Banana Bread

I made banana applesauce bread last night. I used olive oil because I didn't have any canola oil, and that turns out not to have been the best idea I've ever had :p And the bread is way too sweet.

And it tastes like bananas, which is a lose for me. I hate bananas.

But Elijah likes it, so I suppose it's a win.

Next time: Less sugar. No olive oil. Maybe no bananas, too :p

December 24, 2009 - ASL Interlude

Elijah is 16 months old now, and is figuring out sentences.

This morning at breakfast, he signed, "More helicopter."

I agree, Elijah. I agree.

Snow? How did THAT happen?

Dear Universe,

Look, I live in the South for a reason.

This is the opposite of that reason (see attached).

Sincerely,
Coyote

Lucky Bamboo, I Has It

55 stalks, to be precise.

Snippets & More

Elijah's got about 40 signs now. Tonight at Gymboree Open Gym, he was crawling into this platform space under another platform, laying down and signing 'bed' and saying 'ba'. He'd put his head down, signing 'bed' under his head, and talk about it. It was surprising, and very cute.

---

From our friend BB, on the drink called Function: House Call:
"It's like having tea with Cthulhu! It's very sweet and genteel and nice, and then... it's /wrong/. And you know you shouldn't like these tastes, but part of me is going, 'It's so gooooood!'"

---

I feel like I'm doing something right. My mom asked me what fabric softener I use because she liked the scent so much :)

---

SpaceShots: The Week's Best Photos of Our Galaxy - This is pretty amazing. There are some great shots there that I'd love to have posters of.

---

At a mall last week, a woman was trying to sell me powdered cocoa butter as a "Japanese sea salt and other awesome ingredients" skin cream. Then she had some sort of glue-like product she said was an exfolliant. She tried to sell that by rubbing it into my wrist, and asking, "Have you taken a shower today?" "Er... yes." "Are you sure?"

Excuse me? Am I sure I showered today? Do you honestly think being rude to customers will sell more product? Really? Is that what they taught you? I bet it's not. Try insulting someone else, lady. I'm moving on.

---

I let my email overwhelm me. All the time. I'm subscribed to countless mailing lists because, well, in the gaming organization Brian and I are in, that's what you do. I'm on 20+ that are local to where we live and several more that are not) I'm also on some unrelated lists. And advertising lists for favourite places like L'Occitane and J Peterman. And Flylady stuff. And Daily Coyote. And Chorebuster, Max Barry, Mil Millington, Go Gratitude, Facebook, Saving Dinner, Gevalia, Meetup: NoVA Polamory, Amtrak, my bank, Thrillist.

Trying to keep up with it and completely failing, just letting myself be overwhelmed, keeps me from enjoying the things I really want to do with my computer time, like play mindless games or read my Google Reader subscriptions (and leave comments!) or read servants' manuals from the 1880s or keep up with friends. I really do appreciate the unexpected emails I get from people (hi Phil! <3 ). Please don't take my lack of response as lack of interest. I'm just flaky.

So something's got to give.

I'm going to prioritize, and then I'm going to keep up with the day's email and try every day to clear out a few of the 500 threads sitting in my inbox. I'm going to unsubscribe from a lot of those lists. And then I'm going to hope for a manageable amount of list-type email, and an increasing amount of personal email from friends. Because that's way more important.

Early morning.

It's 7:43am and Elijah and I are awake and we've had breakfast and seen Daddyface off to work, complete with a belly full of breakfast (ham and swiss on a baguette) and plenty of good-morning Frangelico-flavoured coffee and a travel mug of coffee to go and a lunch for today and snacks for the week.

Now if I were reading this elsewhere, I'd probably be rolling my eyes and thinking 'good god stop bragging'.

But oh well. If I have to be turned into a morning person (I got up at 6:53am... around then used to be when I'd go to BED), I might as well make the most of it, and do what I live to do these days: Take care of my boys.

---

When Mama Kacy and I took the babyface to Gymboree on Friday, the teacher called, "Mommies and... and adults..." to parachute time. I was amused.

Elijah will move up to the next level class next month. I love going to Gymboree, I love seeing him with all the other kids. The younger ones remind me how far he's come, and the older ones remind me what I have to look forward to. It's pretty awesome.

Originality? What originality? None here.

It was you and me and the whole world right before us
I couldn’t wait to start
I saw you and dreams just like everyone before us
We thought we knew what we got

And then one day I thought it slipped away
And I looked to my hands to hold on
And then one day all my fear slipped away
And my hands did so much more

So maybe we won’t find easy
But, baby, we’ve found the good
No, maybe we won’t find easy
But, baby, we’ve found the good.

This is a song of Signing Time, and I was thinking all day about how I needed to write a post about how the last chorus became my theme song as of two days ago (even though my child isn't disabled).

And then when googling for the lyrics, I found out that Amalah already did that.

Well.

Well.

Okay, so I'm the least original blogger out there. Whatever. I'm gonna go back to learning ASL with my boy now :p

Delayed post

We've had just an insane weekend. It was good. And then Sunday was chaotic. And then Monday was painful.

And Elijah and I miss Daddyface. He's off to training for work. But we have Mama Kacy! And that is good.

And in a few more hours, we will have Grandmere and Papaw J.

And I think I'll order some lucky bamboo now.

---

The above was written yesterday.

Today, we had Gymboree and fussiness and headaches. But some laughs and some lotion and some sleep.

And it's sleep time now.

Goodnight.

I want to write about the awesomeness of a house full of people I care about, and observing and celebrating the various relationships, but it is time to sleep.

Maybe tomorrow.

Night!

Snippets of Today

I want way too many of these: 12 Reinforced Nylon Bean Bags

So. This Friday, Mama Kacy and her crew + 1 are coming up for the weekend, because we have an event to go to on Saturday. They'll head back probably Sunday while she stays here to help take care of the babyface, because... B leaves on Sunday around 3am for Puerto Rico. Then on Tuesday, my parents get here.

This is all a little crazy for me.

However, I will continue to try to post to the blog. I felt good about posting every day this past month, even when the posts were pointless "Hi, I'm posting" posts. I'm hoping to keep it up.

---

I should start a collection of index cards with writing prompts (for blogging, journaling, and actual writing), so I can shuffle them up and then draw a card or two.

---

My working pantry as of today:
-10lbs red potatoes
-2gal milk
-1/2 gallon heavy cream
-6lbs frozen vegetables
-2lbs butter
-3lbs various cheeses
-3 dozen eggs
-4 chickens
-1 large beef roast
-smoked sausage
-3lbs carrots
-celery
-Ovaltine
-bagels
-yoghurt
-canned diced tomatoes

It's going to be a busy, busy weekend. And week.

---

My house is relatively clean and orderly, and I am proud of that.

Let's see if I can keep it that way.

---

Elijah tried to put his shorts on today. He pulled them onto his legs, then stood up and tried to pull them all the way up. They were backwards and he couldn't get them over his hips, but it's the first time he's tried that, so I was impressed :)

Bamboo elevators?

This page about elevators makes me happy. If I had a printer, I'd print it out and file it away.

BuyLuckyBamboo.com is amazing. How insane is it that had I the money, I would buy 500 4" stalks of lucky bamboo?

I think I'll have to content myself with much less :) But first I have to find some vases and such, ways of displaying them. I want plants in every room...

Hell Day

Yesterday:

Wow.

Just, wow.

An urgent care visit and an ER visit, both in the same day? Sigh.

Let's recap:

Morning: Family awakes up at 8am. Mama is stiff and sore and already has a migriane; very unusual for the morning. Mama takes Oxycodone. Family goes to Gymboree. Mama hides under play equipment and watches children play. Tries to explain to people who give her funny looks that she's in pain. Oxycodone takes away joint pain but not headache.

After Gymboree, go to the wholesale store for dye-free baby Tylenol and food. Migraine increases and is joined by queasiness, a brand new symptom in 10+ years of frequent migraine.

Go home. Daddy & Baby play while Mama tries desperately to sleep.

Around 4pm, I woke up crying and kinda half-screaming because the pain was that bad. This is the worst migraine I've had. Am trying to compare to childbirth. Don't remember crying during childbirth, only screaming. Go to Urgent Care with 30 seconds left for them to take new patients.

The Urgent Care doctor is calm and mumbly and moves carefully and not loudly. Reminds me multiple times that I need to go to a neurologist and he can refer one if I start going to him as my regular doctor. His nurse gives me a shot of Phenergan ("do not take while breastfeeding"!) for the nausea, but he refuses to give me migraine rescue meds because I'm still breastfeeding.

So he prescribes Vicodin ES. And Phenergen.

I told him Vicodin wouldn't work and could he just prescribe Frova? Even just one?

And he said no, I will not give you one dose of migraine rescue meds that are relatively safe for nursing, but here's 20 Vicodin.

So, well, I have plenty of Vicodin to deal with my join pain now. Which is helpful.

So we go home, and I go back to bed, and try to sleep. I awake up crying again and while B is in checking one me, we hear Elijah screaming in pain. B runs to him, and then I hear B's panicky voice telling Elijah, "Let me see, I have to see, let me see." Adrenaline dulls the pain for a moment and I jump up. With a slightly clearer head than B, I manage to see that Elijah has a gash on the inside of his lip and one on the outside. I assume he's bitten through his lip and kind of panic. I grab my shoes and the diaper bag and we go to the ER.

The bleeding stops on the way, and Elijah laughs at all the sick people in the waiting room. And runs around banging on chairs and cheering. I lean on a chair, trying not to throw up.

Eventually I suggested we just take him home and go to his regular doctor the next day, just to be safe. But then we got called into a room. I continued trying not to throw up while we waited for nurses and doctors. He screamed at them all, terrified of doctors now. I tried to ignore the world and my body while lying on the room's bed. B and Elijah named all the things in the room and watched Monk on the tv. (We were in Kids Care, and Monk was on TV. A woman murdered her husband on-screen. This didn't seem appropriate for the childrens' ward.) Then the doctor checked Elijah's lip, determined that the wound does NOT go all the way through, and sent us home.

Elijah fell asleep in the car with minimal fussing, we picked up my prescriptions, and then headed home. When I went to sleep at midnight, the pain was still there, but I was able to eat some mashed potatoes.

Today, Elijah is very short-tempered and I am very fragile, but we are alive, and okay, and things will be fine.



The happy patient.

Today was pretty horrible.

Details tomorrow if I can.

Dead

*collapse*

more tomorrow

night

Links

Poly Resources
Babble.com: And Baby Makes Four
Babble.com: But What About the Children? More On Poly Parenting
Practical Polyamory
Loving More Magazine

Food
Food Timeline - food history & historic recipes

I planned today on writing about the turkey, and the lack of sleep, and the dishes in the bathtub, but now I sit here after a nice afternoon of food and evening of driving around pretending to be werewolves, and I'm a little nauseous because of an impending migraine and very tired because I was up till 6am with a sick (though not cranky) baby boy.

So maybe I'll write tomorrow.

Before washing the dishes in the sink and processing the leftover (very dry) turkey.

Good night.

---

I am thankful for, in no particular order:

-amazing deviled eggs
-my husband
-my mother
-my grampa
-my babyface
-my dogs
-friends
-family of choice
-food
-a roof and a comfortable bed
-the Camarilla
-ASL

And turkey jerky and Amanda's awesome cobbler :)

Coming Out

So I've been pondering this for a few days, and I just couldn't figure out how to write it. I was discussing this with my friend C, and, well, I can't really say it any better, so I'll just post the conversation we had.

I'm pretty sure it won't come as a shock to most people who read this blog anyway ;)

[quote]
Mama Coyote: And I want to do a 'coming out' post on my blog, both for bisexuality (technically pansexuality) and polyamory.
C: Why?
Mama Coyote: But I can't figure out how to say it other than, 'Hi. I'm poly and bi. I'm saying this because that subject might come up in this blog sometimes. I promise not detail my sex life, but it's relevant to know that Mama Kacy is Mama Kacy because Elijah has two mamas and a daddy. Kacy's family and my family are intertwined in a few ways. Our poly circles mingle.'
C: Ahh.
Mama Coyote: The 'why' is because I mention Kacy a lot and I want to be able to ramble about things like how she and I got funny looks when we took Elijah to Gymboree.
Mama Coyote: And about how people are all, 'It's so awesome to see a lesbian couple with a baby!' sometimes.
Mama Coyote: And it's just too complicated to explain in those few seconds of social interaction.
C: "He's got a daddy too!"
Mama Coyote: But it's also misleading to say, 'We're not a lesbian couple.' I mean . . . people see us interacting the way a couple does, holding hands, quick kisses (the kind that are okay out in public), cuddles...
Mama Coyote: Maybe I'll just post the conversation we just had.
[endquote]

There's more that could be said, and most likely will be said later, but right now, I have nothing more to say on the subject. Feel free to ask questions if you like :)

Tomorrow, I'll post about washing all my dishes in the bathtub (my kitchen is broken) and my attempt to make my oven go. Wish me luck!

Today has been odd, in many ways. It started out way too early, before dawn, with Elijah waking up coughing (though not the barking cough of croup, thankfully). The cough would come and go, but never be gone long enough for either of us to get back to sleep. I don't know how long this went on, but he managed to doze off eventually, and I trembled crying on the couch for a while because I hadn't managed to sleep at a decent hour anyway and my head hurt and my eyes hurt and my right leg and toes hurt so very much and I knew I wasn't going to be functional for the day on just two or three hours of sleep.

And then I remembered I had painkillers, and took them, and curled back up with the by-then calmed and sleeping baby. And we slept till 10:30am, which is about three and a half hours later than usual.

The day itself was comparatively pain-free, though I felt very fragile and tried to take it easy. I got some laundry done and Elijah and I played and watched too many videos on the computer. My kitchen is still broken, and a mess. Roasting a turkey on Thursday is going to be interesting if I have to wash my dishes in the bathtub.

Today was a Gymboree day, which was awesome as always. It was open gym, not a class. I love open gym time. I love watching the varied ages of toddlers and how they interact. It always makes me so tired, though. Fortunately, it makes Elijah tired, too ;)

And he and Daddy are done with bathtime, so it is now nursing time and sleeping time.

Post title? Post title.

Today was pain, for approximately nine hours, when the migraine finally broke and post-migraine euphoria slowly set in. Then there was food with a friend, and shopping, and both were fun.

And then there was babyface screaming the entire way home, and that was not so fun. But now he is asleep, peaceful and beautiful, and I can sit and play Pokemon and collapse into a heap.

And my kitchen is broken. Some sort of back-up in the plumbing, so I can't do my beginning-of-week fridge clean-out and scrub-down of everything... the kitchen is currently a huge mess and I can't cook anything because everything is dirty. Sigh.

AND I wasn't paying any attention at all and bought whole bean French roast from Trader Joe's instead of something drinkable. (I don't have a coffee grinder.) It's back to Gevalia with me, I think.

Also: This and this.

Night-night.

The Cat on the Walk

There was a cat. It was big and orange and had no tail. I cuddled it and it purred.

Sunday

"Think of pleasing her, not vexing her. You are intoxicated, you should go home."

We're watching Kate & Leopold, and I need more sleep.

I also need to clean my house, and get started on my week.

I want to make grand, sappy statements about how important my family is and how cleaning the house and keeping the kitchen running smoothly is part of my expression of love, because all of those things are true, and half of me wants to get up off my couch and get to work... the other half of me wants to just sit here and possibly fall over sideways and go back to sleep.

And now my sister pack is awake and afoot, and it seems that we're starting Kate & Leopold over again :)

(Though I think I need to start actually structuring my housework a little better. Something like devoting two hours a day to housework, and the rest of the day to playing with Elijah.)

(This has been quite a week. And weekend. And now it's time for a new week.)

A taste of the old days.

My house is full of people I care about, and an extra dog, and it's chaotic but awesome.

I only have one hand to type with. Elijah is nursing and dozing in the other.

We're all getting ready to go out for the evening, including baby. I need more painkillers. And caffeine. Lots of caffeine.

I need to remember to feed the turtle before we leave.

Hello, blog. Goodnight.

Pass

I've run out of time tonight, though not topics. Hopefully I can write tomorrow.

Bath involved happy screaming and was fun!

[insert blog title here]

[insert blog post here]

(I've eaten too much and Elijah is very excited and I have to figure out how to make it till bed time and my brain is mush and blankets are nice and Marines are nice and food is nice and the baby is LOUD goodnight.)

Title Goes Here

I really <3 Marines. At least the one Marine we spent the evening with. I <3 him a lot.

I also really like Quantico, and being on base there. At least for a couple of hours at a time. The energy there is strangely relaxed, which seems odd.

And someone asked Kacy today if her purple hair is natural. This made me unbelievably happy :p

And! Best of all! While Kacy and I were in the kitchen, me doing dishes and she watching chai bread bake, Elijah climbed up into the computer chair and hit space on the keyboard so that Signing Time would unpause. And he sat there and watched it. And then when he was ready to go play again, he hit space again, climbed down, and went to play. Then later, climbed back into the chair and hit space again, and sat and watched Signing Time some more. It was amazing and wonderful and awesome and I love seeing him grow and learn like that and and and and *trails off into endless mushiness about how awesome the babyface is*

Yeah.

I'monna take my strained vocal chords off to bed.

Night-night.

Things to Share Today

Kristina Olsen is awesome. You can listen to music on her MySpace page. I recommend Better Than TV.

It's What You Do With What You Got may be my new favourite song, but only when Mama Kacy sings it.

Cloudstreet is worth a listen if you can find them. You can hear some of their songs here.

And I'm reading about spinning wheels.

That's my post today.

Pictures! (Finally)

It's time for pictures now :)



This is what a giant, unexpected couch looks like when it's in the middle of your living room and has no place to live yet.


But this is what it looks like once it has supplanted the old futon and taken its rightful place.


And here is the couch in use.




And a picture post wouldn't be complete without a breastfeeding shot, right?


The Ergo carrier is awesome. And sleeping is the best way to grocery shop.


This picture is for my dad.


Chopsticks for three year olds! How awesome is that?!




Look carefully at these pictures. Click them if you have to.
There are ladders. Tied. Up in the trees.
Whyyyy?!

I want to be Tom Ballard when I grow up.

Today is:
-vertigo
-baby & mama can't stop coughing
-good beef roast for dinner
-cream
-not getting carded when Mama Coyote and Mama Kacy should have been carded
-not having enough milk for baby and his coughing demands
-watching Waiting for God

Good-niiiight.

Pain and turtles and guppies and Mama Kacy etc

Also groceries, amazing cheese dip, DS games, and sleep. Oh god, please to sleep!

Elijah woke up screaming way too many times. 6am was a bit hellish. 9am was too, but at least then he calmed down and could wake up and have some fun. But the day. Ohh today. Has been. Well. A day.

and my shift key isn't working properly, which is driving me crazy.

Anyway.

I think the poor babyface is getting yet another tooth. Which is awesome, but painful.

Mama Kacy is in town, and even that isn't making him too happy, although they seem to have had some happy bath time tonight. I'm glad about that.

I don't have much to say, because you see, my head is growing teeth as well, and trying to consume itself.

Time, I think, to feed the turtle, the guppies, and the dogs, and then watch Phoebe in Wonderland.

Night-night.

Rain & Answers

It's raining, which is nice except that it's been raining for three days and we're all sick, so nothing's nice. But it's quiet because Elijah is asleep and I can kinda-sorta breathe for the moment, so I thought I should take a moment to write a post.

Aunt Nicole asked: What do you think about gender roles and the raising of children. If he wants Barbies in a few years would you discourage that? What if he wants to wear a dress to kindergarden?

First: I really appreciate the question as blogging fodder. It's helpful and awesome :)

I'm not actually sure what you mean by "gender roles", but I'll do my best with the other questions.

Re Barbies, I wouldn't discourage it at all. I'll be giving him a baby doll (probably my old Water Baby from when I was a kid) when he's old enough to have some concept of "this is a baby dolly, this is a dinosaur, this is a toy bat, they are all treated differently". The baby doll doesn't get bashed around, for instance, because that's not how we treat babies. Right now, he's not aware of those sorts of distinctions.

And if he wants them, I have plenty of Barbies and their accessories from when I was younger ;)

And re wearing a dress to kindergarten, he may be in a private school, and they usually have uniforms. If he's thought about it enough to want to wear the girls' version of his school uniform, then I'd have to find out from the school if there were rules against that. If there are, then no; no breaking the schools' rules. But if he's in a public school or a school without uniforms, and there are no school rules against boys in dresses... well, he'd have to understand that he may get made fun of, but I wouldn't stop him from wearing it. And if he wants to go to the grocery store in frills and pink and whatever? Sure. That's fine.

Who knows what he will be interested in as time goes on. I'm excited to find out. I can't wait to see how he progresses, what things he likes, what his passions are. Will he like sports? Will he like dance? Will he like animals as much as his mama? Will he be good with numbers like Daddy, or languages? Or both? Will he hate school like I did, or will it be easy for him and he'll love it?

It's going to be so amazing and awesome :D

Placeholder

Updates for today:
-Elijah is getting better
-I am getting sicker
-Brian is now sick
-we have a new couch that is awesome
-Elijah can sign "want", "pain", and "owl" now
-seeing a 16 month old using ASL captivates people everywhere we go

And I will try tomorrow to answer Auntie Cold's excellent question on boys in dresses.

Morning, and Boys in Pink II

Elijah has croup, which is scary, but also Prednisolone, which makes it less scary. The coughing and not being able to get his breath was scary, but that phase has passed, at least for the moment. We're keeping the house cool, on the doctor's recommendation, to combat the fever and help keep his chest from tightening up and making it hard to breathe again. So far, so good.

Although now my throat is scratchy, so we'll see :p

Elijah wore pink sweat pants to the doctor, because he picked them out. A man in the waiting room was confused.

We still have six guppies, which means that so far they are too fast for the turtle. Which is fine by me. The guppies add something awesome to the tank. It is less boring now :)

I'm not awake yet. Someone give me a subject to blog about.

Sick Day

I called the doctor today, because Elijah has a bad cough.

I'm not sure how to describe how hard that was for me.

The appointment is at 3.

Fish & Feelings

Whenever I use my key to lock or unlock the house, I feel like I'm doing some grown-up and thus illicit. Like one day, someone is going to see me doing it and say, "You are a child, you do not own a house. You cannot have a key, you are not old enough to be in charge of things, especially children." And it's all going to be taken away from me.

I feel that way if I go shopping by myself, or, really, go anywhere by myself. I think it has a lot to do with why I haven't learned to drive yet, too. I think it's some kind of paranoia.

It doesn't help that today's "off time" activities were: Watching Hell's Kitchen and playing Pokemon Diamond on my DS.

* * *

I have so many recipes in the 'to try' queue. I'm trying to figure out a plan to use some of them.

And! I have! GUPPIES! They are tiny and minnow-like and very boringly coloured, which makes them perfect for the turtle tank, which is all in natural colours, with rocks and live plants, and, well, the Turtleface. The turtle will probably eat them, which is fine, because that's what they're for. But the nice pet store lady gave us three extra "fancy" guppies "that a customer brought in for adoption", and I wish she hadn't put it that way, because now I feel the need to protect those fancy guppies. We'll see how it goes. I would like to keep some fish in the tank, to make the space not occupied by the turtle more interesting. He tends to hang out in one place for a long time.

Anyway.

I'm rambling.

Time to shut down my brain and go to sleep.

Night-night.

P.S. Sorry for no baby details today. He's asleep, is probably getting yet another new tooth, and was much nicer and more patient and more awesomely sweet and cute today than I deserved.

Screamers and shifters and bleeders oh my...

Today hurts, in many ways. And is good, also in many ways.

The movie Push is absolutely incredible. I could watch it again, right now. Twice. In a row.

Dinner

Elijah ate mashed potatoes, brisket, a couple of small pieces of tortilla, a banana, and a bowl of melon half the size of his head, for dinner.

Day three!

Pandora.com is awesome right now. Depeche Mode and the Sisters of Mercy are the basis of the station I'm listening to now. It feeds me Marianne Faithfull and Tom Waits. Crazy!

---

I have too many tabs open. Some of them are for sharing. This is sharing, right?

A subway ad for the movie 2012 - this is pretty impressive.

OMG Katamari baby!!

Periodic Table. Really.

Snugglesafe - I really want one of these. It gets cold in Elijah's room at night. My feet freeze.

Homework Win - Awesome!

Raccoons and a bus - for some reason all I can think is "Does this bus go tae the Dennistoun Palais?"


And last but most amazingly:

648-Megapixel Image of Our Galaxy

---

PICTURES!

From Elijah

From Elijah

He chose that pink shirt over a black one.

From Elijah

From Elijah

We have a nice cuddly reading space in the bottom of the closet now :)


What is this?








Gymboree!
































Check out those socks!

Good morning, good night.

Today hurts.

I want braised beef.

Babyface is napping with his nose next to MY blanky-blankety-blanket thing (that used to be blue but is now gray) from when I was a baby. He does this a lot. If he thinks he can have my blanket as his blanket, he is crazy. I will make him a blanket. But that one is MINE. *huffy little girl face*

(Wait till the amazing little 4 year old asks for mama's blanket as his own, and we'll see what I'm saying then.)

Good morning, world. It's time to post.

Computers are amazing. First thing in the morning, after Elijah is cuddled and changed and has some toys to entertain him, I:
-Email Brian at his gmail account to talk to him while he's on the train (maybe).
-reply to email from my mom (usually)
-send email to a cell phone in Japan
-send Brian's work account an email to continue the discussion
-begin the day's discussion with Aunt Marcy (headtilt)
-use Google Reader to catch up on some blogs
-use Facebook to catch up on some friends (sort of)
-read random other things, such as fringe news or Lamebook.com

Then it's usually time for breakfast and Signing Time. We don't have a TV, so Signing Time runs on the computer.

And, To Do lists SUCK. Just as a note. They add to my feelings of failure when I look at them and see all the things I HAVEN'T done. And on days when I can barely move from the pain and I haven't even managed to feed myself or take a shower, that's pretty disheartening. So I try to keep an "Accomplishments" list for the day, instead. Things like "lunch" and "walking dogs" and "laundry" go there. If it's a good day, maybe "swept the floor" or "cleaned out turtle tank". Yesterday, cleaning Elijah's room and reorganizing his toys and putting away some of the recently-played-with and pulling out some of the not-recently-played-with was an accomplishment. So was showering and shaving (no new reviews, am currently VERY happy with Art of Shaving unscented cream, preshave, and aftershave). So it was a good day.

I wonder what today will bring :)

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ShitMyDadSays is the best use of Twitter I have seen so far. (I assume there are some fundraising and news outlets that are doing much, much more important work, but I haven't seen those Twitter accounts. Show them to me, I'll amend my statement ;) )

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So I've joined NaBloPoMo. I did entertain the thought of NaNoWriMo for about three seconds, especially since a friend was suggesting using the RPG Deliria as a basis, but... well there's just no way I'd make it. Maybe next year. But not this year.

But posting to the blog every day? Maybe I can do that.

Maybe.

We'll see.

(And I promise some pictures later. When I find my camera. And get Picasa working again.)

Hey. Look. It's a blog!

We're still alive, I promise.

Gymboree is a lot of fun; Elijah is learning to run around and play with things and climb on things and around things and inside things. He's learning every day, and it's awesome.

I'm trying to get myself together so I can post more. Well, mostly so my life isn't chaotic :p But also so I can post more.

I appreciate the encouragement from comments. Thanks, guys :)

Growth

Every morning, Elijah seems taller and more capable. His babble-vocabulary and signing vocabulary seem to grow every day. And he's climbing more and more. We've been to Gymboree four times now--once to get the information, once for a class, and twice for open gym time, and each time he seems to understand more, seems to grow more. It reminds me that I read once that puppies' brains grow bigger if they're well-socialized, with other dogs and with people, than the brains of non-socialized puppies.

My puppy's brain is growing :)

The New Middle-Class Housekeeping: “How I Keep House without a Maid” - I want to take this course! Where's my time machine?

And the "See Also" links at the bottom of the page promise to eat up even more of my time in reading more housekeeping articles...

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Elijah is watching a YouTube playlist I set up for him. Right now, there are loud lundehunds yelling at the camera :)

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Gymboree is fun. We went for our preview class on Sunday, and went last night to open gym. It was empty at first, and then in the last hour more people showed up. Elijah had a lot of fun following the other kids around and climbing on the climbing stuff. I want to set up a gym in our basement now, with mats and slides and climbing equipment and balls and the big airlog.

I think caffeine is in order. Is this post even coherent? Ugh. Well, I think I'd rather start getting out incoherent posts more often than to continue the way I've been going.

? Hi...

I have no idea where to start this post.

There are doctors in my future, and I'll be okay.

But! Elijah now has SHOES! And he knows the signs for 'stop' and 'go' and 'bike' and 'drink'. Signing Time is the best thing EVER.

Elijah also has more teeth coming in, and these are hurting him even more than the ones before.

Global Food Warehouse is also an amazing place. Lemongrass! Aloe! Aisles and aisles of rice and tofu! Stock pots big enough for bodies! Squid! Octopus! Beef heart, pork heart, kidneys, tongue! This place makes me so very happy. And I now have sticky rice (for Elijah), quinoa (to mix with oatmeal and pureed pumpkin and chai spice mix and cream for our breakfast), import ramen, instant pho (heh, THAT should be intersting), and, best of all, konnyaku powder.

How about pictures? That always fixes an otherwise useless post, right?



Naked baby!




IKEA IKEA IKEA!


"What's the sign for cold?"


Watching Signing Time, our favourite occupation these days.


Sleeping after shots :(


Waiting for shots. Dig those shoes!


He knows his shoes are awesome.






There are very large fish on the wall at the pediatrician's office.


Watching Signing Time, sitting in the chair like a big boy :D














He's learning the joys of the Taggies blanket :)


Nursing and petting Remmy :)


Mama and Babyface :)