dmarley | Entries tagged with boo

Since I peppered you with all the bad stuff in the winter and spring, I thought it would only be fair to share at least three awesome things that have happened to me lately:

( Three Good Things: My Vacation, Weight Watchers, and Parenting Validation )

So, three good things and counting. :)

First things first:

As I previously mentioned, my family was relatively unaffected by the flooding in Nashville. But I know someone who lost her home and possessions and every day I learn about new groups of people who are having difficulties getting back on their feet. As always, it seems that those who can least afford it have lost the most.

elizah_jane has a very good post with resources and links for making donations (thanks to

coreopsis for the link). There is also a follow-up post with more information. Tomorrow I plan to take my O-neg self down to the Red Cross. It's been so long since I've had the energy to even come close to qualify for donating, and now seems like an excellent time to go back.

In more benign news:

This morning, Boo asked what "If your cat likes Cat Chow they might like this" meant (it was written on our bag of cat food). Since we had been discussing proprietary formulas the day before (don't ask), this led to a talk about brand names, which led to patents, which led to trademarks, which led to copyright. That took up the first half hour of the forty-five minute drive to school, after which we switched to the Kuiper Belt.

The problem? I meant to review the words for her weekly spelling test today.

So, yeah, she'll be fine if the teacher asks her about trademark law, but won't be able to spell "butterfly" or whatever the hell it is I was actually supposed to help her with. Crap.

( In other news, the cats are well )

It is finally the end of the Longest Passover Break Ever. Boo's school was closed from March 26 until this morning. I have lost count of the number of games of Clue I have played.

Actually, I was a crappy mom for most of the first week. My allergies were horrible and I spent a lot of time stuffed with antihistamines, rousing only when prodded by little hands for feeding time. Boo was really great about letting me sleep off the stupid allergies and mostly amused herself. I did take her to my knitting group and we had a play date with a knitting pal's grandkids, so I wasn't 100% crap in the mom department. I also made it up a bit this week with the aforementioned Clue marathons and with taking her out places. It's really amazing how nice mom/daughter time is when mom doesn't feel like crap.

( Parental Visitation )

( Useful Post-Apocalyptic Skills. Or Not. )

Today was the Purim carnival at Boo's school. It was a bit touch and go whether or not she'd be able to go, because she was out of school Wednesday with a fever, and couldn't go Thursday because she still had it Wednesday evening and couldn't go back until she'd been fever-free for 24 hours. But, today dawned with no fever for over a day, so she pulled on her ballerina costume and set off.

Apparently they had some sort of ticket system to trade for things, and she came home with a paper bag full. Her haul from the carnival included:

Neon pink vampire fangs

Pink sparkly lip gloss

Face paint

Pony tattoo

Fairy tattoo

Pink polished nails

Grogger

For those of you not familiar with Purim, one of the traditions is to make noise to drown out the evil vizier Haman's name every time it's uttered during the reading/telling of the Megilla, the story of how Esther saved the Jews from Haman's plot to kill them. Groggers are the preferred noisemakers for this purpose, and Boo helpfully demonstrated her enthusiasm for the holiday by shouting "Haman, Haman, Haman" and spinning her grogger. A lot.

We'd usually be at the Purim shabbat service tonight (if only to see how the rabbis would top the Dr. Seuss costumes from last year), but Boo's still coughing a bit and we decided to keep her home. Also, I'm still adjusting to new levels of meds and I'm not too keen on big social events right now. Even if they involve having handfuls candy flung at me.

( Here's what my family is doing right now )

Boo has been really fascinated by the discovery of "Ardi." It started last week, when she asked me why we have hairs all over our bodies, and I explained about our evolutionary ancestors having hair to protect them. Just a couple of days later the news about Ardi finally hit the front pages. When the drawings of what Ardi may have looked like appeared, I showed them to Boo and explained a bit about how Ardi's traits have changed some of our thoughts on hominid evolution.

But I think the big attraction for her, really, is the simple fact that Ardi--and Lucy--are girls, like her. I know it was just chance that two of the major game-changers in hominid evolution happened to be females, but it really hit me hard to see how much that simple fact changed Boo's perceptions. Ardi and Lucy might be hairy, and have ape-like features and long arms and--in Ardi's case, anyway--feet that look like hands, but they're still both girls, and she can identify with that.

I really hope that as she gets older, we don't always have to go back four million years for our female role models. :)

One of Boo's homework assignments is that she has to write a sentence every day describing something she learned in class. Usually I ask her what she wants to write, then I help her with the spelling by sounding the words out. Not surprisingly (because this is, after all, English that she's trying to spell), she doesn't always guess the correct vowel, and last night she got really discouraged about it.

This is one of those parent situations where there was really nothing I could think of that was encouraging. Saying what I felt was the truth ("Yeah, English is a bitch to spell and even if you're really smart you'll probably be really grateful for the invention of the spellchecker for the rest of your life") wasn't, I thought, exactly the uplifting words of encouragement she needed.

So, I told her about The Great Vowel Shift instead.

My thinking--if it can be called such--was that if she knew that the vowel sounds weren't always spelled the same, that they were arbitrary and messy, she might feel a bit better about finding it hard to do. Amazingly enough, this worked.

Later, I had to Google how to spell "pink" in Hebrew, but still, mostly a win in the mom column.

So. We have met Boo's new Head of School...

...and she is Yvonne Hartman.

My husband and I went to a Meet the Head of School and Have Coffee thing this morning, and as I listened to her talk and answer questions I really, really had to work hard not to roll my eyes. Okay, I understand that management jargon is probably the way Things are Done now, but I felt like I was listening to a politician dodge the press rather than a Head of School talk to parents.

I do understand that it's not an easy gig. (In fact, I was amused that the questions were evenly divided between "why aren't the kids running around more?" and "why aren't the kids studying math/science more?", neatly displaying the never-ending conflict of parent expectations in microcosm.) I don't, though, like to come away from a meeting feeling that the person in charge hasn't really said anything. I also feel like that a meeting with her would be more like a battlefield than a conversation.

It's entirely possible that this first impression will be proved wrong, and it's also possible that, even if it isn't wrong, these will be qualities that will make her a good Head of School.

That doesn't mean I won't still think of her saying, "If it's alien, it's ours," every time I see her.

Every year, my mom takes myself and Boo to the beach. Boo drew a picture of the beach, and as it encapsulates our experience pretty well, I thought I'd share.

( Boo's Drawing of the Beach )

I am pin-less, cast-less and have the ability to be splint-less at will. I still have a couple of stitches in (literally, like, two stitches), but those will be coming out next week. I'm cleared to do pretty much anything I want so long as it doesn't hurt beyond certain parameters. At the moment, those parameters are very small, but it's nice to be able to eat a meal without worrying about breaking my pins lifting a soup spoon.

( Medical Details )

( Personal Details )

The timing of all this good-feeling is fortuitous, as it turns out. Boo's school is going to be closed today and Monday because more than 30 kids (about a quarter of the student body) and half the teachers are sick with the flu. They haven't specified if it's H1N1 or suspected H1N1, which irritates me greatly because, hello, I'd like to know, but the school is advising everyone to avoid other people for a few days. The Jewish Community Center will be taking kids from Metro schools in the daycare-aftercare program, but kids from Akiva need to stay home. That means it'll be just me and Boo. As much as it's inconvenient, and as much as I don't want Boo or me or Al or anyone else to get sick, it's also kind of nice to be able to take care of my own kid for the first time in weeks. :)

We have also released Tom back into the wild. Or tried. We opened up the garage door for him, but as of a few minutes ago he was still hiding under his favorite shelf. He seems to be very well healed up, no sign of his injuries apart from a slight bald patch on his foot. Boo has been taking care of his medication for the last few days, and has proved a very able assistant.

~~In other words, the household is on the mend. :)~~

ETA: I should really learn not to tempt fate by posting things like the previous sentence. Right after posting the above I realized that I didn't actually feel that well. Current condition: sore throat, aches, fever 100 degrees.

I would headdesk, except that would hurt. I'll headpillow instead.

Pattern: Boo's Sparkly Socks.
Yarn: 1 100g/425m skein South West Trading Company Tofutsies (50% superwash wool/25% Soysilk fibers/22.5% cotton/2.5% chitin) in #730 (Light Foot). 1 87yd skein Lana Gatto Crystal (63% viscose/20% Nylon/17% Polyester) in #4112 (Pinks)
Needles: 2.5mm (US 1)
Gauge: 9 sts = 1"
Notes: Flush with the success of the Fixation socks, I decided to make Boo a pair of pink socks. I showed her the pink yarn I'd bought, and she asked if it was "sparkly." I said I'd see what I could do. The next day, I went back to where I'd bought the Tofutsies, and found a matching pink eyelash yarn that certainly qualified as "sparkly." (And it was on sale.) So, I cast on more stitches than I needed, added the sparkly yarn, and ribbed the cuff in sparklies. After the cuff ribbing, I reduced the stitches to a more normal circumference and just knitted a basic sock. If I had it all to do again I might not double the yarn, and I almost certainly won't rib the eyelash parts, but the effect of the cuff was exactly as I'd hoped: big and floppy and foldable down to a nice anklet, but also capable of staying up.

( More Pictures )

( More Pattern Details )

Pattern: Socks
Yarn: 1 50g/100 yd ball Cascade Fixation (98.3% cotton/1.7% elastic) in #9464. One ball actually made three socks, the two shown here and a *cough* rather smaller one. It was a swatch sock. Really.
Needles: 3.0mm (US 3)
Gauge: 7.5 sts = 1"
Knitting Time and Date Completed: Four hours each, completed 06/30/07
Notes: Although Boo's first socks were beautiful, they weren't exactly a success in the knittability and wearability departments. Knitting anything at 12 stitches to the inch is asking for a nervous breakdown, and after they were done Boo said the socks were "itchy." She loved them when she saw them, she really did, but she only wore them once before refusing to wear them again (cf. "itchy").

So, for my second attempt, I went with cotton, and I went with bigger yarn. Much bigger yarn. I used Cascade Fixation, which is cotton with a deceptively small amount of elastic blended in. It says 1.7%, but that 1.7% goes a long, long way. It's a very pleasant yarn to work with, soft and springy, but it took me a while to get the hang of what tension to use (for the record, really, really loose). It's very easy to have a lot of tension on the yarn without noticing, and I had to make a special effort to make sure that there was plenty of yarn pulled free and that I wasn't just stretching the same three inches of yarn over more and more stitches. But the results were very nice, and Boo loves them and declares them non-itchy. That's good enough for me.

( More pictures and details under the cut, including a gratuitous cat picture )

My daughter, as some of you may know, is completely obsessed with volcanoes. I believe this to be a direct result of her watching the "Firebird Suite" portion of Fantasia 2000 approximately fifty billion times. She was eventually moved to create her own visual interpretation of the video, shown here:

( Art, with artist's commentary, under the cut )

If, at any point during an explanation about why bugs don't like the cold, you find yourself using words like "endothermic" to your toddler, chances are you've meandered down the road of Too Much Information. Just FYI.

Transcript of recent mother/daughter exchange:

Boo: Mama?

Me: Yes?

Boo: I'm going to go fight some monsters in the poodle (trans: "pool"). I'll be back in a minute.

Me: You go do that.

Boo (to her invisible cast of thousands): Okay! Let's go!

Those monsters don't stand a chance.

In Boo news, she is now 38.75 inches tall. She grew a half-inch at some point last week. Seriously, you blink and you miss it. In another 1.25 inches, she'll be tall enough for a booster seat, and in about five weeks she'll be old enough for said booster seat. She's probably way short on the weight requirement, though, so we'll have to see if two out of three is good enough.

I'm not actually that anxious to upgrade her. Although the standard is 40 inches, 40 pounds, and 4 years old, she can still stay in the seat she's using until she weighs more than 40 pounds or her head sticks up more than halfway over the back of the seat. She's quite a ways from both of those benchmarks, and my understanding is that if kids can keep riding in their restraint seats even when they're bigger than the Tennessee Dept of Safety says they have to be, so much the better. Well, so long as they're within the height and weight said seat is rated for.

Speaking of 4s, we had an amusing exchange last week. Boo was asking about her birthday, and told me her birthday was in October and she'd be 4, etc. I reminded her that Mama's birthday was also in October, and she asked me how old I would be. I told her I would be 40. She was delighted. "We'll be the same!" she said. And I said that, yes, our ages would certainly start with the same number...

Boo's latest fascination is gymnastics. She adores the Angelina Ballerina books, and I bought her a couple of DVDs of the TV series, one of which includes an episode about Angelina's friend Alice being in a gymnastics competition. Our bed has now become a balance beam and a floor exercise area. I nearly had a heart attack watching her leap from the bed, announcing mid-leap that she's going to do a split, see her assume that position mid-air and land splat on the floor in said split, grinning in triumph. I do give myself points for stoicism for witnessing this without screaming, shrieking, or otherwise freaking out, and saying instead, "Very good, now please don't ever do that again."

ETA: The LJ "Update Journal" button today says: "Update Captain's Log." :)

ETA2: LJ also says: "Aye, aye! Updating journal." And "Edit Captain's Log." I love Talk Like a Pirate Day.

( It started at about 3 yesterday morning )

( So, we took Boo to the doctor )

( Then the tornadoes came.... )

After I described my day to my dad, I asked, "So, how are things there?" He replied, "Uneventful."

The good news is that Boo does seem to be feeling better. Her fever has been up a bit, but has responded to Tylenol, and she's had a few brief episodes where she's felt like playing and smiling. Hopefully the antibiotics will help whatever infection she has. If the culture turns up negative, the doctor said they'd probably do a chest x-ray, and proceed from there. Here's hoping.

Happy Birthday, Boo!

Yes, hello, it's me, popping up from my gopher hole again. I've had modem issues. I actually still have them, but finally realized that I couldn't afford a new one anytime in the near future (or distant past, either) and had best tackle the old one and make it work again. So, I whipped out the Scotch tape, the Q-tips, and the old jiggle-it-until-it-works-again technique, and finally the hellish shrieking noise was replaced by silence interspersed with the occasional dial tone. So long as I don't move, laugh, cough, or breathe too much, it only disconnects me about every 15 minutes. :)

In other news....

( We're all fine here, now, thank you.... How are you? )

( A witch, a rabbi, and a former Episcopalean walk into a synogague.... )

( The knitting tally )

( You've paid for it and insured it, but do you know what color it is? )

Well, those appear to be the highlights. I hope everyone has been well, and maybe now I can catch up on what you all have been doing. Skip=100000000 ought to do it. :)

Current Mood: cheerful

Behind the cut tags is a huge long post containing gory details about my week. If you wish to skip that, reading the tag text provides much the same information in a more succinct form. :)

( Thursday, February 10--Visited sick friend and baby. )

( Friday, February 11--Boo sick. Greebo sick. Car died. )

( Saturday, February 12--Threw up from 7am to 4pm. Went to ER. )

( Sunday, February 13--Still sick. Mother took Boo. )

( Monday, February 14--Still sick. )

( Tuesday, February 15--Still sick. Mother sick. )

( Wednesday, February 16--Still sick. Father brings Boo back. )

( Thursday, February 17--Still sick. Mother well. )

(I'm almost afraid to send this, for fear that the virus will infect the electrons through my keyboard and infest my friends-list. *Sprays f-list with disinfectant*)

Current Mood: Still Sick

And while I'm up at 2 am, I might as well continue to spam about my life.

( Me, My Cat, and I )

Current Mood: Not Wanting To Be Awake

A couple of weeks ago, Boo and I were reading a book about shapes which featured a bunny rabbit building a tower of blocks. I asked what shapes the blocks were. She said, "Bunny building V-2 rocket." Am now wondering how long after she starts pre-school it will take the social workers to show up.

( More About Schools and Boo )

Current Mood: Tired

Er, hi.

Yep, it's been quite a while. I should really just resign myself to the fact that I am a sporadic surfer. Three months on, two months off, two months on, three months off....

The biggest reason I haven't updated is that for quite a while the only notable news I had was of the "argh!" or "this sucks" variety. And, well, that's just no fun to write about over and over. Plus, my modem became tempermental (somewhat fixed now that I've figured out exactly where to wedge the Q-Tip). Then I started knitting. And knitting. And knitting.

Eventually, of course, the growing horror of the un-downloaded e-mail became a phobia in and of itself, and it took several weeks to nerve myself to log on. I did it for a good cause, though, of which I will speak more about in a separate post. And it only turned out to be around 250 messages, which is a lesson in the fear being greater than the reality.

Now, to summarize the last few months, which, I will warn, we've been calling, "The Summer From Hell." I've split the cuts into sections, for ease of skipping the bits that might not be interesting to all.

( Boo: She's Plump, She's Agile, She's Stealthy )

( In other news, I didn't have emergency surgery )

( Cats Are Like People, Only More Expensive )

( But, you know, it wasn't all bad )

So, there you have it. My summer in a nutshell. Which is where it likely belongs.

Current Mood: Pleased

tingler has rightly pointed out, I haven't given a Boo update in many many days. Well, I'll just have to fix that. :)

( Weight, Words, Chickens, Shoes, and Other Baby Things )

In short, things in Boo-world are good. She's a happy, smiling girl, and I figure if she's got that, most of the other stuff will work out okay. :)

Current Mood: Optimistic
Current Music: "Pig Island" by Scott Bakula

Just wanted to mention that we are all back home now, and our household is (temporarily) the larger for a mommy cat and two black kittens. Er, anyone want to adopt a cat?

( A few more details about Al's week )

In the interests of not making it seem as though my life has been nothing but gloom (as I fear the majority of my recent journal posts have possibly indicated), here are some good things that have happened of late:

Boo's shoe size is now 5 1/2, a size and a half larger than it was six months ago. She also appears to have grown about a half-inch, and some of her clothes are noticably shorter on her. Go Cheetos!

I have written approximately two pages of fan fiction, which is two pages more than I have written in months.

I have incriminating pictures of Boo wearing a potty seat around her neck, which I intend to hoard for her teenage years.

Because I stayed with my mother all week, I was able to skive off Mommy duties and go see Prisoner of Azkaban on opening night. I should probably devote an entire post to it, and I might do so in future, but suffice it to say that once I wrapped my brain around the changes from both book and from the previous movie-verse, I liked them very much. After all, someone finally remembered that Harry has perpetually messy hair.

Read a pretty good series of vampire books by Charlaine Harris, recommended by Erin Lasgalen. I'm not particularly fond of vampire fiction, but these were quite readable. It might be considered a flaw that they bear some plot and theme similarities to Laurell Hamilton's Anita Blake books, but while it nagged me a bit, I still enjoyed them for what they were.

Well, I think that'll do for now. If nothing else, it made me feel better. :)

I have to go finish packing for MediaWest (Whee!), but in celebration of a) getting months-old rolls of film developed and b) prising my doorless CD-ROM drive open so I could copy said pictures onto my drive, I wanted to toss up a couple of Boo pictures before leaving in the morning.

Dial-Up warning: About 300+K worth of piccys behind the cut tag. For some reason even the preview files turned out ginormous.

( Boo and Her Bestest Pal. Er. )

( Bonding in the Command Turret )

( SLYTHERIN! )

Current Mood: Procrastinating

Spent the day with

coreopsis nattering about fannish things, and she has indirectly inspired me to update once in a while to keep in touch with all of you folks. So, here at last is this very belated post about Boo. At least I waited until I had good news for sure. :)

( This Just In: The Cheetos and French Fry Diet! )

Current Mood: Happy

Boo had her eighteen-month checkup yesterday. In most respects, she's doing great. She can say tons of words, point to a dozen body parts, can run and throw stuff, follow commands, and do all the other stuff eighteen-month-old babies can do. The problem is that in the last six months she hasn't grown.

( The Details )

Current Mood: Nervous, yet Relieved

( March 2, 2004, 1:05pm--Strew tuna strategically around front entrance )

Current Mood: Surprisingly Cheerful

Well, according to my own journal page, I haven't updated since the 28th of October. Can they revoke my geek card for that?

Needless to say, a lot has happened in the intervening three months, not least of which is that, yea verily, we have moved into the new house. That's pretty much the reason I haven't had time for LJ or e-mail or indeed the internet (today was the first day I had logged on in something over two months). After my last log, my days were spent packing, packing, packing. That or painting, painting, painting.

( Some Details in Brief )

Anyway, that's more or less the highlights of the last three months, probably most concisely summed up by saying: We moved into the new house and it's really cool.

Oh, yeah, and that I missed LJ a lot. I'm glad to be back!

Current Mood: Happy

Took Boo to her one-year checkup Wednesday, and all systems appear to be go. 19 lbs, 10 oz and 29 inches tall. She can officially graduate from formula to milk now, and we can start trying her out on stuff like peanut butter. Brains and brawn seem to be in working order, and in fact the doctor remarked on her fine motor control when she saw her working her Cheerio dispenser.

One thing we discussed was whether or not it was time to wean her from her nighttime bottle. She eats solid food all day, and doesn't get a bottle until bedtime, but we've been holding off weaning her from that because we knew we'd be moving, and that's not the time to take away a big piece of bedtime ritual. The doctor totally agreed, and said to keep giving her formula in the bottle, not milk, and just wean her of both at the same time.

The only downer was that we also had to schedule her follow-up VCUG.

( Icky Medical Details Cut )

The test is scheduled Wednesday week at Vanderbilt, which is another reason I really, really like living in Nashville. Until I had Boo, I hadn't fully appreciated the advantage of having a kick-ass pediatric hospital right here in town. Boo's had to be admitted twice, once for light therapy right after birth, and again with the UTI a month later, and both times I was so glad to be at Vandy. The staff there are wonderful, and they bend over backwards to make things as easy as possible for the kids and the parents.

Boo's actually staying with Grandma right now while Mama does some packing, which is the only reason I have time to be lounging with my computer at 7:45 in the morning. More spam about the house and packing to follow. :)

Current Mood: Chipper

First things first:

Happy Birthday, Boo! One day late :)

Just got back today from visiting the parents for Boo's first birthday. I spent Thursday and Friday shopping for Boo clothes with my mom, getting her fitted out for colder weather, including her first shoes.

We had a little birthday "party" yesterday, just Boo, me, Albert, my mom, and my stepdad. We put Boo in her high chair, sang "Happy Birthday" while she looked at us as if we'd gone insane, and gave her a little cupcake with a candle in it. My mom helped her blow the candle out, and she got to stick her fingers--and her stuffed elephant--into the icing before she ate it. My mom gave her a shirt with her name on it, Albert and I gave her some bath blocks, and an old friend of my mom's sent her a stuffed dog which, for reasons I haven't yet dared ask, Albert immediately christened "Pongo." She loves Pongo, and he seems to have supplanted even Pinky (the aforementioned elephant) and Cow in her affections. She had a very happy birthday, I think. :)

Current Mood: Tired

Boo has a tooth. Just one, and it's just a little teeny stub poking up, but it's there. Next week, corn on the cob. :)

Also, I'd like to wish

vickita a Happy Day That Is Like Every Other Day. ;)

In other news, I got my reservations for the Holiday Inn for Media*West next year. Who-hoo! No trucking up the street to the con!

It seems that we're making up Marvel Superheroes characters tonight, which is good because I have no clue how to go about it. This will be our fourth MS game, and I've yet to have to shift my lazy arse to make a character because

pktheater, Jim, and Todd were all nice enough to make up a character for my time-deprived self. Since Brian has even less time than I do, having a baby even younger than mine, I asked for a making-up-characters session so I could figure out what I was doing, and apparently it will be tonight. Whee! Lasers! Mental powers! Spandex!

Spent the day with

coreopsis and had a blast. As she says, it's nice to talk to real live people every now and then. I am so lucky in that I can geek out with my other buds on almost any geeky topic, but my ~~crazed obsession~~ interest in the minutae of fan fiction and media fandom is something they don't share. Fan fiction and media fandom are a big part of my fannishness, so it's great to have someone with whom I can get that fix. So, we talked about stories and fandom and fans and shows, and it was all good. I even finally learned what GIP means. :)

Boo had a great time, too. She played and crawled and got into stuff and ate probably one of her messiest meals ever. She's trying to feed herself, wanting the spoon so she can put it in her own mouth and even wanting to dip it in the food herself, but usually what she does once she's dipped it is to wave it around and splatter food everywhere. It's a good thing

coreopsis has family friendly kitchen furniture, that's all I'm saying.

( More non-visity details of the day )

Current Mood: Happy

Most important news first: Boo's been standing on her own! She's not taking steps or anything, but she can let go and stand up on her own pretty good.

I discovered this a couple of days ago, when she was standing holding on to her World Conquest Command Center (one of those little Fisher-Price table thingies with the knobs and shapes) with one hand and holding a toy in the other. I offered her an apple-flavored wagon wheel, which she wanted, but for which she wasn't about to relinquish the toy. So, she let go of the Command Center, got the wagon wheel, and stood there to eat it. The only downside was that I couldn't get to the video camera before she sat down.

Froze 14 cups of bananas last night. The local international market sells bananas for 25 cents a pound, and I got over 12 pounds. 14 cups of Gerber bananas cost $34. I paid less than $4 for the ones I froze. *Pets freezer*

Updated my knitting gallery on the website. It's been about four years since I added new pictures, and most of the stuff up there is older than that now. This update is something of a monument to geekhood. There's a Dr. Who scarf (and the pattern), a Predators scarf, and a hat with Earth's Stargate address knitted on it. When knitting and geeking collide....

( Saturday Gaming Report )

Edited to fix cut tag. I always forget the quotation marks....

Current Mood: Chipper

In other news....

The freezer arrived yesterday and is sitting in quiet splendor at the foot of the bed. Every bedroom should have one. It's very quiet, and so far hasn't tripped any breakers. Here's hoping. The cats are just thrilled that we've gotten them such a nice sunning spot.

I also ended up replacing the food processor, thanks to my mom, and celebrated both new toys by cooking and freezing 12 quarts of spaghetti sauce today. It's not the greatest batch I've ever made, because I didn't get the correct proportion of olives and mushrooms to beef, but it's quite edible and will be a nice quick meal when we don't feel like cooking. I also need to freeze some more bananas for Boo, but that can wait a few days.

Current Mood: Accomplished

( Domestic Ramblings )

Current Mood: Tired

My daughter is putting panties on her head. That is all.

Well, I did it. After nine months, I finally allowed myself to go hog wild and buy...a new diaper bag.

{chirp...chirp....}

Well, okay, it's exciting to me, because it's a) the first actually new diaper bag I've owned and b) the first one I paid more than $5 for. Which probably explains a lot.

( More thrilling details )

Anyway, it's green, it's waterproof (discovered through unintentional emperical testing), it's organized, and I'm happy.

Current Mood: Happy

I found out a couple of days ago that Albert was going to have to work two 18-hour days in a row. This seemed like a good time to visit my mother. So, I packed up Boo and hit the road Sunday.

( The long version of said trip )

Anyway, I survived the trip, and so did the baby. I spent today sleeping in, having lunch with my dad, and trying to figure out how to transfer my mother's digital pictures to her computer. (I've never used any computers other than Macs, but I've given up trying to explain to my mom that I really don't know what I'm doing with her computer. Every time I claim ignorance, and then sit down with the thing, I still make it work, so I guess I can't blame her for not believing my protests of incompetence.) Unfortunately, the battery on the camera died before we found out if we were doing the right thing, so we'll have to try again tomorrow.

Boo is perfecting her stomping skills these days. She can't walk, but she can cruise, and she's started taking these enormous giant steps when I hold her up. Albert calls her Girlzilla, and exhorts her to crush cities beneath her feet. Not sure what the baby-raising books would say about this.

Current Mood: Happy

Have encountered yet another situation not covered in baby literature: What to do when the cat falls in the tub while the baby is taking a bath.

Strange day today. Without going into the gory details of my nocturnal nausea and insomnia, I got approximately 45 minutes of sleep last night before the baby woke up with a howl at 6:30am. Normally she sleeps until around 7:30 or 8, but not today. My husband was just about to get in the shower, and when I staggered up and weaved drunkenly towards the baby's room, he won the Best Husband Ever award by announcing that he was taking the day off, and that as soon as he got out of the shower I could go back to bed. Yeah, he's a keeper.

I slept until nearly 11:30, and, of course, that threw my whole day out of whack. I was really groggy when I woke up, and didn't start hitting on all cylinders until about an hour ago. Boo, too, is having an off-kilter day. Not only did she wake up early, she wanted lunch twice, didn't want a morning nap, fell asleep in the middle of the living room mid-play, and is even now getting her bath an hour early. I'm hoping we both can get back on our routines without much fuss.

Whether it was the weird mid-morning sleep or the box of groceries I carried upstairs last night, my neck was screwed up again this morning. It's not anything as bad as the last time, but it's annoying. I'm going to put on one those nifty ThermaCare things later, and hopefully by tomorrow it'll be better.

I'm thinking about sneaking out while Albert is putting Boo to bed and getting a haircut.

Current Mood: 51 Out of 52

I can't believe how sleepy I was all day yesterday. I didn't stay up particularly late the night before, and got to sleep an extra hour, but I was still a walking zombie all day. When Boo had her morning nap, I had one, too, and when she woke up I was still so groggy that I just got her out of her crib, carried her straight into the living room, and laid down on the floor to keep snatching z's while she played. Naturally, since I could barely keep my eyes open, Boo was a playing machine all day. She didn't have an afternoon nap to speak of, and stayed up a good hour and a half past her normal bedtime. Possibly some sort of infant vampirism was involved.

No gaming Saturday night, so instead some of us got together and went to the movies.

( The person responsible for the initial Pirates of the Caribbean trailers and promotions should be shot )

Current Mood: Zombified

Took the baby for her nine-month checkup yesterday: 18 lbs, 4 oz; 27 in tall. Showed off her developmental skills by trying repeatedly to hurl herself off the exam table. Still no teeth, despite the fact that she's been displaying teething behavior off and on for about four months now. She got ears, nose, mouth, etc. inspected, and everything looked A-OK, which of course made mama very happy.

In other news, I found out that I managed to screw up our tax return, but at least it was in a good way. We had to fill out a Schedule D this year, which is a torturous document that makes sense only if one follows it blindly while blithely ignoring that one is apparently paying taxes on the tax of the tax of various random amounts of money which may or may not bear any resemblence to the actual amount of money one is reporting. Despite checking my math about six billion times, I still did something wrong because we got a check from Uncle Sam. I'm not complaining, mind, merely feeling as though I just dodged a bullet, because it might have easily gone the other way into badness and penalties. And at least now I know how I'm going to pay for the gas down to my sister's after yesterday's vet bill.

Current Mood: Hungry

For the last two or three days, my older cat, Sylvester, hasn't been acting himself. He's been listless and clingy, wanting to be near me even if it means being within range of The Boo Unit. He's also been allowing Boo to pet him (aka "yanking his fur"), but it's more because he doesn't seem motivated to move away than because of a sudden desire to get friendly with the baby after nine months. He's 13 and no longer a spring chicken, so I decided to take him to the vet.

Now, this simple decision is no longer the relatively easy undertaking it was before the arrival of No. 2 Cat Greebo and the baby. Gone are the days when I can just pop Sylvester in his cage, or not even bother with the cage and use his leash, and zip over to the vet's. Oh, no.

For one thing, the last time I took Sylvester to the vet without also taking Greebo, he freaked out, growled, hissed, spat, and took a swipe at the vet. They had to sedate him before they could examine him. So, it's two cats, two cages, etc. Plus baby.

Loading went fine. I put the kitties in their cages, took them downstairs to the car, then came back up, put Boo in her car seat, took her down, and we were loaded up and ready to go. Piece of cake. Okay, so the temperature's in the mid-90s, but hey, what's a little heat stroke.

At the vet's, I had it all planned. I parked the car, got Boo out of her car seat, put her in the backpack carrier, got a kitty cage in each hand, and voila.

Of course, the vet could find nothing physically wrong with Sylvester. But he's been Sylvester's vet for 13 years, ever since Sylvester was 8 months old, and while Greebo and Boo chased each other around and under the table, Greebo jumping up and down to check on his buddy and Boo trying her best to yank the tassels off the vet's shoes, the vet agreed with me that Sylvester's behavior wasn't normal. So I forked over $100 for blood tests, which luckily I had because I'd been saving money for a trip to my sister's. Don't know what I'm going to do about the trip now, but hey.

Back home, I did the loading in reverse. I took Boo up first, got her settled in her play area, then zoomed back down for the cats. But when I put Greebo down to the open the front door, the sophisticated mechanism of old wire and knitting needles holding the cage door closed gave way, and he squirmed for freedom.

I wasn't too worried at first. I just scooped him up and shoveled him quickly inside the building. But when I opened the door again to get Sylvester and the empty cage inside, Greebo made his break.

I set off after him, leaving Sylvester in the hall and my baby unattended upstairs, remembering frantically all the baby book admonitions about never leaving babies alone even in rooms that have been locked down like Fort Knox (leaving aside the question of how any of these women get their groceries upstairs, but never mind). Greebo had apparently forgotten all of the previous three years of comfort and pampering, because he ran away from me like I was Cruella DeVille looking for a new tabby coat. I finally cornered him under a van and persuaded him that I wasn't some bizarre space alien after his brain, and tucked him under my arm while I hauled Sylvester's cage upstairs. Then it was back down for Greebo's cage, a last trip up two flights in about 100 degrees of humidity, and I was free to collapse on the floor and wheeze.

I'm supposed to find out about Sylvester's blood tests today, and I can't say I'm not nervous. A lot of my friends' cats have died at 12 or 13, and Sylvester has definitely been slowing down the last couple of years.

And now I'm hearing "Mary Had a Little Lamb" over the baby monitor, which means Boo is awake and standing in her crib to push the button on her Sesame Street Edu-tainment Center. And, yes, now she's accompanying the music with "Ba ba ba" and raspberries. So, time to get up. :)

Current Mood: Calm

Happy Birthday, Boo! One day late :)

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