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.

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.

How much is enough?

Well, my dad was seen safely off this morning (as far as I know- Thad didn't tell me of any problems). Here's a picture of Ari, having a Grandpa ride- the weather was gorgeous on Wednesday, so we walked down to the Short North for ice cream. Ari walked most of the way, but her grandpa carried her a while, too.

If you look closely, you'll probably notice that her knee is skinned. She's an accomplished walker now, but she still sort of leads with her chest, and it makes her trip alot (try walking around as though someone were pulling you forward by your chest, and you'll see WHAT I meaN).

AHH... Ari's playing with the capslock now. YOU all geT TO ENJoy the results.

IT was A very nICE VISIT, THOugh. I was gLAD I got to show Dad whERE I liVE.

OKAY, this is getting really annoying. Something must be done.

Aaah... I distracted her with the lizards my mom sent.

Okay, so what was I talking about? Oh, Ari's wearing pretty dresses in these pictures that her great grandma sent her. :D Today, she's wearing a really cute overall set from her, too.

Cute stuff from today:

When I tried (and, mind you, initially failed) to put Ari down for a nap this afternoon, I laid her down on the bed. She immediately started giggling in that "I'm about to get nursies!" sort of way. :) Even after I laid down and we started nursing, she had to keep pulling off at first to giggle.

When we went to the fabric store this evening, Ari caught sight of a print with cats on it. She began trying to get at it, squealing "DATS! DATS! DATS!" I have had a project in mind (a shirt for Ari) that I thought it would work for, so I bought a little chunk of it, and Ari insisted on carrying it to the register.

Brightly colored

This is the picture you get today. It's of a baby who's been inordinately sweet today, given that she only got two hours of sleep and didn't nap.

Let's see... today, my baby walked all the way to the library with her papa- by which I mean, we walked on her own two chubby, adorable little feet. I'm told she had a Grand Old Time while there.

She also showed an interest in stuffed animals for the first time- she hugged and cuddles them. I find it sort of hilarious that she played with action figures before teddy bears.

Also, she is so proud of herself about being able to sign "milk". When I got home today, she came up and wanted hugs and then signed it to me, and kept signing while I took my coat and bags off. Usually, she cries and whines, but today, she just signed "milk milk milk milk". :D

Stupid monkey bars

Recognize this facial expression?

The shirt she's wearing is a shirt that a local mom I know made, but ended up being just a little too small for her boy. As you can see, it fits Ari great! She's also taken to wearing her hat indoors- I think she gets a kick out of being able to put it on all by herself.

Ari's totally walking everywhere, now. When we leave the house, I just let her walk beside me rather than picking her up. She thinks it's the Best Thing Ever... I'm just enjoying the fact that walking, in and of itself, can be adequate amusement for her.

I've mostly been trying to work today. We did go out to the thrift store while papa was sleeping. Ari was remarkably well-behaved (for a toddler) walking around the store- until we got near the Christmas trees. I certainly can't blame her (she is a toddler, after all) but we had to leave lest Ari do serious damage to some glass ornaments. :)

The weather was really nice today (for autumn), and I wanted to take my girl out to the playground and let her run around. When we got home, however, she passed straight out and had a glorious two hour nap. So by the time we got over to the playground, the sun was starting to set (aka: 4:30 in the afternoon). There was still a reasonable amount of light left, though, and she had great fun running around and climbing on things until mama decided it was too cold, and time to go in.

Then, I proceeded to work on school stuff for the rest of the evening.

Pfeh. Our house is a mess, but Jaime says he's going to come and wrangle the baby for us on Wednesday so we can clean and do Thanksgiving prep. He is currently my Favorite Person. :D

Can't touch this

I'm typing this one-handed while Ari sleeps on my lap... she fell asleep in the car on the way home tonight, but then she woke up on the way in (stupid cold, damp wind) and I nursed her right back to sleep in my lap.

We've had a busy day- first, we woke up and went to a mom's house for a playgroup while papa slept. Ari had soooo much fun wandering around like a little crazy girl. Highlight of the morning: we were eating beans and salsa on tortilla chips, and I wanted to try to feed her some black beans- she usually likes beans. They were kind of soupy, though, so I was trying to feed her some on the end of a chip. She wanted to do it herself, though, and she ended up grabbing the chip too hard, and PLOP! Beans in the face. Messy, yet hilarious. :)

Then, we went home (once papa was awake) and Ari stayed with him while I went to NWAV. Listened to some interesting discourse talks†, and then caught the bus home. It was really drizzly and cold and horrible, too.

Then, we kinda cleaned the living room and failed to eat dinner... At least the Halloween stuff is finally put away. Huzzah! Then, Ari and I packed up to go to the NWAV party! Ari had a fun time- no one was on the dance floor, so she monopolized it. She rocked out to M.C. Hammer and the Ghostbuster theme. :) Walt Wolfram was standing near the dance floor, though, and she kept beelining for his legs... I should probably have used it as an opportunity to say "hi", but we all know what kind of wuss I am.

Case in point: at one point in the evening, Bill Labov came up and shook Ari's hand. Did I say, "Hello, sir, I'm a grad student here. Pleased to meet you."? No. I choked all up and said something incoherent about Ari just learning to walk, and he looked at me a little funny and went away. Well, it wasn't quite that bad, but you get the idea. I need to get myself not to be so intimidated by these guys...

Anyway, it was a great party, and Ari had a good time. Several people commented on how well behaved she was- despite the beelining for Walt Wolfram's legs, which may have been just good taste in sociolinguists.
__________
†One of which that was about intensifier use in blogs and forum postings... believe it or not, at one point, the researcher categorized different subcultures according to, I kid you not, "so/fuckin' space". Anyway, I find myself slightly self-conscious about my intensifier use now!

Tell me when you go to bed

Here's a picture of me and Ari from last night- NWAV is going on right now, and we went over to the reception on the opening night. We mostly failed to chat with other linguists, because I suck at the whole shmoozy thing we academics are supposed to do at conferences.

Anyway, I call this my Amazing Velcro baby trick. No hands!

We've had a pretty busy day today; I did four loads of laundry and cleaned the bedroom. Then, we went over to the playground, and Ari ran around like a little maniac. Forget walking across a room- my baby walked across a whole basketball court! She had great fun on the swings. Oh, and she went down the slide a few times. She was such a little pro at the slides- she climbed right up there, and even swung herself 'round to a sitting position before she pushed herself off!

This picture is from this morning, when Ari found my socks on the ground, and demanded me to put them on her. :D She seemed to think they were quite stylish.

After the playground, we came back home and found out that Grandma Colleen had sent us some new books! Ari enjoyed them a great deal- in fact, at bedtime, she insisted that I read the Mother Goose one over and over and over and over and over and over and over...

Tonight was a Shaintar night, so Ari and I went and had movie and pizza at another mom's house, which was nice. And I'm told that Thad's ogre adequately killed things (or at least held even with them until the archers could shoot them in the head).

I'm a listmaker...

This is a picture from yesterday. :D The store at the orchard was set up in two tents, one of which was for "picture opportunities". Or something. Anyway, it had a bunch of hay bales decorated with fall things. Since we were buying too much for one (or even two) people to carry, we had one of us set up back in the back tent with the girl, guarding our ever-growing pile of delicious things. She had a grand time, trying to grab apples and bang them against the gravel floor.

In the end, we got:

• 1 bottle of sparkling goldrush cider
• 2 bottles of sparkling spiced cider (sooo good)
• 1 gallon jug of basic cider
• 1/2 a peck of winesap apples
• 1/2 a peck of fuji apples
• 3 pie pumpkins ($1.50 each!)
• 1 jack-o-lantern
• 1 mini pumpkin
• 4 jars of jam
• 1 jar of pumpkin butter

We really do rely on the good people at the orchard to supply us for a while. We'll eat the jam all year long, and the pie pumpkins will last us through the holidays. The sparkling cider will go on special occasions, but particularly on New Years. The apples will be eating apples for a while (they keep a decently long time) and some of them will be dessert for Halloween. The cider will get mulled and served at Halloween as well.

I like buying much of this stuff from them because it's better and cheaper than in the store...

This is Ari, being a little walker in the restaurant we went to lunch at. She's totally a walker now- she only crawls in last extremity now.

And, here's Ari being a Quaker pirate today. We went to the Quaker meeting, and Ari was the only little girl in the First Day School (which is not always the case at this meeting, mind).

Ari was very cute today- here's some of what she's up to:

• She's into clapping her hands alot.
  
• She likes to play monsters with Thad (and me, to a lesser extent)- she'll roar and make faces with us.
• If we do a face-sucker (put our hand over her face and go "rawr! slurp slurp slurp", she'll take our hand away from her face, and then put it back on. Repeatedly! She wants the face sucker to get her brains!
• Today, she grabbed my wrap, and started wearing it like she was a ghost. Or a nun.
  
• If she wants us to do something particular, she'll grab our hands and put them how she wants. She wants to read? She'll take a book, grab our hand, and shove the book into the hand. She wants to be fed water? She'll grab the sippy, grab my hand, and shove the sippy into my hand.
  

That's all I can think of. It's really sweet.

Pastries at last

Look closely at this picture... can you see what she's done?

She's gone and eaten all of the egg salad right off her sandwich bread! This amuses the heck out of me. :) She liked the mango a bunch, but was lukewarm on the squash. Usually she's a little carb monkey, and I put the egg salad on the bread thinking that at least she'll get a little protein while she munches the bread down. Today, though, she was all about the eggs.

We had a lovely morning; we went to the Worthington farmer's market and walked around. A nice old man gave her a little pumpkin, and she's been carrying it around all day.

In fact, this was almost a picture of her with the pumpkin. Instead, she has her potato... the potato she's been carting around and playing with for several days now. I don't really understand what the deal with the potato is, but she really likes it. She doesn't try to eat the potato (but she does lick it sometimes), she just holds the potato and wave it up and down. And looks at it. Ah, the inscrutable, potato-lovin' ways of babies.

Ari is definitely a toddler now- she can walk all the way across a room, if she sets her mind to it. Now, if she can just get the hang of the talking.

Cute Ari moment for today: lately, she's begun to ask us to read to her. She'll come, book in hand and barrel her way into your lap, grab your hand, and put the book in it. Then, she'll insist on having you read the book to her over and over and over and over and over again, although she doesn't necessarily want you to read the pages in the same order all the time. Mixin' it up is more fun for her. :)

Today, I made her mad at me by only reading "We're going on a bear hunt" twice, and then insisting that I had stuff I had to do right now that wasn't sit and read a book... silly me.

It's a very small world

I've been staying up way too late. Last night, I did not write because I was up until 4 AM playing Serenity. Serenity was awesome, but I'm pretty tired today. :P I didn't get any costuming done today, mostly because I was being tired and lazy, but also because I was reading a book.

We did a little shopping, mostly for Thad's costumes, but also for birthday presents for Ari. We went to our very awesome local kid's bookstore to pick one out, but we left with four between us all. :) That bookstore's siren song did us in. Shopping there is way too fun.

Ari is ever more walking. Yesterday, she took several steps towards me. She doesn't walk so much as stagger yet, though, so it's not yet a viable form of transport.

Days till D*Con: 6
Costumes to finish: 1 and touchup

Wild goose chase

It's been a few days since I posted; our weekend was weird. It was weird mostly in that it was exactly like any other day of the week- my time has been sliced into these 5 and 2 chunks for so long that it's habit now. I find it very odd to have that disrupted.

We didn't really do anything with the weekend, in any case. Thad was working Friday, Saturday and Sunday, so it was extra not-weekendy. I did go to breakfast at a very nice place, and Thad went to his clix tournament.

Oh, and Theresa and George came into town today. They're staying until D*Con and hen heading out.

Anyway, I thought I'd post some pictures of Ari in her favorite places today. This is Ari sitting at my feet (see the shoes?) under the computer table. Thad taped all those tempting wires up so they're a little less tempting, and she likes to take a book and sit at my feet and read while I check mails or whatever.

As previously mentioned, this is Ari on the stairs. Since we put the pillows down, she's been glued to them like superglue! She can handle them really well nowadays, though. She hardly ever falls at all, and we've gotten to the point where we don't worry about her on the stairs now (given that we remembered to close the gate to the big stairs!).

I keep thinking that one of these days, she'll get tired of the stairs, but not yet! She's having way too much fun. This is where she spends most of her time when in the dining room lately.
This per se is not a favorite spot, but this idea is. She loves being under things. The crib, the table, the papasan, chairs, the rocking chair- she's always climbing under things and getting herself stuck. She's gotten quite a few head bangs by climbing under something and having difficulty getting out.

It's kind of exciting lately, because she's learned to duck her head down- leading to fewer bangs, hopefully.

She took three steps in a row today, and collapsed against the ottoman in the living room. Very exciting- I fully expect her to be a walker by Dragon*Con.

An unasked-for swimming pool

These pictures are actually from... not yesterday. The day before? How can it be Wednesday already? Anyway, Blogger got all... not-uploady, and I ended up going to bed instead of posting. On, I guess, Monday night.

Ari's been sleeping really badly the last few days- just fighting sleep. Tonight, she didn't get to bed until nearly 1 AM. If this confuses you, I fudged the time for it to be the right date. Like Brooke, I also feel that it's still Wednesday as long as I haven't gone to bed.

Once she gets to sleep, she's fine. It's just taking forever with a tired baby to get her to bed. Last night was about the same- she fought and fought and finally fell asleep on her daddy about midnight.

We went and got our new tags from the BMV today. For you Changeling fans, know that the BMV is a festering, seeping pit of Banality... after standing in the one line, to get a ticket to stand in the other line, to get a ticket to stand in the other line; plus assorted technicalities- it like to put us into the Forgetting.

Ari's really scary today. She took several unassisted steps (so says Thad- I missed it, although she was walking towards me). She also has utterly defeated our stairs blockade. She was past the blockades and up the stairs three times today- and I do mean, up the stairs. All of them.

We've put the gate back on at the top of the landing, and moved the boxes away from the bottom of the stairs (figuring that they pose more of a hazard for her if she can get past them). She's so much more capable and confident now than she was when we put those boxes up. I just hope that she's okay.

Thad took her over to the game store tonight, to check out the Pirates game, and let me stay home and make stuff. I made a few cool dice bags. I intend to try selling them some...