We did a whole ass-load of nothing much today. For most of the day, I was suffering from a nasty sinus thing that caused me to have horrible sharp head pain every time I tried to move around. As a result, I spent most of the day sitting in the computer chair. Ari didn't like that...
Thad corrects me. I did a whole ass-load of nothing much. He did dishes and finally got his license renewed.
This is Ari last night, before bed, playing with blocks. She built the whole tower... not the big one you can see, but the tall skinny one that's mostly obscured by her arm. Anyway, I thought it was cool. :D
We had another up- till- four- slept- until- noon- everyone- is- vaguely- sick day... which is to say, we didn't do much of anything.
We went out to the Apple store in Easton to resolve some last stuff with my most awesome computer (exchanging the .Mac Thad bought for an iPod Shuffle!). Easton is usually an abomination on the face of the land, but it was really packed, and extra... abomination-y.
When we got home, Ari was asleep in the car, and we went and picked up R&B. I don't think I've mentioned this, but their car died a death, and they are thus without transport.
Rick helped us install Boot Camp and Windows, which lets us be able to boot my beautiful new mac with Windows on it. Then, we played Boggle (which I won handily), Set (which I lost, but not badly) and Carcassonne (which I got murdered at).
Merry Christmas, and a happy Boxing Day, y'all. :) We had a lovely Christmas here. I've posted a whole set of pictures on the pictures website for your perusal. Ari wasn't much interested in opening presents, but she sure seemed to enjoy playing with them! She's played with and seemed to enjoy pretty much everything she got.
I was a little worried that it would be a bit much for her, opening so many presents at once, but she was fine. I think it helped that we didn't even bother trying to get her to open anything- we just opened them for her, and she got around to playing with them in her own sweet time. :)
As for me, I got the best present ever- a new computer! This one does everything that I want it to, and all fast and spinky. I've done it up in a Batman theme already, and everything. In fact, I've spent most of today playing with it and the printer Thad got to go along with it. Tomorrow, I intend to actually do work.
Thad had a less nice birthday than I wanted, because I was really feeling unwell yesterday. I didn't make him dinner, much less birthday pie. :( He did get steak, at least, though, and we'll try to make him pie later this week.
In any case, here's the movie I whipped up real quick this morning on my spinky fast computer. It's less good resolution than I would like, but I hope y'all enjoy it. I'll try to send better versions to some of you in ye olde snaile maile sometime soon, along with more pictures and vids.
I hope all y'all had a great Christmas Eve. :) Ours was pretty low-key, with it just being us, and all. We cleaned up some, and I made Ari a stocking, and we went on a nice walk downtown. It's surprisingly warm for this time of year, here, and the walk was very pleasant.
In this picture, Ari is wearing one of her Christmas presents from Brooke- which is so appropriate to us. Have I mentioned that our games shelf is full? It has no more room.
On our walk, Ari actually stopped traffic. A couple in a truck were waving at her and making faces, and didn't notice the light had changed until Thad pointed it out. Anyway, we walked down to the North Market, where we got pheasant pot pies to bake up for dinner, and some stollen for breakfast from the Austrian bakery, and some delicious ice cream from Jeni's. Ari very much liked the ice cream.
Then, we came home, and baked our pot pies (pheasant and morels, very tasty) and watched a movie, and played a game of Carcassonne. Then, I went and did Super Secret Christmas Stuff in the basement while Thad played with Ari.
Despite getting a late post-walk nap, Ari went to bed at a relatively okay hour, and we just spent time getting the house cleaned up so we have a nice place to have Christmas in. We'd best get to bed soon, so Santa can come. Since no one will see this until tomorrow at the earliest, Merry Christmas, y'all!
Today, we finally did Christmas cookies (about time, right?). Jaime and Kelly and Rick and Brooke came over to help... we made a batch of gingerbread and a batch of Mom's sugar cookies. I even made green coconut to use. :)
We have an enormous bunch of cookies now... we already gave a plate to our next-door neighbors. They were kind of shocked and happy- I hope they enjoyed them. We have a plate made for the library people and the night staff at Target and Thad's roleplaying group. Now, we just need to figure out something to do with the other three plates of cookies!
Ari is really doing so totally much better. As soon as we took her to the doctor, she perked right up, right? :) Brooke and Rick brought over a whole bunch of presents for her- including some new books, which are always welcome. I think we're planning on hiding a few of her current books after the holidays (for example, Where's Prancer can go to hell, and it can die).
We, on the other hand, seem to have caught whatever it was she had. We've got coughs, sore throats, insomnia, etc... It's not enough to incapacitate us, just enough to make us uncomfortable...
Here's Ari playing with her friend Jaime. :)
Ari wasn't much help with the cookies- in fact, Thad took her out for a walk a few times to get her out of the house- but she was fun anyhow. This is her playing with the fuzzy puzzle that Brooke gave her. For some reason, she kept sticking the cow piece under her chin, and then clapping for herself. Later, she graduated to walking all around with the puzzle piece under her chin(s).
Sometimes, I really wonder what's going on in her head. :)
This was my baby a few nights ago, trying to pass out asleep under a chair... shortly before she threw up all over Brooke. The last few nights (weeks, really) have been really rough on all of us. This week, Ari's just been fussy and not feeling well all the time- hence my not writing. It's really been quite horrible.
Tuesday night, she was up all night with Thad. Wednesday night, she was up all night with me- plus, she threw up twice. She barely ate solid foods for about three days (yay still nursing!) and has just been clingy and whiny and totally un-fun to be around.
This is a picture from Wednesday night, when she was carrying around a book and trying to hold it to go to sleep. The girl only marginally cares about teddy bears, but she wants to cuddle a book when she's not feeling well. She didn't want me to read it- she just wanted to hold it. She did the same thing on Thursday morning, except with the "Safe Baby Handling Tips" book that Max gave us last year for Christmas.
Last night, she wouldn't pass out until about 1:30 (in the sling with papa, she didn't want me) but she slept like the dead until I had to wake her up to make our doctor's appointment. It was actually supposed to be a well baby visit, with some shots, but clearly that wasn't happening. They checked her over, and said it was probably just a viral thing, and they expected that she'd be better in a week or two (argh)... and then Ari threw up all over Thad as we were getting ready to leave.
Despite the fact that she threw up, and that she barely napped today, by the evening, she was so much better! Better than she's been in ages (aka as long as my sleepless, fogged brain can remember). She was interested in food, and ate a whole bunch of nibblies I got for her. She was cheerful and playful and her old self again! She even fell asleep easily, upstairs, before midnight. Check it out:
This is her dancing to the new CD that her Uncle Darren sent. :D
Well, it's been a busy few days even aside from baby craziness. We've had packages flying in from all over with presents from everybody- the Christmas Crib is now full of shiny things. Oh, and yesterday we had our solstice dinner. Andy, Krista, Ray, Jaime, Kelly, Rick and Brooke all came. I made a turkey, with pear stuffing (for the first day of Christmas, as we're counting it). We also had rosemary garlic mashed potatoes, crab/shrimp things in fillo shells- my first time working with fillo, and it turned out great!- green beans cooked with bacon, oyster mushrooms cooked with roasted garlic and bacon, and Jeff's mother's chocolate pecan pie for dessert. The chocolate pecan pie was much less sweet than I would have expected- it was really delicious. Oh, Jeff made it- it was just his mum's recipe. She lives in Massachusetts, and wasn't making pie for our solstice dinner at all.
After dinner, we played a few games of Carcassonne (Jaime's Yuletide present to me! :D) and generally hung out. It was really lovely, except for Ari not feeling so well... but I'm glad she seems to be doing better! I wasn't sure how much more I could take, quite frankly. :)
Ari's been up late the last few nights... She's still sick/teething and is generally pretty miserable to be around. Additionally, tonight, she tripped and smacked her forehead into the edge of a chair. A big, blue, nasty bruise rose up immediately (although no goose egg to speak of), so I imagine that's also bothering her. Between that and the hacking cough and the stuffy nose... it's no wonder she's not sleeping well. Poor, poor little girl...
Cool things: She can build stuff. We played blocks today, and she helped me build a tower. Every time she put a block on, she clapped for herself. I love it when she claps for herself... it's like, "Yay! I'm awesome! *clap clap clap*" She even does it sometimes when she's playing by herself.
She woke me up this morning with Whose Mouse Are You?, which is her current favorite book. I hate hate hate it. :) I was sitting there, going "wha? huh? *grog*" (because I was up until nearly 4 AM with her last night, and she woke me up at 9:30 this morning) and she's going, "my BOOK, mama, read my BOOK!"
She grabbed my hand, shoved the book into it, and then started to cry when I didn't immediately start reading to her. Stupid book.
For once, the time stamp on this post is actually accurate. My baby is asleep... mostly... and it isn't even midnight. Whoo! :D
I say mostly, because she's sleeping kinda fitfully. Having so many teeth come in at once is making her nose run like crazy. It got to the point where she wanted to lie down and nurse to sleep, and she couldn't nurse! She couldn't breathe through her nose long enough. In fact, the only way I could get her to stay asleep upstairs was to have her sleep on a pillow for the first time ever. Having her head more upright seemed to let her breathe a little better.
This is a picture of our Christmas tree. :) We went out to a farm outside of Columbus, and Thad cut it down. We would have had a nice running around and picking it out and all, except that poor Ari passed right out in the car (I think, again, sitting upright let her breathe well enough to nap at long last) so Thad just went out and cut it while I sat in the car and planned my solstice dinner. I quite like it, though.
Putting it in the crib was a stroke of genius, if I do say so myself. Ari can look at it, but not get at it, and it also provides a safe place to put presents. We have to be careful which presents go where in the crib, though- smaller ones, she can fish out through the bars. We figured that out when we suddenly noticed Ari playing with one of her presents across the room... When Christmas is over, I think we shall dismantle the crib until it is needed again.
Oh, poor girl. I can hear her coughing upstairs. But she doesn't seem to be waking up.
Well, I'm'a go put a movie on and start sewing. I have a few personal projects I'd like to work on, in my precious baby free time before I head to bed.
Well, as previously mentioned, Ari was up till 1:30 in the morning again. She currently has four (count 'em) teeth coming in, including two molars and two incisors, one top and one bottom of each. And this is not even counting the two more molars that are clearly ready to burst forth from her gums at any moment. Yay! She's mostly okay, but her sleep is totally messed up.
Let's see... in the last week, Thad and I went to see the new Bond movie (rock star awesome!). Ari is becoming more verbal- she can do "more" and "eat"... kinda mostly. I'm told that tonight, she was clearly saying "tiptoe tiptoe" along with the Bear Hunt story.
We have spent time trying to get presents done and out- most of you should be getting packages in the mail relatively soon. :) Now, I feel like I can relax and have Christmas. We're going to get a tree tomorrow, and we're going to make cookies on Monday. That means, we have to clean the house before people come over! Yay! It's kind of a mess in the aftermath of present making. Although, at least the basement is clean!
I wrote about this in the entry that got deleted, but I had a great exchange- one of our friends needed some cash moneys for presents, and we needed a non-scary basement and kitchen. Our dollars and her obsessive-compulsive tendencies got together and had a party, and voila! Clean basement! The kitchen is... erm... no longer clean. Let us say. Best investment of dollars ever!
Here is Ari, building a tower of dice. I'm told she was able to build it four dice high, which is pretty impressive. The woman holding her is Kelly, she who cleaned the basement. She is Jaime's new lady, and gets on with Ari wonderfully. Ari likes to make her read the same book over and over and over and over and over... come to think of it, she likes to make everyone read her the same book over and over and over. :) Kelly is just willing to do it. Well, and so is Brooke.
Brooke watched her while we saw Bond, and poor Miss Brooke had to read the Good Night Butterflies book upwards of 37 times, I hear.
Sorry I haven't posted in a while... Ari has been staying up till 1:30 and 2 in the morning, and that's my time to write. She's on and off really unhappy with these four molars she has coming in...
Well, I wrote a whole post. With pictures. And just as I was hitting the button to post it, Thad accidentally unplugged the computer while he was attempting to figure out what was going on with our Christmas lights. And now it's two in the morning, and I can't face writing it all over again...
Today, Ari and I went over to another mom's house for a playgroup. This is Ari, having apparently gotten over her fear of animals, stalking their cat. She followed the cat across the whole house, as fast as she could, and was much frustrated that she couldn't catch her.
She had a great time playing with other peoples' toys- although she did steal another kid's snack. To be fair, the other kid (a 3-year-old) had just left it lying on the floor, where she found it and munched it up. Hmm... it's just now occurred to me that I might, perhaps, be reasonable to be concerned about my daughter eating off the floor.
Then, she refused to take a nap. She was desperately tired from not sleeping last night and not napping... between that and the molars coming in, the evening was pretty miserable. At least she passed right out at 9:00...
Oooh, man. I just stayed up way too late. The date tag lies, but it's 3 AM. Wheee! :D
We went to the department Christmas party tonight. Ari was sweet mostly. There was another mama there with a tiny 7-week-old little girl... so little. It was kinda cool to run into another mama who wraps and cloth-diapers and breastfeeds, outside of my existing hippy mama group.
Ari things:
She has another sign- she's definitely done "more" a few times now.
She has two molars coming in. Ow, the lack of sleep.
She likes to clap for herself when she thinks she's done something good.
She imitates us shaking our heads 'no', but doesn't seem to actually understand what it means.
She likes to play a game where she points at different people, and we say their names.
She knows where our noses are, but not other face parts.
Aaah- I'm back again, with much to report. Finals are over (although I still need to get my grades in...). It was a harrowing few days there, including such exciting events as:
A fire alarm going off in my building while I was trying to work. For an hour and a half.
and
My laptop dying.
Yup... my laptop all of a sudden froze up when I was trying to work on it Sunday evening. I was able to force-quit out of things and try to restart, but when it was restarting, it wouldn't boot. It would just hang on the grey apple screen, with the little gear going 'whirly whirly whirly'. I spent an hour on the phone to AppleCare discovering that we weren't going to be able to fix it without doing a clean reinstall and reformatting... he did tell me how to retrieve the data, though, although it involved a frantic late-evening trip to the Apple store to buy an expensiver-than-it-should have been Firewire cable. Now I just need to sit down and pull everything I care about off the laptop and go about wiping it clean and reinstalling.
I was able to finish despite my computer woes, however, and I stand before you (write before you?) a free woman! At least until I have to work on my third-year paper and the course prep for Winter Quarter. But before that come the Christmas cookies.
Ari and I celebrated yesterday by... going to the library. Where we always go if it's not sufficiently nice out to go to the playground. She loves those fuzzy chairs. :) In fact, she mostly just loves the library. I *think* she tried to sign "library" today, but I'm not sure... she was just sort of waving her hand (library is an "L" shape that you move in a circle, so hand-waving is a reasonable approximation).
Today, we went to much shopping with that papa. Mostly Christmas shopping... including a very nice toy store in town, and the children's bookstore that we love. We barely managed to squeak our way out of the bookstore without a bunch of new books for Ari. :D
Here's Ari with something on her head. I'm not sure why she wanted to put in there, but she stuck it on her head and walked in circles, making these little hooting noises. Repeatedly. I love my little girl. :D
There was snow on the ground for the first time this season today. They immediately responded by dumping mass amounts of salt on the roads, though, so all was well.
Well, that's what you get... we stayed up very too late trying out the Dunwich Horror expansion of Arkham Horror tonight. It was awesomely fun... we all agree that it improves the play of the game immensely. We had a real nailbiter and ended up barely defeating Yig in combat.
Well, this is going to be the last time I even try to post until Tuesday or Wednesday- I just have too much to do in terms of trying to finish finals crap. Tuesday evening is Pendragon, and it should be all over by then (though I may collapse from exhaustion that night).
In any case, I give you cute baby pictures to tide you over. :D This is Ari stealing my hat and trying to wear it. For some reason, she likes wearing hats. Particularly mine, as you've seen in the "Pirate Ari" pictures.
And this is Ari from this morning, playing with pots and spatulas in the kitchen. Aside from the adorable baby qualities of this picture, I really like how it turned out, with the reflection in the oven and all.
I had a study group over here, and all my fellow students kept going on about how adorable and sweet Ari was.
We did a whole ass-load of nothing much today. For most of the day, I was suffering from a nasty sinus thing that caused me to have horrible sharp head pain every time I tried to move around. As a result, I spent most of the day sitting in the computer chair. Ari didn't like that...
