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.

Unicorn revenge

Here's our little monkey, fast asleep in the papasan. I know this is a bit Anne Geddes (although, I suppose she would be dressed like a lima bean or something in that case) but I think it's adorable. :D

We have had sort of a low-profile weekend. Sunday was Mother's Day, of course, which I mostly celebrated by sleeping late and then getting taken out to a breakfast buffet, full of- as Kathy says- piggies and pancakes. Blueberry pancakes.

This is a shirt I made for Ari (I made another one as well). I was surprised that she knew it was (more or less) the Flash symbol, but she took one look at it and said "Sash!" and then demanded that I help her put it on and take pictures. This is her solemn little posing face.

It has been cold and rainy here. It sucks. I want the warm weather now! We were taunted by nice weather, but now it's pretty much coat temperatures again. :P Ari hates it because the cold and wet means no outings to the
park, and being stuck in the house all day.

I hate it because it means that my two year old doesn't get to climb her crazy out. Ech. Hope us for better weather soon, so my baby can play.

Eek! It's a mouse.

It snowed yesterday. And when I say that it snowed yesterday, I mean, it SNOWED yesterday.
This is the front of our house. That big lump of snow in the left of the picture is our car. The lump of pink and purple is our daughter. :) (Thanks, Jen, for the snowsuit!)

So, after something like 14 inches of snow fell out of the sky, what did we do? Well, Brooke got the idea that we should go get ice cream. It's right down the street, after all, and they sent us a message saying they'd be open today. So, we hiked down High street in the snow. This is Rick, bundled up like a snow ninja, standing there on High. The yoga people shoveled their walk. High fives, yoga people!


The hiking was pretty slow going, especially with a toddler, but she had so much fun. She was obviously cold, but she was just grinning ear to ear. Brooke helped her in the snow alot. I had enough trouble getting me through the snow. Did I mention that I wore my snow pants for the very first time? (Thanks, Grandma!) People from Florida shouldn't have to wear snow pants, I say.

And then, we arrived! Jeni's icecream is the best. We made the poor man give us five million samples before we ordered. I got the "Roxbury Road" (Belgian milk chocolate, homemade marshmallows, toasted almonds) and the Forest Berry. It was phenomenal.

Thad had a cheesecake and brownie icecream that was really excellent as well. Ari totally vikinged his cone, though. I told him we should get her her own. Also, check out her spoon use. :D

Then we walked home. There was a snowball fight involved. Just so you know, the reason Ari is sitting in the snow saying "Ooow! Ooow!" is because Thad had shoved me into a snow drift just previous to the snowball fight breaking out, and because cold cold snow HURTS when you shove it up against poor naked flesh. Like the flesh in between the end of my sleeve/jacket and the beginning of my gloves and mittens. So, she'd just got to hear a bunch of mama going "OW! Dammit, OW!" :)

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.

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.

Feelin' woozy

This is what I did this evening. I have a Goal, and that Goal is to make enough of these little monsters (I have a page full of designs) to have space at a convention art show in the fall. Anyway, I've had this little dude kicking around in my head for over a year, and it's kinda cool to see him in 3D now.

It's been pretty warm here the last couple of days, and Ari and I have been out at the park. Ari no longer likes the swings, for whatever reason, which I thought was interesting. She definitely likes the slides, though, and climbing on the playground equipment.

We're going into the department tomorrow; maybe I'll try to remember to bring the camera and take a few shots of her there. She has good times.

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!

Like I had the flu

Guess what? We had another snow day! The university was closed again, so all my classes were canceled. Which was just as well, because I would have had to cancel my class anyhow- we're snowed in, right and proper. No one's bothered to plow or salt our dinky little street, and our car is actually pretty stuck. We briefly tried to leave, to go to a nearby friend's house, and discovered that we couldn't even pull onto the street.

Anyway, so it was another day stuck at home. It was fun the first day, but was less fun today... and we can't even walk anywhere easily; the sidewalks are all deep with snow. To make it worse, it's not even regular snow- it's about 5 or 6 inches of snow, then about a 1/2 inch layer of ice, covered with another 1/2 inch to an inch of snow. So if you try to walk on it, you go "*step* SHUNK *step* SHUNK" as you break through the ice. Slow going. I'm not sure what we'll do tomorrow- Thad hasn't gotten a job yet, but we don't know if they're going to close the schools again tomorrow. Or, even if he does get a job, whether he can actually get to it safely.

In the meantime, here is a video of Ari rolling dice. She likes to raise her hands in the air whenever anyone rolls dice (which is pretty often in this house).



P.S. Happy Valentine's Day! We didn't get to go the Guardtower as we had planned. I hope your V-Day plans worked out better!

In suspense

This is what it looked like outside today. We got... well... alot of snow. I don't know how much. Then, it proceeded to sleet the rest of the day, so all the snow is covered by a thick crust of ice. Even the university closed today, which is exceedingly rare. I keep hoping I'll get a snow day tomorrow, too- but that's not likely. Mostly, I'm concerned about having to make Thad drive me on icy roads- since there's no way I'm biking through inches thick snow topped with ice on a day where the high is supposed to be 20 degrees.

This is me and Ari reading the Valentine's Day book that her Grandma and Grandpa Porter sent. :D She totally loves turning the flaps!

In any case, we stayed home today. Thad had a job, but CPS was closed (of course. We did successfully de-Death-ify our desk. Some, at least- and I found the charger and the fresh battery for the camera, as you can see.

Ari had a good time having mama and papa both home... she had a good nap, and was really fun and cute today. New words: "box" (as in, the box I have my coin collection in that she dumped all over the floor :D) and "bats" (pointing at the picture of Batman on the desktop).

And here's my baby, dancing with toast:

Dragon Den

This is me and Ari, a few nights ago, sitting on the warm vent. We do that a lot lately; our house is pretty cold. Because it's really cold outside, and we're kind of poor, so we just pop on sweaters and deal. Note me also in my thermal tights and snow-stompin' boots- my constant companions these days.

There's still lots of snow on the ground. And ice. And it being really, really cold out. At least it's now in the teens in the mornings, rather than the naughts.

Today, we played alot. It was Viking Cthulhu day, so we had breakfast and game. Then, we went over to R&B's for dinner (pizza ala Rick) and game playing. We played John's uber-expansioned Carcassonne... to be honest, it was a bit much. But it was nice to try out the expansions, since we've been thinking of picking some up.

Ari had great fun over at R&B's, wandering around and playing with things... pulling books off of shelves, pointing at cats, y'know. The usual. She kept shrieking "DAT! DAT! DAT!" every time a cat showed itself. She wasn't sure whether she wanted to chase them, or run away.

Here's a less exciting video... Ari sits in a chair, and says "ball" some more. What the hell, it's 20 seconds of your life, right?

It's a tie!

This is a picture of Ari. She was inexplicably walking around with her hands behind her head for a while, but this was the best picture I was able to snap. :)

It's been an interesting week this week, full of snow. And coldness. :P Have I mentioned how much I hate the cold? Monday and Tuesday, school was canceled because of sub-zero windchill. Then, on Tuesday afternoon, we all of a sudden got four inches of snow.

It was particularly exciting for me, because I was way the hell across town when the storm started, at a playgroup with Ari. It was snowing when I left, but I expected it to be a light snow and then stop- but no. It snowed hard from about 1:30 until 10 at night! I ended up leaving my car at the playgroup and getting a ride home from someone more used to driving with an inch and a half of snow on the road (and a van with an extra carseat).

Anyway, school got canceled for the third day in a row- Thad ended up only missing one day of work (because I work Monday-Wednesday) but, as you might imagine, three days off at the beginning of the week plays hob with teachers' willingness to take off days at the end of the week.


This is a picture of our contribution to last Friday's Imbolc dinner at Rick and Brooke's. They made braised lamb and potatoes and something else delicious that escapes me at the moment. But it was all delicious, anyhow. We stayed up late playing games and had a grand time, but we inadvertently screwed up Ari's sleep doing it, and ended up paying for it later.

This is a picture of Ari, eating her very favorite of foods. She looks like some sort of hunchedy gnome here.

You'll note that she's in a sweater... our house is pretty cold, what with the temperatures in the teens and lower. We'd turn the heat up, but, y'know, we're poor. So we just all wear sweaters and socks around the house. We also put that saran wrap stuff on some of our windows, which has helped a great deal, but 65 degrees is 65 degrees.

This is Ari playing with paper dolls. Someone on one of our Changeling boards mentioned this site where you can create fairy avatars, and Thad printed some out on cardstock and cut them out for Ari to play with. She totally loves them! Several of them she's loved right to death, so we're going to print them again and laminate a few for her, I think.

Ari's just exploded with the talking- I think she's got well over a dozen words, and you can tell she's trying other ones. I can't remember all of them.

Cool stuff from today:

• Ari was learning to beep noses today- she kept pushing our noses and going "eep". She even did it to her baby doll!
• I was playing with a dragon toy, making it roar at her, and she picked it up and started chasing Thad with it and going "rawrrr!"
• Thad got home just before she woke up for her nap, so he was there when she got up. She staggered over towards him, and when he asked her for a hug, she totally understood and gave him one. :D

We've been having issues the last few days with Ari trying to claw the bejeezus out of me when she nurses. We had a really horrible night where she was in a constant tantrum and I wouldn't let her nurse if she was trying to knead me... but it seems to be getting better. She's clawing me less and tantruming less when she does claw me and I pull her off.