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.

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.
  

Alternate reality

Well, I proceeded to celebrate my presentation being done by promptly getting sick. :P I spent most of the weekend feeling like crap, and watching the Justice League cartoon (which is surprisingly good). This is me lying on the couch, feeling like crap. Ari randomly decided to climb up onto the couch and lie herself down next to me and give me cuddles. It was adorable.

Ari's clearly getting some new teeth in, and it's been making her grumpy, unfortunately. Her sleep has been borderline messed-up, too.

This is Ari eating raisins today. She grabbed down the container off the table, and brought it to me to pull the lid off. Then, she proceeded to munch down raisins as fast as she could. I decided to just let her eat as many as she felt like- I figure, it all works itself out in the end. I'm sure we'll see some interesting diapers tomorrow, though.

Other fun stuff lately:

• Ari brought me her bottle of teething tabs so I could get her one out.
• Ari likes to read while she gets her diaper changed- it's hilarious to watch her lying there with her book up while you change her. At least it means she's not wiggly or combative...
• I got to watch Thad chase Ari around with her duck walker toy today while Ari giggled and screamed "Dut! Dut! Dut!"
  

Sexy Abe

Here we have visual proof of Ari's teething. The hands she has shoved in her mouth obscure the gobs of drool on her chin, but you get the idea, I'm sure. It seems to be an on-and-off thing, and I haven't seen any evidence of an erupting tooth lately, though, so I think nothing's imminent.

It's been a weird week. I had my practice presentation on Monday, and it went fairly well. Then, on Tuesday, we spent the whole day shopping for food (three hours and 250$) and doing laundry (two loads darks, one load whites, one load diapers). We had gotten to the point where we barely had anything edible in the house, and no one had clean underwear anymore. :P Jaime, sweetheart that he is, brought food over and cooked us dinner Sunday night so I could finish my handout without worrying about food.

Now, ensconced with food and clean underwear, I have to face the actual presentation. Brian gave me notes for extensive revisions of my handout (why do I never seem to have fewer red marks on my handouts, no matter how often I revise? ;) ), so that's my job now. I pretty much have tomorrow to do it, too. It's good, though, to have an advisor who's so helpful with comments. The handout should be much better when I finish with it.

This picture is of Miss Ari, passed out mid-diaper change. She walked all the way to the comic store and back with her papa, and apparently just collapsed in exhaustion afterwards. She didn't even end up staying up that late, despite sleeping from 5:30 to around 7:00. Note the book she's curled up with... awwwwww.

Oh, and I feel all like I accomplished something- I made dinner tonight. I made a recipe from the 6 o' Clock Scramble book, and it was tasty and easy to make. And I even made a vegetable. I never feel so much like a grown-up as when I make a whole dinner and we eat at the table, I swear. :)

I leave you with a picture of Miss Ari, coloring (notice, if you will, that she has put a bunch of her crayons into her dice bag, too) and playing with her fairy dolls. :D

Don't forget the beans

This is me trying to make gluten-free pie for a friend of mine who may or may not be but probably is celiac (he's not man enough to actually take the definitive test, but eating wheat makes him sick). One of his chief loves in life has been pies and pastries (followed swiftly along by pasta, poor man- have I mentioned he's Sicilian?) and I decided to try to encourage in adjusting to his new diet by making him pie. These pies have a sweetened goat cheese base, with orange curd and whipped cream on top. Thank god, he's not showing signs of dairy intolerance.

This, on the other hand, is the rare two-headed monkey, from (I am told) the wilds of Borneo. Or something like that. It ambushed me this morning, and this was the best picture I was able to get before it leaped upon me!

I spent today trying to get work done. I have two weeks until a major presentation, and I still have this class to teach, and I've been feeling pretty sick for most of a week- which has made it difficult to work. Anyway, I'd best get my nose to the freakin' grindstone.

Ari has been her sweet self today. She's definitely teething, and her sleep/napping has been unfortunately disrupted.

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.

Go Gators...

Well, as always, Ari started sleeping like crap, and bam, no blogging for me. I think I'm going to start trying to have a different blogging routine, because this is getting a bit ridiculous.

Her sleep is a bit ridiculous, as well. I hope that it's because of the new molars she has coming in (for a grand total of four molars and seven incisors, no canines or premolars) and that she'll cut it the hell out soon. She keeps staying up all night and it sucks.

This is a picture from right before we went over to Jeff's house to watch the big game on Monday. Boy, did that not go how we expected it to go. :) My poor Buckeye friends were very, very sad. Ever since, everyone just keeps repeating "we had a great season, and we beat Michigan."

Ah, yes. This is why I have heretofore tried to write in the blog when my girl is asleep. This is my fourth go at starting this paragraph; she keeps "helping" me.

Hm... what else have you missed? School started, and it's going pretty well. I'm teaching the undergrad language change course again, and it's going much better than last time I taught it. I'm doing a Gothic study group this quarter, which is fun.

Oh, exciting news- tonight is Thad's last time on overnight for a while. He's switching down to just working a few hours on Sunday mornings, which is great! He'll go back to overnight in the summer, when he needs the work, and not have to compete for scarce springtime hours. Also, we'll get to start going to meeting again, since Thad should get off work an hour or two before meeting starts.

Here's Ari playing with her blocks. It's very cute. :D

Ari's driving me a bit crazy lately, even besides the not sleeping (although, I'm sure that's not helping either one of us). She's seeming increasingly frustrated about not being able to communicate. She's also getting very demanding about nursing alot, which is getting on my nerves. Neither of us are ready for her to wean, but I'm really ready for her to stop trying to be on the boob 24/7. Especially because it's difficult to get her to sit still and not twist around and not grab my shirt/other breast/nose etc. Ah, well. I know this is a phase, and will pass. I'd just rather it pass sooner than later.

-5 Valorous

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.

Some corn for popping

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.

Update!

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.

The most wonderful time of the year

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...

So much Dunwich Horror

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.
  

Teeny time to eat

This picture was taken very early this morning... somebody didn't want to go to bed at a decent hour. I'd been up till 3:30 in the morning with a teethy babe the night before, and Thad had gotten a nap when I came home, so he stayed up with her. Apparently, it wasn't too long until she fell asleep of her own accord in the middle of a pile of books.

So. Cute. :D

Books are totally still her favorite thing, if anyone's stumped about what to get her for the upcoming holidays. She's in a phase of wanting us to read the same book over and over and over and over and over and... The other night, I read Brown Bear Brown Bear about four times (I hate that book so much), Going on a Bear Hunt 8 times (okay, but too much repetition), and Ben the Bee upwards of 18 or 20 times (at least it's short). We now hate every book we own. We'll learn to hate new books, too, I'm sure, but at least it'll take a little while. :)

This last week has been hellish (hence the lack of writing). NWAV put me behind on my schoolwork, and I've been desperately playing catchup all week. Ari's been teething, and her sleep's been disrupted. And Thad has an extra work night this week.

Oh, and to add to it all, tomorrow is the Michigan game. We here at OSU hate Michigan (is it UofM? Or Michigan State? I never can remember) and Michigan Week is a big deal. People may be leaping into Mirror Lake half-naked as we speak. Anyway, this is the biggest deal OSU/Michigan game in many years- both teams undefeated, yada yada. Upshot? I can't get near my office tomorrow. I can't get together with other students for study groups. Oh, and I better the hell not wear blue tomorrow- Michigan fans coming in for the game have been officially advised not to wear their school colors on the streets, or drive cars with Michigan plates to the game- lest they be assaulted. How sad is that?

Ari is way fun to play with these days. Favorite games:

• The growl-like-a-monster game, where mama/papa and baby go "RAAWWRRR" at each other
• The "I'm gonna blurble you!!" game, which seems to cause much more hilarity than actual blurbles/tickles
• Papa being slapstick... apparently, Thad whacking himself in the head with things and falling down is the height of hilarity
• Ring-around-the-rosey. Although, she only remembers to fall down part of the time
• Rockin' out to music

She's not signing yet, but she will consistently respond to my signs. So, if she's upset, I'll ask her what she wants, and sign various things- if it's not what she wants, she'll grab my hand and push it away. If she does want whatever it is, she'll grab my hand and force me to repeat the sign... I've tried making the signs with her hands, but that goes over about like you'd imagine (here, little toddler girl- let me force your hands into complex shapes!).

A pomegranate as big as your head

This is a great picture. Not only does it show my baby playing with the broom (she loves that thing), and not only is she really happy (look at that smile!) but you can also finally see her top teeth! She's had them for more than a month- I just checked on my blog archives, so I know- and I've never been able to get a shot. And not only can you see top teeth, but you can also the the new tooth she's cutting, if you look closely just to the left (your left) of her bottom teeth.

Today was mostly a cleaning day. I cleaned the bedroom and the bathroom. We kinda cleaned the dining room for people coming to game. Ari and I went to meet Brooke, and she had sooooo much fun running all around while I worked out. She's pretty much happy any time she gets to roam free, really.

Here Ari is, being the youngest Seeker in Fuzzy Flowers United's history.

Cute, true story: After Jaime zoomed her around on the broom for a while, he set her down on the floor. She grabbed the broom back up, very carefully straddled it (harder than it sounds like for a wobbly little toddler) and then sat there bouncing with her broom. :D

Today, she also kept laughing at jokes... someone would say something, we'd all start laughing, and bam, she'd start laughing (really loud!) with us. Little sweety; she's learning to accommodate!

Blacklisted

Arrrgh. Ari is so teething lately. I mean, not like we didn't know that, right? She does have an actual, visible nubbin working its way out. But today, she's been all grumpy and out of sorts. Oh, and she's been bitey!

Now that she has top teeth, it's easier than ever to chomp on mama. I have an open wound on my right nipple... I'm not sure how to get her to CUT IT THE HELL OUT, but it's my fondest desire for that to happen. It's really quite shockingly painful.

Well, I'm off to try to do some homework. I've been struggling with these couple of assignments all weekend; I've sent (checks) a total of NINE emails to my instructor about it over the last two days. We'll see if the last one was enough to let me finish the assignment, or whether we're gonna have to make it an even ten-some. Decet? Decad?

Anyway, if I'm lucky, I also get to work on more Halloween prep. Sneaky, sneaky...

Can't stop thinking about it

Sorry, no cute baby pictures today. :) Ari spent the majority of the day either tied to me or in her carseat, which makes it hard to take pictures... I wore her for about four hours straight. Thank god for wraps! We went to lunch with a visiting faculty member and a bunch of other students, and then we went on an extended downtown excursion by bus.

Instead of baby pictures, you get a picture of our dinner. This is lemon pepper chicken, thin strips of crispy bacon, carmelized shallots and peas served with eggs noodles and an alfredo-style sauce made with two delicious Italian cheeses (with more cheese grated on top). Alongside it is a baby romaine salad with shredded parmesan cheese, pear chunks, shredded carrot and craisins, served with a vinaigrette. There is multigrain sourdough bread (product of Giant Eagle, not me) on the side. The pasta dish was really delicious, although I think in future, I might simply serve lightly steamed veggies on the side of it. The complex entree with the salad made the plate kinda busy, visually and also flavor-wise.

For dessert, I layered dark chocolate pudding (homemade) and apricot ice cream (ala Jeni) and topped it with whipped cream.

This is what I get for being hungry during lectures... I plan these kind of meals out.

Ahem. And in news y'all actually care about, Ari is getting a fourth tooth. :) She's in good spirits (right now) but is drooling alot.

P.S. Ari loved the dinner- she ate a whole plateful of noodles and peas. She also helped me pick out the cheese at the cheese counter. :)

I have a golden ticket

Guess what time I went to bed last night? That's right, 5 AM. That little tooth did what teeth do best, and she woke up just as I was going to bed. I finally collapsed around 5, and I think she did too, shortly thereafter (there was half-asleep nursing involved). Then, I woke up at 8 only to discover that my doctor's appointment had been canceled. :P At least that meant I got to sleep in another couple of well-needed hours.

We had a pretty good day; I worked out again. Our afternoon/early evening was occupied by standing in line for tickets to see Jon Stewart (my hero...*sigh* :D). Ari had a grand ol' time with her papa, crawling all over the lawn in front of the Union while mama stood in line for 2 hours.

Ari moments for today:

• She totally hugged her papa goodbye, and waved as he went out the door
• We fed her a chinese noodle dish for dinner, and she dug in with both hands and scooped noodles into her mouth, hand over fist, until we finally took the dish away

Thad works tonight, but he's off tomorrow (at last). And hopefully, next week he starts a nicer, less stressful night schedule. We can't wait!

The old traditions

Guess who has three teeth? My baby does!

Thad saw the new tooth coming in on the upper right front (my right) of her mouth. I think it's been there a few days, though- partly because it's out a fair ways and partly because Ari's been kinda nibbly the last few days. I'm remembering back to all these little owie twinges when we were nursing, and realizing why that must have been...

We did alot of things today, and not nearly enough of them were me working on schoolwork. :( However, I did order my new glasses (they're purple) and I did spend some nice time with my Thaddeus. :D

Like to tore my nipple half off

Argh, I have no time. I have to meet with Brian at 8:30 tomorrow, and I have a homework due that I haven't finished because I haven't had ten straight minutes to work on it, and it's my night to do dishes, and the house is a mess... It all just makes me feel overwhelmed. Well, I'll write this and then see what I feel more up to- dishes, or finishing my homework. Baby steps, right?

Look what came in the mail today! Sort of. The art we got from Stephanie Law at D*Con, and the certificate was from the MSSI (isn't it pretty?). I've been wanting to frame them, but they're both hard-to-find frame sizes, so I ordered some custom frames from a company I've ordered from before. The frames arrived, and (this has happened before) half the hardware was missing, plus, they sent me the wrong size frame pieces for that black frame. Anyway, so the replacement came today. If they weren't so prompt and uncomplaining about sending replacement bits, I might be peeved with them. But their low prices seduce me. :) Plus, I do like their frames. I got another prettier frame to go with the original piece that Cavan gave us, but I need to cut a mat for it before I cane hang that one.

Ari and I walked around for hours today... I went and worked out at the gym again while Brooke watched her, but otherwise, she was either on me or crying at me all day long. Thank god, she did take a nap in the afternoon, but not as long a nap as I might have liked. I think her teeth were hurting her; I gave her some Hylands around bed, and she calmed right down after that. Poor little girl.

An historic load of dishes

This is what I did last night, and this morning. I mentioned that we had a length of fabric that we'd used as an emergency sling? Well, the reason I had it is that some of the moms in my group got together to donate slings to some low-income moms. Several moms donated materials, and I mostly donated time (and those gold rings, those were mine). The fabric was donated by another mom- the blue was our emergency sling. Isn't it gorgeous fabric? It's hard to find good sling fabric, and those turned out beautifully. I made a new kind of shoulder, thinking that it would be nicer for moms with only one sling... I hope they see much use with little babies. :)

The last few days have been the suck here, though. I've been doing the lion's share of Ari care in the wake of Thad's horrific current schedule. To make things even worse than working two jobs might naturally be, the Target is ignoring Thad's availability request, so this is how the last while has gone:

• Tuesday night: 8 hr shift, off at 8 AM
• Wednesday day: 4 hr teaching, 1:00-5:00
• Wednesday night: 8 hr shift, 9:30-8 AM

And then tomorrow, he has to watch the girl from 9 to 6. Suck. Fortunately, Thursday is a night off, so he can sleep and sleep and sleep, before he has to go back in to work on Friday day, and all weekend nights.

I start classes again tomorrow, and I haven't even been able to think about getting my stuff packed. Ari's been in a Mood today; very very grumpy. Maybe she's teething?

We biked up to the store today; I think I won't bother with the trailer for short distances when I'm on my own in future. It's too hard to wrangle the baby and the trailer alone. It's still totally worth it for longer distances, though.