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!

Miss Cheesy Foot

Well, I didn't get to write yesterday, because I was playing in the first session of our new Changeling game until near onto midnight. I don't think I've mentioned Changeling yet in this blog, but Changeling is our favoritest RPG ever. We like it enough that we played it every week (sometimes twice a week!) for like, four years straight. We even like it enough that Thad wrote and I edited and coordinated a full book-length fan supplement for the game (which- vanity, vanity- is pretty much used as if it were a canon part of the game by just about everyone who knows it exists). It has, however, been a year or more since our last Changeling game broke up.

At first, I was happy for the break, but now I find I'm glad to get back to it. I'm playing a troll for the first time ever which is cool. My character is muscle for a money changer at a faerie market.

Anyway, lest I digress into talking about my character, let me just stay that we were up late and I had a presentation in the morning and writing did not happen.

On that note, today was the last day of the MSSI. All we were doing was having our group present. To give you an idea, the first group to present took 1-1/2 hours. The second group took 2-1/2 hours. Guess how long we took? Four hours. To our credit, there were four of us and only three in the other groups. And our text had complicated scribal stuff and complicated watermarks and complicated illuminations- but still. Four hours, man!

After the marathon presentation of doom, we had a really nice little reception ceremony, with little pastries from Mozart's (in the library! Gasp! Shock!) and little certificates of achievement that Pasha made for us. They have the date written in complicated Church Slavonic dating, and little illuminations out of the manuscripts- mostly ours; it was the prettiest- on the side. Pasha did a really cool thing and had these complicated numerological codes in the illuminations, unique ones for each of us. It was awesome.

After I got done at the MSSI, I said "Screw this! I'm going home to my monkeys!" and didn't pump. So, I went home. I got lunch and fed my baby, and then Thad and I went over to the milk bank to give them the last pumped milk I'll be giving them. I'll still be pumping in the fall, but they won't take toddler milk, so I'll probably try to find someone to donate to privately. I'd hate the milk Ari won't drink to go to waste, y'know!

Then, Thad and I went shopping. In our new car- I'll post some pictures tomorrow. We bought some shelves; some for my upcoming attempt to clean our basement, and some for the organization of our horrible, unwieldy stack of games.

After shopping, Thad went off to play Shaintar and I went out to the Jazz and Ribs fest with some of my MSSI compatriots. It was awesome. Thad and I will go back tomorrow for much fun times. While at the fest, Ari ate:

• part of a blooming onion
• fried potato bits
• a little baked beans
• funnel cake

She actually tried to eat the WHOLE funnel cake. She picked it up and tried to munch on it when our attention was momentarily elsewhere.

Wow- long, busy, tiring day. I'm off to squirt water up my nose and then sleep.

P.S. Huzzah the start of summer!

No more nuggets

I suspect this will be kind of a short entry; I'm kind of woozy-headed from trying to put the girl down and I'm also hungry. My professor was sick today, so we didn't have lecture after all. I spent the morning finishing up my presentation and got to come home early!

Ari was pretty fussy, though- we think she's teething again. Poor little girl. I wish we could get her napping better; she's been so tired these last few days.

On another note, our car didn't get quite finished today, so we had to walk to the grocery store. Ari was happy for that, at least.

Well, I'm off to forage.

It's not about making points

This is what I came home to this evening- Thad was not actually asleep, mind. He was just very, very tired. When he got in this morning, he very sweetly let me get one more hour of sleep- so he was an exceedingly tired monkey when I got home. Since Ari only got six hours of sleep last night, she was a fussy britches for him today, too.

I actually managed to remain conscious during lecture today. It was a pretty interesting guest lecture about this database this guy created in order to allow scholars to search and compare manuscript descriptions. Tomorrow is the last lecture for the MSSI- then on Thursday, we present. I'm totally not ready. I'd better get ready, of course, because on Thursday, we present. !!!

Jeff took this picture of Ari holding on to my legs, but he missed the really cute shot. She was totally hugging my legs and looking all cute at Jeff. Of course, as soon as she saw the camera, she started trying to crawl towards him.

She ate more food today- yogurt and watermelon and orange and even *gasp* a bottle of milk. She was so funny with the yogurt. I would feed her a taste (I had made a bowl for myself to eat), and she would make this horrible face. But she kept eating it. Masochism? Poor short-term memory? I'm not sure what that was about.

Maybe she's just like her pickle-juice drinkin' mama and loves her the funky tastes.

I'm DOOMED

Guess who decided to wake up at 6 AM? The horrible irony is, she'll be tired and want to sleep again around 8- just when I'll be having to start getting ready.

I have no idea how I'm going to get through three hours of lecture without falling asleep.

Kevin Smith overuses parens too

Mum and the girls left this morning, as was previously mentioned. I did finally manage to get one picture of Ari and her grandma- it's a lovely one, too. Ari's such a little sweetheart. She woke up early today, so she got to see everyone off after all.

She also went to the BMV (do any other states call it that?) with Thad and the previous owner of our new car. We are the official new owners! I have the title in front of me, and am on hold to the insurance company to change our insurance over as I write. I haven't actually seen the car again, though, because Thad immediately dropped it off at our mechanics to get the work done that it needs. We should have it back on Wednesday.

I've just realized that next week will mark the first time since Ari was born that I will a) be home and b) have access to the car. I can take her to playgroups and the zoo willy-nilly!

Check out Miss Ari eating some melon here! Thad has started trying to feed her some solids during the day, since she won't take a bottle. I got to appreciate the after effects of this meal at a diaper change much later in the evening.


And here she is, napping in her high chair for her papa. I actually have a series of these (taken by Thad, of course) of her in different poses. We'll pretty much take what we can get with her, nap-wise!

I came home early today because I needed to write up my part of the report for the MSSI, but I didn't get any work done. I got an email from a friend that made me sad, and I couldn't concentrate. Now that I've finally gotten the girl down (and written this) I'm faced with the decision- do I try to get some work done? Or do I go to bed?

Low bridge

Well, my family are leaving early in the morn'. Thad's also headed out early in the morn, for to go buy our new car. It's all terribly exciting.

We had an okay, very slow day. Thad slept until 4:30 in the afternoon, so he didn't get up until my family got back from church. Basically, we played a game of Arkham Horror with Elaine and Lori, ate some fish, and are now going to bed. Repeat comment about how much earlier my family sleeps than I do.

Ari was a little non-napping sweety, and passed out utterly at about 9:20- the little darling was literally falling asleep in her chair.

A whole Jack Buster and a pam-cake

Today was a pretty busy and exciting day! My family came into town yesterday. That's part of why I didn't write yesterday, although more of why I didn't write is that I fell asleep nursing Ari to sleep. This was unfortunate- I didn't get to brush teeth or squirt water up my nose†, and I ended up sleeping in my clothes. I hate sleeping in my clothes. Thad has been under strict orders to wake me up if I should fall asleep like that, but he never ever does. If I ever ask him why he didn't wake me (per my standing orders), he always says "but you were asleep!" and looks at me like I'm crazy. *sigh*

Today, we went to breakfast, and then I went to work, and then Ari napped, and then Mom took us shopping, and then we made ribs, and then Thad went to work, and then Ari wouldn't sleep, and then she DID sleep, and now I'm writing this. My family are all asleep, and I should be too.

Amazingly enough, though, it's not actually that late by my standards. It's barely after midnight. My family go to sleep so much earlier than I'm inclined to!

Anyhow, there were many exciting baby things today. The major thing is that she ate today! This is the list of all the things my baby ate:

• yogurt
• blueberries
• cornbread
• cheerios

And she didn't just taste them, either. She ate baby spoonful after baby spoonful of yogurt, and she just kept popping those cheerios straight in her mouth. This was also on the heels of yesterday's adventures with kalemata olives (which she liked!), tzatziki (which she didn't), and greek lemon potatoes. My baby is an eating food baby!

Next on the exciting list is that she was unquestionably responding to music today. Lori brought her flute, and was playing for Ari- Ari was hanging on every note, and getting excited and dancing in time. It was really cool.

Well, I'm off to bed. Tomorrow should be calmer, I think.
______
†I apparently love footnotes lately... anyway, I don't think I've mentioned the whole "squirting water up my nose" thing before. I'm apparently sensitive to some plant that grows in Ohio. I went to a doctor, and they did an allergy test, and I didn't come up even a little allergic to anything. All I know is, as soon as things come alive in the spring, I'm congested with dry membranes and a constantly bleeding nose. I end up sniffing and poking my nose (and with painful blood clots up in) all the time. Flushing my nasal passages with saline daily helps, but I suffer greatly if it's not daily. It goes away as soon as things die in the fall.

It's really just because it's pretty

Well, I shouldn't stay up too late, so I won't dally long here. Let's see... Ari was sick last night. Shortly after I went to bed, she suddenly started stirring, wouldn't take the boob, and then threw up all over the bed and promptly plopped straight back down (in the middle of the throw-up: eeewwwww) and passed out. She slept through me changing the sheets out from under her, and she slept through the whole night. She didn't wake up until after 8 AM.

Awesome, you say? Well, only if you share this country's obsession with getting babies to sleep all night†. For us, it's a problem. Ari won't take a bottle when I'm gone, so she doesn't eat for 8 or 9 hours during the day. She compensates by eating all night long, every couple of hours. So, you can imagine how concerned I was that she wouldn't eat all night, especially since I had to work today, and she had thrown up her last meal.

Fortunately, when she woke up in the morning, she was hungry as anything. I fed her all I could in the morning (it even made me late to class). After lunch, I told my group mates that I would come back to work in the afternoon, but wanted to go home early for my baby. They said to just go home, so I did. Ari is just fine now- and has been all day- it was only complicated by my being gone for work and her refusal to eat if I'm not there.

We got our mechanics to look over another car- a '93 four-door Ford Escort. This one looks like it might be a keeper. It'd need a fair quantity of work, but the price of that plus what they're asking is still reasonable. It's a four-door hatchback. I just look forward to possibly having a car again.

Anyway, I'm off to try to clean the house again- mom and my little sisters arrive tomorrow morning.
______
†Sidebar: this is the number two thing I get asked about when strangers want to talk to me about my child. Number one: how old is s/he? Number two: is she sleeping through the night? It seems an awfully personal question, if you ask me. I usually respond that she isn't, but since we co-sleep and breastfeed, I don't care.

Twice to bed

This is a picture of a bathed, night-diapered, jammied, ready-for-bed little girl. I include the picture partly because it's sweet (but then, what picture of her isn't? says the doting mama) but also partly because this never happens. We don't usually bother to jammy her, and she only gets bathed when it occurs to me to do so. It so happens that it occurs to me to do so maybe 3-4 times a month... I'm so lazy that way. But it's not like she really gets dirty- and she does get spot cleaned.

This was also an interesting night because I got to bathe as well- I even washed my hair. This was the inaugural shower for the solarveil sling. Ari was very skeptical of the water falling on her, but she was mostly happy to let me shower, provided I was scrupulous about keeping the water flow mostly on me- I can do this because we have one of those vertical stream kind of shower heads, as opposed to the diagonal stream kind you get most of the time.

Anyway, washing my hair was a bit tricky (picture me leaning my head waaaay back so as not to splash soapy water into my nursing baby's face) but here I am, hair washed and all showered up!

In other baby news, Ari is really, really taking to solids with the advent of her new teeth. Yesterday was cherries (and this morning was cherry peels in the diaper- eeeew!), the day before that was honeydew melon, and today she ate some peach. I was eating a peach for first dinner, and she was all over it. Finally, I pulled the peel off a piece and offered it to her. At first, she only poked it and then licked her fingers. Apparently, it passed muster, so I bit off a chunk and gave it to her. She actually sat in my lap and nibbled on her little piece of peach until it was too small for her to get at anymore.

This makes me feel very positive about my decision to do "child-led" solids introduction. She really was just waiting until she could feed herself. It's very cool.

Anyhow, I'm off to try and clean the house some. My family are coming on Friday (I think I mentioned that), and we won't get much cleaning time tomorrow as we're having people over for the advent of a new Thursday game.

Looking for a golden rose

Check out my baby, eating cherries! If she looks a little teary-eyed, it's because her mean papa had the temerity to wash her hands off. ;) But yeah, she ate little pieces of cherry, and apparently much enjoyed them.

We gave her some honeydew melon yesterday, and she munched away on that. Mayhap tomorrow we'll try watermelon. She's so much more willing to try food now that she has teeth to eat it with! I guess that's really the easier and more natural way to go about it, too.

This is Ari wearing a present she got from one of my fellow MSSI students. It's so awesome. That funkety-lookin' script is called Glagolitic, and her shirt has the names of four of the first five letters of the Glagolitic alphabet. The names of those letters also form the sentence "I know letters well". :D It's SO cute, and also so very geeky! I took a picture, and I'm going to give it to the people who run the center; I know they'll appreciate it.

There's not a whole lot else to talk about. Thad didn't work again tonight (I think I mentioned that was the likelihood) and we did indeed play Pendragon.

I don't know if I've explained Pendragon before, but it's an RPG in the style of the Arthurian romances and tales.

One of the interesting things about it, as opposed to other RPG's, is that you play out the life of your character. There're tables for near everything you could think of- random family events, marriage, childbirth. I think I showed a picture of the party we had when one of our knights got married in the game.

Anyhow, my character (the lady Arianna) got married some sessions ago, and at this point in the game, had a 2-month-old son. In the game tonight, an enemy stole her son and rode off with him.

I didn't at all like pondering what it would feel like to lose my child. I snuggled Ari very close tonight.

Anyway, check her out, playing with her dice. Andy (Sir Axel) brought her the d6 tonight. She totally loved it, and carted it everywhere. She even took it upstairs and snuggled it right to sleep.

All the tracings match

Thad didn't work tonight, so it almost feels like a weekend. Alas, it is but a Monday, and the weekend is long days away. At least tomorrow night is Pendragon (Thad also doesn't work), so I have that to sustain me.

You may have noticed many nights of Thad not working. Unfortunately, Target doesn't give new guys all that many hours- Thad only has 5 workdays in two weeks. We have some friends who have worked there longer who get decent hours, so we hope that maybe soon they'll start paying him enough to cover our rent. That would be nice. In the interim, I guess the silver lining is that he's not working very much in my final days of MSSI.

I'm really enjoying the MSSI, but I feel like a bit of a fraud, because I don't know enough Slavic to be able to sightread. At all. And I'm having serious difficulties doing the readings at all... I did tell them when I applied for the program how little I knew, though. And Dan (one of my professors) knows exactly how much Slavic I don't know, because I took his History of Russian class last Spring.

I just feel lame not being able to do readings in class, and whatnot. Today, I had the following exchange with my professor:

Predrag: Julia, would you like to read this next part?
Me: No.
Predrag: Um... okay.

See? LAME. I try to tell myself that I have other qualities that I bring to the table, but my other qualities are not too much in demand. Except for the part where I kick ass at tracing watermarks.

Anyway, check out the sweet baby photos. Thad and Ari actually came and lunched with me, and I took them up to see the Hilandar library, where the MSSI is being held. Everyone cooed at the girl. She kinda refused to go to sleep at a reasonable hour, though, so Thad had to sling her down (as you can see). And we successfully prevented Cthulhu from getting his tentacly appendages into our world, so it was all in all a good evening.

First steps

Well, to begin with, I'd best explain my title. Ari took her first two steps today, on her own two feet, holding on to nothing, but not in sequence. :)

She was playing with Thad, and holding on to his arm. Well, he pulled loose from her, and she took one, solitary, halting step towards him and grabbed back on to his arm. About two minutes later, she did the same thing to me. Now, if you'll excuse me, I think this deserves:

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That said, I shall move on to the rest of the last few days. We did indeed go and see Dead Man's Chest. It was good, but massively inconclusive and a little contrived. I wished they came up with more original jokes instead of just pointing back to the ones in the first movie. Also, Depp's Jack Sparrow was so cool in the original, but it just felt like here the movie kept going "Oh, that Captain Jack. Isn't he a character? Haw haw haw."

As you can see, Thad and I dressed for the occasion. It led to us being yarr'd at by random strangers- but one does not dress publicly like a pirate if one minds a little yarr'ing. (Now I have this image of closet pirate dressers... yarrvestites?)

Ari was actually "reading" in this picture- as in, holding the book and flipping from page to page to look at the different pictures. It was really cute.

Well, it was a nice (if too short) weekend. There are two more weeks of the MSSI left, and my family are coming next weekend. I'll get through these weeks somehow- I have the Jazz and Ribs festival marked in red on my calendar, and I keep it in my mind. It'll mark the end of this crazy schedule, and the beginning of my break for the summer! And who wouldn't look forward with anticipation to a festival devoted to jazz, and ribs? I'm salivating just thinking about it.

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.

Pouring gasoline on the sun

Today is a day Thad works, so that means today was a busy day. When Thad works, we go on kind of a weird schedule. I get home when I get home- usually around 5. Although, in my brain, I want to say that it's 4:30 or 5- but let's be realistic, here. When I get home, I sit down and immediately nurse the girl. I make Thad put my milk in the fridge. As a side note, there were several times in the past when I forgot to put my milk away, and it had to be poured out. This made me and the Baby Jesus cry, so it's best avoided in the future.

After the milk is put away, I send Thad upstairs to bed. After nursing the girl for a while, I serve myself first dinner. Then, while he's asleep, I have two jobs:

1. Keep the girl quiet enough that he doesn't wake up. This is a startlingly easy job, as it turns out. Thad sleeps like a frikkin' log, and our bedroom door blocks a lot of sound. Ari was outright screaming for hours the other night, and he slept right through it.
2. Have dinner ready for him when he wakes up at 8:30.
   

Today, we were low on food (as a result of the continuing carlessness we suffer under), so in order to fulfill job #2, Ari and I actually hiked the nine blocks and back to go shopping, stroller in tow. As I was walking back home, a (nearsighted?) elderly gentleman made a comment about me having two babies; I replied, "Nope- just the one, and a hell of a lot of groceries!"

It wasn't actually a hell of a lot, I should confess. But it was probably a few more than I should have been hauling in the stroller, and I had just pushed it 8 blocks while wrangling a wiggly baby. In any case, it was a nice day for a walk, and I think Ari and I both really enjoyed it. We miss each other when we're away, and it's nice to be close to each other for a while.

In any case, I successfully got dinner on the table, and night-lunch packed for Thad, and him out the door on time. I also got the baby to bed by 10:15. Go me.

You may have noticed the addition of new meals- each of us is up to 4 meals per day:

• Breakfast- Thad and Julia, but not together
• Lunch- Thad and Julia, still not together
• First dinner- Julia, while Thad sleeps
• Dinner- Thad and Julia: together at last!!
• Night-lunch- Thad, while Julia sleeps

And basically, dinner is the only time we see each other on days Thad works.

In happier news, my Opa-pa is out of the hospital (he was sick), and home. Without any major surgeries, even.

A pile o' swag

Not all that much has been going on. We went to a party for the fourth, at the house of the person running the MSSI. It was probably not the most fun way we could have spent the holiday, but it was okay. Ari was perfectly behaved, and the life of the party. She also ate a bunch of honeydew melon. She totally used her little teeth. I was kind of freaked out because she could bite off little chunks (Oh no! Choking hazard!) but she kind of... gummed them over her two little teeth, and handled the melon just fine. This lends credence to my theory that Ari will eat food when she's physically capable of eating it like a grownup person.

After the party we just came home and hung out. I stayed up way too late reading a novel last night and had some serious staying awake difficulties in class today.

Ari's been both scary and exciting today. To the right the scary- our little girl is getting so mobile. She figured out how to climb up on the papasan to get at the shelf today. She also figured out how to get at my (very messy and very not baby-safe) sewing corner, which we had hoped we had successfully blockaded.

On the exciting note, today Ari:

• Helped me scritch Thad's back again
• "Helped" Thad empty the dishwasher. Well, she helped take dishes out of the racks, anyway!
• Played a mimic game with me. I had a domino with a circle-shaped hole in it, and was holding it up to my eye to look through, and then up to her eye. She took it from me and held it back up to my eye!
• Tried to nurse off my tummy

Well, the last one isn't all that exciting, but it is kind of funny.

Devoured by Shub-Niggurath

Wow, today's been all over the map. The girl finally fell asleep in my arms just a few minutes ago. She was really fussy and tired for hours, and I got really frustrated. I think she was teething. Now that it's over, I feel kind of embarrassed... Ari screaming for a long time makes me unhinged. I think I'll try harder to be more hinged.

Tomorrow is the fourth, and a holiday, and neither of us is working. I think this is a good thing. It'll give both of us a bit of a rest.

R&K left this morning. We had pancakes, and then they drove off into the sunset. Or the sunrise? Or, probably more accurately, the cloudy morning gloom. Every time they go, I miss them so badly. I wish it was possible for our life paths to converge more, but they really don't. They're going to go off and live in foreign lands (something Rebecca's wanted to do since ever). Their new jobs are perfect for them. But it means that homebody me has no chance of being able to live down the street from my sister. Even if I wanted to move to DC, R&K won't be living there for long- their jobs will take them away from the States for years at a time.

Pfeh. Whine, whine. I'm a go sleep now. Sleep is good for everything.

The best shower of your life?

It's been kind of a busy weekend. Between Origins, R&K visiting and Brooke's birthday party... it's been kind of crazy. I wouldn't trade R&K's visit for the world, but it has been busy- and now we're going back to a full week of work. I'm enjoying MSSI, but I'm also counting the days till it's over!

There have been several really awesome baby moments lately- I thought I'd just relay a few. At Brooke's party last night, for starters, Ari fed Rick a whole stick of celery! She'd been playing with it for a while- waving it around and occasionally using it on her two little teeth. Rick was holding her and playing with her, and she was poking him with the celery stick. She poked it in his mouth, and he bit off a chunk. She got this kind of startled, fascinated look on her face and poked it back in his mouth! She kept doing this until she had fed him the very last little celery nub. It was adorable.

This morning, Ari helped me scritchy Thad's back. I had just changed her at the foot of the bed (which, if you'll recall, is currently on the floor) and Thad was flopped on his stomach nearby. He asked me for scritchies, so I started scritching him with one hand. Well, Ari crawled up, and started scratching his back with her one hand! It definitely wasn't accidental, either. She deliberately stood there and scratched him 5 or 6 times. It's one of the first times I can remember her clearly imitating me. Thad says they were even nice scritchies. :D

Lastly, I saw Ari clearly dancing to music today. She was playing with her piano, and sitting on her knees and bouncing up and down, staring at the piano while it made music. In time to the music. I suppose it's possible that it was coincidental, but it really seemed clear to me that she was dancing to music.

Anyway, it's really late. I'm a sleep... more work tomorrow. :(

Another nothing post

Karl and Rebecca got here tonight. It was mostly just work and school and trying to clean up until they got here, and then we did alot of chatting. Not much to say...

Luke is a cow

Well, it's been a bit since I had the time to sit down and really write. Our work schedules (as I've mentioned previously) really bite. The days Thad works, I pretty much come home after a full day, take the girl so Thad can sleep and try to somehow cook dinner and watch the girl at the same time.

I'm enjoying the MSSI, though. Today I traced watermarks! It was an exciting, yet terrifying new world of brandishing Sharpie markers near old and irreplaceable manuscripts.

Thad took Ari over to Origins today (since teachers get in free), and bought her some new dice, as you can see. :D She totally loves them, too. You can't tell from the picture, but they're made from this foam rubber stuff. I think she finds it delightfully chewable. Thad got her a d8, a d4 and some d6's with animals on them.

Karl and Rebecca are coming tomorrow on their way to DC. I'd best to get the house in order, and decide what to cook!

Another lament

I don't like working full time this much. :( I especially don't like it when Thad's also working off shifts to me. It feels like I never get a break to get anything done; I'm either working or taking care of Ari (which is where Thad is, too).

Ah, well. Off to bed for me.

Going to bed

Not much to say today. This work schedule takes much getting used to.

Ari slept weird times today, and both Thad and I are fair burned out. But Thad, poor man, has to work tonight.

Sunburned shoulderblades and a sore neck

We had a lazy Sunday today. Thad stayed up 'till four, and his family presumably got off sometime thereafter. I don't know if they got in yet, but I can only assume that we'd've heard something if they didn't.

Thad slept in, and Ari had two naps today, so that was nice. We basically just hung out and played games together, the two of us, most of the day. We cleaned up a little (although the house was just fine, really). When Brooke got off at five, we all went over to Comfest and had a nice little picnic. We hung out and played games and ate and wrangled a very crawly baby until we had to leave to get Thad to work.

I felt kind of bad, because Ari kept getting into stuff and onto people without me noticing. She moves so fast these days, and it just makes me tired trying to haul her off of things every five minutes. Even in our most baby-proofed rooms, she'll find the one thing we couldn't proof and will choose to always play with that, no matter what!

On an unrelated note, Ari's been displaying... I don't know what. Not stranger anxiety. But lately, she gets really upset when someone leaves her. It doesn't matter if it's me leaving, or Thad leaving, or if someone's with her when we go, or if it's somebody who just showed up. For example, yesterday, Maryanne walked through the room we were in on her way upstairs. As soon as she started up the stairs, Ari just started bawling. I know it was because of Maryanne leaving, too, because she had watched Maryanne come in and was watching her leave.

It makes it hard for me to leave in the morning when I need to. :( I can't just walk away from her when she sobs all heartfelt like that.

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.

But his trunk is still tore up

I thought I'd put these into a whole separate entry, and everything. These are some of the projects I worked on today.

On the right is the dress that I wore to my brother's wedding, refurbished and wearable again- although considerably less modest. I haven't been able to wear it in just about exactly three years. Around this time in 2003, just before we moved to Columbus, I was at a birthday party in Gainesville. One thing led to another, and I ended up colliding with the asphalt at a high rate of speed (but I still love the person responsible! ;) ).

Anyway, my right side hit the street first, and the experience wore a sizable hole through the dress about where my hip bone was. Not tore, wore through. There was nothing I could thing to do with this big, unmendable hole except patch it, and I just never got 'round to doing it. I probably would have thrown it away, except for the sentimental value. And also, y'know, the fact that I actually quite like the dress.

Well, I was at a Blessingway on Friday, and someone there suggested me to just separate them, and turn it into a top and skirt. As you can see, it worked smashingly, and now I get to wear my dress again! Oh- on a somewhat gross note: as I was hemming it I noticed that there were all these little dried up bits of Julia flesh stuck to the edges of the hole. Eeeeewwww.

On the left is my second big project. That there is a sling made out of solarveil, a fabric that blocks UV rays. It also dries very, very quickly- so it makes an ideal water sling. Plus, it really just looks like gauze. It's very light and breathable. I thought it would be nice to wear something a little cooler for the summer. Plus, I was kinda hoping that I'd get to take my little girl to the pool this summer. :D

On top of all that, I also made little fleece tags for all my microfiber diaper inserts. Thad has trouble telling the different sizes of inserts apart, so I labelled them for his convenience. And so he doesn't have any excuse not to fold and stuff the diapers himself. ;)

Anyway, I like having a tangible set of accomplishments like this. Oh, and I like sewing. Maybe I should do more of it now and again.

Father's Day

Today was Thad's first Father's Day! First, we let Thad sleep until 12:30, while I spent some time working on projects (more on that later) and hanging out with the girl.

This wasn't just a special Father's Day treat, though- Thad was up until 5:30 AM with a baby who wouldn't sleep. This is just more evidence of his badass daddy-ness. :)

As presents, he got the shirt you see in the picture (that's embroidery, even) and also Ari made him a card. Or poked a piece of paper randomly with a colored pencil; one or t'other.

We spent the afternoon and evening playing games with Jaime, which was quite nice. Jaime also took us to go see a car- alas, it was clearly a piece of crap, so we're still at square one on the car front.

This is a picture I took where you can see Ari's little nubbin teeth! You can see both of them- note that the one on the right is bigger, though. I thought y'all might get a kick out of seeing those little nubbins that have been causing us so much grief.

Ari's been doing the no nap fall asleep late and fuss all day regimen, as has become usual with all this teething. She was pretty cute, cruising around under the table while we gamed and had tasty Indian food for dinner (I offered her rice and vindaloo sauce, but she didn't go for it...).

Bizarro Mario

We had a pretty stay-at-home day today- which is unsurprising, given our LACK OF CAR. *sigh*

I've put some more feelers out about cars, and we may rent a car some next week (if only to do what needs done for ECIEC). Hopefully, this will all be resolved soon. At least Thad's job is in biking distance, so that's not something we have to worry about.

He had his orientation today, but he doesn't start till Monday night. We won't know what his schedule will be until then, either.

Ari took a pretty good nap today, but she had a really hard time getting to sleep at night. She went down originally at 9:00 (right on time!) but she kept waking up. She didn't want to nurse, and she'd whimper herself back to sleep in my arms.

I could tell that her teeth were hurting her, and she finally got to the point where she didn't seem like she was going to be able to get back to sleep. She was crying and so tired. I finally got Thad to run get the teething tablets, and I gave her some. It was pretty dramatic! She went from seeming like she was going to just wake up right then, to falling peacefully asleep in my arms. To be honest with you, it kinda freaked me out.

The tabs (as you'll note if you click on the link) are homeopathic. Now, I usually think homeopathics are either a) a big crock or b) scary underregulated drugs. I only got the teething tabs because many moms I know and respect recommended them, and boy howdy, do they work! At least my baby girl is asleep and not in pain. But it does concern me that they might be in the "b" category...

Better than beef stew

I spent more time away from Ari today than I wanted. :(

I spent the afternoon working on my handout- but I didn't finish. Thad watched her while I was working. Then I went shopping with Angelo and Brooke. Brooke drove us around, which was really nice because we had WAY too much stuff to have transported it in a normal car vehicle. We even had to get one of them flatbed carts. Did you know that they have six wheels, and it's designed to only have some of them in use at anyone time depending on where you have the weight distributed?

Anyway, it took us more than four hours to get everything bought and stowed and all, and I was away from my baby all that time. I had been planning to go to an event alone tonight, but I decided to take Ari after all, because I was tired of being apart from her. Thad was really sweet, though, and (despite having had her all day) offered to keep her for the evening so I could have some fun time alone.

Oh, another fun thing I just realized I forgot to mention is that our car died yesterday. As I was coming off the highway and driving home on 5th, I noticed some significant loss of pressure in my brakes. I had to have the pedal near to the floor to get brake action. Since we were planning on getting rid of it anyhow, that's it.

* * * *

Those stars stand for me getting up in the middle of writing and going to nurse the girl back down. Can I just say that I love getting to be the one to comfort her in the night? Having her little body all cuddled up against me, totally trusting me to take care of her- it's the best thing ever. I love the way my baby smells and I love the way she lays her little hand up on my chest while she's falling asleep.

Thad's off to his orientation for the new job in the morning, and it looks like his family won't be coming out this weekend after all. :(

To bed at 4:30 and up at 8:00

Bear with me, y'all. I'm getting no sleep, between ECIEC and Ari's teething. And the time just seems to flow away in a stream. I'll post a real post again sometime soon.

There really isn't much to say at the moment except that:

• I'm working on my handout still
• Ari isn't napping for shit right now
• None of us are sleeping

Yup, that covers, like, the last three days.

Robin

This entry is named after someone who went out of her way today to help me. She had places to be, and nobody would have thought badly of her if she'd just said "that sucks" and walked on by- but she didn't. I think that's cool.

The long version of that story is that I went to bring dinner to someone's house today. She's part of my mom's group and someone that I really like and would kind of like to be better friends with. She just had a little baby girl, so I volunteered to come fawn over her newborn under the pretenses of feeding her family. ;)

Anyway, I googled her place and thought I'd be okay to find it- but I got totally lost. It was near on 45 minutes before my sheer lostness overcame my shyness, and I stopped at a drugstore. I didn't even have the change for a phonecall on me, so I was hoping that I could beg the people of the UDF for the use of their phone. As I was explaining my plight to the UDF employees, a woman (Robin) came to the counter. She not only advised me about where she thought I was trying to go, but she also offered to let me use her cell phone. Then she also talked to my friend to figure out where I should be going. And then she took it upon herself to drive there with me, to make sure that I got where I was going safely.

I'm going to keep this story in my head, and someday, when I meet someone who's unhappy and lost (like I was today) I'm going to try to be as nice to them as Robin was to me today.

Who's the rotten tomato?

These are both pictures from yesterday, but I didn't get round to posting anything then. :) This is just a sweet picture of her passed out in her carseat. She really is totally passed out, by the way. For some reason, she sometimes sleeps with her eyes a little bit open, even if she's limp-limbed unconscious.

We did rather more running around yesterday than we really intended, and her napping's been pretty spotty lately, so it was her first nap of the day at 3 PM.

Her sleep has, most likely, been messed up by the teething. This is unsurprising, because not only is she cutting the previously-mentioned nubbin tooth, but she's also cutting a brand new nubbin tooth! I noticed it today, just barely breaking the surface of her gums. It's right next to her other tooth- they're the center front incisors, to give you an idea.

To the left is photographic proof of why we need a king-size bed- somebody in this family is a bed-hog. :) We actually went and looked at futons the other day. I'm pondering whether the teaching award I got might go toward us being able to afford the mattress.

In any case, Thad watched Ari most of the day so I could work- as, come to think of it, he has done the last three days. He dressed her in a red shirt and green diaper and kept saying that she was a little plum tomato. She spent most of the day just playing around the house.

She's so capable these days- if she wants me, she will just up and crawl into the next room, pull herself up to me and demand to be picked up. She knows where her toys are (we keep them in several open bins in various rooms) and will perfectly happily go to her toy chest and pull some out of the bin. It's really cool.

Another cool thing is that she really responds to things we do now. Like, she knows when papa gets his sling, it means she's going for a walk. As soon as Thad grabbed that sling today, she just started wiggling and making excited noises and waving her arms and trying to launch herself towards him.

Anyway, I think I'll leave off before I just up and die from the mass cuteness. :) It's 3 in the morning anyhow (guess who fudged the time on the log and has been up hours trying to work on her ECIEC handout?) and I need to get to bed. I'm supposed to meet with Brian tomorrow about food and my paper. In about 7 hours, as a matter of fact. Whee!

Sitzfleisch

I just spent hours looking up more than 350 lines from the Rig Veda and marking the metrical boundaries in my notes. Other linguists get to talk to people, or at least do computerized searches of records of having talked to people; I flip through really old books. At length. At great length.

Anyway, ECIEC is eating my life- you'll note it's 3:30 in the f'in' morning.

I'll do a proper entry, with cute baby pictures, tomorrow. I promise.

Start wearing purple

This is a photo from yesterday, when Ari and I were helping Brooke in the garden. Well, by helping, I mean "alternately lounging around on the grass not doing anything useful, or physically impeding Brooke from being able to garden". As in the picture. ;)

Ari was mostly pretty good today. I'm wondering if her teeth were bothering her, though- she fought sleep tonight, and was pretty fussy and unhappy in the latter part of the evening. Earlier, though, she was totally sweet (as she usually is). She tried and mostly failed to eat cheerios. She can- and will- pick them up and put them in her mouth, but doing anything with them once she gets them there is the issue.
Today, we did very little except clean. Alot. I finally had had it with the horribleness of my house, and we spent the whole day cleaning it sparkly. To the left, you can see a "before" picture. Note the bunches of graded papers lying around, the piles of books, the random Stuff lying haphazardly around... Ari couldn't play in this room at all, between the mess and the table that got left in a non-baby-friendly spot in the room.

Anyway, it took us about 7 hours, but this is the "after" picture. Mind, 7 hours was the whole rest of the house as well, not just this one spot. ;) My bathroom is shiny, and my living room is vacuumed. I dusted, even. I'm hoping that some of the organize-y stuff I bought a bit ago will help us keep it clean, which is the real trick.

Oh, and we also made a whole searchable database of our games collection. That's cool.

And in exciting baby news: Ari climbed down the stairs today. Not well- she would have fallen off if I hadn't steadied her- but she still did it. That's good, becasue I'm tired of having to pull her off the stairs all the time.

Breaking up the ground

It's 2:30 in the morning, so I'm gonna make this short. I finished grading today (huzzah!), planning on cleaning the house tomorrow. Thad went to Shaintar, so I spent the evening at R&B's (hence the late bedtime- you know how it goes).

Oh, and I accidentally hit myself in the eye with my thumb so hard that it bled- I have a crescent shaped scab on my eyelid now, and that eye is swelling up.

Not eating cheerios

Yesterday must have worn Ari out, because she slept like a dream today! She passed out 10-ish last night, and didn't wake up till after 10:30 this morning- usually, she's up by 8 at the latest, so that was fairly remarkable. Not only that, but she napped with ease and was asleep by 9:30!

This morning, a friend came and picked us up and we went to a playgroup. She was supposed to come at 10, but didn't come 'till 11- which I was grateful for, as it meant I could shower and dress and eat and pack a lunch AND (most importantly) let my baby sleep 'till she was inclined to wake.

The playgroup was fun, but very chaotic. Ari, of course, is too young to play with other kids. She's just not aware enough of them, you know? But she did play happily in the vicinity of the other kids, and a good time was had by all. I guess we were gone about two hours doing that, and when we got home, that's when Ari napped.

Other than that, I've mostly been grading like a madwoman. I'm halfway through the final exams (I also did the LOC's and the HW4's today), and I think I'm done for the day! I'll finish it tomorrow.

After I finish grading, you know what I get to do?

I mean, other than work on my handout and plan for ECIEC, which is only a week and a half away.

I get to clean my house! I'm so excited. Does being excited about this automatically make me a grown-up?

Living in an alternate reality

Wow, today was a rough day.

It started okay. Thad went to work, Ari and I went to school. I had a meeting with Brian, and Ari was mostly pretty good during it. Wiggly, and wanting to explore (and eat Brian's papers) but reasonably happy and letting me talk. A kind of cool thing is that I was awarded the Linguistics department's award for teaching excellence for a 200-level course. I really do work hard at my teaching, so it's nice to be recognized- plus, it comes with some not insignificant quantity of money. The money is nice, too.

After the party deal where I got awarded, I needed to talk to Brian again (about ECIEC stuff), and that's when the day started to go south. Ari got to being tired, so I cut the meeting short and left to go home. It was raining, and I just missed the bus, so we had to wait around for the next one. She passed out while I was waiting, and I was hoping that I could get her straight into bed from there. Unfortunately, the rain woke her up as I got off the bus, and I couldn't get her back down again.

That touched off four hours of desperately tired, inconsolable (unconsolable?) sobbing, followed by a walk with papa, followed by a too-short nap, followed by a fussy evening that finally ended in sleep just a little while ago.

And me with too much grading to do on top. :P I'm going to go take drugs for my poor head, and try to sleep.

I can't believe...

Wow! Today has been a busy and exciting day. And not necessarily in the good way, either. To the left is a picture of my baby's head. If you look closely, you'll see the marks where a squirrel fell from the sky onto my baby's head and clawed the bejeezus out of it.

That's right. A squirrel. Fell from the sky. Onto my baby's head.

I shit you not.

We went to the emergency room and everything, just to make sure it was okay- it's actually much scarier-looking in person than the picture makes out (her hair obscures alot of it) but there's at least four claw marks on the back of her head, including one that bled a fair amount. She's just fine, and the doctor's weren't worried about her catching anything horrible from the squirrel or anything. Once she calmed down from the initial pain of it, she was more irritated by the poor triage nurse trying to take her vitals (and failing, I might add) than by the actual head wound.

Immediately prior to the Squirrel Incident (a freakin' SQUIRREL!), we were looking at a very likely prospect for a car- a newer Jetta than our Jetta. Prior to that, I spent some hours at school, working, and prior to that, Thad and I went and got our hair cut.

This is the new Julia style. I like it! I think it takes good advantage of my natural curl, and is short and cool and easy to take care of (hopefully). The look on my face, incidentally, is because I just got a look under Thad's mask. I am forbidden to say why Thad is wearing a mask, but let us just say that whatever the reason, it was startling. Quite startling.

The stylist had some fun chopping Thad's hair off. After roundabout three years of not cutting his hair, Thad decided that it was getting kind of ratty, and decided he'd like it short for the summer. So, Voila! It actually looks quite alot like one of the styles he had when we first started dating. It's kind of deja vu for me.

Ari is sweetly asleep now, and at a decent hour, too. I was afraid we'd be forever in the waiting room, but they got us in and out and home. We had such a running-around day, but she was just sweet as cream for most of it. Except when, you know, a freakin' squirrel fell out of the sky and clawed her head. She cried then.

A freakin' squirrel!

If that looking-glass gets broke

Here I am, back from the nursing-induced drugged stupor that overtook me as I was getting my baby to sleep. This was, I might add, an arduous task. The little bit just refused to go to sleep for hours. And this despite being so tired that she was falling around like a little drunk baby. She was still good-tempered (as usual!) but just... not sleepy.

Alas, since Thad and I both rely on post-baby-bedtime free time to get our before bed stuff done (including, I might add, writing in this journal), that means mama and papa are goin' to bed late!

Again!

Anyway, today we Got Stuff Done. Thad didn't end up getting a job, so I tried to get work done and he went and applied for jobs. The job-applying went about as well as expected; Thad will call them later and try to follow up.

I actually got some substantial work done today. Which is good, because I'm supposed to have a fair done draft to show Brian on Wednesday, and I'm... well, let us say that I'm not there at the moment. I'm not sure how good a draft I'll have on Wednesday, but at least I'll have pretty significant progress to show. I need to go into work tomorrow and do a whole bunch of stuff.

Besides working frantically on my stuff for ECIEC and also taking care of Ari (when Thad wasn't watching her so I could work) I

• didn't clean up my house
• did actually make a whole dinner
• did some car shopping
  

We've got a lead on a new car for ourselves. It's in the upper range of our price range, but much shwanker than we are used to. This is not necessarily a good thing, as the car we looked at tonight (we'll look at another one tomorrow) is all full of automatic locks and windows and computer dials. Call me a Luddite, but I'm deeply distrustful of these things. I think it's because I drive used cars that are usually around 100k miles and 10 years old when I get them... computery stuff tends to go funny in that time.

Check out my little girl! She's wearing a shirt I bought for her birthday from Granola Threads. It's a 12 month, and you can see it's a little big on her. If you're curious, it says "BREASTMILK: It's what's for Dinner. And Breakfast and Lunch and whenever else I want it!"

It kinda fits her now, though, so I'll let her wear it. That way she can wear it as long as possible.

Freakin' porkchop, man.

Check out my little girl and her squashes! She totally mushed squash around on her tray for like, 20 minutes today. She did have a few seeds on her face, so it's possible that some of it actually got into her mouth. Who knows? Note also the sweet bib that Grandma Colleen made for her. Those bibs are getting use now, at last.

As a tangent, I initially typed out "Grandma Porter" rather than "Grandma Colleen" just now. I think I asked at some point what she wanted to be called, and mom said "Grandma Porter", but I just couldn't bring myself to call her that. I mean, I know who Grandma Porter is! She's the woman who taught me to sew and made me prunes when I was a girl and made me beautiful, frilly dresses that I loved. I guess it's just weird for me to call my mom by a name that feels like it's already taken.

This is Ari cuddling the book she carried down from upstairs. I thought it was so adorable that I made Thad take a picture. :)

We had an okay day today. Thad went to his heroclix tournament. I failed to go to work and get stuff done (for those watching at home- I have a whole draft of my ECIEC handout that I promised to Brian by Wednesday, and I have yet to start it!) and we went shopping. Since our car is way too sick to trust to highway driving and a Sam's Club/Walmart amount of food, we got Rick, Brooke and John to drive us out there in the van. Since none of them had any shopping to do, it was really sweet of them to accompany us on our 3-hour journey.

Not only did we get food, but we also got a whole bunch of bins and drawers. Our bathroom seems like a whole new place, and we finally got rid of the Munchkin boxes that we've been storing our office supplies and Miscellaneous Stuff in. Oh, and now we have a toy bin for upstairs. Since upstairs is the babyproof zone, it's good to have a place to put Ari's toys. Now, if we can just get internet up there, we can all hang out there and be happy!

Hoorah for magic grease

Check out this rare, rare sight! Ari actually asleep. In her crib. I can count on one hand the times that's happened. Not that it's a goal or anything, mind- it's just remarkable.

She actually slept there for about 45 minutes after she fell asleep nursing in my lap this morning. She was out and I was able to just lay her in there and she was happy. Alas, I had to wake her up so I could go to class. :(

Today was totally my last day of class, and we even finished early. Ari passed out again on the way home, and got a reasonably decent afternoon nap. I'm up later than I should be again, baking a cake for a party tomorrow. The only time I get to myself these days is after she's gone to bed- it's far too seductive to stay up late getting things done.

Ari herself seems to know when I ought to be in bed. She always calls me about midnight thirty (you'll note, I've fudged the time on this log again to make it be the right day). If I were just ready for bed, I could nurse us both happily to sleep. But no- I have to get back up and "finish doing things" and get ready for bed... silly me. I should listen to my baby.