday game.

Looking for a golden rose

Check out my baby, eating cherries! If she looks a little teary-eyed, it's because her mean papa had the temerity to wash her hands off. ;) But yeah, she ate little pieces of cherry, and apparently much enjoyed them.

We gave her some honeydew melon yesterday, and she munched away on that. Mayhap tomorrow we'll try watermelon. She's so much more willing to try food now that she has teeth to eat it with! I guess that's really the easier and more natural way to go about it, too.

This is Ari wearing a present she got from one of my fellow MSSI students. It's so awesome. That funkety-lookin' script is called Glagolitic, and her shirt has the names of four of the first five letters of the Glagolitic alphabet. The names of those letters also form the sentence "I know letters well". :D It's SO cute, and also so very geeky! I took a picture, and I'm going to give it to the people who run the center; I know they'll appreciate it.

There's not a whole lot else to talk about. Thad didn't work again tonight (I think I mentioned that was the likelihood) and we did indeed play Pendragon.

I don't know if I've explained Pendragon before, but it's an RPG in the style of the Arthurian romances and tales.

One of the interesting things about it, as opposed to other RPG's, is that you play out the life of your character. There're tables for near everything you could think of- random family events, marriage, childbirth. I think I showed a picture of the party we had when one of our knights got married in the game.

Anyhow, my character (the lady Arianna) got married some sessions ago, and at this point in the game, had a 2-month-old son. In the game tonight, an enemy stole her son and rode off with him.

I didn't at all like pondering what it would feel like to lose my child. I snuggled Ari very close tonight.

Anyway, check her out, playing with her dice. Andy (Sir Axel) brought her the d6 tonight. She totally loved it, and carted it everywhere. She even took it upstairs and snuggled it right to sleep.

All the tracings match

Thad didn't work tonight, so it almost feels like a weekend. Alas, it is but a Monday, and the weekend is long days away. At least tomorrow night is Pendragon (Thad also doesn't work), so I have that to sustain me.

You may have noticed many nights of Thad not working. Unfortunately, Target doesn't give new guys all that many hours- Thad only has 5 workdays in two weeks. We have some friends who have worked there longer who get decent hours, so we hope that maybe soon they'll start paying him enough to cover our rent. That would be nice. In the interim, I guess the silver lining is that he's not working very much in my final days of MSSI.

I'm really enjoying the MSSI, but I feel like a bit of a fraud, because I don't know enough Slavic to be able to sightread. At all. And I'm having serious difficulties doing the readings at all... I did tell them when I applied for the program how little I knew, though. And Dan (one of my professors) knows exactly how much Slavic I don't know, because I took his History of Russian class last Spring.

I just feel lame not being able to do readings in class, and whatnot. Today, I had the following exchange with my professor:

Predrag: Julia, would you like to read this next part?
Me: No.
Predrag: Um... okay.

See? LAME. I try to tell myself that I have other qualities that I bring to the table, but my other qualities are not too much in demand. Except for the part where I kick ass at tracing watermarks.

Anyway, check out the sweet baby photos. Thad and Ari actually came and lunched with me, and I took them up to see the Hilandar library, where the MSSI is being held. Everyone cooed at the girl. She kinda refused to go to sleep at a reasonable hour, though, so Thad had to sling her down (as you can see). And we successfully prevented Cthulhu from getting his tentacly appendages into our world, so it was all in all a good evening.

First steps

Well, to begin with, I'd best explain my title. Ari took her first two steps today, on her own two feet, holding on to nothing, but not in sequence. :)

She was playing with Thad, and holding on to his arm. Well, he pulled loose from her, and she took one, solitary, halting step towards him and grabbed back on to his arm. About two minutes later, she did the same thing to me. Now, if you'll excuse me, I think this deserves:

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That said, I shall move on to the rest of the last few days. We did indeed go and see Dead Man's Chest. It was good, but massively inconclusive and a little contrived. I wished they came up with more original jokes instead of just pointing back to the ones in the first movie. Also, Depp's Jack Sparrow was so cool in the original, but it just felt like here the movie kept going "Oh, that Captain Jack. Isn't he a character? Haw haw haw."

As you can see, Thad and I dressed for the occasion. It led to us being yarr'd at by random strangers- but one does not dress publicly like a pirate if one minds a little yarr'ing. (Now I have this image of closet pirate dressers... yarrvestites?)

Ari was actually "reading" in this picture- as in, holding the book and flipping from page to page to look at the different pictures. It was really cute.

Well, it was a nice (if too short) weekend. There are two more weeks of the MSSI left, and my family are coming next weekend. I'll get through these weeks somehow- I have the Jazz and Ribs festival marked in red on my calendar, and I keep it in my mind. It'll mark the end of this crazy schedule, and the beginning of my break for the summer! And who wouldn't look forward with anticipation to a festival devoted to jazz, and ribs? I'm salivating just thinking about it.

A bear with a halberd

Yet another work day. Today was much the same as yesterday... I traced some more complicated watermarks, and I even managed to help match some of the more complicated watermarks to the watermark albums. Exciting!

These pictures are pictures Thad took while I was gone today- I hear the girl was pretty happy. She's back to not eating while I'm gone, though. She wouldn't take any milk at all today. He did have a little success getting her to take a sippy with water in it, though, so at least that should help with the dehydration issue. I'm not sure what else to do about it at this point.

I'm looking forward to this weekend. We're going to see Dead Man's Chest on Saturday. "We", as in me and Thad, together, without the girl. The last time that happened was about 8 months ago.

Well, I've managed to waste near two hours of Asleep Baby time... how do I always do that? Stupid internet.

Well, let's see. Is there anything else? Oh, Ari figured out how to defeat our stair blockade. She can't do it consistently yet, but I'm sure that's just a matter of time- then she'll be sprinting up the stairs again. She really is much stronger and more agile than before, though, so it's possible that by the time we have to just move the blockade, she'll be capable of getting back down from the landing safely. We can only hope.

Oh, and we still don't have a car.

Pfeh.

Pouring gasoline on the sun

Today is a day Thad works, so that means today was a busy day. When Thad works, we go on kind of a weird schedule. I get home when I get home- usually around 5. Although, in my brain, I want to say that it's 4:30 or 5- but let's be realistic, here. When I get home, I sit down and immediately nurse the girl. I make Thad put my milk in the fridge. As a side note, there were several times in the past when I forgot to put my milk away, and it had to be poured out. This made me and the Baby Jesus cry, so it's best avoided in the future.

After the milk is put away, I send Thad upstairs to bed. After nursing the girl for a while, I serve myself first dinner. Then, while he's asleep, I have two jobs:

1. Keep the girl quiet enough that he doesn't wake up. This is a startlingly easy job, as it turns out. Thad sleeps like a frikkin' log, and our bedroom door blocks a lot of sound. Ari was outright screaming for hours the other night, and he slept right through it.
2. Have dinner ready for him when he wakes up at 8:30.
   

Today, we were low on food (as a result of the continuing carlessness we suffer under), so in order to fulfill job #2, Ari and I actually hiked the nine blocks and back to go shopping, stroller in tow. As I was walking back home, a (nearsighted?) elderly gentleman made a comment about me having two babies; I replied, "Nope- just the one, and a hell of a lot of groceries!"

It wasn't actually a hell of a lot, I should confess. But it was probably a few more than I should have been hauling in the stroller, and I had just pushed it 8 blocks while wrangling a wiggly baby. In any case, it was a nice day for a walk, and I think Ari and I both really enjoyed it. We miss each other when we're away, and it's nice to be close to each other for a while.

In any case, I successfully got dinner on the table, and night-lunch packed for Thad, and him out the door on time. I also got the baby to bed by 10:15. Go me.

You may have noticed the addition of new meals- each of us is up to 4 meals per day:

• Breakfast- Thad and Julia, but not together
• Lunch- Thad and Julia, still not together
• First dinner- Julia, while Thad sleeps
• Dinner- Thad and Julia: together at last!!
• Night-lunch- Thad, while Julia sleeps

And basically, dinner is the only time we see each other on days Thad works.

In happier news, my Opa-pa is out of the hospital (he was sick), and home. Without any major surgeries, even.

A pile o' swag

Not all that much has been going on. We went to a party for the fourth, at the house of the person running the MSSI. It was probably not the most fun way we could have spent the holiday, but it was okay. Ari was perfectly behaved, and the life of the party. She also ate a bunch of honeydew melon. She totally used her little teeth. I was kind of freaked out because she could bite off little chunks (Oh no! Choking hazard!) but she kind of... gummed them over her two little teeth, and handled the melon just fine. This lends credence to my theory that Ari will eat food when she's physically capable of eating it like a grownup person.

After the party we just came home and hung out. I stayed up way too late reading a novel last night and had some serious staying awake difficulties in class today.

Ari's been both scary and exciting today. To the right the scary- our little girl is getting so mobile. She figured out how to climb up on the papasan to get at the shelf today. She also figured out how to get at my (very messy and very not baby-safe) sewing corner, which we had hoped we had successfully blockaded.

On the exciting note, today Ari:

• Helped me scritch Thad's back again
• "Helped" Thad empty the dishwasher. Well, she helped take dishes out of the racks, anyway!
• Played a mimic game with me. I had a domino with a circle-shaped hole in it, and was holding it up to my eye to look through, and then up to her eye. She took it from me and held it back up to my eye!
• Tried to nurse off my tummy

Well, the last one isn't all that exciting, but it is kind of funny.

Devoured by Shub-Niggurath

Wow, today's been all over the map. The girl finally fell asleep in my arms just a few minutes ago. She was really fussy and tired for hours, and I got really frustrated. I think she was teething. Now that it's over, I feel kind of embarrassed... Ari screaming for a long time makes me unhinged. I think I'll try harder to be more hinged.

Tomorrow is the fourth, and a holiday, and neither of us is working. I think this is a good thing. It'll give both of us a bit of a rest.

R&K left this morning. We had pancakes, and then they drove off into the sunset. Or the sunrise? Or, probably more accurately, the cloudy morning gloom. Every time they go, I miss them so badly. I wish it was possible for our life paths to converge more, but they really don't. They're going to go off and live in foreign lands (something Rebecca's wanted to do since ever). Their new jobs are perfect for them. But it means that homebody me has no chance of being able to live down the street from my sister. Even if I wanted to move to DC, R&K won't be living there for long- their jobs will take them away from the States for years at a time.

Pfeh. Whine, whine. I'm a go sleep now. Sleep is good for everything.

The best shower of your life?

It's been kind of a busy weekend. Between Origins, R&K visiting and Brooke's birthday party... it's been kind of crazy. I wouldn't trade R&K's visit for the world, but it has been busy- and now we're going back to a full week of work. I'm enjoying MSSI, but I'm also counting the days till it's over!

There have been several really awesome baby moments lately- I thought I'd just relay a few. At Brooke's party last night, for starters, Ari fed Rick a whole stick of celery! She'd been playing with it for a while- waving it around and occasionally using it on her two little teeth. Rick was holding her and playing with her, and she was poking him with the celery stick. She poked it in his mouth, and he bit off a chunk. She got this kind of startled, fascinated look on her face and poked it back in his mouth! She kept doing this until she had fed him the very last little celery nub. It was adorable.

This morning, Ari helped me scritchy Thad's back. I had just changed her at the foot of the bed (which, if you'll recall, is currently on the floor) and Thad was flopped on his stomach nearby. He asked me for scritchies, so I started scritching him with one hand. Well, Ari crawled up, and started scratching his back with her one hand! It definitely wasn't accidental, either. She deliberately stood there and scratched him 5 or 6 times. It's one of the first times I can remember her clearly imitating me. Thad says they were even nice scritchies. :D

Lastly, I saw Ari clearly dancing to music today. She was playing with her piano, and sitting on her knees and bouncing up and down, staring at the piano while it made music. In time to the music. I suppose it's possible that it was coincidental, but it really seemed clear to me that she was dancing to music.

Anyway, it's really late. I'm a sleep... more work tomorrow. :(