This is Ari, learning about the correct way to care for babies. ;) She's very serious about it, as you can see.
She is currently on my lap, eating an apple (a current favorite food) and preventing me from typing. I think she's interested in the picture of her; she keeps pointing at it.
Aaah- she's gone off in search of toast.
Yesterday was me working and then Pendragon. We had a really good dinner- chicken and couscous, and these cheesy phyllo things I made (still using up the phyllo from Solstice!) that were incredibly delicious.
Ari has really been very verbal all of a sudden. She knows the word "ball" (video to follow), and she definitely knows the sign for "diaper". She was trying to do the sign for "ball", as well! And she was saying "dice" again, too.
As promised, Ari says "ball":
Since I'm thinking about it, Ari's current favorite foods:
Apples, but only in large chunks- halves or quarters. No slices.
Couscous (which is an incredible mess; but she loves it)
I have no pictures from today, so here's one that I meant to post a while ago and never did. :) This is her chasing her animals around and around the room in circles. It was pretty cute.
She's been using some new words today, which is exciting! She's said "ball" (well, "ba", but you know how it is) on three separate occasions. She also really clearly signed "diaper" tonight while we were changing her. Yay!
We went to meeting today. Ari loves the first day school room there. She had great fun playing with a Buckeye colored football.
Also, it snowed again. But only that really fluffy snow that melts really quick.
Wow, it's been a long time since I updated this. I'd like to be better at it again- it's just been hard for me to find a groove with it since I can no longer consistently count on having evening time to write.
Take this entry- I started it on Friday night by uploading pictures. Then, I managed to start writing it Saturday morning. Now, it's Saturday evening and I'm sitting down and writing again.
Ari is growing by leaps and bounds all the time. We're having some sleep problems lately- getting her on any reasonable kind of sleep schedule, mostly. It's very frustrating, because we'll finally get her to nap and go to bed on time for two days in a row, and then she'll randomly wake up in the middle of the night (and then stay up all night) and we'll be right back where we started, with a baby who won't nap till 6 pm and won't go to bed until 1 and is grumpy and tired all the time.
This is a picture of Miss Ari, having scarfed off with a chunk of blue cheese. :D I was making her some dinner, and she was acting really hungry, so I was trying to be quick about it. Next thing I knew, she'd snaked her little hand up to the table, yoinked the block of blue cheese, and had run off with it. Then, she proceeded to totally munch it down. Like, taking big bites and everything. I mean, I like blue cheese. I really, really do- but I don't know if I could eat that much straight blue cheese myself! Thad and I were laughing too hard to take it away from her right away, and then I had to take a picture. My baby is a hard-core cheese lover.
Here is Ari playing with her buddy Jaime. For whatever reason, some of our friends are Ari's favorites, and some aren't. Ari totally has Jaime (who, pre-Ari, didn't particularly like kids) wrapped around her pudgy little finger.
Ari is ?maybe? doing things like talking more. She says "up! up!" alot these days; sometimes in context. The other day, I think she said "bye". Also, I think she did the sign for "food" today! It was just once, though. She had come up asking for nursies ("milk! milk!") and I said, "Do you want some breakfast?" and made the sign for "food". Then she hesitated, and did the sign! Needless to say, she immediately got a plate of food.
Things she likes lately:
rolling dice (and getting grown-ups to read the results)
raising her arms in the air and squealing (and getting grown-ups to copy her)
playing "monster"- growling and roaring
having papa run down the stairs with her, making noises
playing the hiding-and-surprise game with papa
getting her teeth brushed, with the baby toothpaste
having her nails trimmed- this has always been true of her, but lately, she'll find the nail scissors and demand me to trim her nails!
And, as always, reading books. We've instituted a three-in-a-row rule on books- no more than three times through the same book in one sitting.
This is a sleepy baby, coming home from Rick and Brooke's house, totally passed out.
We ended up spending practically the whole day over there, as things happened. Ari and I woke up in the late morning, but we were letting Thad sleep after his early morning Target shift. Then, we went over to R&B's for waffles. Waffles and scrambled eggs started around 3:00 (bringing new meaning to the term "brunch").
We essentially spent the rest of the day hanging out at their place and playing games. And not- as I should have been- working. Ah, well. I will work a great deal tomorrow, and it's a long weekend anyhow, right? I should get one day of doing nothing useful.
Ari had grand fun over there, exploring the room and playing with people and cats. Cute things:
Ari kept coming up and petting one of the cats as he was sitting in Brooke's lap. He was very tolerant, but she was pretty gentle (if a little poky)
Ari was merrily following the cat around at one point, and later found him under a chair and was bent over, looking at the cat and blurbling away happily at him.
She discovered a new game- the wave! She would throw both arms up in the air and squeal, and watch as all the adults at the table did it too. Hilarious! :D
Lastly, here's the video I mentioned earlier. This is Ari, saying "Boo!" Does "boo" count as a word?
You get lots of pictures today. :) There's also a video that I think I'll save for a time when I have fewer nice pictures to post.
Thaddeus decided to put her in a pretty dress, today, and boy, does she make that dress look adorable. Well, what have I missed talking about? Yesterday, I took Ari to class with me. It was a session of my Gothic study group, and Brian kept saying it was okay to bring her, so I figured I would give it a try. It actually turned out just great! She decided that one of the first-year grad students was Her Person for the afternoon, and plopped herself down on this girl's lap and read books all through the class. Fortunately, aforementioned grad student didn't seem to mind. :)
Then, during the evening, Jaime and then Kelly and then Brooke and then Rick all sort of independently (more or less) wandered over here, and we stayed up too late hanging out. Thad owned us as Dracula again in a game of Fury of Dracula.
Today, Rick and Brooke came over, and we started the Viking Cthulhu game that Rick's been threating to run since ever. Our ship got dragged into the depths by a nameless tentacled horror, so that was a pretty good start to the game. No one's lost any sanity yet, though- but I'm sure the metaphorical first blood will be drawn soon! It just wouldn't be Cthulhu if we weren't slowly (or very quickly) going mad.
This is a picture of Ari reading the magazine she got in the mail. It's actually a "board-book format" magazine meant for toddler-aged babies. She loves it! She's had great fun carrying it around and reading it. Or (as in this case) making adults point at things in it. Ari is way into pointing at things these days. It's practically her favorite thing.
This is her stuffing popcorn into her mouth two-fisted. You'll also notice her very first temporary tattoo there on her hand- it's a skull, with, like, a snake... and a knife...
Guess whose idea that was? I'll give you a hint: it was one of her parents, and it was NOT ME. :) I'm just shocked that he managed to get her to hold still long enough for him to apply it.
Well, lastly, check us out trying to prevent Ari from getting more popcorn. She's wily, that baby is.
I woke us up at 9:30 this morning (well, that's when the alarm was set for. It might have been closer to 10...) in the hopes that it might convince Ari to be on a more normal schedule. We'll see how that goes.
Other than that, we didn't do much today. We went to the bank to iron out some issues. May I just say how much I hate banks? They're just waiting for chances to screw you over. And then they have the gall to claim that they're serving you, the customer. No they aren't, they're serving nothing but their stockholders and their own bottom line. :P
This is Ari eating dinner. I've been experimenting with filo/phyllo/fillo ever since I bought dramatically too much of it for my Solstice dinner.Tonight, I made phyllo packets full of shrimp and bacon and cheese. I figured it was not the sort of thing Ari would be inclined to eat, but boy, was I wrong. She walked up and grabbed my last roll off my plate- I had barely started eating it, too. And then she proceeded to eat the whole thing, shrimp and blue cheese and all. :D
She was totally covered with butter and crispy pastry by the end. It was impressive use of her new teeth! A few months ago, she couldn't have managed big ol' chunks of shrimp like that.
Well, as always, Ari started sleeping like crap, and bam, no blogging for me. I think I'm going to start trying to have a different blogging routine, because this is getting a bit ridiculous.
Her sleep is a bit ridiculous, as well. I hope that it's because of the new molars she has coming in (for a grand total of four molars and seven incisors, no canines or premolars) and that she'll cut it the hell out soon. She keeps staying up all night and it sucks.
This is a picture from right before we went over to Jeff's house to watch the big game on Monday. Boy, did that not go how we expected it to go. :) My poor Buckeye friends were very, very sad. Ever since, everyone just keeps repeating "we had a great season, and we beat Michigan."
Ah, yes. This is why I have heretofore tried to write in the blog when my girl is asleep. This is my fourth go at starting this paragraph; she keeps "helping" me.
Hm... what else have you missed? School started, and it's going pretty well. I'm teaching the undergrad language change course again, and it's going much better than last time I taught it. I'm doing a Gothic study group this quarter, which is fun.
Oh, exciting news- tonight is Thad's last time on overnight for a while. He's switching down to just working a few hours on Sunday mornings, which is great! He'll go back to overnight in the summer, when he needs the work, and not have to compete for scarce springtime hours. Also, we'll get to start going to meeting again, since Thad should get off work an hour or two before meeting starts.
Here's Ari playing with her blocks. It's very cute. :D
Ari's driving me a bit crazy lately, even besides the not sleeping (although, I'm sure that's not helping either one of us). She's seeming increasingly frustrated about not being able to communicate. She's also getting very demanding about nursing alot, which is getting on my nerves. Neither of us are ready for her to wean, but I'm really ready for her to stop trying to be on the boob 24/7. Especially because it's difficult to get her to sit still and not twist around and not grab my shirt/other breast/nose etc. Ah, well. I know this is a phase, and will pass. I'd just rather it pass sooner than later.
There's no pictures from today, so I thought I'd give you a movie from the other day, of Ari learning to roll dice. She's been playing with dice for ages (we got them to distract her from our dice when we roleplay) but not rolling them. It's an exciting turning point. :)
Today was my first day of school. It went okay. I think it was nice for Ari and Thad to have time together again- although I think she missed me. Since my new computer has a built-in iSight, I took our old iSight into work with me, and Ari seemed really happy to see and hear me on the video chat.
Hurrah for a baby who sleeps! Last night, I relaxed to the fact that Ari was just not going to sleep by herself at all, and brought her into bed with me around midnight. She slept all night, and woke up at a normal hour (around 9:30). Then, she napped around noon for two whole hours, and went to bed tonight at a fairly reasonable hour. We're all much happier. :D
We spent today cleaning up and getting ready for school to start back tomorrow. We set up my office upstairs (that's where Yggdrasil- the old computer- has moved) and put away a whole bunch of laundry. Oh, and I finally finished my backpack.
Check out Ari and Thad, all ready to go work at the Target. Thad says he doesn't think she could work there, though, because they wouldn't let her have a box cutter.
This is a picture from our New Years party. We just had a few friends over, and had gaming and tasty tasty food. Lynda and Jeff brought their traditional sausage rolls with mango chutney (they also brought the champagne). I experimented with fillo some more.
This is from the Munchkin game where we mixed all the sets together Munchkin, all four expansions for basic munchkin, Super Munchkin, Munchkin Impossible, Munchkin Bites (and the "Pants Macabre" expansion), a Munchkin Fu expansion and the Blender. It was pretty crazy.
We also played a game of Arkham Horror, from about 1 AM to around 4:30 AM. We made Ithaqua our prison buddy, so to speak. He had three tokens on his doom track when we finished, and one of our players had an Elder Sign she didn't even bother using.
Anyway, here's Ari in the "Level 1 Human" shirt we gave her for Christmas, playing with her crayons. She has taken to coloring things lately. She also likes them because she can sort them and rearrange them, which is also a popular hobby lately.
Ari's had another spate of sleeping badly. We had a few nights where we were up till dawn... anyhow, no babyfree time to blog. Or do much of anything else *grumble grumble*.
We did a whole ass-load of nothing much today. For most of the day, I was suffering from a nasty sinus thing that caused me to have horrible sharp head pain every time I tried to move around. As a result, I spent most of the day sitting in the computer chair. Ari didn't like that...
Thad corrects me. I did a whole ass-load of nothing much. He did dishes and finally got his license renewed.
This is Ari last night, before bed, playing with blocks. She built the whole tower... not the big one you can see, but the tall skinny one that's mostly obscured by her arm. Anyway, I thought it was cool. :D
We had another up- till- four- slept- until- noon- everyone- is- vaguely- sick day... which is to say, we didn't do much of anything.
We went out to the Apple store in Easton to resolve some last stuff with my most awesome computer (exchanging the .Mac Thad bought for an iPod Shuffle!). Easton is usually an abomination on the face of the land, but it was really packed, and extra... abomination-y.
When we got home, Ari was asleep in the car, and we went and picked up R&B. I don't think I've mentioned this, but their car died a death, and they are thus without transport.
Rick helped us install Boot Camp and Windows, which lets us be able to boot my beautiful new mac with Windows on it. Then, we played Boggle (which I won handily), Set (which I lost, but not badly) and Carcassonne (which I got murdered at).
Merry Christmas, and a happy Boxing Day, y'all. :) We had a lovely Christmas here. I've posted a whole set of pictures on the pictures website for your perusal. Ari wasn't much interested in opening presents, but she sure seemed to enjoy playing with them! She's played with and seemed to enjoy pretty much everything she got.
I was a little worried that it would be a bit much for her, opening so many presents at once, but she was fine. I think it helped that we didn't even bother trying to get her to open anything- we just opened them for her, and she got around to playing with them in her own sweet time. :)
As for me, I got the best present ever- a new computer! This one does everything that I want it to, and all fast and spinky. I've done it up in a Batman theme already, and everything. In fact, I've spent most of today playing with it and the printer Thad got to go along with it. Tomorrow, I intend to actually do work.
Thad had a less nice birthday than I wanted, because I was really feeling unwell yesterday. I didn't make him dinner, much less birthday pie. :( He did get steak, at least, though, and we'll try to make him pie later this week.
In any case, here's the movie I whipped up real quick this morning on my spinky fast computer. It's less good resolution than I would like, but I hope y'all enjoy it. I'll try to send better versions to some of you in ye olde snaile maile sometime soon, along with more pictures and vids.
I hope all y'all had a great Christmas Eve. :) Ours was pretty low-key, with it just being us, and all. We cleaned up some, and I made Ari a stocking, and we went on a nice walk downtown. It's surprisingly warm for this time of year, here, and the walk was very pleasant.
In this picture, Ari is wearing one of her Christmas presents from Brooke- which is so appropriate to us. Have I mentioned that our games shelf is full? It has no more room.
On our walk, Ari actually stopped traffic. A couple in a truck were waving at her and making faces, and didn't notice the light had changed until Thad pointed it out. Anyway, we walked down to the North Market, where we got pheasant pot pies to bake up for dinner, and some stollen for breakfast from the Austrian bakery, and some delicious ice cream from Jeni's. Ari very much liked the ice cream.
Then, we came home, and baked our pot pies (pheasant and morels, very tasty) and watched a movie, and played a game of Carcassonne. Then, I went and did Super Secret Christmas Stuff in the basement while Thad played with Ari.
Despite getting a late post-walk nap, Ari went to bed at a relatively okay hour, and we just spent time getting the house cleaned up so we have a nice place to have Christmas in. We'd best get to bed soon, so Santa can come. Since no one will see this until tomorrow at the earliest, Merry Christmas, y'all!
Today, we finally did Christmas cookies (about time, right?). Jaime and Kelly and Rick and Brooke came over to help... we made a batch of gingerbread and a batch of Mom's sugar cookies. I even made green coconut to use. :)
We have an enormous bunch of cookies now... we already gave a plate to our next-door neighbors. They were kind of shocked and happy- I hope they enjoyed them. We have a plate made for the library people and the night staff at Target and Thad's roleplaying group. Now, we just need to figure out something to do with the other three plates of cookies!
Ari is really doing so totally much better. As soon as we took her to the doctor, she perked right up, right? :) Brooke and Rick brought over a whole bunch of presents for her- including some new books, which are always welcome. I think we're planning on hiding a few of her current books after the holidays (for example, Where's Prancer can go to hell, and it can die).
We, on the other hand, seem to have caught whatever it was she had. We've got coughs, sore throats, insomnia, etc... It's not enough to incapacitate us, just enough to make us uncomfortable...
Here's Ari playing with her friend Jaime. :)
Ari wasn't much help with the cookies- in fact, Thad took her out for a walk a few times to get her out of the house- but she was fun anyhow. This is her playing with the fuzzy puzzle that Brooke gave her. For some reason, she kept sticking the cow piece under her chin, and then clapping for herself. Later, she graduated to walking all around with the puzzle piece under her chin(s).
Sometimes, I really wonder what's going on in her head. :)
This was my baby a few nights ago, trying to pass out asleep under a chair... shortly before she threw up all over Brooke. The last few nights (weeks, really) have been really rough on all of us. This week, Ari's just been fussy and not feeling well all the time- hence my not writing. It's really been quite horrible.
Tuesday night, she was up all night with Thad. Wednesday night, she was up all night with me- plus, she threw up twice. She barely ate solid foods for about three days (yay still nursing!) and has just been clingy and whiny and totally un-fun to be around.
This is a picture from Wednesday night, when she was carrying around a book and trying to hold it to go to sleep. The girl only marginally cares about teddy bears, but she wants to cuddle a book when she's not feeling well. She didn't want me to read it- she just wanted to hold it. She did the same thing on Thursday morning, except with the "Safe Baby Handling Tips" book that Max gave us last year for Christmas.
Last night, she wouldn't pass out until about 1:30 (in the sling with papa, she didn't want me) but she slept like the dead until I had to wake her up to make our doctor's appointment. It was actually supposed to be a well baby visit, with some shots, but clearly that wasn't happening. They checked her over, and said it was probably just a viral thing, and they expected that she'd be better in a week or two (argh)... and then Ari threw up all over Thad as we were getting ready to leave.
Despite the fact that she threw up, and that she barely napped today, by the evening, she was so much better! Better than she's been in ages (aka as long as my sleepless, fogged brain can remember). She was interested in food, and ate a whole bunch of nibblies I got for her. She was cheerful and playful and her old self again! She even fell asleep easily, upstairs, before midnight. Check it out:
This is her dancing to the new CD that her Uncle Darren sent. :D
Well, it's been a busy few days even aside from baby craziness. We've had packages flying in from all over with presents from everybody- the Christmas Crib is now full of shiny things. Oh, and yesterday we had our solstice dinner. Andy, Krista, Ray, Jaime, Kelly, Rick and Brooke all came. I made a turkey, with pear stuffing (for the first day of Christmas, as we're counting it). We also had rosemary garlic mashed potatoes, crab/shrimp things in fillo shells- my first time working with fillo, and it turned out great!- green beans cooked with bacon, oyster mushrooms cooked with roasted garlic and bacon, and Jeff's mother's chocolate pecan pie for dessert. The chocolate pecan pie was much less sweet than I would have expected- it was really delicious. Oh, Jeff made it- it was just his mum's recipe. She lives in Massachusetts, and wasn't making pie for our solstice dinner at all.
After dinner, we played a few games of Carcassonne (Jaime's Yuletide present to me! :D) and generally hung out. It was really lovely, except for Ari not feeling so well... but I'm glad she seems to be doing better! I wasn't sure how much more I could take, quite frankly. :)
Ari's been up late the last few nights... She's still sick/teething and is generally pretty miserable to be around. Additionally, tonight, she tripped and smacked her forehead into the edge of a chair. A big, blue, nasty bruise rose up immediately (although no goose egg to speak of), so I imagine that's also bothering her. Between that and the hacking cough and the stuffy nose... it's no wonder she's not sleeping well. Poor, poor little girl...
Cool things: She can build stuff. We played blocks today, and she helped me build a tower. Every time she put a block on, she clapped for herself. I love it when she claps for herself... it's like, "Yay! I'm awesome! *clap clap clap*" She even does it sometimes when she's playing by herself.
She woke me up this morning with Whose Mouse Are You?, which is her current favorite book. I hate hate hate it. :) I was sitting there, going "wha? huh? *grog*" (because I was up until nearly 4 AM with her last night, and she woke me up at 9:30 this morning) and she's going, "my BOOK, mama, read my BOOK!"
She grabbed my hand, shoved the book into it, and then started to cry when I didn't immediately start reading to her. Stupid book.
For once, the time stamp on this post is actually accurate. My baby is asleep... mostly... and it isn't even midnight. Whoo! :D
I say mostly, because she's sleeping kinda fitfully. Having so many teeth come in at once is making her nose run like crazy. It got to the point where she wanted to lie down and nurse to sleep, and she couldn't nurse! She couldn't breathe through her nose long enough. In fact, the only way I could get her to stay asleep upstairs was to have her sleep on a pillow for the first time ever. Having her head more upright seemed to let her breathe a little better.
This is a picture of our Christmas tree. :) We went out to a farm outside of Columbus, and Thad cut it down. We would have had a nice running around and picking it out and all, except that poor Ari passed right out in the car (I think, again, sitting upright let her breathe well enough to nap at long last) so Thad just went out and cut it while I sat in the car and planned my solstice dinner. I quite like it, though.
Putting it in the crib was a stroke of genius, if I do say so myself. Ari can look at it, but not get at it, and it also provides a safe place to put presents. We have to be careful which presents go where in the crib, though- smaller ones, she can fish out through the bars. We figured that out when we suddenly noticed Ari playing with one of her presents across the room... When Christmas is over, I think we shall dismantle the crib until it is needed again.
Oh, poor girl. I can hear her coughing upstairs. But she doesn't seem to be waking up.
Well, I'm'a go put a movie on and start sewing. I have a few personal projects I'd like to work on, in my precious baby free time before I head to bed.
Well, as previously mentioned, Ari was up till 1:30 in the morning again. She currently has four (count 'em) teeth coming in, including two molars and two incisors, one top and one bottom of each. And this is not even counting the two more molars that are clearly ready to burst forth from her gums at any moment. Yay! She's mostly okay, but her sleep is totally messed up.
Let's see... in the last week, Thad and I went to see the new Bond movie (rock star awesome!). Ari is becoming more verbal- she can do "more" and "eat"... kinda mostly. I'm told that tonight, she was clearly saying "tiptoe tiptoe" along with the Bear Hunt story.
We have spent time trying to get presents done and out- most of you should be getting packages in the mail relatively soon. :) Now, I feel like I can relax and have Christmas. We're going to get a tree tomorrow, and we're going to make cookies on Monday. That means, we have to clean the house before people come over! Yay! It's kind of a mess in the aftermath of present making. Although, at least the basement is clean!
I wrote about this in the entry that got deleted, but I had a great exchange- one of our friends needed some cash moneys for presents, and we needed a non-scary basement and kitchen. Our dollars and her obsessive-compulsive tendencies got together and had a party, and voila! Clean basement! The kitchen is... erm... no longer clean. Let us say. Best investment of dollars ever!
Here is Ari, building a tower of dice. I'm told she was able to build it four dice high, which is pretty impressive. The woman holding her is Kelly, she who cleaned the basement. She is Jaime's new lady, and gets on with Ari wonderfully. Ari likes to make her read the same book over and over and over and over and over... come to think of it, she likes to make everyone read her the same book over and over and over. :) Kelly is just willing to do it. Well, and so is Brooke.
Brooke watched her while we saw Bond, and poor Miss Brooke had to read the Good Night Butterflies book upwards of 37 times, I hear.
Sorry I haven't posted in a while... Ari has been staying up till 1:30 and 2 in the morning, and that's my time to write. She's on and off really unhappy with these four molars she has coming in...
This is Ari, learning about the correct way to care for babies. ;) She's very serious about it, as you can see.
