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.

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.

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.

Margot

This is a picture one of the other moms took of Ari at a playgroup today. It was a crafty playgroup, and it involved a lot of children turning things a lot of colors. Especially and including themselves. :) We near gave Thad a heart attack when he woke up this afternoon, looking at her arm.

We haven't been up to a whole lot the last few days. Ari hasn't made any spectacular messes, nor has her sleep schedule been exceptional. She has given us lots of hugs.

Ari things:

• Ari likes family hugs and kisses
• Today, Ari picked up the phone (which was off) and said "hello? hello?" (or "heh-o? heh-o?" as the case may be)
• I heard her say an [f] the other day :')
• Today, I gave her bread and hummous, and she totally just used the bread as a vehicle to put hummous into her mouth
  

P.S. I have a beautiful new niece! :D

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.

Lots of eggs

Urgh... Ari just stayed up until 3:30 in the morning. She spent the last nearly two hours of that having a complete sobbing, screaming, scratching, kicking meltdown. Finally, she just passed out. Poor girl, poor me.

We went to a playgroup in the evening, and she had a really good time there. I wish I could get her out with other kids more often... but lack of a car makes it difficult.

There was no one there really her age- all babies, or somewhat older kids.
She was fascinated by the babies. She kept walking up to them and sort of, checking them out. She had to inspect the latch on one nursing babe (fortunately, the mama involved was tolerant of this toddler girl checking her boob).

Tasty little piggies

This is Ari, playing with bubbles on our porch today. She doesn't know how to blow bubbles, but she sure thinks that playing with the wand and the bubble liquid is fun times.

We actually went over to the park today, bubble bottle in hand, and I (excellent mother that I am) let my child climb all over the play equipment with an open bottle of bubbles. :) To my credit, she only spilled it twice, and it dried very quickly because of the bright sun and nearly 90 degree weather.

Cute Ari things from today:

• She thought the sloppy joes Thad made for dinner were "bacon"
• We had a great time cuddling and playing in her room around naptime (no nap, though)- and she kept saying "kiss!" and giving me kisses all over my face.
  

This is Ari, playing sweetly by herself in her room. Well, insofar as "playing sweetly" involves her ripping pages out of one of her books. While I was crafting (it being my craft night), and Thad was working on the computer, she went upstairs of her own accord, and hung out there quietly, not causing too much havoc, for quite some time.

I'm glad she likes her new room. I like having and adult room room- I don't like sleeping less, though (since I have to wake up to tend to her in the night now). But the tradeoff is about right now- I like not sleeping with her more than I like an extra hour of sleep a night.

Chest stove in

Whew... we had a busy weekend. On Friday, we had a bunch of people from my mom's group over to play board games. It was four couples, three toddlers, and two babes in arms. In our house. It was awesomely fun, but it got pretty crazy.

Ari had a great time playing with the other kids. Here you can see her with Rheya (who's just her age) stacking cans one atop the other.

Then, on Saturday was the annual vernal equinox party. The upside of having two parties in a row was that we didn't have to do too much cleaning in between- surprisingly, the kids didn't do too much damage.

It was a lovely party- the weather was beautiful for the first time since I've been throwing parties for the equinox. We went across the street and played bocce in the park- a little contingent of neighbor kids came up and begged to play, which was fun. My side won- just barely.

Then we went inside to eat (quiches, roasty veggies, mini creme brulee cheesecakes, and an incredibly awesome berry torte brought by Jeff) and dye eggs. Ari did a few.

This is Ari running around, holding her bunny.

Today, we got up and went to meeting after Thad's job. Since then, we've been basking in our home-alone-ness. :D I did some projects- including making some puppets- and we got caught up on a few things. Which is good, because this is the last of my break. The quarter starts again tomorrow, and I go back in for the first time on Tuesday (I'll be T-R at work now, for those for whom it is relevant).

On the docket for tomorrow: doing my class syllabus!

Now, here's a video of Ari playing in the ritual equinox Arkham Horror game:

The most wonderful time of the year

Today, Ari and I went over to another mom's house for a playgroup. This is Ari, having apparently gotten over her fear of animals, stalking their cat. She followed the cat across the whole house, as fast as she could, and was much frustrated that she couldn't catch her.

She had a great time playing with other peoples' toys- although she did steal another kid's snack. To be fair, the other kid (a 3-year-old) had just left it lying on the floor, where she found it and munched it up. Hmm... it's just now occurred to me that I might, perhaps, be reasonable to be concerned about my daughter eating off the floor.

Then, she refused to take a nap. She was desperately tired from not sleeping last night and not napping... between that and the molars coming in, the evening was pretty miserable. At least she passed right out at 9:00...