The turtle wants kisses

Check out my little crawler rawler! With a tongue she clearly got catty-corner from her Aunt Rebecca. ;)

Stuff from today:

We cleaned our living room (but the dining room is kinda horrible now)

We got a new loveseat. It was one of Brooke's (inherited from her papa), so we didn't have to spend money on it. Yay! This was to replace Thad's futon, which is now in the spare room, to replace Theresa's now defunct air mattress.

Look! Here it is. It's cushy.

You'll also note the Munchkin boxes sitting on the ottoman- they mark the Great Munchkin Truce of Ought-Six! For more than a year now (nearly a year and a half) Rick and I have been banned from playing Munchkin with each other because of constant bad feelings about it and fighting.

This has kinda sucked, though, and meant that we don't play much Munchkin in a group (since we game alot with R&B...). However, tonight, we hammered out a peace agreement, and had two pleasant games.

Nature in her mouth

We spent the day out at a park, and guess who forgot the camera? We went to the Gamer's Guild of Ohio annual picnic, and it kicked ass. There was much eating of charred animal flesh and much playing of games of all types. Ari had a lot of fun crawling all in the dirt and grass (guess who's getting a bath tomorrow morning?) and meeting lots of new people. I got many comments about how sweet and well-behaved she was, which was nice to hear. I can't really take credit for that, though- my daughter is just a sweet little girl. :D

We actually forgot all of our baby carriers, including our emergency-in-the-car sling, which was kind of shocking. We own 5 carriers (3 ring slings, a mei tai and a wrap), not counting the stroller and the trailer, and we didn't have a one with us! Fortunately, on the way over to the park, I had picked up a length of fabric from a mom in my group for making a sling out of, and that worked great just tied in a knot. Ari had a nice nap on her papa that way.

Tomorrow, I shall sew it into a nice ring sling to donate to a group of low-income moms-to-be that a different mom in that group is working with.

For a dollar

We had kind of an exciting day today! It was Thad's first day back subbing, so he was up and headed out early. Ari and I were actually awake before he left, so we all got started on the day by 8:00.

I've been trying to acclimate Ari to her bike helmet, and this was me trying to fit it on her head. As you can see, she did not approve. I took this picture for posterity and then took it off her. I can see her connecting that mama's helmet and her helmet are two of a kind, though, and she was more willing to at least think about wearing it after she saw me put mine on.

We had a good morning, and Ari actually took a nap in the early afternoon- she hasn't had a decent nap in the day for nearly a week now. :P

Anyway, I was glad that I had taken the time to fit her helmet on, because guess what appeared on my front porch? It had been backordered for about a month, and I was going to email the guy I bought it from today to ask about it. Huzzah, though, I didn't need to!

It was every bit as nice as promised. I'm really pleased with the purchase. Thanks, Eliza and Phil for the recommendation, and thanks Grandparents Porter for the gift! :D

Highlights: Unlike the ill-fated Schwinn trailer, this actually was easy to put up and take down. I was, in fact, able to do so without even looking at the instructions- it was that obvious. The seats are nicely padded, and Ari could just sit in them. Plus, they have a proper harness with buckles! I was able to set it all the way up, and get my baby in it, by myself in a minimal amount of time, with very little reference to the instructions- which was good, because I'm pretty certain that the instructions included weren't for our actual trailer...

Here is Ari, doing the eater-baby thing again. She's really taken off with solids- she's eating three whole meals a day (plus snacks) if you give her the chance, these days. And she's more than a beggar- she demands that people share their food with her, and sobs and tantrums a little if you don't, or if the food gets all eaten.

This is what she ate yesterday (that I can remember!):

1. bits of eggs
2. english muffin pieces
3. yogurt
4. peaches
5. broccoli
6. spaghetti noodles
7. sourdough bread (dipped in milky broth)
8. aged cheddar cheese
9. plums (delicious organic ones, actually)
10. artichoke dip (w/ more aged cheddar and some edam)
11. edam cheese
12. ziti noodles w/tomato sauce
13. more broccoli, steamed this time instead of boiled

And that's only what I can remember; god knows what else she actually ate. And she actually ate all those things, too- she didn't just mush them around or play with them. She particularly liked the artichoke dip, I might add.

Starting to breathe

Not much to write about today; school still looms. I've spent half-days at work the last two days trying to work on it.

Ari has gotten in a habit of waiting to nap until 5:30 or 6:00... this sucks, and I'm not sure how to discourage it. I think that her terrible napping is inherited from me, perhaps. As I think about it, I always remember not napping during the day, even as a very young child. I've always had trouble falling asleep for naps, and even when I do nap, I usually have nap hangover afterwards (a term which I've just introduced to the Urban Dictionary). Ari also acts pretty groggy when she wakes up for naps- and grumpy! Hoo boy!

The new organic grocery store 6 blocks away finally opened. Ari and I went over there today, and it was pretty awesome. They have really great prices on produce at the moment (grand opening prices only, I'm sure).

Sinful delights

Well, we took Ari to the doctor yesterday. I would have posted about it yesterday, but our internet died at an inopportune moment.

In any case, Ari is (as we knew) a happy and healthy little girl. She was really sweet about getting measured, even. She's 6 ounces shy of 20 pounds and... I don't remember, some inches tall. It was kind of funny- the doctor kind of frowned at me because on their charts (based off of formula babies) she had gone from 50th percentile to like, 20th. I asked, "are you using the old charts?" and at that point, the doctor admitted that, since she was breastfed, she was probably fine. I checked it later on the WHO charts (which take breastfed kids as the standard for health) and guess what? She was still on the 50th percentile, steady as anything. :)

I'm desperately trying to get my class together before school starts next week. :P I finished my syllabus today; tomorrow, I'm going to try to get some progress on my lectures. I hope to have the first 3 or 4 in the can before classes start, but we'll see.

Temperature issues

Guess what this is? This is Ari, listening to the dishwasher. The dishwasher is running, and she's just standing there, her little ear smushed up against the front, looking for all the world like she's trying to hear someone's heartbeat, or the distance to the band of orcs that has the halflings.

Today was the first of the last of Thad's consecutive days off for some time. He's off today and tomorrow (party!), but then he only gets singleton days off for several weeks. Singleton days hardly feel like they even count; it takes about two days for it to be worth it for him to try to go diurnal again, so the only difference is he's here late at night instead of the Target.

We also got the spare bed/loveseat moved into the spare room yesterday- FINALLY. Theresa's air mattress, which many of you have used and enjoyed, finally sprung a leak two days before Dragon*Con.

This meant that Thad couldn't sleep in the spare room after work, which meant that Ari and I couldn't hang out up there, which meant that a) Ari didn't get to hang out in her favorite place in the house, which was rough for us, and b) I never got to clean up after D*Con packing. So, the bedroom was a horrific mess and only got worse. But since Thad was sleeping in the spare room today, I was able to clean. Yay, mostly clean bedroom!

This is Ari playing with her blocks. She had great fun letting Brooke build towers and then knocking them down... it finally got to the point where Brooke couldn't even attempt to build the towers anymore, before Ari was trying to knock them down!

Ari loves the wagon for the blocks, too. At the moment, it's serving as a bookshelf for her favorite books.

And this is Ari playing with a spoon she got out of my purse. She went, rifled through my purse, and pulled this out- it's one of those long milkshake spoons. I had to take a picture; this was just too cute.

Tonight, she also discovered "pony rides"- you know, where you balance the baby on your leg and balance them up and down. I couldn't do them at all (my knees suck) but Brooke and Thad had great fun with it, and she just kept demanding that Brooke give her more horsey rides.

She's also showing more signs of talking. She definitely seems to know "mama", and she has been more and more imitating words that I say. It's very cool.

Stale Turkish Delight

Check out my lovely new casserole, there! That's the casserole that Kathy gave me for my birthday. It's holding a tasty shrimp-dill-artichoke-tomato sauce, topped with delicious and melty gruyere, alongside lightly steamed broccoli and some orzo.

Last night's dinner kicked ass. :)

This night we had beef stew with noodles, biscuits, and spaghetti squash. It was fairly tasty, and I love my own biscuits, so that was good.

You know, there's something just really right about loving a food that much and also being able to make it myself. It's like, if I had enough butter and flour, I could somehow reach a state of perfect Biscuit Nirvana- a perpetual state of Perfect Biscuitude.

Anyway, biscuits aside, here's Ari showing how much she likes that orzo dish. How many babies get to eat gruyere and artichokes, I ask you? She loved it last night, and she loved it again (as pictured) when I gave her leftovers for lunch. She was all grins and munched up a whole pile of orzo and sauce and accompanying veggies.

I'm regularly doing lunches with her lately, and it's turning out great. I get to eat lunch more often, and she seems to really like the whole meal sized things. I don't worry much (or pay attention much) to how much she eats, so they're pretty much stress free meals as well. I just put a pile of things on her tray and let her eat or play or whatever.

As for the rest of us, we're still decompressing from D*Con. We're still not totally unpacked, but it's progressing slowly. Thad's been working like crazy, but gets two days off now (his last two in a row for weeks). Target, predictably, started scheduling him for bunches of hours as soon as we didn't need them to.

Ah, well. Even if he can only stand working there a few weeks more, it's still extra money, which we could dearly use.

Is there such a thing as "blue ochre"?

Well, I finished uploading Dragon*Con pictures. Head over to http://changeling.shutterfly.com/ if you would like to see them.

Dragon*Con was very up and down- mostly down. We're still processing how we feel about it and whether we want to go next year or not.

Ari was a little sweetheart, though, mostly. After a while, the noise and the people would start to get to her (and her sleeping was all messed up, even though we were keeping her normal bedtime hours), but by and large, she had a blast wandering around in the sling or crawling around the gaming floor. I'm not sure what she'll be like next year, though.

In the picture above, she's playing with her new Ari book- the scrapbook I made her for her birthday. It has pretty stickers and things various people wrote for her- in addition to a picture per month of her life. She really likes it.

And this picture is of some of her very first sippy cup adventures. She hasn't yet figured out that you have to tip it up to get more out. :)

I think she's really going to do much better when I start back in the fall- papa will be able to feed her lunch, and give her water or mama milk in a sippy. Since her previous routine was 8 or 9 hours with no food or liquids, I'm jazzed about that idea.

Not to mention names, or anything

Guess whose baby is sweetly napping? Mine is! I fed her tuna fish and plums, and then I bathed her, and now she's asleep in her monkey bed upstairs. It was the first time I made her lunch- that is, the first time I made a whole meal specially for her (although I ate much of it myself, of course). Then, afterwards, (because she made a horrible mess) I took her upstairs, and she had her first ever bath in the big bathtub without mama being in there with her. I was sitting next to the tub, but I didn't actually get in. Exciting times. Now, for some catchup:

Ari's birthday

We had a nice, quiet party for Ari's birthday. We invited just a few people (people Ari likes, especially) and had food. We had bunches of fruit (big platters!) and also some barbecue pork. I made Ari a little scrapbook of pictures- which still needs finished- and asked people to write in it for her birthday. I think she'll like that when she's a little older.

She ate some fruit, and was generally excited to have all these people in her house to play with. She totally didn't get the concept of opening presents, of course, but we kinda "helped" her a little opening the paper, and let her grab the present out from the inside. She got bunches of books (which she loves!) and a few neat toys.

Then, we had the birthday pie! Everybody sang to her (and here's a movie) and then we gave her a piece. Before we cut the pie, though, she totally poached some of those raspberries off of it. I was reflexively about to stop her, but I figured, she's allowed to poach off of her own birthday pie. :) She was a relatively neat eater of her pie, which was really cute. Very dignified.

After pie, the birthday girl was pretty tired, so I took her up for her nap, and we stayed and hung out with people.

These are a few of my... things

We got back from Dragon*Con at 2 in the morning this morning, and Thad had to work tonight.

Theresa and George left after lunch, so we're all alone again (nice but a little lonely).

Ari seems to have a mild touch of Con Crud, so I'm nursing her as much as I can. She's also crazy wanting to eat. She demands to eat whatever I'm eating.

I've just been working on a cartoon that will go into the new version of the linguistics textbook that the department is putting out.

I promise I'll sit down and write about Ari's birthday and the con tomorrow (with pictures).

Five hours

Whoo! Packing for D*Con. Probably won't blog 'till I get back.

Check the "Family Photos" link for pics of the birthday party...

Solomon Grundy want pants too!

I've been up near to 3 the last two nights costuming... Ari's party was awesome, and I have great pictures. But, later... Sleep now. I know you must be waiting anticipatorily for them, though, so I uploaded one at random. Look! It's Ari playing with her new O-ball!

Days to D*Con: 2
Costumes to finish: Little touches on various different costumes (I may have stayed up to 3, but my sluagh costume is basically done, and looks awesome).

Startlingly tardy

This is what I came down to this morning. :) Rather than sleep, Thad went around and arranged this- this, and a Jack Buster (my favorite from Jack and Benny's). My man knows the way to my heart. :D

Ari ate that banana, too. Just about the whole thing. It was this enormous mushy gross mess. Ari and I took a bath right after.

If anyone recognizes the flower, let me know. It's a weird kind of flower, and we've spent all day wondering what it is.

This evening was my proper birthday dinner. We went out, and everything. You'll note, I succumbed to the temptation to wear my Inara dress. I was totally the fanciest-dressed girl at the Lone-Star Steakhouse.

I got many nice presents, including the pictured B&N gift certificate (Thanks, Mom and Dad!). Theresa gave me a beautiful skirt, and also a drop spindle and a hunk of wool! Now I'm going to have to bite the bullet and learn to knit, if only to do something with my pretty green wool.

As you can see, Ari was quite the little eater girl. She also played with her crayons, which was kind of cool. Back in June, I had her "make a card" for Father's Day, and she didn't have the concept at all of making marks on the paper deliberately. Tonight, while she wasn't good at doing it, she seemed to at least think it was something one could do with crayons. In between trying to eat them, at least.

I did get my two skirts basically finished. If I can just finish my shirt tomorrow, I should be good. Good luck to me, though- tomorrow is Ari's birthday party!

Days to D*Con: 4
Costumes to finish: still 1, still touches on 4.

Happy birthday to me

Well, today is my 27th birthday. I didn't really do much birthday stuff- Thad had to work tonight, so we're going out to dinner tomorrow night instead. We figured we'd open presents there, but I wanted to open one present, and the present Thad's parents sent was too big too take to the restaurant gracefully, so I went ahead and opened it. It's a Le Creuset stockpot! I tried it out on soup tonight, and it was awesome.

Thad did make me waffles this morning (afternoon, technically), and that was nice. It was kind of a slow day, all things considered, though.

Ari, unfortunately was pretty fussy today (this is her hugging her papa's leg, by the by). I just realized that I didn't mention this yesterday, but Ari had two horrible falls off the steps yesterday. The first time, she toppled off the top step (of three, if you'll recall) and hit the bottom step with her face, and then flipped over and hit the pillows at the bottom on her back. I was right there, but couldn't get to her in time.

She hurt her mouth, and it was bleeding, and I utterly panicked. I haven't dared look at it since, in fact. Specifically, she hurt that little bit of skin between her upper lip and her gums- I hope it just got hurt and not totally torn or anything (although that would be a kinship with Grandpa Marcus!).

The second time she fell, she missed the bottom step, but hit the pillows at the bottom head first- like, with the top of her head. She was totally vertical when she hit. It was horrible.

She's been up and down those stairs umpteen times since I posted saying that she had figured out how to get down safely, so I don't know why this happened. Twice. The moms in my group say that she's testing the boundaries of her environment, and trying new things. I think they're right, but it's terrifying! Anyway, I think she might have been kinda sore today, hence the fussy. She went to bed pretty easily, though (after crying her little eyes out about papa going to work, mind).

I did actually get some costume work done today; mostly during nap and after Ari went to bed. This is for my sluagh costume. The skirt still needs to be sewn up, but I'm waiting to do that last seam until I finish the embroidery on the other panels (I've just done the one so far).

It took me a while to figure out what to do for a top, but I'm quite pleased with the result- and I had just exactly enough fabric, too. It's a very nice vest thing. Now, I just have an underskirt, and a shirt, and finishing the skirt to do. Whee! I hope to finish by Sunday at the latest and have Monday and Tuesday to do my touches and get ready for the trip.

Days to Dragon*Con: 5
Costumes to finish: most of 1, touches on 4 more.

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

Squeak, squeak, squeak

August 22nd? How did it get to be August 22nd already? Time has just zoomed right past, and my summer break will be over before I know it.

Check out Ari, modeling her superhero pants. :) They are a little droopy in this picture, but I have since added elastic. I need to do the last touches on her costumes- I may do some of that during the car ride, though.

Today and yesterday were devoted to the Inara costume. I figured it out in my head yesterday day, but sat down way too late at night to start on it. I cut in the wrong places and had to completely redesign the whole blasted thing.

I still like how it turned out, though. it's got a bit of a train now (I'm not sure where it came from!) and it's a little more cohesive than it was originally going to be.

We had a lovely breakfast this morning, at a cafe down the street. They have an absolutely gorgeous garden in the back, and that's where we ate. Our waitress was very nice, and brought Ari some bananas and orange bits in a plastic cup, free of charge. :) Smart woman- Ari dumped that cup on the ground, first chance she got. But she liked the bananas and oranges.

Ari is totally an eater baby these days, by the by. This is the list of what she ate today:

• bananas
• oranges
• a cracker
  
• a vinegar/salt potato chip
• yogurt
• leftover orzo with tomato sauce
• feta cheese
• potato chips and onion dip
• several prunes

She particularly liked the prunes- like mama, like daughter! I gave her those, and she acted like they were the best thing she'd ever tasted. Big grins and all! She's also very much a beggar baby these days. :) When I was eating my shrimp leftovers for lunch, she came right up and demanded that I feed her my orzo. And then she cried when it was all gone.

Days till Dragon*Con: 8
Costumes to finish: 1 with any seriousness, 4 more that just have touches left.

Jack? Pallino? Panini?

Today: Baby costumes!

I worked on Ari's costumes today. None of them are totally done, but they're all mostly done. On the right, we have Ari's monster costume. This is to accompany our monster-hunter redcaps. But how could we kill a monster this cute? This costume is made possible (and extra awesome) by a custom dye job from a mom I know. I gave her a onesie and a scrap of white broadcloth and shabang! I have fabric all dyed to match. I think having access to custom-dyed fabric is WAY too much power to give a costumer. :D

I could have tried to do this costume from scratch, but I got the onesie for 1$ at the thrift store, and I figured it would be more comfortable for my little girl to wear- which is of vital importance! I'm not making her wear anything she objects to.
This is Ari as Sandy the Golden Boy. The costume's half finished-although I did finish the outer-wear underwear after she went to bed. Mostly I need to figure out how to do boots... Do I do spats? Booties? hack off the existing feet and redo them? I must think.

After Theresa and I did some sewing today, we had a nice time playing Bocce in the little park across the street. T&G beat us both games, but it was close.

Thad, bless his heart, went to bed at 11 AM, determined to wake up again in a few hours. I actually tried to wake him at 1:30 (per his instructions) but he was completely insensate, and didn't wake till 5:00. I was having conversations with the man, and he didn't remember them, he was so out of it.

Anyway, he worked again tonight. Ari's been crazy fussy most of the day (it's been making me batty) and she didn't go to bed until midnight. Thank god, Theresa's been here. Otherwise, being alone with a fussy baby all day would have really sucked. And, more importantly, I wouldn't have been able to pull together the delicious flaming cheese and seafood dinner that I served tonight.

Well, I thought it was delicious, anyhow. I mean, how can anything with near a pound of shrimp and a whole cup of feta cheese be bad?

Working days till Dragon*Con: 10
Costumes to finish: Still 7... but 4 of those are in wearable shape, if not completely finished.

Up the front, or round the back?

Today, I actually got some costume making done. Nothing amazing, but something. To the left, we have a corset-style "dragonskin" top, with a buttload of lacing. This thing is so hot it isn't even funny. Ah, how we suffer for fashion's sake. This is part of the redcap monster-hunter costume.

We were supposed to take some of our stuff over to R&B's for a garage sale this morning, but that totally fell through due to rain and associated happenings. We're hoping to do it tomorrow, instead.

Thad ended up sleeping until 5 today, too, because I couldn't wake him up without waking up a sleeping baby.

By the by, I got all what I got done done while the baby slept. God knows there was no way I was going to be able to do it while she was awake.

This is the fur-trimmed cape that goes with the top I just showed. I'm also wearing cargo pants and fur-trimmed boots. Yay, bunnies! It looks pretty good, but I think I need a new cap for it. My existing red cap just isn't doing it for me.

Ari took a very late nap today. She's definitely teething again- she's very on-again-off-again fussy, and her sleep schedule is pretty messed up (note the "baby happy fun middle of the night playtime" episodes we've been dealing with of late). When she finally woke up, though, she was a sweet and happy girl who made surprisingly little trouble in the sewing room.

We went for dinner at R&B's- apparently, they got a really good deal on steak and decided to throw a party. There was steak, and some really good corn, and roast potatoes, and garlic bread, and bunches of good fruit to go with. It was a really stellar meal, and Ari had a great time (as did we). She ate a little of everything except the corn and the steak.

And the ticker...
Working days till D*Con: 11
Costumes left to finish: 7

A distinct lack of beignets

Today was another nothing day... I totally failed to work on costumes, for the most part. I worked an itty bit on redcap, but otherwise... Thad was up with her in the night, and slept all day. And worked tonight- so he wasn't around. I may ask Thad to take her away on Wednesday, so I can just focus on getting things done.

It's weird, but I find it really hard to work on things, just because I can't focus. I remember reading a science fiction story once where there was an obsession with making everyone equal. In order to level the playing field, really smart people wore and earpiece and a horrible loud noise would go off every minute or two, to keep them from being able to concentrate. It feels like that. Every minute or two (or more often!), I have to do something baby oriented, and it's really hard for me to get anything done on large projects. :P

Anyway, this is Ari, trying out a spoon. She seems to understand that spoons are food related now, and she kinda wants to try it out. We thought about getting baby spoons, but they were weird and expensive, and I'm not sure why they're good. I am doing research and shall decide what to do about this. :)

Working days 'till D*Con: 12
Costumes to finish: 7 (J redcap, J sluagh, J Inara, A monster, A Sandy, A bunny, T redcap)

A fine stallion

Here's my baby, reading. She's really starting to get use out of the swing Thad's Uncle Max gave her when she was born. Well, to be fair, we did use it a fair amount as an infant seat (it's all convertible), but she never got super into it as a swing, and the swing bit has long been retired into the basement.

We left the chair (as a rocker) up in the living room, though, and in the last week it's become a favorite spot. Check out her reading her book upside down there!

Anyway, we went around walking today. We got Thad a shirt for his Wash costume, and got some comics.

Here's Ari again, sitting in her chair like a big girl! She's also playing with her elephant (that Grandpa Marcus gave her), finally fixed at last. Thad got tired of it sitting on my mending pile and just did it himself.

Ari was really sweet today; she liked going for a long walk with us, and she went to bed relatively easily. She had couscous and peas for dinner- yum! We did not give her the chicken we also had. She is becoming such an incorrigible beggar. At some point, she's going to have to learn manners...

People came over tonight, and we played Changeling. It was pretty fun, if a bit chaotic. We played in the living room, which (while more spacious) was also kind of hot and busy. Ari crawled all around and played with everybody- which she loved. She really likes it when people are down playing with her.

D*Con countdown: 2 weeks. Costumes to go: a bunch!

You won

Been a busy couple o' days, hereabouts. Today, we spent six hours shopping for costume stuff, and we didn't even finish. The costuming gods were with us, though, and we totally scored. The best surprise find? A starfleet uniform jacket, for TWO DOLLARS. With insignia, and pips. It was on the women's blouse rack at the thrift store. I can only assume that somebody parted with that sucker unwillingly (A geek died? Their mom cleaned out their closet while they were at school?) and the thrift store employee somehow had not heard of Trek and had no idea what they had.

I'm not sure what we'll do with said jacket, but worst case scenario, we e-Bay that puppy.

Anyway, we came home with great stuff. I have the makings of an awesome Inara costume now, and my Dian Belmont costume is done. The monster hunter costume is coming right along. I got the best pants for it, and I also found some good shirt stuff and fabric for it today.

Ari was the sweetest girl in the universe today. She came with us on our long trek, and was nothing but happy and nice for us the whole day. She got a little fussy right before bedtime, but she went to sleep happily. And so shall I now.

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.

Those were dice bags, by the by

My brain is starting to go bibbledy with no day to day schedule... I look up and I can't remember what day it is, or how many days have passed.

Today, we had another playgroup. Ari was really tired by the end, and just cried all the way home (although she passed out immediately with some nursies and cuddles).

She's been up and down the stairs all day. It's been driving me a bit spare. She's not quite got the hang of getting down safely, so it's meant that one of us has to either hover over her, or try (quite in vain, I assure you) to prevent her getting at the stairs altogether. Or just spend all our time upstairs.

I finally put some big pillows at the bottom of the stairs this evening, after Thad left. Me not hovering seemed to help- she went up and down the stairs safely four times in a row! And she did fall a couple times, but the pillows did their job, and she was totally unhurt. I think she just needed to not feel like mama was waiting to grab her.

Hmm... I should emphasize: when I say "stairs", I mean the three steps leading to the landing. The stairs proper are blocked by a gate. I swear I'm not letting my baby fall down a whole flight. :)

Butterfly on her butt

Ari and I went to a playgroup today! It was a really nice time. It was not too hot out- kinda muggy, but not hot. We went to Janessa's house, which is like, Kid Paradise. Naked Kid Paradise, specifically. :)

She had some water tables, and swings, and some kid pools, and a sandbox, and some more baby-style toys as well. Ari had a great time playing by herself and with other kids. There were like, more than a dozen moms with associated kids all around. It was awesome. I even got some hand-sewing done while I was watching Ari climb on things.

This is what I was working on last night and today- I have plans to make a few more for selling. Like the hand-sewn applique? I really need to learn how to do this with the machine. Anyway, I was mostly working on the embroidery on the blue pouch today. I hope someone likes them enough to give me money for them; that would be nice.

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...

We get up at noon, and go to work at one

Well, we got the fridge cleaned. And the kitchen... And then I ripped up the living room, and the dining room is messy again per usual. It's never-ending. Ah, well- both rooms are in much better shape than they used to be, current messes not withstanding.

Ari was up at 5 AM, back to sleep at 7 and then up again at 9. She had two naps, but ended up staying up till 1 AM (aka, a little while ago). I can only hope she sleeps to a decent hour tomorrow.

She was pretty fussy/needy today, and that sucked. She didn't want to be held, but she didn't want me to do anything interesting, and she wanted me on the ground with her. If I had just sat on the ground doing nothing for hours, she would have been in heaven. Ah, well- she was a tired little girl. It's allowed.

PS: she loves her new bed! :D

Flash his ass at the gorram law

We have a clean house! All that remains is to finish the thrice-damned refrigerator. And the basement. That's still not quite finished from last week.

Ari and I went to mom's breakfast in the morning, and then we went over to the Whole Foods. Ari's just about outgrown mom's breakfast, though- she's not quite a walking baby, but she's mobile enough to get grumpy if I prevent her from moving around for too long.

She fell asleep in the car on the way home, and I went to elaborate trouble to get her in to her bed still asleep- and then she woke up 10 minutes later. She didn't nap at all later in the day, either.

After Thad got home, we went into cleaning mode, and it looks pretty good now. Tomorrow is for cleaning the fridge, finishing the basement, and vacuuming floors.

After we finished cleaning, I made dinner and we played games. This is Ari eating the mac n' cheese and broccoli we had for dinner. She's such an awesome eater these days. And with only two teeth!

On that note, she had her first semi-solid (shakeable) poop today. Eeeeeeeew.

Old Maid

Guess what this is?

That's our baby, sleeping in her own bed! By "sleeping in her own bed" I of course mean "in her own bed which is directly adjunct to mine", so it's not like she's off down the hall. But I'm thinking that this will be a nice intermediary towards that. And, most importantly, everyone will have space to sleep in.

We went over to the Norka Futon today, and very much surprised the saleslady by walking in and announcing directly what we wanted- "we'll take a 6-inch foam core twin," we said. I think she was shocked at being deprived of the opportunity to give a sales pitch. We did end up having a conversation about it, and lying on some beds. Ari thought that store was the Best Place Ever, and was crawling around like crazy and trying to climb up onto the beds.

Here's a shot of the whole room, in its new configuration. This is what I spent my evening doing while Thad was at Shaintar. You can't see the pile of plastic, displaced pillows, baby blankets, and cosleeper parts that's behind me in this picture...

After we got the mattress, we had to get sheets. We splurged for monkey sheets, and I was actually glad we did it! She seemed to really be drawn to the brightly colored pictures. Since I was trying to help her like being on the bed, the monkeys were a big help.

We nursed several times on the new bed, but in the end, I email-checked her down to sleep†. ??? I think she's feeling kind of teethy lately- I've had to give her Hyland's to get a hurty crying baby back to sleep two nights in a row.
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†Held her in my arms and let her snuggle and pass out there while I check email/chat to keep myself awake and sane. It works better than trying to do this upstairs because a) I'm more patient when I have email, and b) upstairs she'll get down and play. Here she'll stay in my arms till she passes out.

The days melt together

Well, we got the kitchen mostly cleaned today (and by "we", I mean "Thad") and we got the bike trailer packed up to return (and again, by "we", I mean "Thad", although I did mostly wrangle the girl so he could get it done. Which is a contribution.) although we didn't actually get 'round to returning it.

The living room is a horrible mess, and it's the kind of mess that I can't deal with quickly- it's stuff that doesn't have a place. That is, leftover basement stuff that I haven't figured out where it goes. That's the worst kind of cleaning, because you have to think about every single thing you put away. So, the living room remains a mess.

The dining room is a mess because I feel disheartened about the living room (plus a little of the aforementioned basement stuff issue), the kitchen is a mess because Thad's been working, and the bedroom is a mess 'cause... I d'know, I'm lazy? I think I'll try to get the bedroom in a liveable state at least tomorrow.

Check out Ari trying to get to mama through the gate! We spent quite a while playing gate peekaboo during dinner preparations today. She thought it was hilarious- she laughed and laughed. Other things my baby thinks are funny:

1. Papa trying to wear his glasses (silly papa- those are a baby toy!)
2. Being taller than mama- higher than me on the stairs, being held over me, whatever
3. Tummy blurbles
4. Mama dancing
5. Papa making funny voices

Ari ate chili today for the first time; I hope it agrees with her. I smushed the beans in half and also fed her some of the broth. I wasn't going to give her any, but she demanded that I share whatever I was eating. She was dubious at first, but then she ate and ate. She even ate a little piece of bread (with gusto) along with the chili. I had to cut her off after a bit because I was worried about the effect of the acid and spice on her little system.

In kind of gross news, her increased (and rapidly increasing) intake of solids is starting to show- the last two poopy diapers I changed have smelled funky and had peanut-butter consistency poops in them. Eeeeew.

Avoid Schwinn like the plague

Today sucked.

We slept funny, for starters. I got to bed at four AM (for various reasons I won't go into) and I couldn't wake up, couldn't keep my eyes open when Ari woke up at 7. Around 8 (after nearly an hour of trying to fight my way to consciousness) Thad woke up and took her. Then he let me sleep till 11- which was lovely, but hard on him. Then him and Ari went to sleep. Ari slept till one, and Thad slept till 3. This meant that he didn't get to spend his day off with us. It also meant that Ari's only nap was rather early in the day.

The only thing that passes for useful that we did today was go buy a bike trailer that we hated so much we have to pack it up and return it... by everything I could find out about it, it seemed like it would be good, but it wasn't. It wasn't to the point that I'd've been concerned for Ari's safety if I put her in that thing. And I hurt my hand assembling it.

Ari did go to bed at nine sharp, but the house is such a godawful mess (trailer crap in the living room, basement crap all over the dining room, my sewing stuff still uncleaned, the kitchen an unholy mess from yesterday's fooding still...) that I can't bear to face any of it. Instead I've spent two and a half hours futzing around on the internet feeling like a loser.

Pfeh. I'm going to try to be in bed by midnight- at least I can try to do that right.

Joss Whedon in the credits

Happy harvest, y'all. :D

Not much to say. Thad slept until the afternoon. Then, we went over to talk to someone who talked to us about baby carriers. Then, we went shopping in order to get foods for our harvest feast. We got a very nice loaf of bread from the french (style) bakery down the road from us, and I made a biscuit-top chicken potpie. And we had corn on the cob. Mmmm.

Then, I came home and cooked like a maniac! Food was delicious- Jaime commented that my potpie tasted "healthy". I was like, it has mass quantities of butter- how can it be healthy? He pointed out that his only prior experience with potpie was store and frozen ones... By those standards, it really was the friggin' Mona Lisa of potpies! Well, maybe not the Mona Lisa, but I'm a bit giddy, so I hope you'll excuse the hyperbole.

We had Pendragon tonight. We managed to retrieve the Golden Rose (at long last!), and we found Broderick's rival wandering around, nekked and crazy, in the woods. Anyway, we (and by we, I mean the knights) finally got the Golden Rose from the forest, and who should we find just outside the border, but a legion of Sir Garrowin's knights? This would be, gentle readers, the knights of our most hated foe.

And then Thad ended the game. AAAAARRRGGGGGH!!!!

How does he expect me to sleep for the next two weeks, with that cliffhanger?

NOTE: apologies for, like, all y'all who have no idea what the hell I'm talking about. Trust me. It was awesome.

A word with three doubled letters in a row

Monday, Monday. I was up until 4:00 in the morning due to insomnia, but I got to sleep till 10. When Ari and I came down, Thad was still up. He'd done the dishes and he made me breakfast. The downside of that was that he slept until 6:30 in the evening, and then had to leave for work at 9:30.

I got a fair amount done today- lots of fiddly bookkeeping things, laundry, dealing with getting the car fixed.

Regarding the car; there's nothing much wrong with it (and there darn well shouldn't be!)- just that the passenger door won't open from the inside. And a little thing involving the gas cap door. Anyway, Alternative just fixed those things for us. It involved Ari and me going over there a few times, to drop off and pick up the car- it felt kinda silly having to drive a single block, but what are you going to do?

Ari had her first taste of ice cream (homemade vanilla praline- thanks, Max!) today, and that was pretty cool. She really liked it, too! I had to eventually tell Thad to stop giving it to her, or she would have just kept eating it. :) She also ate today: some plum, some corn (removed from its skin†) and some spicy chicken flavored whole grain couscous.

Also, as long as we're on the topic of food- she had the rankest smelling poop in her personal history today. Boy, howdy, am I glad she was inclined to start solids late.
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†Why do I bother peeling individual corn kernels? Corn skin poop. I think I need say no more.

Munchkin winning streak

Today was a nice day. I got to sleep in until 11:30 (ah... blessed sleep that I'm not getting right now), which was really awesome. Ari got two naps! Decent length naps, too!

On a side note, I've been saying for ages that Ari would probably sleep through the night if I wasn't working (and therefore causing her to have to eat all night long). Well, I was 100% right about that. The only time she's woken up in the night in the last week is sometimes when I go to bed (because I disturb her) and about 7:00 in the morning, at which point she nurses and then sleeps till 8:30 or 9:00. I really want to get a smaller size mattress and try putting her on that, instead of having her in our bed. A queen is just way too small for three, and all of us are feeling it. Plus, it'll probably make the transition to her own room a little easier, when we eventually get to that stage.

This afternoon, we went over to Jaime's to make use of his swimming pool. :) Ari just loved it. The first time Thad tried to take her out of the water to dry off, she cried and tried to leap out of his arms back in the water.

Last time we went swimming, she mostly was a little barnacle on me or Thad, but this time, she really got into it. She splashed and kicked and generally had a super time. Check out Thad helping her "swim" there while she holds her floaty d6 in one hand. :D

And here we are, finally getting dried off (d6 still in hand). Thad's farmer's tan is very much in evidence here. ;)

Ari arrived home totally tuckered out from her swimming experience. She didn't go to sleep until well after 11, though. She just spent ages flopping around the bedroom in a state of exhaustion. Fortunately, it was that "I'm so sleeepy" kind of exhaustion. and not a "I'm so tired!" kind of exhaustion. The latter always makes her grumpy, and this was just a sort of good natured flopping around.

Finally, she fell asleep in my arms peacefully, not even any nursing, and was totally out when I took her upstairs to bed. I was able to just lie her down without any fuss.

Mystic ninja (with claws and flames)

We spent all day cleaning up the basement (thanks, all y'all who helped)... it's not quite done still. I took some "before" pictures, but I'm not quite ready for "after" pictures yet. Probably tomorrow. Anyway, not much to say about today... We spent alot of time cleaning. Picking things up; organizing them, throwing things away. We moved so precipitously after Ari was born that everything just kinda got shoved in there and left (remember that, Mom?). It was beyond High Time for it to get cleaned out.

Ari's been utterly refusing to nap the last couple days... I don't know what's up with her. No nap yesterday, no nap today.

You know something I love about her though? I love how, when she's falling asleep at the breast, she hums, just a little, into my boob. It's startlingly adorable.

Tomato soup on my baby's face

Well, here (finally) is a picture of our new car, Zorya. She's a little Ford Escort who would really like us to get our butts over the the BMV and get her some real license plates, instead of this tacky temporary stuff she has to put up with now.

I'm very much more coherent than I was this morning, but I'm still kinda having a hard time keeping a straight thread of thought going in my head. Given the aformentioned 3-1/2 hours of sleep (no nap, alas) this is not overly surprising.

This is Thad keeping his baby on a leash. They were having so much fun. :) She was pretty playful today, despite not napping for any significant period of time and only having gotten four hours of sleep the night before.

She particularly got great amusement out of being taller than me when Thad held her. We noticed this when he carried her up the stairs and I followed- she got one look at me and was consumed by giggles! Sweeet baby giggles...

She also got scared for the first time that I can remember today. The story goes like this:

Our landlord came today to replace our air conditioning units upstairs, which is a great relief (let me tell you) because it's been as hot as a tamale-festooned rattlesnake in Hades up there. Well, not really, but I kinda liked coming up with that image.

Really, the air circulation up there just kinda sucks (alas) and we're lucky that it's actually been fairly cool and kinda rainy the last few days. Anyway, out of a desire to get out of our landlord's way, and also to eat food without having to try to cook in our zombified state (tired+fire=bad), we went for a walk and to get some lunch.

Post-lunch, we were wandering past this vintage shop and decided to go in and kill some time. Thad went and looked at trenchcoats (something he's been doing without much luck for a couple years now) and actually managed to find a decent looking one (with a liner and everything) that actually fit him! He decided that This Is The Year to finally do the Sandman costume he's been wanting to do, so we went over to the Army surplus store to get him a gas mask.

Sidenote: This is going to be an awesome costume! I'm going to be Sandman's girlfriend/partner, Dian Belmont. Ari is going to be Sandman's eventual sidekick: Sandy the Golden Boy. It won't even be that hard to put together, and the ensemble will look awesome. Plus, we'll have Baby Costuming Power, and everyone knows how potent that is!

Anyway, we got home, and Thad started putting on what he has for the costume (he lacks only a tie and an appropriate gun) and when he put on the gas mask, Ari started acting frightened! She was crying and trying to get away from him and crawling into my arms. Of course, as soon as he realized what was happening, he took the mask off so she could see it was him- but I don't think she can really remember "it's Daddy under the scary bug mask" yet.

We had a nice (if kind of out-of-it) day. Thad even let me go out with some mothers from my mom's group, all by myself.

Grapefruit hair

Ari's sleep has been very messed up of late. She woke up in the middle of the night last night and was up nearly till Thad got home. I didn't get to sleep at all till then. Ari woke up after only four hours (I only got three because I waited for Thad to get home and then we talked) so I'm a zombie.

I'll do a better update later. Maybe I'll get a nap inbetween now and then.

Morning food and the North Broadway exit

Sorry yesterday's entry was so disconnected... I was pretty loopy by the end. Ari didn't get to sleep until four in the morning. She was back up at 10 AM, and wouldn't nap (fought and fought) until about 2:30 PM, when she finally succumbed to the power of the booby. She did get a decent nap at that point (2 hours) but that was her last nap for the day.

It was another nothing day, but we had a nice evening over at a friend's house. She has two walking around (running around? :D) boys and a little girl with the new-baby smell still on. We had a nice evening, with dinner and kids running around. It was really cool to watch Ari playing with her boys (who have awesome names, by the by- Johann and Sheamus). It was the first time that I've seen Ari actually play with other kids. She wasn't just playing in the same space as those boys, she was actually playing with them... at least a few times.

It was also neat to see someone parenting older kids like that; it's kind of a mental disconnect for me, how Ari is now vs. how she will be. Up 'till recently, we've very much been in that little baby space where she can't ask for things she doesn't need, and I just get used to giving her everything she asks for. She's not in that place anymore, and it's just going to get more and more complicated... Ah, well. I just trust that I'll figure it out somehow when the time comes. Patience, and calm, and a sense of humor, right?

I think this week has been my official First Week of Summer- I remember when I was in public school still, every summer, I spent the first week doing nothing much. I watched TV... read... laid about... And then, the "nothing much" got to me, and I had to start doing something useful. I think I needed the "nothing much" for a little while, but it's time to get to doing things before I go spare!

Sir Quintain

Well, it's two in the morning, and guess who's awake? I think the timestamp claims it to be earlier; I sat down about two hours ago to start writing an entry, and the girl fussed (which is fairly usual), but wouldn't go back to sleep (which isn't).

I blame the heat in our room- that room gets pretty hot even when the outside isn't, and the only thing that keeps it liveable is the air conditioner unit- which busted this afternoon. Just gave up the ghost altogether. Our landlord is going to bring us a new unit soon.

She's been really sweet of late- check us out reading in the picture! She loves that faces book Cheri gave her.

Ari's so much fun. Today, we were all three lying on the couch, and she just kept giggling while her papa tried to teach her how to do an evil villain laugh (unsuccessfully, I might add). Oh, and on the food tally, today she ate: a piece of black olive, a piece of pasta from some pasta salad, some persian melon, and some waffle fries.

She really liked the olive, too! It was so cool to see.

Wet fuzzy baby

Ah- at last, the quiet of an asleep baby.

We didn't get as much done as I might have liked today (again), but there was exciting stuff. We took Ari to the pool today and tried out her swimsuit. She looked really cute (I cursed my forgetting of the camera!) and had a pretty good time. She was totally willing to splash around- the only thing is, she's too young to learn to close her eyes on command yet, so she can't deal with water in her face. We have the same problem with bathtime hair rinses.

Thad also got to meet some of the moms in my mom's group at the pool. That made me happy, but I think he was whatever about it. :) I guess it was a whole lot of, "who are these people I don't know?" And "Holy estrogen, Batman!" for him.

Ari fell asleep in the car on our way to the Walmart. We had intended to shop but ended up only getting spare car keys made. Thad went in to do this while I waited in the car with an asleep baby- and then he waited while I took the non-functioning keys they made back in to be remade.

Ari passed out again around 7 o'clock- definitely on the late side for a nap. And by passed out, I mean, sitting upright in my lap asleep passed out. I literally couldn't wake her up again. She woke up at 8:30 with her papa, and therefore I had some trouble getting her to bed.