Spit in your eye

The three of us went to the almost-a-dollar theatre (inflation being what it is, you know) tonight to see The Spiderwick Chronicles, which is based off of a series of books that Thad read Ari when she was a tiny baby. It was our first time seeing a movie with Ari since she was four months old. She really liked it. :D Highlight of the movie for me was my daughter squealing "Issa GISSIN! Issa GISSIN!" when the griffin ("gissin") came on the screen.

Cordon bleu rolls in puff pastry

I'm here, trying to remember what in hell I've been doing for the last two weeks. Teaching... working on the dissertation. Trying to read French (a whole long article; too long to try to impose on Rebecca to translate for me), and hoping to get a computer thing going to help gather some data for my dissertation. Everything is going slower than expected, which is- as I understand it- the nature of the beast.

This weekend, we went to the Viking Festival, now an annual favorite (Ari's been every year she's been alive, thus far). Miss Ariadne had the Good, Good Times there, as you can see.

The Viking Festival is pretty low-key and relaxed, and not terribly crowded, so it was easy for Miss Ari to run around. Everyone was pretty nice about it, too, on the occasions on which she went running into someone's booth or tent or whatever. :)

She also had loads of fun with the music. We listened to this band composed of a dude playing a German bagpipe (did you know that the Germans had bagpipes? Apparently, most of Europe did) and another dude playing various kinds of drums. Ari, as you can see, had a good time dancing.

Then, they asked if anyone in the audience wanted to come play drums, since they had alot of drums. We got Rick up there playing, and Ari and I danced until I was too tired. Then, as the next number was starting, Ari ran up and started playing with a free drum. The guys in the band didn't mind her messing with it, so Thad came up and held it for her while she played. :D

Then we went home and ate pamcakes and played Munchkin and watched a little Doctor Who.

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!

No action or character

Guess what this is? This is us not having couscous for dinner on Wednesday. I think we need to get some more locking canisters to keep that sort of thing in.

Ari had a great time, anyhow. At one point, she even laid down on her tummy and made couscous angels. I went ahead and let her play with it, until she was napping and it was bugging me. And lo, I had a vacuum canister full of dirty couscous.

I meant us to go to the downtown library today, but one of my shoes was irrevocably lost, so we stayed home and cleaned up instead- after Thad woke up, he took her to the park at least, though.

She helped me sort laundry. She figured out that I was throwing clothes, and thought that sounded like a good time, anyhow. Most of the clothes ended up in their proper piles at the end...

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.

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?

Out of ink

These are some pictures from a week or two back, when we went to the Viking festival. Contrast, if you wish, with last year's Viking fest pics... Ari was much smaller then, and trying to climb into things less.

(I swear that I put down the camera and hauled her out of there before she damaged even one of those delightful gay pride foxtails. :D )

Today is interesting, because I couldn't get to sleep. It's now five in the morning (as you can see), and I just haven't been sleepy. Poor Ari also suffered from insomnia; she passed out around 2:30, I guess. But it was clear that she desperately wanted to sleep before then.

Tonight was my craft night- I was pretty busy. I made all these guys. So, that's good. Now I will give them to someone else, and she will try to sell them.

Other than that, I spent all day grading. I promised my students I'd have their papers back to them today, and I shall deliver. Now, I just need to have a decent lecture prepared. Sleep might help.

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.

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.

Too many piggies

Hey, guess what? It's like to snow again this weekend! Yay! :)

We finally made it out of the house today, which was very exciting. Thad walked up to the comic shop early today, and then we went out in the car later. I'm told that walking was totally no fun- too many chunks of snow to climb over and too much ice.

Fortunately, there's relatively little ice- mostly because it's never gotten above freezing since the big storm, so the snow's not doing that melting/refreezing thing it tends to do.

This is Ari, wearing her papa's hat and playing with her paper dolls. The picture above is of me lying on the vent on the floor. She apparently decided that it looked like Good Times, and she wanted to join me, so she came over and sat there with me reading a book for a good long while. She was babbling up a storm, really loudly, and pointing at things in her book. Every now and again, she'd laugh. It was awesome listening to her "read" to herself.

I'm not entirely sure what Ari gets out of print books, but she's all into them. Is it just because we like them? She'll sit there for ages- 10, 15, 20 minutes sometimes- turning pages and pointing at things and leaning in to look closer at certain things, and babbling and laughing. She totally looks for all the world like she's reading them... I can only assume she's picked up behavior from watching us read.

This is the map from tonight's Carcassonne game. Our trip in the car was to go to the gaming store for Valentine's Day, get gas, and stop by the store (since we've been trapped at home for days). We picked up the Traders and Builders expansion for the two of us, and a big, purple d8 for Miss Ariadne (she loves it).

At one point, Ari grabbed my builder meeple, and ran off with it across the room. Then, she proceeded to roll it as if it were a die- apparently, all our game pieces look the same to her! I had to trade her for an elven d6 to get it back. :D

P.S. Ari definitely knows Batman's name. She consistently points and says "Bats!" When she sees images of him, or her action figure. She doesn't know "mama" or "papa", but by golly, she knows who Batman is!

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.

I'm a listmaker...

This is a picture from yesterday. :D The store at the orchard was set up in two tents, one of which was for "picture opportunities". Or something. Anyway, it had a bunch of hay bales decorated with fall things. Since we were buying too much for one (or even two) people to carry, we had one of us set up back in the back tent with the girl, guarding our ever-growing pile of delicious things. She had a grand time, trying to grab apples and bang them against the gravel floor.

In the end, we got:

• 1 bottle of sparkling goldrush cider
• 2 bottles of sparkling spiced cider (sooo good)
• 1 gallon jug of basic cider
• 1/2 a peck of winesap apples
• 1/2 a peck of fuji apples
• 3 pie pumpkins ($1.50 each!)
• 1 jack-o-lantern
• 1 mini pumpkin
• 4 jars of jam
• 1 jar of pumpkin butter

We really do rely on the good people at the orchard to supply us for a while. We'll eat the jam all year long, and the pie pumpkins will last us through the holidays. The sparkling cider will go on special occasions, but particularly on New Years. The apples will be eating apples for a while (they keep a decently long time) and some of them will be dessert for Halloween. The cider will get mulled and served at Halloween as well.

I like buying much of this stuff from them because it's better and cheaper than in the store...

This is Ari, being a little walker in the restaurant we went to lunch at. She's totally a walker now- she only crawls in last extremity now.

And, here's Ari being a Quaker pirate today. We went to the Quaker meeting, and Ari was the only little girl in the First Day School (which is not always the case at this meeting, mind).

Ari was very cute today- here's some of what she's up to:

• She's into clapping her hands alot.
  
• She likes to play monsters with Thad (and me, to a lesser extent)- she'll roar and make faces with us.
• If we do a face-sucker (put our hand over her face and go "rawr! slurp slurp slurp", she'll take our hand away from her face, and then put it back on. Repeatedly! She wants the face sucker to get her brains!
• Today, she grabbed my wrap, and started wearing it like she was a ghost. Or a nun.
  
• If she wants us to do something particular, she'll grab our hands and put them how she wants. She wants to read? She'll take a book, grab our hand, and shove the book into the hand. She wants to be fed water? She'll grab the sippy, grab my hand, and shove the sippy into my hand.
  

That's all I can think of. It's really sweet.

Highly flammable couches

I'm really tired and not going to post much (or any pictures, yet)... JON STEWART was tonight!!! It was so cool. We got there an hour early, and got some really nice seats, definitely close enough to see everything.

We also went to the orchard, but there was no apple picking. :( The nasty weather lately meant that roads into the orchard were impassable. So, no Goldrush for us. We did get other good stuff, including punkins for the holiday pies. Mmm.

I have a golden ticket

Guess what time I went to bed last night? That's right, 5 AM. That little tooth did what teeth do best, and she woke up just as I was going to bed. I finally collapsed around 5, and I think she did too, shortly thereafter (there was half-asleep nursing involved). Then, I woke up at 8 only to discover that my doctor's appointment had been canceled. :P At least that meant I got to sleep in another couple of well-needed hours.

We had a pretty good day; I worked out again. Our afternoon/early evening was occupied by standing in line for tickets to see Jon Stewart (my hero...*sigh* :D). Ari had a grand ol' time with her papa, crawling all over the lawn in front of the Union while mama stood in line for 2 hours.

Ari moments for today:

• She totally hugged her papa goodbye, and waved as he went out the door
• We fed her a chinese noodle dish for dinner, and she dug in with both hands and scooped noodles into her mouth, hand over fist, until we finally took the dish away

Thad works tonight, but he's off tomorrow (at last). And hopefully, next week he starts a nicer, less stressful night schedule. We can't wait!

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!

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!

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.

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.

Eight months a baby

Well, that weekend went by quickly. I really haven't had a chance to sit down at the computer and write at all. The Marcus was here, and you know how it goes when you have a guest- it feels like a waste (and a little rude) to just hang out on the computer when there's someone to play pinochle with.

All these pictures are from the Viking Festival on Saturday- I would put up a picture of Ari with her Grandpa, except I don't have any! :( The suckiness of us not being picture-takin' people strikes again.

Anyway, we had Good Times at ye olde festival. It was a little thing, with not that many vendors. The vendors were nice, though, and there was a cool viking boat in the middle of it. It was held in the town park in this wee little town south of Columbus, and it seemed like kind of a cool community event. In the evening, we went out for Indian food. It was a really lovely dinner outside in the evening. I had lamb vindaloo, and it was delicious.

After Indian food, we went over to Rick's birthday party, bringing his present and naan from the Indian restaurant. Marcus proceeded to totally hang out with our friends, which was impressively cool. :)

Then, yesterday, I spent a few hours working while Thad and Marcus went to the North Market with my little bit. In the evening people came over and had Thad pizza, and drank liberal quantities of scotch and white wine.

So, as you can see, I've had quite the weekend. I ended up having to stay up till 1 in the morning yesterday to finish grading, as well. Anyway, all this to say that I have good reasons for not writing.

My little bean was super sweet through all of this, too, I must add. She nearly always is. :D

Oh, and Saturday was her 8 months birthday. She's getting so big!

Land 'o goshen, it's my baby!

Today has been a real lie-around lazy day. This was largely precipitated by the fact that Ari woke up at 5:00 AM. Gah. The problem was, she was put to bed last night at 7:30, something that was recommended by one of these baby sleep books I read. Usually, I ignore expert advice like that, but we had already moved her bedtime up to 9:00-9:30 (from 11:00-midnight, mind) and had noticed a big improvement. So, I thought, perhaps these good folks aren't, as they say, blowing smoke entirely up their arses. As it turns out, of course, Ari was not quite ready to go to bed so early, and I had a happy shiny baby crawling on me in the dark of night going "Mama! Mama! Play play play play nurse! Pay attention to me mama! Mama!!!"*

Anyway, so I haven't been feeling like a high energy go-get-'em mama today. :) I did get a couple hours of nap with her in the morning, though, and she had a super 3:30-6:00 nap! She fell asleep nursing here at the computer, and then I laid her down in the bed upstairs, no fuss. She didn't wake up even once during her nap, which is cool. Usually, she'll start to squeak and I have to run upstairs and nurse her back down before she wakes up entirely.

I'm off this evening to a Blessingway for two of the (many!) pregnant mamas in my mom's group. I'm sure it will be very girly, and I'm looking forward to it. They always love to see Ari, and it's nice hanging out with other women with children- I get so used to having to apologize for my child drooling on people and grabbing at people and generally being a baby girl. With the other mamas, though, I don't have to worry. :D


_________
*Translated from the Baby. The original text went like this: "babababava whrrrrrr SCREECH bababa"