Vikinged my bacon

My baby's sittin' in her book box. Readin' books. She likes that.

The Bad Wolf

My baby knows what a Dalek is.



(She does say "EK-TERP" in a little two year old Dalek voice, but we only caught a tad of it here.)

Interim

Ari's sitting next to me, reading a book. This is what she's saying:

"Mousey mousey eek eek eek mousey [mouse say?] eek dat say mauwwww dat say mauwww cow say mooo dat mouse. Mousey. Mousey. Eeek eek! Mousey. Eeek eek! Dat say mauww. Mousey. Eek eek! Eeek eek eek! Cat mouse say mauww eek eek! Mousey. Mouse. Hey, dat. Hey, cow. Bear. Bear bear. "

She's reading the Peter Rabbit books that Great Grandma sent for her birthday. She loves those books. I hate them, because they're hard and have sharp corners. Ow.

Happy Birthday to Me!

Well, here I am. Sorry about the long absence; I've been in a space of not doing anything useful these last few weeks (*cough*month*cough*) and this is one of those things. So let's see...

We've been sick some (some sort of respiratory crud). Ari has busted out with two canines, and seems to be a bit better now on that front. For the moment.

I sprained my ankle three weeks ago, and it's still giving me trouble. Thad's been having problems with his shoulder, and we're not sure what to do about it! He went to a doctor, but she told him to take some ibuprofen and stay off it. It's not really getting better.

Wow. That sounds depressing.

We also went to the Jazz and Ribs Festival, which was awesome. Also, Ari and I went with R&B to the State Fair, and Ari got to pet all kinds of sheep and cows (like the one she's feeding up above) and pigs and bunnies. Etc.

Also, the whole Papke family came up for a weekend (the weekend I sprained my ankle, as it happens) and that was fun! Also, I read the Harry Potter book, the new Bujold Sharing Knife book, and had some ill-advised adventures in cooking. We also got a new player for our games, and started playing Pirates instead of Changeling (we're still playing Pendragon. Yay!) Anyway, all that to say that it has not actually been a suck period of time for us.

Ari knows what stickers are now, and she approves of them. She's getting more verbal all the time, but she still doesn't have the "using language to communicate" thing down yet. Language seems to be something she uses for her own amusement more than anything.

She's having tantrums now, real ones. The other day, she had one where she was even balling up her little fists and stamping her feet! I remind myself it's just her age and where she's at- part of the problem with using language to communicate, maybe?

P.S. Ari turns two on Wednesday! I'm going to try making pierogies. With bacon.

Maine: 4

This is the day we went to the low-tide beach. It was Ari's very first time seeing the ocean, and she went right for it, cold water or no. Cold water not being very enticing to me, I set about building a sand castle. I did miss Dad and his big ol' shovel. I had to content myself with making a little sand castle instead of the ginormous ones of my childhood. I also made a sand lobster.

Here's Ari playing in the water. She splashed around for quite a while in there with her papa and her Uncle Theo.

There was this whole business of the high-tide and low-tide beaches that was strange for me as a Florida girl. But Maine actually has rocks in it, so you either have to wait until the tide drops below the level of the rocks, or go to the beach that has a thin strip of sand between the rocks and the high-tide line.

This is a nice shot of us playing pinochle! This is always a favorite pastime every time we get together with Marcus. You'll note also that Maryanne's crocheting her Gryffindor scarf, and Ari's Richard Scarry book is still on the table where she had been reading it.

We spent alot of nice time on the trip hanging out at the house and reading or playing cards or doing the crossword with Nancy. It was very relaxing. :)

Men in steampunk

This is Ari, dancing with Mr. Kitty. I actually tried to take a video, but she didn't want to dance for the camera.

The last few days have continued to be kind of rough, what with this tooth coming in. As a matter of fact, Ari is pulling the bright-eyed bushy-tailed thing right now. At 4:30 in the morning. It's the same old story- didn't nap, passed out at 8, woke up at 2 and will probably pass out again in an hour or so, just in time for mama to get a couple of hours sleep before papa gets home. Yay! :)

Ari got a new book from the library today, for filling in her summer reading log. Well, we filled it in. She just read alot. She picked out a book about animal walks, and Thad bounced her all around on his knees reading it to her.

I went to the Jo-Ann's the other day, and I succumbed to their tempting, tempting sales on cute prints. This one was actually passed onto me by another mama who sews, who heard Ari likes cats. I think I made it a bit big, so I'm going to just put it away 'till she's bigger, I think. More pictures will follow as I finish more dresses!

Ari likes hanging out with me while I sew. First, she likes to sit on the fabric I'm actually cutting out. Then, she likes to poke her little fingers near the needle on my sewing machine, and then she likes to pull pins out of my pin tomato. Not to mention unwinding my bobbins!

Oh, and tomorrow is the Jazz and Ribs Festival. I'm so excited! :D Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go stop my child from ripping open the bagel bag.

Down the stairs face first

Check out me and Ari, posing with the Silver Surfer. :D He's clearly about to wreak the power cosmic on some poor shoplifter.

Miss Ari's been having weird sleep again lately. Tonight, she passed out at 9:00, and then woke up again at 9:30. She only just got back to sleep again.

I was wondering why, and then I noticed that that canine Ari's been working on has finally broken the surface! Poor thing. Teething sucks.


We got this fireman hat at the thrift store, and she's totally into it. This is her playing with the new plastic bugs and fishes I got her.

She's been into messes lately. She had her first bowl of soup, and her first bowl of cereal (raisin bran, with the barest splash of milk). She's also been totally into bagels of late, which I hypothesize has to do with the tooth she's working on.

Oh, and I learned a valuable lesson: when letting your kid play with beans and spaghetti and tiny cups of water in a pan on the kitchen floor-

Don't use black beans.

Maine: 3

This is the day we went to the Owl's Head Transportation Museum. They were having a bike show of some sort that day, and so there was alot to see. We got to see an autogyro fly, and they had all these awesome planes out.

Here's Thad and Ari totally pirating this Fokker Triplane. As you can see, we could totally get up close, and even touch the planes. Those planes look all solid in pictures, but in real life, they seem stupidly insubstantial. Just canvas stretched over this frame.

Speaking of insubstantial... this was a stripped-down racing plane It was really cool! I spent the whole trip goggling at things and taking lots of pictures. They had some really cool cars and aircraft there. And a few cool motorcycles- including what was essentially a steam-powered bicycle! It looked totally steampunk.

After the museum, we all got together for a big dinner. Thad's aunts were both there- Rachel and Agnes, and Agnes's husband Paul. The whole family doesn't get together that often, so that was cool.

I helped Francis make the pasta sauce, which was fun. I like cooking with other people.

Maine: 2

This is Nancy and Francis's house. Because it wasn't designed to host the invasion that we constituted, Maryanne and Theodore slept on the lawn in tents. On air mattresses, so I'm told they were comfortable. :)

Elsewhere around the property was some beautiful lilacs and roses, and lots of nice lawn for Ari and the Papke clan to sword fight and roll around in. It also had a gravel drive that Ari was fascinated by. She kept running out there, picking up rocks, and transporting the rocks to other parts of the drive.

This is Ari and Francis and Bunny hanging out together. Ari had a great time with Francis- especially when he was showing her his slideshow of cats. She liked it so much that we went ahead and made a cat slideshow here, too (mostly of pictures from this trip!).

And again, there's Bunny, willingly being near that noisy little bundle of chaos that is my Ari.

I was really worried about how Ari would do in a strange house for so long- both in terms of us having to prevent her from destroying things and in terms of her being happy and okay with things. As it turned out, though, she was totally fine with Nancy and Francis's- she totally made herself at home- and not in the pouring flour all over the floor way, either, thank god.

This is us at Cod End, having our first (and I think, the best) lobster rolls of the trip! We're all squinting because it was shockingly bright there. It didn't seem like it was that bright, but by golly, we couldn't see anything.

They had big, open tanks of lobsters on the floor in there. Ari kept wanting to play and splash in the tanks- I'm not sure what she thought of the delicious, delicious doomed crustaceans there.

Random strung together things

We've been mostly at Origins this weekend, as previously mentioned. Couple of thoughts:

1. We are more than ever determined not to take a two-year-old to a serious con (ala D*Con).
2. Ari liked wearing her badge. And her dice necklace. And she liked the Pokeball someone gave her.
   
3. Poor Ari took a beating this weekend- on Thursday, a kid bit her at COSI. Like, grabbed her arm and chomped down with his whole set of teeth! She still has the marks, days later. Poor bean. And then today, she got her head whacked, too.
4. Ari got into my cornstarch yesterday. I was cooking, and when I turned around and saw the cloud o' cornstarch, I said, "Ari!" in a loud, startled voice. Ari jumped, and got up and ran away. But a moment later, she reappeared with a rag. She was trying to clean up her mess!
5. Ari has a game lately of claiming that other people are Ari. We'll say, "Where's Ari?" and she'll point at me, or Thad or Brooke or whoever. And then giggle.
   

Maine: 1

We recently went to Maine, to visit Thad's grandparents. They have a lovely (gorgeous, stunning) house in Thomaston, and we spent the week touristing around the area and generally getting to spend time with Thad's extended and immediate family. It was a great trip, and here's some pictures. I picked the ones I liked the very very best, and I figured I'd take the time to write some stuff about what I remember about the trip. It'll probably take a while (a number of entries, anyhow) but if you don't want to, no one is making you read. ;)

This is Ari playing with pots and pans. She very much liked going in the kitchen and playing in the cupboards there- perhaps because she has no cupboards at home? Eventually, we had to tie the cupboard with the bleach and cleaning supplies in it shut- although, all she seemed to want from there was the scrub brush. Go figure.

Also, the liquor was kept in one of the cupboards, and she thought it was great fun to grab the bottles out! Marcus had hopes for getting her to bring them to him, but it didn't work out that way. ;)

This is where we slept on the trip- in the music room. It's one of the few cat-free rooms in the house, which was nice. It was full of windows and beautiful plants.

If you look closer at this picture, you'll notice that Ari and Thad both have pen marks all over them. Thad stayed up with her the night before this, and she apparently got hold of a pen and went to town. I snuck in and took these pictures for posterity.

This is Ari with Bunny, a very tolerant Manx cat (hence her name). Ari loved the cats at Nancy and Francis's, but most of them decided that this loud little creature was too much for them, and they were steering clear. Bunny was most willing to put up with Ari.

Not that she was too bad, as toddlers go. She was generally very gentle and reasonably respectful of the cats- but in that loud, clumsy toddler sort of way. Anyway, Ari liked to lie on the ground with Bunny or pet her or follow her around. This is her pointing at Bunny and saying "dat! dat!"

Orc blood

This is me and Ari, watching the fireworks today. Ari wasn't scared in the least, and she seemed to really enjoy watching the lights in the sky.

It's been a busy holiday day for us. First, Thad was feeling ill- he had a terrible headache. So, he slept in a while, and came to feel better.

Then, we went over to Origins to get our badges- two teacher's badges (free) and a child's badge, also free. Since Origins is held downtown in our hideously ugly convention center, we just biked there. On our way back, we had to skirt through the Doo Dah parade. Fortunately, it was just getting started, so we were able to cross through a gap.

This is Ari and me painting. She was into the watercolors, and really seemed to get the gist of how to use them (wet brush in cup, dip in paints, put on paper). Much of the time she thought it was more fun to smush the paints around on the tray than paint them onto paper, but that's cool. Those paints are in my "kid art supplies" box. All alone, for the moment- I should take her crayons out of the heater intake and put them there- also, I want to get her fingerpaints.

And this is Ari playing in a puddle. After we got back from Origins, Ari took a nap, and it started raining pretty hard, which nixed our plans to barbecue with R&B in the park before the fireworks. We ended up just staying in and cooking the food at home- pork ribs, corn on the cob, chips (with Mom's famous dip) and cherry pie for dessert. The cherry pie was particularly excellent- flaky crust, sweet cherries, good filling ingredients.

Thad had to work tonight, which is total suck, so he missed the fireworks. They were lovely. At least he got cherry pie...

A matter of priorities

Thad found this awesome beetle lying dead on top of our trash can. I desperately wanted to pick him up and do something with him, but the question of exactly what I might do with him (since I have no insect collection, and he is a damaged specimen in any case) reared its ugly head, and I just took some photos instead. Dad, if you're reading this, do you know what kind of beetle he (or she, I suppose) is?


This is a very tired Ari, being all sleepy and snuggly. And in a last- resort, diapers are in the wash, fish- bespangled diaper.

I'm glad to be back to cloth diapers; we went to disposables on the trip for space and convenience, and they were weird. And they smelled gross. I mean, pee never smells awesome, but mixing pee smell with weird chemicals and perfumes somehow doesn't improve it.

I found out today that Ari is scared of stickers. I got her some for the plane trip, but then forgot them at home. So, today, I took them out and sat down to show her about stickers. She was interested in them (I got cats and other animals) but seemed really freaked out by me removing the stickers and putting them elsewhere. Maybe it seemed unnatural to her, me peeling the pictures off the page.

Yesterday, we went outside and looked at fireflies. I caught one for her, so she could see, and she watched him fly around and blink.

Bar some becue

Brooke sent us some pictures from her birthday party on Saturday, and I present them here for your delectation. This first one is Ari begging ice cream from the birthday girl. Not shown is Ari totally vikinging the birthday girl's chocolate truffle, and stuffing her little face with it. :)

Well, I'm back to work. I haven't been able to face revising The Paper That Will Not End, so I spent today working on prepping materials for Mary's class (my source of rent money for the summer). Today, I rewrote a homework/online quiz. Oh, and I cleaned my desk. It was getting pretty bad.

Poor Thad got stuck with a double shift because of my meeting with Mary today. Hopefully that won't happen again- I did tell her I'd prefer to avoid Mondays and Thursdays. Since none of the four of us involved in this project seem to have a set schedule, that ought to be pretty easy.

I'm looking forward to getting to take Miss Ari out to some places this summer. I already picked up some tickets to COSI and the conservatory, and I'm going to try to get some zoos soon. :) Plus, we can attend playgroups! Huzzah!

Fly unzipped

This is Ari, having dinner like a real grown-up, with a fork and a regular cup and her own seat at the table. How about that?

We've been trying to unpack and readjust to a less lobster-filled life. :) Oh, and also catch up on any of the several hundred email and snail mail and phone messages we had waiting for us (so, if you're wondering why you haven't heard from us, that would be why).

I will tell y'all more about the trip (which was lovely), but I think I'll wait until I have the pictures from Marcus, so you can see what I'm talking about. :)

Otherwise, we're trying to work out what the summer will be like. Thad's working a few nights a week at Target (hopefully, getting to be more like 4 or 5 and not 2 or 3 like it is now). I've got to go meet with people tomorrow, and then I'm hoping I can just work a couple days a week, around Thad's schedule. We will see.

Ari's been talking up a storm. She's firmly in the two-word stage, and now she can say medial consonants. So, where she was saying "bay-ee" for baby a month ago, she definitely says "baby" now. Still no proper "f's", though. When we were in Maine, I'd tell we needed to go back to our family, and she'd say "go sammy! go sammy!" all excited-like.

Oh, funny thing- Ari will sit there and go "mm mm Mama. mm mm Mama. mm mm Papa. mm mm Ah-ee." Um, and she's starting to be able to count. She's known the numbers for a while, but now she's aware that they come in a set sequence.

And here she is, fallen asleep over a book she was reading:

Guderian device

This is Ari from a few weeks back, admiring herself as she wears a fashionable mama's undies stole. I decided to sort laundry in the living room the other day (since Thad was asleep upstairs), and Ari thought it was great fun. She tossed those clothes in piles, just like mama! Not necessarily the same piles, mind, but a busy toddler can't be bothered with such details. :)

I wanted to post it back then, but I didn't, and then I forgot about this saved draft until just now. :)

It's neat to see Ari learning to help us. She more often helps us- just a little- clean her room at night, or when we're tidying up the downstairs, too. In fact, yesterday she wanted to take a nap. So, she went around her room, picked up the couple of books that were lying around, and then laid down to get nursies and go to sleep- because picking up is part of the bedtime routine, you see.

This is Ari sitting in her wagon, reading her Richard Scarry book. That's the Best First Book Ever that Mom and Dad got her for Christmas. We got her (by which I mean, the Marcus got her :)) two new Scarry books at Stone Soup- Thad's aunt and uncle's used book shop. We got the Best Word Book Ever and the Best Counting Book Ever, and she loooooves them both. Come to think of it, I think the counting book is responsible for the new counting trend with Ari.

Thad got shanghaied into signing Ari up for the library's summer reading program, and so we've been filling in circles every time she reads for 15 minutes. We're up to six hours (that we've tallied) in the last two days- she really is a reading fiend. Where did she get that from, I wonder? ;)

Update

Whew- we just got back from Maine. I have lots to say about it, and I'll post in a little while... There are loads of pictures, which I'll post when I get copies from Marcus.

Margot

This is a picture one of the other moms took of Ari at a playgroup today. It was a crafty playgroup, and it involved a lot of children turning things a lot of colors. Especially and including themselves. :) We near gave Thad a heart attack when he woke up this afternoon, looking at her arm.

We haven't been up to a whole lot the last few days. Ari hasn't made any spectacular messes, nor has her sleep schedule been exceptional. She has given us lots of hugs.

Ari things:

• Ari likes family hugs and kisses
• Today, Ari picked up the phone (which was off) and said "hello? hello?" (or "heh-o? heh-o?" as the case may be)
• I heard her say an [f] the other day :')
• Today, I gave her bread and hummous, and she totally just used the bread as a vehicle to put hummous into her mouth
  

P.S. I have a beautiful new niece! :D

No action or character

Guess what this is? This is us not having couscous for dinner on Wednesday. I think we need to get some more locking canisters to keep that sort of thing in.

Ari had a great time, anyhow. At one point, she even laid down on her tummy and made couscous angels. I went ahead and let her play with it, until she was napping and it was bugging me. And lo, I had a vacuum canister full of dirty couscous.

I meant us to go to the downtown library today, but one of my shoes was irrevocably lost, so we stayed home and cleaned up instead- after Thad woke up, he took her to the park at least, though.

She helped me sort laundry. She figured out that I was throwing clothes, and thought that sounded like a good time, anyhow. Most of the clothes ended up in their proper piles at the end...

Ants in cream

Yesterday was a long day, but to be honest with you, I'm a bit fuzzy on the details. I ended up only sleeping for an hour, and was in that place where I seem to be okay, but I keep forgetting what I was doing, or what time it is, or where I am. I passed out late-ish last night, and Thad- wonderful husband that he is- let me sleep in for a while.

Until Ari opened the door to our room, and came and woke me up. Apparently, she knows how to work doorknobs now! I'm still processing that. :) Funny thing, though- the door to our bathroom doesn't really have a working door latch, so it can be pretty easily opened if you just push it in. Ari's done that bunches of times.

But now, I've twice seen her trying to get into the bathroom by fumbling with the doorknob, and she no longer tries to just push open the door. Go figure...

We went to the arts festival downtown yesterday with Jaime and Brooke. We parked down by the Giant Eagle and walked the rest of the way downtown with Ari in her bike trailer stroller. The bike trailer as stroller thing was lovely (it was nice how we didn't have to carry our stuff; it has delightful storage space) but I did wish it didn't have that long front arm; it was problematic in the crowd of the festival.

There were some bands there, at least one of which we liked. We all danced around and generally had a good time. We also enjoyed looking at all the art stuff, although there's never ANYTHING at that festival that we could possibly, in a million years, afford.

We also walked down by the waterfront, which I'd never been to before. The Santa Maria is down there, and some other neat stuff.

Oh, we ran into Brooke's family, and her little brother Joe had a great time playing with Ari. He had fun pushing the stroller around, and he kept wanting to pick her up and run around and play with her. It was really sweet.

All in all, we had a pretty good time.

Today's mostly been catchup, and house cleaning, and alternate napping.

Choux paste

I am going to pay for this so badly tomorrow.

This is a picture of my baby, asleep, on her bed. Where she arrived just a little after seven o'clock yesterday evening. By yesterday, I mean... Thursday. It was really cute. She just came upstairs, lay down in her bed and fell asleep reading.

Then, she woke up around midnight and was up until 5 AM.

Yesterday, by which I mean Friday, I napped, because I was insanely sleep deprived from her being sick and all.

And then tonight, by which I mean Friday (or possibly early Saturday), I couldn't get to sleep. Probably because of the napping. And here I am, at 6 AM.

Notable non-sleep related things:

• I made even better cream puffs today- thanks for the tip, Max!
• On that note, I also started reading those dragon books Max recommended... I'm enjoying 'em, too. :)
  
• Ari voluntarily helped clean her room tonight. We've been in a routine of picking up her room before bed (first night diaper, then teeth brushing, then room cleaning, then nursies and sleep). And tonight, after we brushed her teeth, I said "What do we do now?" and she ran into her room and started putting her books on her shelf. :D
• Ari knows the color purple. She has been reading the Mouse Paint book that her godmother gave her for her birthday alot lately, and it's all about mixing colors. When we get to that part, she has been saying "puhpuw" for a while. But, today, I pulled a dress out of her drawer, and she got all excited about "Puhpuw! Sauwuhs! Puhpuw! Sauwuhs!" (Purple flowers), so she really knows what it means.
• Ari is cutting a canine tooth. I can see it now.
  

Sweet paste

I graded final exams today, and worked on the draft of The Paper That Will Not End- which I owe Brian tomorrow, so he can look at it before he leaves Friday.

Cute story: today, Ari was reading her Richard Scarry book (which, by the way, she loves absolutely to pieces. Literally.), and she was looking at a page with some pictures of cats*. There were two pictures of cats with hats- one with a too-small hat, and one with a too-big hat drooping down over his eyes. Ari pointed at the first cat, and said, "Dat!" Then, she pointed at the second cat and said, "Seep dat!" Which, for the uninitiated, is her way of saying that the cat was asleep. Because she couldn't see his eyes. :D My baby is smart.
_____
*I know, I know. All the pages in that book have pictures of cats. And disturbingly cannibalistic pigs.

How many blueberries?

This is Thad and Ari yesterday, out on the lawn in front of the house. Still, you'll note, wearing the dress. It was one of those "she fell asleep without having been put to bed properly so oh well she'll just sleep in her dress hmm we're both too lazy to corner her and put her in something new" sort of things.

I took her to the doctor yesterday as promised, for her first sick visit ever. And then, maybe five minutes after we got there, the power went out. I asked if they could go ahead and look at her real quick anyhow, and they did- but all their equipment (save for the ear thermometers) was run on wall power. So, I talked to them and they listened to her lungs and looked her over. The aforementioned ear thermometer confirmed that she was running a low-grade fever.

The doctors said that she was probably okay (her lungs sounded clear, and she seemed to be breathing okay, which was a comfort to me), and that it was probably a viral infection that she just needed to get over. They also said that if she was still fevery today, that we should bring her in again. Fortunately, she's doing much better today. She took a four hour nap, and went to bed at a reasonable hour, even. Wish me luck with her staying asleep, too. :)

Yellow sign

Look what I made today. :) I found this fabric on sale at the Jo-Ann's and bought half a yard and made this. The other fabric is all from my stash, so at least I'm using it up. I think it looks really nice on her. It looks pretty comfy, too.

I think she likes it, also; I caught her flouncing around in front of the mirror.

Ari's been having a pretty hard few days. She's been sick, and I don't know what to do about it... I think it's time to go to the doctor. I'm going to call for an appointment tomorrow morning. She's been having a fever (but only at night), and a cough (all the time). She doesn't act sick all the time, but every time she tries to sleep, the coughing wakes her up, so she's clearly not feeling well now. Hard to tell how much is sleep deprivation, and how much is sick.

This is Ari a few days ago, running around with her duck and my hat (stolen off my very head!). She greatly enjoys having someone chase her with the duck and quacking.

Today, Ari said "Bunny", with the "n" and everything. That's the first time I've ever heard it. Oh, and she knew without being told that Thad was sleeping in our room. When we went upstairs to change her, she ran over to our door, and said "Papa seep! Papa seep!", and then knocked on the door. Where'd she learn to knock on doors?

Later on, I told her that I was going to wake Papa up soon, and she took it upon herself to run up the stairs and knock on the door until Thad woke up and came and got her.

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.