Getting my English up

Ari likes the nice weather, and she really likes climbing on mama's and papa's bikes. :P

This was me letting her run around the "back yard" (And by "back yard", I mean tiny fenced in space behind our house with two very broke benches and an increasingly enormous quantity of greenery round the edges) while I cooked. She fingerpainted and played with her balls and played with the trailer and then wanted to "ride bikes".

We've also been doing a lot of drawing with chalk on the front and back stoops.

This is Dr. Ari, running off to save lives.

We finally went and got a membership to COSI. COSI memberships are usually hella expensive, but we are not only poor, we are officially poor and on public assistance. That meant we were able to get an "access" membership, for not hella expensive.

That, in turn, means that Ari gets to go play in Little Kidspace, which is the kick-ass play area they have. It's got a water play area, and a big ol' playground, and some dress up/pretend areas and an enormous pile of blocks. Oh, and a giant helicopter and ambulance that kids can get in and "drive". Anyway, so this was Ari, dressing up like a doctor. She was running off to go drive the ambulance.

The weather has been warm, but it's been crazy rainy the last couple days. Yesterday, it started just pouring down. Ari wanted to run back and forth on the porch, getting wet.

As for us- Thad is done subbing for the school year. He's supposed to start a test grading job on Monday, which will run for maybe 6 weeks, and then he will go back to the Target. Well, up his hours at the Target- he's still working there one night a week.

My kids (I mean students) are supposed to give me their finals tomorrow, and then I have to grade them. Otherwise, I'm done for the summer. My goal is to have my final draft of my dissertation proposal done in the next week. I am, however, being frustrated in that goal by being stupidly sick.

For those of you who didn't know, I'm about 8 weeks pregnant, due sometime in January. I am in the hating-my-life stage. It ought to last about another month, or so.

Orc blood

This is me and Ari, watching the fireworks today. Ari wasn't scared in the least, and she seemed to really enjoy watching the lights in the sky.

It's been a busy holiday day for us. First, Thad was feeling ill- he had a terrible headache. So, he slept in a while, and came to feel better.

Then, we went over to Origins to get our badges- two teacher's badges (free) and a child's badge, also free. Since Origins is held downtown in our hideously ugly convention center, we just biked there. On our way back, we had to skirt through the Doo Dah parade. Fortunately, it was just getting started, so we were able to cross through a gap.

This is Ari and me painting. She was into the watercolors, and really seemed to get the gist of how to use them (wet brush in cup, dip in paints, put on paper). Much of the time she thought it was more fun to smush the paints around on the tray than paint them onto paper, but that's cool. Those paints are in my "kid art supplies" box. All alone, for the moment- I should take her crayons out of the heater intake and put them there- also, I want to get her fingerpaints.

And this is Ari playing in a puddle. After we got back from Origins, Ari took a nap, and it started raining pretty hard, which nixed our plans to barbecue with R&B in the park before the fireworks. We ended up just staying in and cooking the food at home- pork ribs, corn on the cob, chips (with Mom's famous dip) and cherry pie for dessert. The cherry pie was particularly excellent- flaky crust, sweet cherries, good filling ingredients.

Thad had to work tonight, which is total suck, so he missed the fireworks. They were lovely. At least he got cherry pie...

Bar some becue

Brooke sent us some pictures from her birthday party on Saturday, and I present them here for your delectation. This first one is Ari begging ice cream from the birthday girl. Not shown is Ari totally vikinging the birthday girl's chocolate truffle, and stuffing her little face with it. :)

Well, I'm back to work. I haven't been able to face revising The Paper That Will Not End, so I spent today working on prepping materials for Mary's class (my source of rent money for the summer). Today, I rewrote a homework/online quiz. Oh, and I cleaned my desk. It was getting pretty bad.

Poor Thad got stuck with a double shift because of my meeting with Mary today. Hopefully that won't happen again- I did tell her I'd prefer to avoid Mondays and Thursdays. Since none of the four of us involved in this project seem to have a set schedule, that ought to be pretty easy.

I'm looking forward to getting to take Miss Ari out to some places this summer. I already picked up some tickets to COSI and the conservatory, and I'm going to try to get some zoos soon. :) Plus, we can attend playgroups! Huzzah!

Fly unzipped

This is Ari, having dinner like a real grown-up, with a fork and a regular cup and her own seat at the table. How about that?

We've been trying to unpack and readjust to a less lobster-filled life. :) Oh, and also catch up on any of the several hundred email and snail mail and phone messages we had waiting for us (so, if you're wondering why you haven't heard from us, that would be why).

I will tell y'all more about the trip (which was lovely), but I think I'll wait until I have the pictures from Marcus, so you can see what I'm talking about. :)

Otherwise, we're trying to work out what the summer will be like. Thad's working a few nights a week at Target (hopefully, getting to be more like 4 or 5 and not 2 or 3 like it is now). I've got to go meet with people tomorrow, and then I'm hoping I can just work a couple days a week, around Thad's schedule. We will see.

Ari's been talking up a storm. She's firmly in the two-word stage, and now she can say medial consonants. So, where she was saying "bay-ee" for baby a month ago, she definitely says "baby" now. Still no proper "f's", though. When we were in Maine, I'd tell we needed to go back to our family, and she'd say "go sammy! go sammy!" all excited-like.

Oh, funny thing- Ari will sit there and go "mm mm Mama. mm mm Mama. mm mm Papa. mm mm Ah-ee." Um, and she's starting to be able to count. She's known the numbers for a while, but now she's aware that they come in a set sequence.

And here she is, fallen asleep over a book she was reading:

Swiving and thews

Stupid blurry photograph. I'm not sure why I didn't realize I was out of focus while I was taking it...

Nevertheless, this is The Best Creampuff I Have Ever Made (So Far). :D I made it out of the Dessert University cookbook I've been fangirling over for the last month. He really explains how to do it, and what the tricky bits are- and you can see the results!

The puff part is properly puffly, and not sad and deflated and squidgy. The cream filling is creamy and thick, and not the least bit runny. And best of all, this recipe made 12 big ol' creampuffs. Even with inviting Rick and Brooke over, We still have four blackberry creampuffs waiting to be eaten! :D

This is Ari, playing the walk- around- attached- to- mama's- leg game. It was awesome.

Today's been sort of a weird day. I couldn't get to sleep until past dawn last night (this morning?) and Thad had stuff to do, so I was on Ari shift first thing. I spent the whole morning sleepwalking, and then took a nap in the afternoon. When I woke up, I felt totally energized, and made creampuffs.

Ari and I went for a walk over to the post office in the morning. She is hard to walk with, because she doesn't want to hold my hand, or necessarily go in the same direction as me. :) Also, it's hard to carry her unless I whip out the wrap, because she is not such a little girl as she once was, and I am but a little woman. She grew chub (and muscle and bones and skin etc. etc.) faster than I grew muscle?

Thad is off working his first night back at the Target- 10 hour shift, with adset at the end of it. So, yuck.

Happy Mother's Day to those of y'all to whom it applies, by the way.

A lack of tomatoes

Well, before I go on about silly things, I should let you all know: Thad had his hearing, and was cleared to go back to work, which is an enormous, incredible relief. Thad intends to sub as little as possible, of course (he will probably sub some more this year, but not renew his license), but it's so good to not have that hanging over our heads, and not have to worry about it anymore.

Now, back to silliness:

Check out my first attempt ever at needle felting! I feel that it turned out pretty good. The color mismatch is less... apparent in real life, too. I will be making her a little merbaby and a sling to put over those boobies as well, though. :)

She's going to be for the art show I'm buying space in this fall. If I can sell one piece, it'll more than pay for the entry fee, so that would be really cool. I'm going to try to do maybe five larger things (like the mermaid, and the dice gremlin) and then maybe a few smaller things. We'll see what I can get done this summer... I have a million monsters in my head.

This is Ari, having some tasty lunch.

Today, we went on an enormous long bike ride downtown. We went down to the main library, and then Ari and I hung out there while Thad went over to his hearing (a block away). Ari ended up napping most of the time Thad was gone, so I had a nice time sitting outside the library in the shade with a book while she slept in her trailer.

We are loving the bike trailer now that the weather is nice, by the by (thanks, Mom and Dad! :D). It's so nice to be able to get downtown without driving (or, more to the point, parking), and Ari seems to really enjoy going for rides.

Midnight pancakes

Let's see- Thad's hearing has finally been scheduled, so we're not in that limbo anymore. He's putting his resume out to a few places, and going back to his Target job in any case, though. He's pretty much decided he's not going to renew his teaching license, though- I can't blame him.

(That, by the way, was me and my suckness at beginning writing things, deciding to just jump in in the middle)

Ari is way into superheroes these days. She flips through her comics (we grabbed her some on Free Comic Book Day) and insists that we tell her the names of all the characters. She can say Hawkman ("haw'mun"), Hawkgirl ("haw'guhl"), Green Arrow ("aaoh"), the Flash ("sash!"), and Superman ("soup-mun"). She can recognize the entire Justice League, though, and also some ancillaries.

She's officially in the two-word stage now- she routinely says things like "papa up!" and "peez nuhs" (figure that one out ;) ). It's very exciting.

She's been on an ungodly weird sleep schedule for the last little while, but we're starting to see hope that it's settling down.