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:

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).