Spit in your eye

The three of us went to the almost-a-dollar theatre (inflation being what it is, you know) tonight to see The Spiderwick Chronicles, which is based off of a series of books that Thad read Ari when she was a tiny baby. It was our first time seeing a movie with Ari since she was four months old. She really liked it. :D Highlight of the movie for me was my daughter squealing "Issa GISSIN! Issa GISSIN!" when the griffin ("gissin") came on the screen.

Not for me. Only Gileta!

Tonight was our Gary Gygax Memorial Dungeon Crawl.

For those of you who don't know, or weren't aware, Gary Gygax- the man behind Dungeons and Dragons- died last week. The geek community has gone into mourning. Seriously. And, while it's true that Thad and I don't actually like Dungeons and Dragons, the fact remains that we would not be who we are or where we are if Gary Gygax had not lived his life as he did. The least we could do was buy some pizza, some Cheetos, and some Mountain Dew, and play his freakin' game for one night.

So, Thad dug out the infamous Red Box (retrieved from his 'rents over Christmas), and we rolled up characters by the most old school of RPG rules. 3d6 6 times in order, no rerolls or dropping ones or nothing! Then, we went into a dungeon, and crawled all over it. PC's died. Jeff alone went through three. We killed goblins, and skeletons, and rats. And more skeletons. One of our number popped his RPG cherry on the Red Box tonight, just like so many of us have in the past. It was a glorious game night, TPK or no.

We even rolled to see if we were getting drunk.

PS: Ari asked for something today. She put the bag of bagels in my hand, and- quite clearly- said, "I want a bagel, please". Well, it might have sounded more like "A wan' boggle pease. Boggle pease." Nevertheless, my baby asked for something. With words. For like, the first time ever. :D

Revivification

Hey there.

We haven't frozen to death up here, and my daughter is still adorable. In case any of you were wondering. :)

Here's a picture from Christmas. This is Ari holding her extremely lifelike kitty that Great-Grandpa Francis sent her- easily one of her favorite presents this year. Boy, did that disturb the hell out of strangers in the airport. They kept thinking it was a real cat that this little girl was dragging around with her.

This is Thad's tattoo. Did I not mention he was getting one? Yup. He's been planning to get one in a serious way for well over a year now. We commissioned Nigel to stylize an aegishjalmur for us, and this is what he came up with. This is the tattoo right after the second session- you can see it's a bit red, and I've just put lotion on it. Mayhap I should have taken the picture before I did that...

Anyway, it's about four or five inches in diameter, in the upper middle of his back. Thad goes in for a touchup at the end of the month, after it's had a chance to heal up.

This is Ari, in the lovely warm outfit her godmother Theresa sent. Ari's pretty fun these days. The other day, we sat on the stoop (it was 70 degrees out!), and she kept pointing things out to me. Like, "dees a birds. birds say, caw caw. deesa birds. deesa two twucks. see? one twuck, two twuck. two twucks."

She can also say "zombiepocalypse", which amuses us no end. I know it's wrong to get my baby to say things just because I think it's funny, but I can't help myself.

She also says "exterminate!" (as previously noted), but that's all her. Oh, and when I put on a TARDIS shirt that Theresa sent me today, she kept pointing at the TARDIS and saying, "Dotta Hoo!" How cool is that?

P.S. Here's some stuff I've been doing:

http://cookbookpartyclub.blogspot.com/
http://daharadreaming.com/ (look at toys>puppets)

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:

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

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.

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. :)

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.

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.

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).
  

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:

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

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.

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.

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!

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: