Ants in cream

Yesterday was a long day, but to be honest with you, I'm a bit fuzzy on the details. I ended up only sleeping for an hour, and was in that place where I seem to be okay, but I keep forgetting what I was doing, or what time it is, or where I am. I passed out late-ish last night, and Thad- wonderful husband that he is- let me sleep in for a while.

Until Ari opened the door to our room, and came and woke me up. Apparently, she knows how to work doorknobs now! I'm still processing that. :) Funny thing, though- the door to our bathroom doesn't really have a working door latch, so it can be pretty easily opened if you just push it in. Ari's done that bunches of times.

But now, I've twice seen her trying to get into the bathroom by fumbling with the doorknob, and she no longer tries to just push open the door. Go figure...

We went to the arts festival downtown yesterday with Jaime and Brooke. We parked down by the Giant Eagle and walked the rest of the way downtown with Ari in her bike trailer stroller. The bike trailer as stroller thing was lovely (it was nice how we didn't have to carry our stuff; it has delightful storage space) but I did wish it didn't have that long front arm; it was problematic in the crowd of the festival.

There were some bands there, at least one of which we liked. We all danced around and generally had a good time. We also enjoyed looking at all the art stuff, although there's never ANYTHING at that festival that we could possibly, in a million years, afford.

We also walked down by the waterfront, which I'd never been to before. The Santa Maria is down there, and some other neat stuff.

Oh, we ran into Brooke's family, and her little brother Joe had a great time playing with Ari. He had fun pushing the stroller around, and he kept wanting to pick her up and run around and play with her. It was really sweet.

All in all, we had a pretty good time.

Today's mostly been catchup, and house cleaning, and alternate napping.

Time lapsed

Happy St. Patrick's day, y'all. We had a nice one, here. Although, it's ended a bit late, as you can see. We had some corned beef and potatoes and soda bread. I also made some green shortbread balls, which were delicious.

Hmm... I seem to be kind of delirious. Perhaps I shall go to bed and finish writing this upon the morn.

••••••••••••••

Okay, then. So, yesterday, we had R&B over for breakfast- it was supposed to be Cthulhu time- but Lauren was sick, so Cthulhu didn't happen. They ended up going back home and planning a dinner with some of Brooke's family. We were invited, but decided it would be better for the girl to stay home; she was really tired and grumpy. Jaime and Kelli and Jeff came over for dinner, though, and we proceeded to play a bunch of games- per usual. It was quite fun.

This is Miss Ari completely passed out on my lap, bless her heart. She just climbed up into my lap while I was on the computer, and was unconscious before I even realized it.

The day before, we all went over to R&B's for dinner- we brought them dinner, actually, because Brooke's granddad died last week (he'd been extremely sick for some time), and Friday was the funeral... I thought it might be nice for them to not have to cook.

Oh, and in very exciting news (for me, anyway), Ari knows my name now! :D She sees me and says "Ma! Ma!"

Lessee, what else... she knows the name of one number (six), and when she rolls dice now, she'll roll them and say "six!" and raise her arms in the air in triumph. She's also an accomplished nose-beeper these days, and she still likes to play the growl-like-monsters game.

Sexy Abe

Here we have visual proof of Ari's teething. The hands she has shoved in her mouth obscure the gobs of drool on her chin, but you get the idea, I'm sure. It seems to be an on-and-off thing, and I haven't seen any evidence of an erupting tooth lately, though, so I think nothing's imminent.

It's been a weird week. I had my practice presentation on Monday, and it went fairly well. Then, on Tuesday, we spent the whole day shopping for food (three hours and 250$) and doing laundry (two loads darks, one load whites, one load diapers). We had gotten to the point where we barely had anything edible in the house, and no one had clean underwear anymore. :P Jaime, sweetheart that he is, brought food over and cooked us dinner Sunday night so I could finish my handout without worrying about food.

Now, ensconced with food and clean underwear, I have to face the actual presentation. Brian gave me notes for extensive revisions of my handout (why do I never seem to have fewer red marks on my handouts, no matter how often I revise? ;) ), so that's my job now. I pretty much have tomorrow to do it, too. It's good, though, to have an advisor who's so helpful with comments. The handout should be much better when I finish with it.

This picture is of Miss Ari, passed out mid-diaper change. She walked all the way to the comic store and back with her papa, and apparently just collapsed in exhaustion afterwards. She didn't even end up staying up that late, despite sleeping from 5:30 to around 7:00. Note the book she's curled up with... awwwwww.

Oh, and I feel all like I accomplished something- I made dinner tonight. I made a recipe from the 6 o' Clock Scramble book, and it was tasty and easy to make. And I even made a vegetable. I never feel so much like a grown-up as when I make a whole dinner and we eat at the table, I swear. :)

I leave you with a picture of Miss Ari, coloring (notice, if you will, that she has put a bunch of her crayons into her dice bag, too) and playing with her fairy dolls. :D

Chicken Dijon

Whew! It's three in the morning. I'm going to pay for this tomorrow.

Jaime came over tonight, and we had dinner and played games- 10 Days in the USA (Jaime won), then Pinochle (Jaime won), then King's Gate (I won) and finally, Carcassonne (I won). Come to think of it, it wasn't a very great game night for Thad as far as winning went. :)

I made dinner from a recipe from a book I picked up from the library this afternoon. I really like it, actually, because the recipes are like, normal recipes that normal people without an hour and a half to cook and capers and quinoa and shit in their kitchen might be able to produce. God knows I love to get a little gourmet now and again, but I kinda needed new things to put in the normal dinner rotation, so it's pretty awesome. I marked about 20 recipes that looked promising!

I took Ari with me to school today. She was awesomely sweet in Gothic- she actually spent most of the time (15 minutes straight) reading my Gothic textbook. There are no pictures in my textbook, just printed word- but she spent 15 minutes flipping through the pages and pointing at things and peering closer at them and making "hm... ooooh..." sort of noises. :D

She also said some words for the people at school, which was sort of cool. Brian commented that she was giving the English, and not the Gothic pronunciation of "fish", so she must not be picking it up yet. ;)

Bacon in my tummy

Sorry; no pictures today. :) Today was a work day for me, and Thad only thinks to pull out the camera if she was exceptionally cute.

Let's see...

I had an exciting time with the copier this morning. I was supposed to meet Brian across campus (15 min walk) at 11:00. At 10:40, I set my students' midterm up to copy and went and packed my stuff up to leave. I returned to the copier a few minutes later only to discover that it was broke six ways from Sunday... it took me 25 minutes to fix it- which put me (at a fast trot) 15 minutes late to my appointment. Fortunately for me, Brian was late, also, so we just rescheduled.

Then this evening, Ari and I went to another mom's house to hang out while Thad and Jaime got their Heroclix fix. There were a bunch of other kids there, and Ari had great fun. It was really cool to see her actually playing with other kids instead of just playing alongside them. She particularly enjoyed playing with a little 10-month-old girl. She was actually sitting there going "Boo!" to her. :D

Missing the Orkin Army

Wow, it's been a long time since I updated this. I'd like to be better at it again- it's just been hard for me to find a groove with it since I can no longer consistently count on having evening time to write.

Take this entry- I started it on Friday night by uploading pictures. Then, I managed to start writing it Saturday morning. Now, it's Saturday evening and I'm sitting down and writing again.

Ari is growing by leaps and bounds all the time. We're having some sleep problems lately- getting her on any reasonable kind of sleep schedule, mostly. It's very frustrating, because we'll finally get her to nap and go to bed on time for two days in a row, and then she'll randomly wake up in the middle of the night (and then stay up all night) and we'll be right back where we started, with a baby who won't nap till 6 pm and won't go to bed until 1 and is grumpy and tired all the time.

This is a picture of Miss Ari, having scarfed off with a chunk of blue cheese. :D I was making her some dinner, and she was acting really hungry, so I was trying to be quick about it. Next thing I knew, she'd snaked her little hand up to the table, yoinked the block of blue cheese, and had run off with it. Then, she proceeded to totally munch it down. Like, taking big bites and everything. I mean, I like blue cheese. I really, really do- but I don't know if I could eat that much straight blue cheese myself! Thad and I were laughing too hard to take it away from her right away, and then I had to take a picture. My baby is a hard-core cheese lover.

Here is Ari playing with her buddy Jaime. For whatever reason, some of our friends are Ari's favorites, and some aren't. Ari totally has Jaime (who, pre-Ari, didn't particularly like kids) wrapped around her pudgy little finger.

Ari is ?maybe? doing things like talking more. She says "up! up!" alot these days; sometimes in context. The other day, I think she said "bye". Also, I think she did the sign for "food" today! It was just once, though. She had come up asking for nursies ("milk! milk!") and I said, "Do you want some breakfast?" and made the sign for "food". Then she hesitated, and did the sign! Needless to say, she immediately got a plate of food.

Things she likes lately:

• rolling dice (and getting grown-ups to read the results)
• raising her arms in the air and squealing (and getting grown-ups to copy her)
• playing "monster"- growling and roaring
• having papa run down the stairs with her, making noises
• playing the hiding-and-surprise game with papa
• getting her teeth brushed, with the baby toothpaste
• having her nails trimmed- this has always been true of her, but lately, she'll find the nail scissors and demand me to trim her nails!
• And, as always, reading books. We've instituted a three-in-a-row rule on books- no more than three times through the same book in one sitting.
  

Silent movie kiss

You get lots of pictures today. :) There's also a video that I think I'll save for a time when I have fewer nice pictures to post.

Thaddeus decided to put her in a pretty dress, today, and boy, does she make that dress look adorable. Well, what have I missed talking about? Yesterday, I took Ari to class with me. It was a session of my Gothic study group, and Brian kept saying it was okay to bring her, so I figured I would give it a try. It actually turned out just great! She decided that one of the first-year grad students was Her Person for the afternoon, and plopped herself down on this girl's lap and read books all through the class. Fortunately, aforementioned grad student didn't seem to mind. :)

Then, during the evening, Jaime and then Kelly and then Brooke and then Rick all sort of independently (more or less) wandered over here, and we stayed up too late hanging out. Thad owned us as Dracula again in a game of Fury of Dracula.

Today, Rick and Brooke came over, and we started the Viking Cthulhu game that Rick's been threating to run since ever. Our ship got dragged into the depths by a nameless tentacled horror, so that was a pretty good start to the game. No one's lost any sanity yet, though- but I'm sure the metaphorical first blood will be drawn soon! It just wouldn't be Cthulhu if we weren't slowly (or very quickly) going mad.

This is a picture of Ari reading the magazine she got in the mail. It's actually a "board-book format" magazine meant for toddler-aged babies. She loves it! She's had great fun carrying it around and reading it. Or (as in this case) making adults point at things in it. Ari is way into pointing at things these days. It's practically her favorite thing.

This is her stuffing popcorn into her mouth two-fisted. You'll also notice her very first temporary tattoo there on her hand- it's a skull, with, like, a snake... and a knife...

Guess whose idea that was? I'll give you a hint: it was one of her parents, and it was NOT ME. :) I'm just shocked that he managed to get her to hold still long enough for him to apply it.

Well, lastly, check us out trying to prevent Ari from getting more popcorn. She's wily, that baby is.

Last night

Today, we finally did Christmas cookies (about time, right?). Jaime and Kelly and Rick and Brooke came over to help... we made a batch of gingerbread and a batch of Mom's sugar cookies. I even made green coconut to use. :)

We have an enormous bunch of cookies now... we already gave a plate to our next-door neighbors. They were kind of shocked and happy- I hope they enjoyed them. We have a plate made for the library people and the night staff at Target and Thad's roleplaying group. Now, we just need to figure out something to do with the other three plates of cookies!

Ari is really doing so totally much better. As soon as we took her to the doctor, she perked right up, right? :) Brooke and Rick brought over a whole bunch of presents for her- including some new books, which are always welcome. I think we're planning on hiding a few of her current books after the holidays (for example, Where's Prancer can go to hell, and it can die).

We, on the other hand, seem to have caught whatever it was she had. We've got coughs, sore throats, insomnia, etc... It's not enough to incapacitate us, just enough to make us uncomfortable...


Here's Ari playing with her friend Jaime. :)

Ari wasn't much help with the cookies- in fact, Thad took her out for a walk a few times to get her out of the house- but she was fun anyhow. This is her playing with the fuzzy puzzle that Brooke gave her. For some reason, she kept sticking the cow piece under her chin, and then clapping for herself. Later, she graduated to walking all around with the puzzle piece under her chin(s).

Sometimes, I really wonder what's going on in her head. :)

At long last

This was my baby a few nights ago, trying to pass out asleep under a chair... shortly before she threw up all over Brooke. The last few nights (weeks, really) have been really rough on all of us. This week, Ari's just been fussy and not feeling well all the time- hence my not writing. It's really been quite horrible.

Tuesday night, she was up all night with Thad. Wednesday night, she was up all night with me- plus, she threw up twice. She barely ate solid foods for about three days (yay still nursing!) and has just been clingy and whiny and totally un-fun to be around.

This is a picture from Wednesday night, when she was carrying around a book and trying to hold it to go to sleep. The girl only marginally cares about teddy bears, but she wants to cuddle a book when she's not feeling well. She didn't want me to read it- she just wanted to hold it. She did the same thing on Thursday morning, except with the "Safe Baby Handling Tips" book that Max gave us last year for Christmas.

Last night, she wouldn't pass out until about 1:30 (in the sling with papa, she didn't want me) but she slept like the dead until I had to wake her up to make our doctor's appointment. It was actually supposed to be a well baby visit, with some shots, but clearly that wasn't happening. They checked her over, and said it was probably just a viral thing, and they expected that she'd be better in a week or two (argh)... and then Ari threw up all over Thad as we were getting ready to leave.

Despite the fact that she threw up, and that she barely napped today, by the evening, she was so much better! Better than she's been in ages (aka as long as my sleepless, fogged brain can remember). She was interested in food, and ate a whole bunch of nibblies I got for her. She was cheerful and playful and her old self again! She even fell asleep easily, upstairs, before midnight. Check it out:



This is her dancing to the new CD that her Uncle Darren sent. :D

Well, it's been a busy few days even aside from baby craziness. We've had packages flying in from all over with presents from everybody- the Christmas Crib is now full of shiny things. Oh, and yesterday we had our solstice dinner. Andy, Krista, Ray, Jaime, Kelly, Rick and Brooke all came. I made a turkey, with pear stuffing (for the first day of Christmas, as we're counting it). We also had rosemary garlic mashed potatoes, crab/shrimp things in fillo shells- my first time working with fillo, and it turned out great!- green beans cooked with bacon, oyster mushrooms cooked with roasted garlic and bacon, and Jeff's mother's chocolate pecan pie for dessert. The chocolate pecan pie was much less sweet than I would have expected- it was really delicious. Oh, Jeff made it- it was just his mum's recipe. She lives in Massachusetts, and wasn't making pie for our solstice dinner at all.

After dinner, we played a few games of Carcassonne (Jaime's Yuletide present to me! :D) and generally hung out. It was really lovely, except for Ari not feeling so well... but I'm glad she seems to be doing better! I wasn't sure how much more I could take, quite frankly. :)

Update!

Well, as previously mentioned, Ari was up till 1:30 in the morning again. She currently has four (count 'em) teeth coming in, including two molars and two incisors, one top and one bottom of each. And this is not even counting the two more molars that are clearly ready to burst forth from her gums at any moment. Yay! She's mostly okay, but her sleep is totally messed up.

Let's see... in the last week, Thad and I went to see the new Bond movie (rock star awesome!). Ari is becoming more verbal- she can do "more" and "eat"... kinda mostly. I'm told that tonight, she was clearly saying "tiptoe tiptoe" along with the Bear Hunt story.

We have spent time trying to get presents done and out- most of you should be getting packages in the mail relatively soon. :) Now, I feel like I can relax and have Christmas. We're going to get a tree tomorrow, and we're going to make cookies on Monday. That means, we have to clean the house before people come over! Yay! It's kind of a mess in the aftermath of present making. Although, at least the basement is clean!

I wrote about this in the entry that got deleted, but I had a great exchange- one of our friends needed some cash moneys for presents, and we needed a non-scary basement and kitchen. Our dollars and her obsessive-compulsive tendencies got together and had a party, and voila! Clean basement! The kitchen is... erm... no longer clean. Let us say. Best investment of dollars ever!

Here is Ari, building a tower of dice. I'm told she was able to build it four dice high, which is pretty impressive. The woman holding her is Kelly, she who cleaned the basement. She is Jaime's new lady, and gets on with Ari wonderfully. Ari likes to make her read the same book over and over and over and over and over... come to think of it, she likes to make everyone read her the same book over and over and over. :) Kelly is just willing to do it. Well, and so is Brooke.

Brooke watched her while we saw Bond, and poor Miss Brooke had to read the Good Night Butterflies book upwards of 37 times, I hear.

Thanksgiving

Well, the Papkes have left, and I finally have a chance to slow down and write, and post a couple pictures. Tomorrow, I'm going to work desperately on school work; today, though, I'm going to write this and then go to bed early (before midnight!) and catch up on my sleep.

This is a picture of several of us sitting down to Thanksgiving dinner. The Papkes were there, of course, and Ila. Angelo didn't make it this year, but Jaime and Kelly came. The dinner turned out awesome, and our fridge is still stocked to the gills with delicious leftovers. I have no intention to cook for the next several days.

It was a lovely visit altogether, with the Papkes, and I decided to make it a no-work vacation for me (god knows, I needed one), so that was good for me. Ari had great fun with all her relatives there paying attention to her. She got them to read to her and play with her. Oh, and the weather's been crazy warm (for Ohio in November, anyhow) so we've been out to the park every day.

This is Ari having her first Thanksgiving. She didn't actually eat all that much; I offered her different things, but all she wanted was bread. I keep trying to remind myself that she's getting everything she needs, but boy is my child a carb junky.

So. Tired. Going to bed now; will write more and post more pics tomorrow.

Stupid monkey bars

Recognize this facial expression?

The shirt she's wearing is a shirt that a local mom I know made, but ended up being just a little too small for her boy. As you can see, it fits Ari great! She's also taken to wearing her hat indoors- I think she gets a kick out of being able to put it on all by herself.

Ari's totally walking everywhere, now. When we leave the house, I just let her walk beside me rather than picking her up. She thinks it's the Best Thing Ever... I'm just enjoying the fact that walking, in and of itself, can be adequate amusement for her.

I've mostly been trying to work today. We did go out to the thrift store while papa was sleeping. Ari was remarkably well-behaved (for a toddler) walking around the store- until we got near the Christmas trees. I certainly can't blame her (she is a toddler, after all) but we had to leave lest Ari do serious damage to some glass ornaments. :)

The weather was really nice today (for autumn), and I wanted to take my girl out to the playground and let her run around. When we got home, however, she passed straight out and had a glorious two hour nap. So by the time we got over to the playground, the sun was starting to set (aka: 4:30 in the afternoon). There was still a reasonable amount of light left, though, and she had great fun running around and climbing on things until mama decided it was too cold, and time to go in.

Then, I proceeded to work on school stuff for the rest of the evening.

Pfeh. Our house is a mess, but Jaime says he's going to come and wrangle the baby for us on Wednesday so we can clean and do Thanksgiving prep. He is currently my Favorite Person. :D

A pomegranate as big as your head

This is a great picture. Not only does it show my baby playing with the broom (she loves that thing), and not only is she really happy (look at that smile!) but you can also finally see her top teeth! She's had them for more than a month- I just checked on my blog archives, so I know- and I've never been able to get a shot. And not only can you see top teeth, but you can also the the new tooth she's cutting, if you look closely just to the left (your left) of her bottom teeth.

Today was mostly a cleaning day. I cleaned the bedroom and the bathroom. We kinda cleaned the dining room for people coming to game. Ari and I went to meet Brooke, and she had sooooo much fun running all around while I worked out. She's pretty much happy any time she gets to roam free, really.

Here Ari is, being the youngest Seeker in Fuzzy Flowers United's history.

Cute, true story: After Jaime zoomed her around on the broom for a while, he set her down on the floor. She grabbed the broom back up, very carefully straddled it (harder than it sounds like for a wobbly little toddler) and then sat there bouncing with her broom. :D

Today, she also kept laughing at jokes... someone would say something, we'd all start laughing, and bam, she'd start laughing (really loud!) with us. Little sweety; she's learning to accommodate!

The special-ed guy

This picture is actually from yesterday night- Ari playing with her buddy Jaime! :) On game nights, she assumes that all these people are here to play with her... or do something with those enticing bits of plastic that no one will let her touch. One or the other.

Today, we mostly stayed home and cleaned up. I had planned for us to go out in the afternoon, but Ari actually napped- which, as it is really sporadic, I never plan for. She even napped for nearly three hours- I got to do some art projects and have a nice long chat with the Darren. I should, of course, have been doing schoolwork (for which I shall pay in sleep tonight) but it was very nice.
Thad came home after subbing, and just crashed out. He's in the middle of his three-shift stretch now, but at least he got a solid four hours' sleep- which is not nothing.

This is Ari in the dining room before I cleaned it... not that it looks all that different now. These days, I strive for "not a health violation" rather than "clean". There's just always going to be a certain amount of clutter. Like, today: I cleaned the bedroom. I pitched old newpapers, folded (and stowed) clean diapers, gathered dirty clothes for laundry (three loads today, baby!) and put some of my clothes away.

I did not, however, attempt to deal with the big pile of books Ari pulled off of her shelf... she can pull books off much faster than I can get them on. *sigh*

And here she is, playing next to the tupperware. She spent an inordinate amount of time doing this today. Funny thing- we've had a glue trap right where she's sitting for weeks. We finally managed to catch two (!) mice on it last night, and today is the day she wants to sit ovr there, now that the trap's gone. It's very convenient.

I finished some stuff for Halloween (although, not everything) and I made a dinner. Now, to finish school stuff and do some dishes.

PS: I had a really hard time picking which shot to put here... I usually take two or three shots of the same picture, babies being how they are. Anyway, and I take the best one- but they were all so cute! You can see the other two (I picked this one at random) here and here.

A funeral service for your character sheets

So, I mentioned that Ari was teething last night... well, guess what happened? She woke up at 2 AM, and didn't go back to bed until about 7 AM. Then we proceeded to sleep until after noon, thereby missing the NWAV t-shirt photo shoot and also mama's workout.

Here's my girl walking up the stairs. She still won't attempt to go *down* the stairs, though, even if I'm there. I respect this greatly as evidence that she knows her limits. :)

This is Ari and her cell phone, wearing some of her new winter clothes that we got from the thrift store. I'm particularly fond of this shirt.

I don't know if we've had a pic of the cell phone yet... Ari's the first one in the family to have a mobile phone. :) She's forever trying to get at our friend's phones, so when Thad saw this one at Target, we decided to get it. It's been awesome, because when she starts going for someone else's phone, I can always say, "here's YOUR phone, sweety!" and distract her.

We didn't do much today... Thad didn't work, so I did get some schoolwork done. We also cleaned some. Mostly, I just spent the day in a bit of a haze.

I did make a delicious dinner- little meatloaves stuffed with creamy blue cheese and glazed with ketchup glaze. They were very tasty.

Then, Jaime came over and we played a game... it's been too long since we got to do that (mostly because Jaime's been out of touch since he moved).

And then, about 1 AM, Miss Ari decided it was time to wake up. Ah, well... at least it's Thad's turn to be up with her. I'm off to bed at last!

Talk to the door

This is Ari this morning. She went, took all the clothes out of her drawer, and then decided to sit in it. The look on her face is because she's actually stuck, and I'm taking a picture rather than helping her out of her plight- I couldn't help it! It was too funny. :)

She's been all into sitting in things lately. The other day, I looked over and she was sitting in this mesh cube we use as one of her bookshelves. She was just sitting in there, no books, and holding her potato. Not even babbling or anything- just sitting quietly in a cube, holding her potato.

Her papa took her to the market today, and they gave her a balloon. It is her first balloon ever, and she spent all evening carting it around.

She lost her pumpkin, today- she was holding it while we waited for the bus, and she picked the exact wrong moment to drop it on the ground. It fell on the ground and rolled into the street just as the bus was driving up. No more pumpkin!

Tonight was the Changeling game, and she had great fun playing with all her friends. She spent a bunch of time playing with Jaime in particular. He kept rubbing the balloon on her head so her hair would stand up all funny. :)

Here we are together- she was nursing a moment before this. Like a monkey, as you can see. Why she wants to nurse one-legged is beyond me.

Cute Ari moment for today (beyond the previously mentioned ones):

As we put her to bed, she grabbed Thad's brimmed black hat, and was putting it on her head and dancing around. So, here's this baby in adorable dragon PJ's (thanks, Brooke! ;)), and a top hat on her head, dancing around on the bed. Awwww.... :D

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

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.

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!

Joss Whedon in the credits

Happy harvest, y'all. :D

Not much to say. Thad slept until the afternoon. Then, we went over to talk to someone who talked to us about baby carriers. Then, we went shopping in order to get foods for our harvest feast. We got a very nice loaf of bread from the french (style) bakery down the road from us, and I made a biscuit-top chicken potpie. And we had corn on the cob. Mmmm.

Then, I came home and cooked like a maniac! Food was delicious- Jaime commented that my potpie tasted "healthy". I was like, it has mass quantities of butter- how can it be healthy? He pointed out that his only prior experience with potpie was store and frozen ones... By those standards, it really was the friggin' Mona Lisa of potpies! Well, maybe not the Mona Lisa, but I'm a bit giddy, so I hope you'll excuse the hyperbole.

We had Pendragon tonight. We managed to retrieve the Golden Rose (at long last!), and we found Broderick's rival wandering around, nekked and crazy, in the woods. Anyway, we (and by we, I mean the knights) finally got the Golden Rose from the forest, and who should we find just outside the border, but a legion of Sir Garrowin's knights? This would be, gentle readers, the knights of our most hated foe.

And then Thad ended the game. AAAAARRRGGGGGH!!!!

How does he expect me to sleep for the next two weeks, with that cliffhanger?

NOTE: apologies for, like, all y'all who have no idea what the hell I'm talking about. Trust me. It was awesome.