The special-ed guy

This picture is actually from yesterday night- Ari playing with her buddy Jaime! :) On game nights, she assumes that all these people are here to play with her... or do something with those enticing bits of plastic that no one will let her touch. One or the other.

Today, we mostly stayed home and cleaned up. I had planned for us to go out in the afternoon, but Ari actually napped- which, as it is really sporadic, I never plan for. She even napped for nearly three hours- I got to do some art projects and have a nice long chat with the Darren. I should, of course, have been doing schoolwork (for which I shall pay in sleep tonight) but it was very nice.
Thad came home after subbing, and just crashed out. He's in the middle of his three-shift stretch now, but at least he got a solid four hours' sleep- which is not nothing.

This is Ari in the dining room before I cleaned it... not that it looks all that different now. These days, I strive for "not a health violation" rather than "clean". There's just always going to be a certain amount of clutter. Like, today: I cleaned the bedroom. I pitched old newpapers, folded (and stowed) clean diapers, gathered dirty clothes for laundry (three loads today, baby!) and put some of my clothes away.

I did not, however, attempt to deal with the big pile of books Ari pulled off of her shelf... she can pull books off much faster than I can get them on. *sigh*

And here she is, playing next to the tupperware. She spent an inordinate amount of time doing this today. Funny thing- we've had a glue trap right where she's sitting for weeks. We finally managed to catch two (!) mice on it last night, and today is the day she wants to sit ovr there, now that the trap's gone. It's very convenient.

I finished some stuff for Halloween (although, not everything) and I made a dinner. Now, to finish school stuff and do some dishes.

PS: I had a really hard time picking which shot to put here... I usually take two or three shots of the same picture, babies being how they are. Anyway, and I take the best one- but they were all so cute! You can see the other two (I picked this one at random) here and here.

Snoring like my grandpa

Well, I worked today. I was half an hour late to class, which is always mortifying... Every time that happens (too often) I have to make myself go to class; part of me wants to just skip it rather than have to walk into class late again, and march all the way to the front of the room in front of everybody. I know probably nobody else cares (or halfway notices), but I hate being late. :(

I had delicious meatloaf leftovers in sandwich format for my lunch. I thought that meatloaf dish would make good cold slices on bread, and boy howdy, was I right!

Biggest thing for today, though, is that we finished the Pendragon campaign that we've been playing for a year. It was awesome. All the loose ends got tied up... and I do mean all- the knights had bit players from old stories (some going back to squiring) show up and demand satisfaction.

My character's sister was finally avenged (the plot of the story for 6 game years, a full real year), her son was returned to her, and she finally- after being twice widowed- found a decent husband who didn't die right off the bat. Sweet!

The knights all got dubbed Knights of the Round Table, by King Arthur himself (so awesome! *sniff*), and Broderick and Courtney were married at the same time. Broderick hied himself North to his lands above the wall (won in the Pictish wars), where he and his lady lived happily ever after with the grove of the Golden Rose. Axel (after doing a penance for some minor matters) settled happily into life with his lady. Ronan wandered the land for 6 more years mourning for Melangalia before finally settling down.

And we all lived happily ever after. :D

Sorry to go on about my character (so to speak), but it was really cool. I love it when a game ends well like that; particularly a game that we had so much time and great past gaming invested in.

A funeral service for your character sheets

So, I mentioned that Ari was teething last night... well, guess what happened? She woke up at 2 AM, and didn't go back to bed until about 7 AM. Then we proceeded to sleep until after noon, thereby missing the NWAV t-shirt photo shoot and also mama's workout.

Here's my girl walking up the stairs. She still won't attempt to go *down* the stairs, though, even if I'm there. I respect this greatly as evidence that she knows her limits. :)

This is Ari and her cell phone, wearing some of her new winter clothes that we got from the thrift store. I'm particularly fond of this shirt.

I don't know if we've had a pic of the cell phone yet... Ari's the first one in the family to have a mobile phone. :) She's forever trying to get at our friend's phones, so when Thad saw this one at Target, we decided to get it. It's been awesome, because when she starts going for someone else's phone, I can always say, "here's YOUR phone, sweety!" and distract her.

We didn't do much today... Thad didn't work, so I did get some schoolwork done. We also cleaned some. Mostly, I just spent the day in a bit of a haze.

I did make a delicious dinner- little meatloaves stuffed with creamy blue cheese and glazed with ketchup glaze. They were very tasty.

Then, Jaime came over and we played a game... it's been too long since we got to do that (mostly because Jaime's been out of touch since he moved).

And then, about 1 AM, Miss Ari decided it was time to wake up. Ah, well... at least it's Thad's turn to be up with her. I'm off to bed at last!

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...

Curse you R (and you too, Tcl!)

Well, here's all the pictures I've been meaning to post here for the last several days. :) This is Ari, asleep on her bed, two nights past.

I've just been busy, as always. School intervenes. The night I took this, I sat down, started writing, and literally fell asleep partway through. I woke up in my chair awhile later and just went to bed...

Lessee... Thursday was a work day, and nothing much to speak of. It was rainy and nasty. I slept through my alarm and missed my meeting with Brian.

Ari spent a bunch of time Friday doing this:

Like, for about 45 minutes, she was doing nothing but go from place to place in the kitchen and checking out what it looked like upside down. Funny girl.

Friday was actually a teacher work day- meaning, Thad had no work in the day. Boo, for our pocketbook, yay for our sanity. I went to school and made up my Brian meeting, and did a bit of work. I also folded a whole bunch of t-shirts.

The t-shirts are actually my design... they're not particularly exciting, but it is kinda cool to see something I drew mass-produced.

And Thad took this picture this morning. I don't remember Ari coming over to nurse, but evidently, she did. She thinks mama's nursies make great pillows! I think she always looks like a little plushy in her fleecy jammies. I just want to hug her right up!

Well, she makes for a really big, really wiggly plushy, I suppose.

Thad went to his clix tournament today, for the first time in a long while. Ari and I slept in (whee!) and then did some shopping for Halloween accoutrements- especially candies for the party. I just can't bring myself to buy standard candy... I had to go to the Whole Foods and buy dark chocolate covered things and organic gummy fruits.

I'm so looking forward to Halloween! Just 10 days! And then, I have to start planning for Thanksgiving.

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. :)

Cheeseburger in Deadwood

Frequently, on Tuesdays and Thursdays, I don't post pictures because I'm not home to take any. Today, though, Thad took some for me!

So, here's Miss Ari, having some breakfast. You'll note the absence of eggs on her plate- she scarfed them all up just prior to this picture.

I had a good day, but I missed my little girl... I gave a quiz, and didn't get nearly through everything I wanted to get through in my class. That actually makes me feel a bit like a real professor, though- although I suppose that particular feature is not something I should strive to emulate.

Here's Ari, sitting in a container again. She pulled a bunch of the blocks out so she could sit in there. I think she's just... experimenting. The other day, she was happily banging her head on the underside of the table, and got really mad at Thad when he put his hand in the way. *roll eyes*

Today, she really said "mama". Thad came and picked me up from work. As I came around the side of the car to get her and go inside, she flung out her arms to come to me and said, very clearly, "mama!"

Talk to the door

This is Ari this morning. She went, took all the clothes out of her drawer, and then decided to sit in it. The look on her face is because she's actually stuck, and I'm taking a picture rather than helping her out of her plight- I couldn't help it! It was too funny. :)

She's been all into sitting in things lately. The other day, I looked over and she was sitting in this mesh cube we use as one of her bookshelves. She was just sitting in there, no books, and holding her potato. Not even babbling or anything- just sitting quietly in a cube, holding her potato.

Her papa took her to the market today, and they gave her a balloon. It is her first balloon ever, and she spent all evening carting it around.

She lost her pumpkin, today- she was holding it while we waited for the bus, and she picked the exact wrong moment to drop it on the ground. It fell on the ground and rolled into the street just as the bus was driving up. No more pumpkin!

Tonight was the Changeling game, and she had great fun playing with all her friends. She spent a bunch of time playing with Jaime in particular. He kept rubbing the balloon on her head so her hair would stand up all funny. :)

Here we are together- she was nursing a moment before this. Like a monkey, as you can see. Why she wants to nurse one-legged is beyond me.

Cute Ari moment for today (beyond the previously mentioned ones):

As we put her to bed, she grabbed Thad's brimmed black hat, and was putting it on her head and dancing around. So, here's this baby in adorable dragon PJ's (thanks, Brooke! ;)), and a top hat on her head, dancing around on the bed. Awwww.... :D

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.

Somebody loves me

This picture is properly from Wednesday, but I just got to downloading it. There haven't been more recent pics, because I put the camera in the diaper bag thinking "I'll get some pics of her playing with Brooke while I work out for once!" Then, I promptly forgot about it, and didn't remember where the camera was until late today.

This picture is also kinda blurry... that's because, most of the time, I have exactly one try to get a shot before she starts crawling over to me trying to grab the camera... so I try to get it while she's not watching me, and hold it out of sight while it warms up, and then I'm inevitably mashing on the button going, "Take it! Take it quick before it's over!" Sometimes it works, sometimes not.

In any case, here she is doing a pants-on-my-head dance. It was totally adorable. For some reason, she likes to put things on her head lately... it's weird but kinda cute.

Today's been awesome. I got to sleep till 10. Ari napped well. She went to bed on time. I have done nothing useful at all. And I read a brand new Orson Scott Card novel. Today is just the day I needed to make up for the last week. :D

Cold snap

How little sleep can somebody have and still be okay? Thad and I are kinda pushing it. He's had 1-1/2 hours in the last 36, and I've had... 4? I'm definitely in not-safe-to-drive land at the moment. Ari is ripping up the latest Jo-Ann's ad on the floor next to me and I totally don't even care.

Thad has gone to bed (yay for him!) and I'm up with this baby. This baby who almost fell asleep and then struggled herself back to cheerful, burbling wakefulness.

Some random things about Ari right now:

• She loves to clap our hands. Like, she grabs our hands and smacks them together over and over again. She thinks it's hilarious.
• She still loves looking down on a mama or papa while being carried up the stairs.
• "Five little ducks" is no longer her favorite song... she thinks it's okay, but she doesn't care much about it anymore.
• If we ever fail to close the gate at the bottom of the stairs, she'll crawl up the first set of steps, wait until mama or papa sees her there and starts running over to close the gate, and then giggle and clamber up the stairs as fast as possible. It's like a race.
• She does this in the basement, too, when I do laundry. I end up stuffing clothes in as fast as possible, so I can run over, drag her back to me and stuff more in before the cycle begins anew.
• She looks adorable in her little strawberry cap.
  

Insinkerator of knightly doom

Check out my little huge giant (size 85, according to Pendragon)! She was helping us storm the castle.

She hung out with her papa today. She fell asleep in the car on the way home from the bank, and Thad was hanging out in the car reading when I got home from work, letting her sleep. ("'Cause I'm a good papa," he says.)

She was the belle of the roleplaying game... she had a grand time being underfoot while we faced our dire enemy, and rescued a baby.

Rescue the princess

Well... it's been a rough several days. I've been doing nothing but trying desperately to get work done. I actually started writing this post last night, and was too tired and out of it to fit sentences together coherently, so I put it off to today.

This is a picture of Thad and Ari at Skully's, the place near our house with tasty, tasty curly fries. We went there with R&B because I was too busy to try to cook, and we were really hungry. The service was incredibly awful, and it deprived me of more than an hour and a half of work time. Grrr. (Argh?)

I have hopes for next week, though- Thad will be working his new, better schedule and I have fewer assignments due then. I have to keep telling myself it'll be better, or I'll go spare. :)

This is Ari, trying calamari for the first time. It came, and she insisted on trying it. I ended up having to chop it into swallowable chunks- she was perfectly happy to chew on it (for ages), but with her two and a half teeth, she couldn't make much progress. Silly girl.

We went up to campus today so I could chat about schoolwork with some fellow students, and she got to see the ducks again. Mostly, she just played in the leaves all over the South Oval. Oh, and she tried to climb up an enormous tree. ???

So, just so you understand what I'm dealing with, this is the list of everything that needed to be done this weekend:

• Lecture for Tuesday
  
• Lecture for Thursday
• Homework for Phonology
• Homework for Phonetics
• Field Project Report for Phonetics
• Prep for In-Class Lab for Phonetics
• Grade massive stack of homeworks

This is the list of what still needs to be done:

• Homework for Phonology (due tomorrow)
• Field Project Report (due Thursday)
• Grading (mayhap not gonna happen this week- sorry, my students)

Argh. Well, I'm off to write up that Phonology homework.

The musky aroma of forbidden youth... and bacon!

Look at what I painted on my laptop case today! I didn't finish the bits off on the side... Ari woke up from her nap. :)

If you're wondering why I painted a lotus on my bag, it's a lotus because I'm a Sanskritist (loosely speaking), and I'm a linguist, and the lotus is pretty Indic. Also, there's a story where a goddess comes out of an enormous lotus and grants the gift of the Sanskrit language to a king- so it felt appropriate.

I got some work done today, although, not nearly as much as I might have liked. I spent the morning here and having breakfast at R&B's, and went to a studying at 4. More studying shall happen tomorrow- and it better be a mightiness of studying, 'cause I'm in trouble if it isn't. :P

So, I went to take this picture of Ari because I thought she looked super cute in her little jammies. As I snapped the picture, I suddenly realized, "Oh, crap! What does she have?" It was a little thrift store tag that was just hanging out on the floor. She's so good at finding anything I might have missed- cheerios, mummified bits of apple, STRAIGHT PINS... yeah.

Tomorrow, Ari and I are going over to the park if the weather's not sucky. There's likely to be some swings action. Whoo!

Sure, I can read Czech

I got a nap today! :D It totally started my day off right.

Lessee... Another baby Ari's age came over to play. They're almost at an age where they can play together, rather than in the same space. Today was also the first time that I saw Ari notice that another baby was nursing. And be jealous. :)

I cleaned up the house some more; it's no longer awful- just sort of untidy. I even vacuumed. Yay, having a functioning vacuum!

I went shopping and got tasty foods. Now, we have milk and bread in the house. And 58¢/dozen eggs! Oh, and today was Ari's first taste of blue cheese. I was sampling different cheeses at the Whole Foods, and she wanted to try some, so I gave her a little crumb. Poor little thing; it made her eyes water, and she made terrible faces. The cheese lady laughed and cut her a sample of a milder Italian cheese to take the edge off (which Ari greatly appreciated). I bet you, though, that she'd've eaten more if I'd given it to her.

I got some work done, as well. We've set me up a little mini-office in the spare room. More work will follow tomorrow.

A difference at last

This is totally not the picture I wanted to get. Ari was flouncing around all day in her cute skully shirt, with that cloud of golden curls around her head, grinning and smiling- and this is the only picture I managed to get. *sigh*

We got the skully at the Target- It was 3$ and I couldn't resist. It's incredibly cute on her. :D

On a sidenote- we went into the Target to look at Halloween decor. I'm planning a party, and they have kind of a cool Day of the Dead thing going on this year. Anyway, Ari got totally freaked out by the decorations. Who taught her to be scared of skeletons? It makes you wonder.

Last night, we had this incredible storm- it was raining so hard I couldn't see across the street, and there was walnut-sized hail (mostly marble sized, here) and bunches of lightning. Oh, plus tornado warnings, which meant the sirens were going. It was very apocalyptic-feeling.

We went into the basement, and one corner (a back one we don't use much) had water gushing into it- and, fortunately, straight into the conveniently placed drain that was right there. I just kinda looked at it and said "Um... okay. You keep doing that."

Thankfully, Thad got home from work right before the whole thing started- the streets were flooded, and hail+driving=suck.

Today, Ari used her elephant as a mighty steed. She and Thad had a lovely nap, so I hear. Speaking of sleeep, I'm off to bed early. I was up till 3 AM with a teething baby, and I'm hitting the end of my ability to function on no sleep.

It tastes like a rootbeer float

This is my baby eating veal and truffle ravioli. :D

It was Thad's turn to do dinner tonight, and evidently, he felt like being fancy, because he brought home fancy North Market ravioli. He and Ari went all around in the trailer again- it's awesome having it.

Today was mostly just work for me... I didn't get anything done in the evening (which is bad) so I'm going to desperately hope Ari naps tomorrow...

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

Replacement breakfast

Check out my little miss eating breakfast! She's a surprisingly neat eater. That's scrambled eggs, apple slices, and some toasted english muffin. You can't see the english muffin, because my little carb monkey is shoving it in her mouth with great gusto.

Anyway, she doesn't usually leave food on the floor, and she just about never throws plates, so I often just lay food out for her on a little plate (note for those at home: that's a very cute little grasshopper plate) and put it on a chair, where she can reach it.

Yesterday, I blinded myself- I went to the eye doctor to get an exam so that I can get new glasses to replace the ones that disappeared from my room at D*Con. At 15$ (my copay) I figured, I might as well get a new prescription.


Two hours and many very bright lights later, this is what I came home to. :D

Brooke watched Ari for me while I was gone, and apparently was a total sweetheart for her- and then fell right asleep in her lap. It was so cute, I had to take a pic.

We spent our evening yesterday helping Jaime move into his new place. Ari checked out the apartment very thoroughly for him- she even spent a bunch of time looking underneath the fridge.

Today has mostly been work for me. I did get a nice waffle breakfast at Rick and Brooke's (Jon Stewart included), though, which was cool.

More work now, and tomorrow. :P

I got owned

Ari and her papa went to the thrift store today, and apparently he couldn't resist dressing her like a little princess. :) She likes the dress, though. She actually spent a bunch of time standing on the stairs doing a squeaky, bouncy little dance and flouncing around.

Today was a good day for me. I had a good meeting with Brian, and then I had two classes, at least one of which was engaging and interesting. Then, I had a very pleasant dentist appointment- which lasted only about 20 minutes, so I had plenty of time in my break. The class I teach went pretty well, too, even though I ran out of time to cover all what I wanted to cover.
Here's Ari reading her sign language book that Aunt Eliza sent (we read it together, too- it's not too effective like this :D). Jaime came over, and we played backgammon and scopa together while she sat and read her books.

Later, she got up and watched us play- even though the board was in reach, she didn't knock anything over. She just stood and looked at things, babbling up a storm all the while. It was incredibly sweet.

She's eating so much now, that I'm really noticing a drop in how much she nurses. Boy, does she like food.

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.

Sword in one hand, surcoat in the other.

Ugh- I'm about to pass out. The days I work are just exhausting. I'm looking forward to being home tomorrow.

A complication with our current schedule is that the way Thad's work goes, I don't get any time to work on Wednesdays, so anything that I need to do in advance of Thursdays has to be done on Tuesday- so, I work 9 hours and then have to come home and cook/nurse Ari/do homework.

I think I'm gonna hope that Ari naps tomorrow, though, 'cause I'm not finishing this homework tonight!

Thad and Ari went out in the bike trailer today. They went all around the town! Thad rode over to a baby thrift store and bought her some adorable warm jammies, and went and deposited his paychecks. Then, he took Ari out to lunch at a noodle bar. They had pad thai, and apparently, she snarfed it right up with great gusto.

On another note, I've decided to stop pumping at work. I find I feel kinda strange about that... The other day, though, (last Thursday) I didn't get a chance to pump because of this and that, and I wasn't engorged by the end of the day. Ari must really be eating, because that definitely wasn't the case two months ago... just another sign of how she's growing up.

Of course, so is the rank, rank poop we've been getting lately. X-P

Every other day

I'm feeling all weepy and what's the word? Verklempt. Because I just watched this documentary about these guys who fostered SIX kids that no one wanted, mostly HIV positive kids, and couldn't adopt them because Florida won't allow gays to adopt. In fact, one of their kids wasn't HIV-positive after all, and when they found out (he was like, 3 at the time) the state of Florida immediately said, "Oh, really? Well, then, now we want him! Since he's healthy, he clearly needs a mother and a father both (unlike before), and you homos won't do."

One of their kids died, and back in the day, the expert opinion was that all those kids were going to die in only a few years. I can't imagine what kind of people would have the strength to keep taking in those kids, knowing (mostly wrongly, thankfully) that they'd just lose them, but not wanting those kids to die just having lived in hospitals. The whole thing just makes me want to kick Jeb! Bush in the everlovin' teeth. With some of Rebecca's steel-toed boots.

Anyway, sorry. That's not the point of this blog, right? But this wouldn't have meant as much to me before I had a child. I wouldn't have really understood in the same way...

Whoo. Um. Yesterday was uneventful. Jaime came over, and played games with us. Thad worked last night.

Today was cool because I got to go work out! Brooke met me at the RPAC in between her classes, and watched Ari for me for a 1/2 hour while I went and weight trained. It felt good to be working out, and it meant alot to me to have Brooke take her for that small amount of time. We're to meet again on Wednesday for that purpose as well. :D

Tomorrow I teach, and tomorrow is more Pendragon!

Everything tastes more delicious

Happy Autumnal Equinox! I hope your day and your night were adequately of equal lengths. :D

We did not get any nice french pastries this morning. Instead, we got to sleep until 11:00- I considered this a fair trade. We cleaned the house some, and I ordered my textbooks (180$- shock! dismay!) and we went for a walk with the girl.

We got outside and suddenly discovered that today was a home game- there were hordes of scarlet-clad people roaming the streets. I hear there's been a new public awareness program, attempting to get Buckeye fans to stop doing things like, y'know, rioting... harassing people... assaulting people... burning stuff...

I hope it works. Did you know that nobody's allowed to have couches on their porches in this town, lest they be used for kindling in a riot? I'm not making that up.

Speaking of kindling... we went over to R&B's to celebrate the equinox. Here's Rick trying to light a fire with wet wood and dryer lint. A copy of the student newspaper later, the darn thing finally started burning!

We had a delicious dinner:

• steak
• organic butternut squash
• apples, baked with butter and cinnamon and brown sugar
• lasagna
• warm challah bread

It felt very autumnal. In fact, the whole evening felt autumnal- it's been kind of cold this week, and today was no exception. It was grey and damp and chilly. Pretty soon, I'm going to have to break out with my tights, and my legs will never be bare (even under skirts) for the rest of the winter. :(

Ari enjoyed the baked apples, and the squash, and the challah bread, and the lasagna. :D

Thad went to work after we got hom, and then a scary thing happened- Ari fell down the steps again- but this time, she fell and hit the crate with her face, and she was bleeding! Alot, from her mouth. She got blood all on my dress. Five minutes later, she was smiling and giggling and going up the steps again, but I totally freaked about it.

I've always thought of myself as someone who stays levelheaded in such situations and who deals with what needs to be done, but so help me, I just started screaming "Oh, my god! Oh, my god!" when I saw all that blood. :(

I have glimpsed both her little teeth, so I think she just bit herself, or somethng. I think she's okay. But boy, was that scary.

Remember, remember

Well, I figured out why my baby was probably grumpy yesterday. She's been throwing up all day, and a little diarrhea as well. Never a fever or any other symptoms, but clearly not feeling herself (plus, y'know, vomit). She took two long naps, about 2-1/2 hours each and you know how bizarre that is.

It's been a hell of a week. I came home last night, and Thad was nearly comatose, sitting in the computer chair with an asleep baby strapped to his chest. I took her and sent him to bed. Then, he worked at a school today and did Shaintar tonight. Ugh. He did wake up for a few hours last evening, but we've barely seen each other. I'm going to try to have us go eat delicious french pastries tomorrow morning. We deserve it.

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.

Rest in peace, Melangalia

Well, you can't really see Ari's face here, but rest assured, she's really cute. :)

We did our big shopping trip for the month today; it was a big pain in that way that only three-hour shopping trips to big-box stores can achieve. Ari fell asleep in the car, and so I ended up doing all the shopping while Thad stayed in the car with Ari- particularly fun in the Sam's Club, what with 25-lb bags of flour and whtanot. She did get in about a two hour nap that way, which was good.

We got (among many other things) a new vacuum cleaner, so now we can clean our floors! Yay! Our old vacuum has been slowly dying for ages, so it's been a while since they were properly swept up- and we have an eater baby. Eeeew....

This is a shot from tonight's Pendragon game- we had a big fight. We pretty much lost. Ari spent most of the evening eating grapes and cheese and bread, and untying Andy's shoes over and over again.

Hmm... by, "we pretty much lost", just so this is clear, I mean "we all came within an inch of dying, and woke up in prison cells on our way to being handed over to our direst and most hated enemy."

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).