Hello again

Well, I'm sure you've noticed that it's been a few days since I had a chance to write. In fact, I think the last entry was about a week ago!

I've had kind of a rough week. Well, busy. Good, but busy. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday were taken up by ECIEC. Monday was taken up by desperately trying to finish my handout for ECIEC. Friday and today were taken up doing fun stuff with Clare and Theo and Maryanne, who were visiting.

Well, let me tell you how it all went! The worst day for ECIEC was Tuesday. Not only did I present then, but we also had a reception that Angelo and I had to put on- wine, cheese, fruit and fancy cheeses. It came off just fine (everything did, presentation included) but it involved an awful lot of running around like a crazy woman. Also, getting everything going in the morning- including the all-important coffee- meant getting up at 6 AM.

Now, it's not that I mind getting up at oh dark hundred in the morning, per se. But I stayed up quite late on Monday night finishing my handout. And then I stayed up quite late on Tuesday, hanging out with Thad. And then on Wednesday night, Ari wouldn't sleep. Thad was working, so I was a single mama for the night, and I could not get Ari to sleep before about one in the morning. Needless to say, I was a bit of a zombie the next day... I even contemplated trying to intake caffeine, but I hate coffee and I hate tea and I hate coke, so there you go. Besides, caffeine always makes my heart race (the few times I've ingested it, anyhow).

Anyway, by the end of the conference, I was deep in the throes of serious sleep deprivation. When I said "a bit of a zombie" above, I meant an absolute giggling, drunk-acting lunatic who passed straight out at the first sign of a couch. It was fair ugly (and embarrassing).

Now, the Papkes (sans Marcus) got in Wednesday evening. This was really nice, because it ameliorated our carless situation somewhat. Clare was really sweet and was happy to ferry me around to the rest of my evening activities for the conference. The black velvet picture above, by the by, is me and Ari dressed to go to the ECIEC party at Brian's on Thursday night.

On Friday, Clare and I hung out together and discussed religion while Thad and his sibs went to COSI to see the Star Wars exhibit. We mostly spent the rest of the day hanging out, playing games and eating the leftover food from ECIEC- I brought home about 4 dozen fancy Panera bagels and also a big pan full of Turkish food from the aforementioned party.

We also went to the Guardtower, to show Clare what a gaming store is like. And we had a nice walk, to go see the reindeer climbing up a neighborhood tree. Oh, and we got Clare to play a game with us and watch a movie. It was quite a nice day all told.

Today was Pride and Comfest. Maryanne joined us in marching, and Theo and Clare decided to eschew the clamor and decadence of the Columbus Pride celebration. Marching in the parade was much easier and more pleasant this year. It must have something to do with the whole not-being-pregnant thing.

Ari was mostly happy to be at her second Pride. I actually ended up getting burned a bit, but she didn't! I think the solarveil did it's job, since we only put a little bit of sunscreen on her feet and not elsewhere.

After pride, we headed over to Comfest. We were pretty tired, though, and it was pretty hot, so we didn't end up spending much time there. Clare did get Ari a pretty cute batik shirt, and that was awesome. Then we went home, and just sort of collapsed for a while. Then, we went out to dinner. When we got home, we watched a very short movie and Clare decided she'd best to get to bed- they're leaving at around 4 in the morning upon the morrow. Ari actually passed out during the movie (around 9:30), so that was nice.

Thad and Theo appear to be intent on staying up all night (or at least until 4) playing games, but I'm taking the opportunity to catch up on everything that I neglected during ECIEC. After all, MSSI starts Monday.

It's a bat card!

I should be in bed; I really need more sleep than this. We started playing Fury of Dracula about 9:00 this evening. FoD is this game that we used to play with Pete back when we lived in Phoenix. It took us about 4 years to even figure out what the name was; we just remembered it was a really fun game. About, y'know, Dracula. Well, recently, Thad found out that the company that owned the rights to the game was re-releasing it in an updated version.

All excited, we finally bought the game off of E-Bay last month. Alas, Thad failed to notice that the last time he bought anything off E-Bay was the month when we were homeless and camping on his parents' couch, right before we moved here. All this to say, the game got shipped to Florida! At least his parents' address was the one in there, and not our old Vizcaya number. Which, I might add, probably no longer exists as they've ripped up and redone those apartments.

Anyway, we didn't get it until Theo brought it up with him, and we haven't had a chance to play it until tonight. It was a little different, but still had the same feel to the gameplay. I think the changes were largely for the better. It took a really long time to play, though, between me running upstairs to settle the baby (we put her down for bed at nine) and trying to figure out the rules. Hence the it-being-two-in-the-morning thing.

So, no sleep for me. I really will sit down tomorrow and write a proper report about Friday's well baby visit, and I promise to include a cute picture of my baby then. :) In the meantime, check it out- my baby's famous!

My little go-go dancer

I actually sat down last night to write, but Blogger was down for the only 45-minute span that I had to write in!

I was late at school yesterday- the meeting with the professor did indeed go later than I should have liked. At Theodore's suggestion, Jaime came over and we spent the evening playing games. We stayed up too late, and got up too early. Thad took Theo to the airport while I was at school. Unfortunately, Thad only budgeted 30 minutes to get Theo on to his flight, and it was consequently missed. Theo was able to get a later flight that still got him to his connection, though, so all was well.



I have finally got 'round to uploading a picture of our new bedroom layout. I was worried about Ari being able to get trapped in a few spaces around our bed, so we changed it. There's a round tube pillow stuffed in at the head of the bed, and we put our pillow pile on the floor on my side of the bed. I like the new layout; if nothing else, it feels kind of invigorating to have a change.

We also separated the cosleeper so it's a free-standing bassinet. Right now it's just a sometimes baby container sort of thing, but there is the concept that she may sleep in there eventually. We'll believe when we see it, right?

An imp named Tad

Today's been kinda disjointed. I hate these Tuesdays and Thursdays. I woke up late and just had to run around. This is a picture of Uncle Theo holding Ari while I ran around like a crazy woman this morning.

Theo and me had a good time playing games together in the afternoon, and in the evening we had a chaotic Pendragon session that I mostly didn't get to play in.

I didn't get to play in it partly because Ari was a fussy britches, and partly because a bunch of problems with my students' online quiz cropped up. My university has just switched to a new system for online course materials, and it's really frustrating. I can't figure out how to do anything. Plus, I had one of the trained tech support people here, at my house (my friend Rick) and he didn't know what to do either.

Well, I'm off to bed. I have a really, really long day ahead of me tomorrow. Class till 5:30 and then I have a meeting with a professor. He has a reputation for rambling on, and I shall be quite testy if he keeps me too late...

Dear world: I kick ass!

I have been kicking some major ass today. :D

On the baby front, Ari took two decent naps today, all by herself. I only had to go to her once in the combined six hours of her two naps. She's been totally sweet and happy. I had almost forgotten how sweet-natured my baby actually is- it's been a while since she was napping properly, and it put her out of sorts. She is babbling like crazy and blowing raspberries. She's also been doing that cute baby dance where they flail their arms up and down.

Another exciting thing is that it sounded like she was singing along with a song today. It's hard to tell, but we were listening to the B-52's Hot Pants Explosion. There's a bit in the chorus that goes "Aaoooh, aaoooh, aaooh". There were at least two times where, right after the chorus, she started going "aaooh". Coincidence, maybe, but it's an indication that she might notice music. She loves having someone (especially me) sing to her but she's never seemed to care at all about music on the radio.

As far as my kicking butt goes, I made myself a proper hot breakfast today. And I did a ton of stuff I've been needing to do- bills, updating the ledger, even taxes (e-filed and everything!). I also went to school and did a bunch of school stuff that I needed to do. All in all, I've checked nine major things off my personal to-do list. Oh, and we're making ice cream and playing games with Theo this evening.

On a side note, I had no idea how much having a child affects your taxes. I did my whole federal return without Ari listed because I couldn't remember her SSN (it was upstairs under the bed she was sleeping in). Without her, our return was about 600$. With her, our return was nearly 3000$.

Anyway, today's been a really lovely day.

Taking a moment

I highly suspect this will be my only chance to write this evening. Thad is at the store, and has just picked his brother up from the airport (hopefully! I'm told if the handoff doesn't go well, they ship him straight back to Gainesville). We appear to be having an impromptu party/fish fry. R & B are at their house, picking up the aforementioned fish, but they'll be coming back in a bit. So, it'll be Rick, Brooke, John, us and maybe Jaime.

The girl is napping sweetly for the second!! time today. All by herself, with minimal support from me. When we started trying to get her to sleep alone, I had to bolt up there every few minutes and cuddle her back down. Now, she'll need me only once or twice in two hours. Or not at all! And even for that once or twice, I really only have to go in there for a moment now- I used to have to lie down with her for quite a long time before she'd settle.

I had a good time at the Blessingway last night. We took a belly cast of one of the women who's nearly due, and we made them necklaces (everyone brought a bead) for them to have with them in labor. The necklaces came out very nicely, I thought.

Anyway, I'm off to make bread for dinner and get my baby up. :)