Very belated

This weekend was Marcon... check us out. I didn't take nearly as many pictures as last year- probably because I spent most of the con running after a certain little someone, and didn't have proper time to pull out a camera.

This is a picture of her, napping under one of the tables in the gaming room.

We pretty much spent the whole con in the gaming room, with one of us gaming and the other running after the girl. Ari had great fun seeing all the sights- including escalators, which she enjoyed going up and down and up and down and up and down and up and down.

This is Miss Ari deciding that the Icehouse pieces are her personal playthings. The rep from Looney Labs was nice enough about it, and I had her come away when they were actually ready to play. Brooke, who actually knows how to play the game, said that she was making some pretty good plays.

Matt McFarland (aka Black Hat Matt) brought his wife and daughter to the con, and Ari enjoyed playing with her. She's 10 months older than Ari is. She was really interested in other kids and babies, and every time she saw any, she'd run right up, saying "Bay-ee! Bay-ee!" One girl (maybe 5 or 6?) was getting really frustrated with her, saying, "I'M NOT A BABY!" But anyone not-adult is a "bay-ee" as far as Ari is concerned. :)

Oh, one kinda cool thing- there was a maybe 8 or 10 year-old girl there, dressed up all pretty and with a cat-fairy plushy. Ari kept pointing at her, saying "Seh-ee! Seh-ee! Seh-ee!" I told the girl that Ari thought she was a fairy (that being what "seh-ee" means in Ari-speak), and she held out the plushy, saying, "no, this is the fairy".

So, Ari pointed at the plushy, and said, "Dat!" and pointed at the girl and said, "Seh-ee!" She knew what she knew. :)

Lots of eggs

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

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

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

Tasty little piggies

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

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

Cute Ari things from today:

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

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

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

Papa Joe's

Here it is, Tuesday already. Let's see... so far this week:

Thad-

• Didn't get a tooth pulled (it was a near one)
  
• Wants Chinese food
• Bought our baby bubble soap

Ari-

• Bit me on the arm today- and drew blood! >:(
• Took a bath without screaming for the first time in ages today
• Had a tasty rice and lemon tart dinner

I-

• Can't freakin' figure out how to copy from DAT to my computer
• Had my DAT recorder mysteriously fail to record 4 out of 5 times
• Made a tasty lemon tart yesterday- I need a proper tart pan sometime

Oh, and I'm trying to work up an abstract for a project I haven't done yet. Whee!

Revenants and ghouls

Look what I turned around and saw this morning! I'm not sure whether she managed to get the lid off, or whether I left it unlocked, but Ari sure thought it was a good time. :) It was all kinds of fun to clean up... there's still kind of flour on the floor. Fortunately, Miss Ari was able to be dusted off with a minimum of difficulty.

We went over to Rick and Brooke's house and hung out for the day while Thad went to Shaintar. Ari was excited to see Brooke ("Bwook! Bwook!"), Rick ("Ick! Ick!") and the cats ("dat dat dat dat dat dat dat!") and had a good time playing there. I made the cake I owed Brooke, and it turned out really good- it had whipped cream/cream cheese frosting and sliced strawberries in the middle.

Here are some cute pics of Ari from today.

And here's an awesome video from after Thad got back from Shaintar:

Tentacles

Here is a fuzzy-headed Ari, having a good time playing with her wagon.

We've had a rough couple of days. Thad is sick, and seems to have a toothache (he's going to the dental school on Monday).

Then, a couple of days ago, we were out biking... which was nice. We went to the library, and Miss Ari was all excited, saying "Be-y! Be-y!" (which is "library", for the uninitiated). She jumped out of the bike trailer and ran for the door in all her darling toddlery 20-month glory- and promptly tripped and face-planted into the concrete. She scraped up the underside of her chin pretty badly. Bleeding on papa's shirt badly, mind, not emergency room badly... but it was clearly hurting her, and it messed up her sleep that night. Since then, all of us have been down sleep. I did make some things that I want to post pictures of, but that'll have to wait.

Crepes and Pastry Cream

This is my daughter, napping in her own bed in her own room. Right now, in fact, she's asleep in her own bed in her own room.

Thad and I had talked yesterday about moving my office into our room and relocating Ari into her own room, so she could have a playspace, and not kick Thad so much, or pull my clothes out of my drawers.

Anyway, when I got home today, Ari was napping upstairs, and when I went upstairs to wake her, I discovered that Thad had done it!

Ari is way into her new room. A little while ago, our stairs gate broke, and Ari seems to be perfectly capable of going up and down on her own, so we just leave them unblocked now. And, several times, she went of her own volition upstairs to play in her room. I hope she continues to like it. :)

Poor Miss Ari has a nasty prickly heat rash on the back of her neck, so we just skipped the clothes today in hopes that it might help. It seems better, mostly. Rashes give me the everlovin' willies... I hope it goes away soon for both our sakes.

Very firm

I just asked Miss Ari for a kiss, and she proceeded to headbutt me like, six times. In the face. And then, she said "kiss nose!" To be fair, I was laughing too hard to stop her from headbutting me the last five times, and so was Thad, who was watching the whole thing.

I had a great Mother's Day. Thad watched Ari while I went to see a movie, and then there was pie. What more could I ask for?

Swiving and thews

Stupid blurry photograph. I'm not sure why I didn't realize I was out of focus while I was taking it...

Nevertheless, this is The Best Creampuff I Have Ever Made (So Far). :D I made it out of the Dessert University cookbook I've been fangirling over for the last month. He really explains how to do it, and what the tricky bits are- and you can see the results!

The puff part is properly puffly, and not sad and deflated and squidgy. The cream filling is creamy and thick, and not the least bit runny. And best of all, this recipe made 12 big ol' creampuffs. Even with inviting Rick and Brooke over, We still have four blackberry creampuffs waiting to be eaten! :D

This is Ari, playing the walk- around- attached- to- mama's- leg game. It was awesome.

Today's been sort of a weird day. I couldn't get to sleep until past dawn last night (this morning?) and Thad had stuff to do, so I was on Ari shift first thing. I spent the whole morning sleepwalking, and then took a nap in the afternoon. When I woke up, I felt totally energized, and made creampuffs.

Ari and I went for a walk over to the post office in the morning. She is hard to walk with, because she doesn't want to hold my hand, or necessarily go in the same direction as me. :) Also, it's hard to carry her unless I whip out the wrap, because she is not such a little girl as she once was, and I am but a little woman. She grew chub (and muscle and bones and skin etc. etc.) faster than I grew muscle?

Thad is off working his first night back at the Target- 10 hour shift, with adset at the end of it. So, yuck.

Happy Mother's Day to those of y'all to whom it applies, by the way.

A lack of tomatoes

Well, before I go on about silly things, I should let you all know: Thad had his hearing, and was cleared to go back to work, which is an enormous, incredible relief. Thad intends to sub as little as possible, of course (he will probably sub some more this year, but not renew his license), but it's so good to not have that hanging over our heads, and not have to worry about it anymore.

Now, back to silliness:

Check out my first attempt ever at needle felting! I feel that it turned out pretty good. The color mismatch is less... apparent in real life, too. I will be making her a little merbaby and a sling to put over those boobies as well, though. :)

She's going to be for the art show I'm buying space in this fall. If I can sell one piece, it'll more than pay for the entry fee, so that would be really cool. I'm going to try to do maybe five larger things (like the mermaid, and the dice gremlin) and then maybe a few smaller things. We'll see what I can get done this summer... I have a million monsters in my head.

This is Ari, having some tasty lunch.

Today, we went on an enormous long bike ride downtown. We went down to the main library, and then Ari and I hung out there while Thad went over to his hearing (a block away). Ari ended up napping most of the time Thad was gone, so I had a nice time sitting outside the library in the shade with a book while she slept in her trailer.

We are loving the bike trailer now that the weather is nice, by the by (thanks, Mom and Dad! :D). It's so nice to be able to get downtown without driving (or, more to the point, parking), and Ari seems to really enjoy going for rides.

Out of ink

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

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

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

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

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

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: