Flopping around like a pig with his head cut off

I can't believe that it's already nearly half-way through April. We've been amusing ourselves right enough. The weather's been lovely (save for the last few days that have been rainy and cold and miserable). Last weekend we had Cookbook Party Club, but I haven't managed to write it up yet. The food was really lovely, though.

This is Ari, making her dinosaur drink from her cup. Ari had good times at Cookbook Party Club. Thad took her to parks and whatnot while we cooked, and then she got to play with Jeff and "Book" and "Tabbus", three of her very favoritest people.

This is Ari in our new papasan. Our last papasan crumpled one day and is currently being used as a pillow nest/landing pad by a little miss upstairs. Rick saw one at a thrift store, though, and got it for us as a replacement. Ari approved it.

She's been a bit more verbal now. She parrots alot, but also talks about things. She asks for "Sammy Hooogs" alot (her way of pronouncing "family hugs", which is when we all three get in a group hug-and-kiss session).

Oh, and she is way into "nopples". Comes of being a breastfed baby, I suppose.

She also likes to play dress up, which she comes by honestly. Lately, she really digs wearing other people's clothes- especially mine. She keeps stealing my shoes from my room upstairs, and walking around in them. Here, she's wearing my leather gloves and the swimsuit top I just bought.

She wandered around in it, saying "my nopples!" for a while, which cracked me up. She clearly knows what that top is about.

Tonight, we played UnMet again. I very dig that game. For dinner, I roasted a chicken, and made mashed potatoes and steamed asparagus (asparagus was on cheap at the store). Then, for dessert, I made this fantastic devil's food cake, and put strawberries in the middle, and cream cheese frosting on top. It was fairly phenomenal, in my opinion.

This is so my child. I'm not sure what it is, but she is super into wearing big people shoes. Like, she got Rick's big ol' stompin' boots and was clompin' around the house in 'em like a little crazy person.

Anyway, it occurs to me that I haven't talked at all about my absence from my life here, or the outcome of anything. So, well, first of all: I passed.

Let me just say that again. I passed.

I only found out yesterday, because yesterday was the oral defense, which was really scary to contemplate beforehand, but not actually so scary in real life. It turns out that when you spend three weeks locked in an attic doing nothing but read stuff about a set of topics, you actually have opinions and thoughts about those topics afterwards. Who knew?

Let me just take a quick break to show you my daughter, in a shirt I made for her. Well, Janessa dyed the shirt, but I put the TARDIS on it. This was not staged, by the by. She went and got the Doctor to play with all on her own.

Anyhow, so I was locked in an attic*. I planned to stay with R&B for a week, and stayed for two. Lovely people that they are, they fed me lunch and breakfast and dinner and let me put enormous stacks of books on their dining table and play my 82-song "work" playlist over and over again. And they let me talk at them- at length- about analogy and grammaticalization and theories of contact-induced change. They even went "uh huh" and "yeah" and "bitch is crazy!" at the appropriate moments, and didn't complain when I seemed like I might just be staying indefinitely.

It was this huge, crazy thing, of me coming face to face with the work. Do or die, moment, right? No excuses, no putting it off. In theory.

So, my exam was due the 27th (a Wednesday) and it became clear by Monday that I just wasn't going to make that deadline. Brian told me I had to have it in by the morning of Monday the 3rd at the absolute latest. And there I am, on Sunday morning. I had 8 pages of question 1 and 5 pages of question 2 and 4 pages of question 3 and no pages at all of my dissertation proposal. At all.

After three weeks of not being able to write much at all, I suddenly went into overdrive. The final version of the exam was in the vicinity of 30 pages, and the proposal (written in about 4 hours straight on Sunday) was 28 pages long. It's been years since I wrote that much in one place. Hopefully it bodes well for the future. I've certainly been in a funk as far as work is concerned.

Anyway, I turned in the exam at about 3:30 in the morning on Monday. Then I went to bed around 5, and got up at 8 and taught. Thank god, I wasn't lecturing- it was presentations from the students.

Then, I didn't think about the exam for a solid week. Didn't read over my answers, didn't even look at a book. I moved back into my own house again. Then, after months and months of not feeling motivated to do anything except mess around on the internet, I suddenly felt like making stuff. So, I did that shirt applique, and started making myself costume pieces for Unhallowed Metropolis, and cooked a five course gourmet Victorian dinner for game night, and planned all kinds of fun stuff for upcoming days. Like Friday, when we're going to play Sheherezade and have a delicious Middle Eastern dinner that I've planned. There will be pastry involved.

Then, it was time for the defense, and I hadn't looked at or thought about my exam for a week. I ended up just reading over my answers in the morning. And, shockingly enough, when they asked me questions, I knew the answers- or at least, I knew things to say. I had ideas and responses. The exam was two hours long, and it was 15 minutes shy of over before I even noticed the time.

I turned my paper in to the Graduate School yesterday afternoon, so it's official. I swear, I didn't know whether or not I was going to finish the exam until that Sunday morning. It was that close, and there were moments when I thought it might well kill me. But here I am, and I passed.

There's the dissertation, now, of course, but I refuse to think about that for a while now. I have creative food to cook, and Victorian clothing to sew.
____________________
*To be fair, it was a lovely attic. It had a nice desk, and shelves, and a comfy chair next to the window where I did part of my reading. It also had an enormous bathroom with a gorgeous clawfooted tub, which is where I did most of my reading- with my sonic screwdriver and my postit notes balanced on the edge of the tub.

All this has happened before

This is Ari playing with Vir and Atom Smasher. Her play table there is one of those expandable storage bins you can buy. Silly me, I thought I was going to use it as a clothes hamper. Ari knew better, of course. After the tenth time I found my clothes dumped on the floor, it officially became hers to play with.

Ari's been funny about doors opening lately. Every time the front door opens, she freaks out and tries to hide under things. I have no idea why, or what she thinks might be coming in.

This cracked me up today. It's K-9 keeping company with a triceratops, a spinosaurus, a fluffy bunny and a rubber ducky. My daughter kicks ass.

So, on Friday, I leave to go to Vienna, to give my poster at the International Morphology Meeting. And then, my exams start. I should be done around the end of February. Wish me luck, and don't expect to hear anything out of me for a month.

Random strung together things

We've been mostly at Origins this weekend, as previously mentioned. Couple of thoughts:

1. We are more than ever determined not to take a two-year-old to a serious con (ala D*Con).
2. Ari liked wearing her badge. And her dice necklace. And she liked the Pokeball someone gave her.
   
3. Poor Ari took a beating this weekend- on Thursday, a kid bit her at COSI. Like, grabbed her arm and chomped down with his whole set of teeth! She still has the marks, days later. Poor bean. And then today, she got her head whacked, too.
4. Ari got into my cornstarch yesterday. I was cooking, and when I turned around and saw the cloud o' cornstarch, I said, "Ari!" in a loud, startled voice. Ari jumped, and got up and ran away. But a moment later, she reappeared with a rag. She was trying to clean up her mess!
5. Ari has a game lately of claiming that other people are Ari. We'll say, "Where's Ari?" and she'll point at me, or Thad or Brooke or whoever. And then giggle.
   

A matter of priorities

Thad found this awesome beetle lying dead on top of our trash can. I desperately wanted to pick him up and do something with him, but the question of exactly what I might do with him (since I have no insect collection, and he is a damaged specimen in any case) reared its ugly head, and I just took some photos instead. Dad, if you're reading this, do you know what kind of beetle he (or she, I suppose) is?


This is a very tired Ari, being all sleepy and snuggly. And in a last- resort, diapers are in the wash, fish- bespangled diaper.

I'm glad to be back to cloth diapers; we went to disposables on the trip for space and convenience, and they were weird. And they smelled gross. I mean, pee never smells awesome, but mixing pee smell with weird chemicals and perfumes somehow doesn't improve it.

I found out today that Ari is scared of stickers. I got her some for the plane trip, but then forgot them at home. So, today, I took them out and sat down to show her about stickers. She was interested in them (I got cats and other animals) but seemed really freaked out by me removing the stickers and putting them elsewhere. Maybe it seemed unnatural to her, me peeling the pictures off the page.

Yesterday, we went outside and looked at fireflies. I caught one for her, so she could see, and she watched him fly around and blink.

Yellow sign

Look what I made today. :) I found this fabric on sale at the Jo-Ann's and bought half a yard and made this. The other fabric is all from my stash, so at least I'm using it up. I think it looks really nice on her. It looks pretty comfy, too.

I think she likes it, also; I caught her flouncing around in front of the mirror.

Ari's been having a pretty hard few days. She's been sick, and I don't know what to do about it... I think it's time to go to the doctor. I'm going to call for an appointment tomorrow morning. She's been having a fever (but only at night), and a cough (all the time). She doesn't act sick all the time, but every time she tries to sleep, the coughing wakes her up, so she's clearly not feeling well now. Hard to tell how much is sleep deprivation, and how much is sick.

This is Ari a few days ago, running around with her duck and my hat (stolen off my very head!). She greatly enjoys having someone chase her with the duck and quacking.

Today, Ari said "Bunny", with the "n" and everything. That's the first time I've ever heard it. Oh, and she knew without being told that Thad was sleeping in our room. When we went upstairs to change her, she ran over to our door, and said "Papa seep! Papa seep!", and then knocked on the door. Where'd she learn to knock on doors?

Later on, I told her that I was going to wake Papa up soon, and she took it upon herself to run up the stairs and knock on the door until Thad woke up and came and got her.

Very belated

This weekend was Marcon... check us out. I didn't take nearly as many pictures as last year- probably because I spent most of the con running after a certain little someone, and didn't have proper time to pull out a camera.

This is a picture of her, napping under one of the tables in the gaming room.

We pretty much spent the whole con in the gaming room, with one of us gaming and the other running after the girl. Ari had great fun seeing all the sights- including escalators, which she enjoyed going up and down and up and down and up and down and up and down.

This is Miss Ari deciding that the Icehouse pieces are her personal playthings. The rep from Looney Labs was nice enough about it, and I had her come away when they were actually ready to play. Brooke, who actually knows how to play the game, said that she was making some pretty good plays.

Matt McFarland (aka Black Hat Matt) brought his wife and daughter to the con, and Ari enjoyed playing with her. She's 10 months older than Ari is. She was really interested in other kids and babies, and every time she saw any, she'd run right up, saying "Bay-ee! Bay-ee!" One girl (maybe 5 or 6?) was getting really frustrated with her, saying, "I'M NOT A BABY!" But anyone not-adult is a "bay-ee" as far as Ari is concerned. :)

Oh, one kinda cool thing- there was a maybe 8 or 10 year-old girl there, dressed up all pretty and with a cat-fairy plushy. Ari kept pointing at her, saying "Seh-ee! Seh-ee! Seh-ee!" I told the girl that Ari thought she was a fairy (that being what "seh-ee" means in Ari-speak), and she held out the plushy, saying, "no, this is the fairy".

So, Ari pointed at the plushy, and said, "Dat!" and pointed at the girl and said, "Seh-ee!" She knew what she knew. :)

Revenants and ghouls

Look what I turned around and saw this morning! I'm not sure whether she managed to get the lid off, or whether I left it unlocked, but Ari sure thought it was a good time. :) It was all kinds of fun to clean up... there's still kind of flour on the floor. Fortunately, Miss Ari was able to be dusted off with a minimum of difficulty.

We went over to Rick and Brooke's house and hung out for the day while Thad went to Shaintar. Ari was excited to see Brooke ("Bwook! Bwook!"), Rick ("Ick! Ick!") and the cats ("dat dat dat dat dat dat dat!") and had a good time playing there. I made the cake I owed Brooke, and it turned out really good- it had whipped cream/cream cheese frosting and sliced strawberries in the middle.

Here are some cute pics of Ari from today.

And here's an awesome video from after Thad got back from Shaintar:

Very firm

I just asked Miss Ari for a kiss, and she proceeded to headbutt me like, six times. In the face. And then, she said "kiss nose!" To be fair, I was laughing too hard to stop her from headbutting me the last five times, and so was Thad, who was watching the whole thing.

I had a great Mother's Day. Thad watched Ari while I went to see a movie, and then there was pie. What more could I ask for?

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.

Wasted pine nuts

This is Ari, playing with beans on the floor. It was great fun, up until she decided to try to eat the beans, and papa had to fish a bunch of soggy, uncooked beans out of her mouth.

Ari's actually in a growth spurt (I think). She's been starving the last couple days, just eating all the time. Yesterday, she ate a grownup's portion of baked ziti and was still hungry afterwards.

I'm trying to get work done while Thad's off. I'm writing the first draft of my paper, so think of me. I hate writing papers.

This is Ari playing dress-up. She likes putting things on (hats, bits of clothing, etc.) and looking at herself in the mirror- I'm not sure what that means for the future, but I think it's adorable. On the other hand, her parents play dress-up, too, so she comes by it honestly.

Oh, and she knows Hawkman ("Hot-mun") and Hawkgirl ("Guhl") by sight. And, when we were playing pinochle the other night, she said "pass!" for her papa. Awww.

Apples and pears

This is Ari, playing with circles. Thad and I went out last night, to see a movie and have dinner. So, Ari went to Rick and Brooke's house. She apparently had a good time finding things that were circles, and then calling them circles.

This has been a rough week for us. First, Ari and I were sick to start out.

Then, well- many of you know that a student accused Thad of assault, and that lie is just not dying. Thursday afternoon, someone from sub services called to tell Thad that his Friday job was canceled, and not to try to schedule any new jobs.

Apparently, this whole mess is going to a hearing (we don't know when) and Thad's not allowed to work until then. I understand why this is happening, but it's almost unbelievable that a kid could just totally make something up like this, and it could cost us hundreds of dollars of lost wages- or worse, if Thad loses his license over this. Or worse.

Oh, and then, someone stole Thad's bike this afternoon. Out of our backyard, behind a locked privacy fence.

I hope that bad things come in threes, and that means our three are done with for a while. We could use some better luck.

Bullet dancing

Here's Ari, enjoying the box that we brought our groceries home from Sam's Club in. She spent a good long time getting in the box, and then getting out of the box. And getting in the box, and out of the box. And then she went and played with things in the kitchen. :D

Ari's been pretty grumpy the last few days. I'm not sure if she's still feeling sick, or what. She's not sleeping very well, anyhow.

Other than not sleeping well (late, short nap) and being on-and-off grumpy, we've had a pretty good day. We put Ari's dining room books (as opposed to her bedroom books, or her living room books) in the new bin we got at the Walmart- there were getting to be too many for the little wagon. Plus, she tends to like to pull the books out and sit in the wagon, and that's clearly not behavior we want to discourage. ;)

Tonight was my craft night (I made this, and this and this other thing), and as you can see, Miss Ari was very interested. Aw. Now, by the by, my fingertips are covered with superglue, which is really irritating.

The dice gremlin is nearly done now. I just need to get some wee little dice to have him hold, and we'll be all done. After the dice gremlin, I start on brain-and-tentacle man.

Well, Ari's grumping at her papa upstairs. I should go help him get her ready for bed. Plus, it means I get to read my book.

Unidientified hurty spot

Aw- check out my little sleeping pixie. I'm not sure why she likes to sleep with her arms up like that, but it's her usual way to sleep. Maybe she wishes for a pillow? That shirt, by the way, is my most recent and most ambitious foray into machine embroidery.

We went on our big shopping trip this evening, and it was everything it usually is. We had a moment of feeling like morons when we suddenly realized why Ari had gotten so grumpy- namely, it was 10:00 and we hadn't fed her any dinner. To our credit, neither had we. But boy, did we feel like crap when we finally figured out what the problem was. Poor little hungry monkey.

Ari's generally feeling better, but she's still not totally well. Today was her day to be glued to the papa, as you can see. Not me- she definitely wanted papa.

Cool stuff from the last while:

• She knows some shapes ("suh-coo", "cwawe")
• She knows some numbers ("sits", "se-un", "at"), mostly from playing with dice. I first noticed this because she was flipping the dice to different faces and naming the numbers on them. Ah, dice.
• She gives kisses now. If we ask for a kiss ("kess!"), she'll grab our faces and give us a little baby kiss. Awwww.
• She also gives hugs, if you ask and she feels like it.
• She's all about saying please ("pees!") lately. I think she realizes that we're helpless before the onslaught of a baby saying "pees?" and making doe eyes at us. And she does make doe eyes, plus this "little old me?" sort of gesture. ;)
  
• She knows the word "bacon", and likes to eat it. Poor girl- Rick and Brooke came over and fed me on Saturday with bacon and french toast. And little miss asked so nicely ("bakun pees!") and she so couldn't have any. I felt bad eating in front of her, but I really needed to eat (it was like, 5:00 and I hadn't been able to get food that day).
  

Pig's butt

Well, I didn't end up taking any pictures today, so I thought I'd post some of the pics my dad sent me from his trip. These are from when the three of us walked over to campus, and the weather was warm and lovely for the first time in a while.

Today, we went to a gun show with the Marcus; it was kind of cool to see the different stuff. I was really glad I had my wrap back from being dyed, because I wore Ari the whole time.

After the gun show, we went out to lunch and had tasty pizza. Ari, despite being quite tired, was remarkably sweet and good-tempered throughout the whole meal. I was very impressed.

This is Ari quacking at the ducks. She was all excited to see them, and was quite irritated that I was holding her back from getting at them (and thereby jumping into the lake).

Anyway, after lunch, we dropped by the Target for a few things (including a cat plushy that Grandpa Marcus got for the little girl), and then came home and napped.

This evening, we went to R&B's- he caught a sale on ham, and he had a ham that weighed nearly as much as Ari did. We had ham and mashed potatoes and bread and a variety of desserts- I made a walnut cake/chocolate pudding trifle, and there was pie and also strawberries. Mmmm.

Agrael

Well, I'm gonna make this quick for reasons that should be obvious upon checking the time stamp of this post. :P A little someone refused to nap, passed out at 8:30, and then woke up again at 11:30. She didn't get back down until around 3 or 3:30... lucky me.

This is the shirt I made for her today. :D She loves it; she squealed "DICE! DICE! DICE!" as soon as she saw it.

This, on the other hand, is my baby in a steamer basket. She had been playing on the floor there, putting things in and out of it, when she decided to put herself into it. She was pretty funny, too- she'd get in, realize she was stuck, burst into tears until I rescued her, and then proceed to jump right back into the basket. It took her about 4 of these go-rounds for her to finally figure out how to get back out herself, and about another 4 before the entire exercise got boring.

Oh, and Grandpa Marcus is here; got here this evening.

The Queen of Air and Darkness

Here is a picture of Ari in her new cat dress, whipped up in a fit of crafty-ness this afternoon. She picked out the fabric; she near hurled herself out of the sling trying to get at it when she saw it in the fabric store. :) She was really excited the whole time I was making it, too- she kept trying to get to the sewing machine, saying "DATS! DATS! DATS!" This is the first non-costume I've made for her, and it was really easy. Didn't take long at all... I'd better not keep it up, though. :)

We had a nice day today... the weather was lovely, and Ari went for a bike ride with papa to the library, which she greatly enjoyed. Oh, cute thing: this evening, Thad was holding her and he grabbed me and gave me a big kiss. After a bit of watching us kiss, Ari decided she wanted in on that, and stuck her face in the middle of us to get kisses. :D

School starts again tomorrow, and I must get into writing my paper in a serious way. No more vacation for me.

Here's a video from yesterday, though:

How much is enough?

Well, my dad was seen safely off this morning (as far as I know- Thad didn't tell me of any problems). Here's a picture of Ari, having a Grandpa ride- the weather was gorgeous on Wednesday, so we walked down to the Short North for ice cream. Ari walked most of the way, but her grandpa carried her a while, too.

If you look closely, you'll probably notice that her knee is skinned. She's an accomplished walker now, but she still sort of leads with her chest, and it makes her trip alot (try walking around as though someone were pulling you forward by your chest, and you'll see WHAT I meaN).

AHH... Ari's playing with the capslock now. YOU all geT TO ENJoy the results.

IT was A very nICE VISIT, THOugh. I was gLAD I got to show Dad whERE I liVE.

OKAY, this is getting really annoying. Something must be done.

Aaah... I distracted her with the lizards my mom sent.

Okay, so what was I talking about? Oh, Ari's wearing pretty dresses in these pictures that her great grandma sent her. :D Today, she's wearing a really cute overall set from her, too.

Cute stuff from today:

When I tried (and, mind you, initially failed) to put Ari down for a nap this afternoon, I laid her down on the bed. She immediately started giggling in that "I'm about to get nursies!" sort of way. :) Even after I laid down and we started nursing, she had to keep pulling off at first to giggle.

When we went to the fabric store this evening, Ari caught sight of a print with cats on it. She began trying to get at it, squealing "DATS! DATS! DATS!" I have had a project in mind (a shirt for Ari) that I thought it would work for, so I bought a little chunk of it, and Ari insisted on carrying it to the register.

Rules dispute

This is Miss Ari's "cat dance". She literally does this all the time when she sees cats. Why? I don't know. But cats are clearly very exciting.

As you can see, we went over to Rick and Brooke's for dinner this evening. I spent most of the day (including while we were at R&B's) grading exams. I hate, hate, hate grading. :P It'll all be over soon, though- I'm almost done with them.

Very exciting cupholders

Ari and I went to the department today, to talk to a woman thinking of applying to grad school. She's interested in historical, and apparently wanted to talk to grads with young kids (she has two of them herself), so that was me. Ari and I got free lunch out of the deal, and we also got to get out of the house.

Bedtimes have been creeping later and later recently, but I got Ari up bright and shiny early at 9:30 AM. She was not appreciative in the morning, but she did take a lovely nap at a reasonable hour, which is a good thing.

This is a random picture I drew. For a thing in a roleplaying game. I thought I'd throw it in for the hell of it.

Fun Ari things lately:

• Ari beeping our noses
• Ari playing dress-up with hats (as you can see)
• Ari climbing our stepladder and then having to cry to be let down
• Ari playing "throw the dice down the grating"