Midnight pancakes

Let's see- Thad's hearing has finally been scheduled, so we're not in that limbo anymore. He's putting his resume out to a few places, and going back to his Target job in any case, though. He's pretty much decided he's not going to renew his teaching license, though- I can't blame him.

(That, by the way, was me and my suckness at beginning writing things, deciding to just jump in in the middle)

Ari is way into superheroes these days. She flips through her comics (we grabbed her some on Free Comic Book Day) and insists that we tell her the names of all the characters. She can say Hawkman ("haw'mun"), Hawkgirl ("haw'guhl"), Green Arrow ("aaoh"), the Flash ("sash!"), and Superman ("soup-mun"). She can recognize the entire Justice League, though, and also some ancillaries.

She's officially in the two-word stage now- she routinely says things like "papa up!" and "peez nuhs" (figure that one out ;) ). It's very exciting.

She's been on an ungodly weird sleep schedule for the last little while, but we're starting to see hope that it's settling down.

Wasted pine nuts

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

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

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

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

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

Apples and pears

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bullet dancing

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

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

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

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

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

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

Unidientified hurty spot

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

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

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

Cool stuff from the last while:

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

Bruised knees

This is a sick baby, being held by a mama who was shortly to become sick. We've been sick as dogs all this weekend. Hopefully, I'll be doing better soon. Particularly because I need to work tomorrow.

Ari threw up a bunch, and is still not 100%, but is doing much better. She's back on solid foods now, anyhow. I was glad we're still nursing, because she basically only had nursies as her sole nourishment for nearly three days.

(Side note- this led to the delightful phenomenon of liquidy breastfed baby poo, in toddler quantities. It got, let us say, messy.)

Pig's butt

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

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

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

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

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

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

Agrael

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

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

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

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

Honeysuckle, lavender and rosemary

This is what I made for Ari today. :) The shirt was dyed by the same woman who dyed Ari's dragon costume, and I used the last of the cat fabric from Ari's dress. Although, technically, I bought the fabric for this project and made the cat dress with the extra. I'm experimenting with machine applique... I think I need to acquire an iron of some sort. I have another shirt or two in the works. I already have her dice shirt half done- all that remains is to sew it down.

This was Ari's response to the shirt:

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:

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:

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.

Apple, singular

This is Ari hugging the Ostara lamby she got in the mail from her godmother! It also came with an apple, which will be eaten with much gusto by little miss. She quite liked the lamby- Thad snuck it into bed next to her while she was napping, and when we came back, she was awake and petting it. :) She did, however, think it was a bear.

We had kind of a blah morning this morning. I couldn't sleep last night, for whatever reason, so I was reasonably zombie-like. Ari napped pretty well, though, so I was able to get food and get some stuff done.

This is a picture of Ari thinking, "Hmm... dice, or food. Which one to eat?"

My dad came in this evening, and we had tasty Indian food. Ari surprised us by ignoring the naan (she usually adores bready things) and going straight for the rice, with or without spicy vindaloo sauce. By the end of the meal, her nose was running and there was rice all over the floor. I felt kinda bad about that, but what're you going to do?

Ari had a pretty good time with her grandpa after we got back. She was a little shy at first, but then she ended up spending a good while playing a dice game with him, and she brought over her Richard Scarry book for him to read.

Both grandpa and baby are asleep in bed now, though, and so should I be...

Shocking

Thad didn't end up getting a job today, so we had kind of a lazy day. We spent some time cleaning for my dad's impending visit. It was remarkably futile... :) There's nothing quite like spending 30 minutes picking up toys and books, only to have them all spread over the floor again in 30 seconds.

Ari has started using the -s plural morpheme spottily in the last few days... I've heard "bears", "birds", and (yesterday) "cats". A whole new level of linguistic expression is opening up to her! :D

Here she is, showing that she knows how to use a hairbrush:

Rules dispute

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

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

Time lapsed

Happy St. Patrick's day, y'all. We had a nice one, here. Although, it's ended a bit late, as you can see. We had some corned beef and potatoes and soda bread. I also made some green shortbread balls, which were delicious.

Hmm... I seem to be kind of delirious. Perhaps I shall go to bed and finish writing this upon the morn.

••••••••••••••

Okay, then. So, yesterday, we had R&B over for breakfast- it was supposed to be Cthulhu time- but Lauren was sick, so Cthulhu didn't happen. They ended up going back home and planning a dinner with some of Brooke's family. We were invited, but decided it would be better for the girl to stay home; she was really tired and grumpy. Jaime and Kelli and Jeff came over for dinner, though, and we proceeded to play a bunch of games- per usual. It was quite fun.

This is Miss Ari completely passed out on my lap, bless her heart. She just climbed up into my lap while I was on the computer, and was unconscious before I even realized it.

The day before, we all went over to R&B's for dinner- we brought them dinner, actually, because Brooke's granddad died last week (he'd been extremely sick for some time), and Friday was the funeral... I thought it might be nice for them to not have to cook.

Oh, and in very exciting news (for me, anyway), Ari knows my name now! :D She sees me and says "Ma! Ma!"

Lessee, what else... she knows the name of one number (six), and when she rolls dice now, she'll roll them and say "six!" and raise her arms in the air in triumph. She's also an accomplished nose-beeper these days, and she still likes to play the growl-like-monsters game.

Very exciting cupholders

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

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

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

Fun Ari things lately:

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

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.

Midtown

Today was the first day this season that I've been outside without my coat on! Ari and I went over to the park, and she ran around for an hour. Then, when Thad got home, he took her for a bike ride. The forecast looks nice for a while- maybe that groundhog *wasn't* lying. Maybe. :)

Ari is much the same- talking lots. New words lately: "pants" "butt" "birds" "bacon" and "apple" (plus others I'm forgetting, I'm sure). She's been trying to say "apple" for a while, but she'd just say "ap! ap!". Tonight, she said "ap-ooooh!".

This week was the last week of class for me, and now I have two weeks off. At some point next quarter, I have to have my paper in. For the moment, though, I'm giving myself a break, and a little vacation- at least through to when my dad comes, next week! :D

Alternate reality

Well, I proceeded to celebrate my presentation being done by promptly getting sick. :P I spent most of the weekend feeling like crap, and watching the Justice League cartoon (which is surprisingly good). This is me lying on the couch, feeling like crap. Ari randomly decided to climb up onto the couch and lie herself down next to me and give me cuddles. It was adorable.

Ari's clearly getting some new teeth in, and it's been making her grumpy, unfortunately. Her sleep has been borderline messed-up, too.

This is Ari eating raisins today. She grabbed down the container off the table, and brought it to me to pull the lid off. Then, she proceeded to munch down raisins as fast as she could. I decided to just let her eat as many as she felt like- I figure, it all works itself out in the end. I'm sure we'll see some interesting diapers tomorrow, though.

Other fun stuff lately:

• Ari brought me her bottle of teething tabs so I could get her one out.
• Ari likes to read while she gets her diaper changed- it's hilarious to watch her lying there with her book up while you change her. At least it means she's not wiggly or combative...
• I got to watch Thad chase Ari around with her duck walker toy today while Ari giggled and screamed "Dut! Dut! Dut!"
  

Dissapointed

These are pictures from yesterday- I didn't write yesterday out of a desire to go to sleep at a reasonable hour so I could be rested for my presentation today. Which is over now. I refuse to do work for the rest of the weekend now. :)

This is Ari in a pirate hat, reading her book with a pirate hat in it. She finds this very amusing. You might suspect that this shot was in some way staged, but you would be wrong. My little girl knows that pirate hats are awesome!

I took this picture of Ari just because I thought she was pretty. She's eating shrimp artichoke melt over noodles. Or, more properly, she's just eating noodles.

We went into the department together today, and Ari promptly did what she could to charm the heck out of all the other students. :) There's one student who Ari has decided is one of her buddies, and she ran right up to her and spent a while sitting on her lap and playing with her.

Angelo was hoping she'd talk for him, and he wasn't disappointed. She said "cat" and "dog" and "pig" and "up". People ask me sometimes what all she can say, and I can't keep track of it. She's getting new words all the time! It's so exciting.

Sexy Abe

Here we have visual proof of Ari's teething. The hands she has shoved in her mouth obscure the gobs of drool on her chin, but you get the idea, I'm sure. It seems to be an on-and-off thing, and I haven't seen any evidence of an erupting tooth lately, though, so I think nothing's imminent.

It's been a weird week. I had my practice presentation on Monday, and it went fairly well. Then, on Tuesday, we spent the whole day shopping for food (three hours and 250$) and doing laundry (two loads darks, one load whites, one load diapers). We had gotten to the point where we barely had anything edible in the house, and no one had clean underwear anymore. :P Jaime, sweetheart that he is, brought food over and cooked us dinner Sunday night so I could finish my handout without worrying about food.

Now, ensconced with food and clean underwear, I have to face the actual presentation. Brian gave me notes for extensive revisions of my handout (why do I never seem to have fewer red marks on my handouts, no matter how often I revise? ;) ), so that's my job now. I pretty much have tomorrow to do it, too. It's good, though, to have an advisor who's so helpful with comments. The handout should be much better when I finish with it.

This picture is of Miss Ari, passed out mid-diaper change. She walked all the way to the comic store and back with her papa, and apparently just collapsed in exhaustion afterwards. She didn't even end up staying up that late, despite sleeping from 5:30 to around 7:00. Note the book she's curled up with... awwwwww.

Oh, and I feel all like I accomplished something- I made dinner tonight. I made a recipe from the 6 o' Clock Scramble book, and it was tasty and easy to make. And I even made a vegetable. I never feel so much like a grown-up as when I make a whole dinner and we eat at the table, I swear. :)

I leave you with a picture of Miss Ari, coloring (notice, if you will, that she has put a bunch of her crayons into her dice bag, too) and playing with her fairy dolls. :D

Mixed feelings

Ugh. This weekend sucks. Working on an abstract and a handout.

A few Ari things-

• Ari's all into dancing lately. And spinning around. She'll do it at random, but more often if there's music. It's adorable.
• Ari's been eating like crazy- growth spurt maybe? We've been getting free dept. food the last few days, and she's munched it down. Crab rangoon? Egg rolls? Blackberries? Chicken kebabs? Turkish bread? All munched like crazy. Tonight, she ate two big chunks of chicken, most of a Turkish bread and some veggies. And then, when we got home, she declared she was still hungry and ate an entire plate of noodles.
• Ari's had a dog sort of day. We walked past a man with a dog today, and she said "cat!" I said, "No, honey, it's a dog," and she immediately said "dok? dok!" Later, when we went to the department party, she saw the host's dog, and immediately said "dok!" She was really scared of the dog at first, but by the end of the evening she was at least tolerating his presence. She kept following him around going "dok! dok! dok!", but every time he'd turn around to check her out, she'd squeal and run away.
  
• Thad and Rick inadvertently taught Ari to say "sucks" today. We think. It might be "socks", or possibly "fox".
  

Fitting it all in

Augh, when it rains it pours. I've ended up hosting someone for prospectives weekend (damn you, spare bedroom!). Which is this weekend. Which is the last weekend before my presentation. :( I'm going to be spending every spare minute- after we clean up our house for the incoming guest- working on aforementioned presentation. Wish me luck. I have to have a version of it done by Monday... Oh, and my ICHL abstract. Mustn't forget my ICHL abstract.

Ari is a sweet little snuggle girl. She didn't nap this afternoon for her papa, and thus had kind of a rough evening. She did pass out right when I got home, and I have to admit, I just loved having her all passed out and snuggly in my arms for a while. I always miss her when I'm gone, and I love having a chance to hold my chubbly, snuggly little girl when I come home.

Today, Ari said "please" and "bye bye". I think she thinks "please" means "read me a book!", but it's hard to tell.

Sweet pies

Since tonight is Changeling night, I'm probably not going to get a chance to post later on, so I'll just post now. I'm still at school. Ari was asleep last I checked, so I'm having to wait to get a ride home. Roads and sidewalks in our neck of the woods are still so bad that it's not practical to bike, so I'm dependent on my monkeys to ferry me around. Oh, and plus, I had to bring pies to school today :D

The pies went over really well at school today. Angelo liked both of them. We had them for snacks at Changelings (the historical linguistics study group, not to be confused with Changeling the roleplaying game), and no one even realized they were gluten-free till I mentioned it.

I haven't seen Ari much today- not since the morning- so I can't speak about her. We had a really sweet waking-up this morning, though. She was all snuggled up next to me and looking like such a sleeping angel. I'm looking forward to seeing her in person again soon.

Don't forget the beans

This is me trying to make gluten-free pie for a friend of mine who may or may not be but probably is celiac (he's not man enough to actually take the definitive test, but eating wheat makes him sick). One of his chief loves in life has been pies and pastries (followed swiftly along by pasta, poor man- have I mentioned he's Sicilian?) and I decided to try to encourage in adjusting to his new diet by making him pie. These pies have a sweetened goat cheese base, with orange curd and whipped cream on top. Thank god, he's not showing signs of dairy intolerance.

This, on the other hand, is the rare two-headed monkey, from (I am told) the wilds of Borneo. Or something like that. It ambushed me this morning, and this was the best picture I was able to get before it leaped upon me!

I spent today trying to get work done. I have two weeks until a major presentation, and I still have this class to teach, and I've been feeling pretty sick for most of a week- which has made it difficult to work. Anyway, I'd best get my nose to the freakin' grindstone.

Ari has been her sweet self today. She's definitely teething, and her sleep/napping has been unfortunately disrupted.

Consistent crashing

It's been a rough day here at Casa de Papke. I've not been feeling well for a few days (although I'm starting to feel much better now!) and Ari is showing signs of teething again. Poor Thad was up until 6 AM with her, and got back up with her at 10 AM, because I wasn't feeling well enough to care for her. Have I ever mentioned on this blog that I have the best husband ever?

So, not much to report. I've mostly been lying around the house, going "glagh", not eating, and watching movies about transvestites. Ari has been reading books with me, and playing with dice. Oh, tonight, as we were getting her ready for bed, I told her to say goodnight to her papa. She waved at him and said "papa!" She said it two or three times even. Awwww....

Speaking of "awww....", here's a video of Miss Ari helping her papa make pancakes for a poor sick mama.

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:

A woman of quality

Today, I have no pictures for you, because I can't find the battery charger for my camera! We have a terrible Stuff accumulation problem on our desk (our version of the Shelf of Death, Marcus. Doesn't everyone have a Shelf of Death somewhere?) and I know it's somewhere in there. There is a very cute video of Ari dancing in circles with toast that you can't see, and there would have been some nice stills of her playing with her new, improved paper fairy dolls, had there been a charged battery to pop into the camera at the appropriate moment.

Goal #1 for this weekend: Well, finish my next handout revise for Brian, really. But after that, I want to try to de-Death our desk.

Erm... Thad got Ari's fairies laminated today, so they're more durable. And waterproof, which is necessary. She totally loves them. She had a big breakfast of scrambled eggs and toast this morning, and ate all of it. She also had an almost grown-up slice of papa's pizza for dinner.

Cute things Ari does lately:

• When we get her undressed next to the mirror in the bedroom, she'll sit there and preen and pat her nekked chest and make faces at the mirror.
• Every time she rolls a die ("DAISSS!"), she raises both hands up in the air in celebration! Our friends are trying to teach her only to do this for sevens or higher, since less than that isn't a success.
• She likes to play a game with papa where he says "Yeeeess..." and nods, and she shakes her little head vigorously.
• I've started ending nursing sessions by counting down from 5... for some reason, Ari gets very enthusiastic and excited every time I do this, and is totally jazzed about stopping nursing and switching to something else! I don't get it, but it's kind of nice.
  

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?

Chicken Dijon

Whew! It's three in the morning. I'm going to pay for this tomorrow.

Jaime came over tonight, and we had dinner and played games- 10 Days in the USA (Jaime won), then Pinochle (Jaime won), then King's Gate (I won) and finally, Carcassonne (I won). Come to think of it, it wasn't a very great game night for Thad as far as winning went. :)

I made dinner from a recipe from a book I picked up from the library this afternoon. I really like it, actually, because the recipes are like, normal recipes that normal people without an hour and a half to cook and capers and quinoa and shit in their kitchen might be able to produce. God knows I love to get a little gourmet now and again, but I kinda needed new things to put in the normal dinner rotation, so it's pretty awesome. I marked about 20 recipes that looked promising!

I took Ari with me to school today. She was awesomely sweet in Gothic- she actually spent most of the time (15 minutes straight) reading my Gothic textbook. There are no pictures in my textbook, just printed word- but she spent 15 minutes flipping through the pages and pointing at things and peering closer at them and making "hm... ooooh..." sort of noises. :D

She also said some words for the people at school, which was sort of cool. Brian commented that she was giving the English, and not the Gothic pronunciation of "fish", so she must not be picking it up yet. ;)

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.

Bacon in my tummy

Sorry; no pictures today. :) Today was a work day for me, and Thad only thinks to pull out the camera if she was exceptionally cute.

Let's see...

I had an exciting time with the copier this morning. I was supposed to meet Brian across campus (15 min walk) at 11:00. At 10:40, I set my students' midterm up to copy and went and packed my stuff up to leave. I returned to the copier a few minutes later only to discover that it was broke six ways from Sunday... it took me 25 minutes to fix it- which put me (at a fast trot) 15 minutes late to my appointment. Fortunately for me, Brian was late, also, so we just rescheduled.

Then this evening, Ari and I went to another mom's house to hang out while Thad and Jaime got their Heroclix fix. There were a bunch of other kids there, and Ari had great fun. It was really cool to see her actually playing with other kids instead of just playing alongside them. She particularly enjoyed playing with a little 10-month-old girl. She was actually sitting there going "Boo!" to her. :D