Because this baffles me, here is my packing list so far. I’m sure I’m forgetting things.
When did traveling get so complicated?
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Monthly Archives: August 2008
Did I mention that Shanna was three months old?
So that means I went and had pictures done. Many of the actual prints are in black and white or sepia (because she looks so darn cute like that) but here are the basic poses…
{milestones} She did it!!!
Shanna rolled over!! Videos, cause I’m a dweeb:
and more…
and success!!
I love the modern era. And a picture of her butchness last week just because.
nice.
I’m pretty sure I drove past a drug deal a couple blocks from my house. That both doesn’t surprise me and really bothers me.
Poetic Justice
Shanna was really cheerful and sweet and tolerant all through the shower this morning. Sometimes she’s not, so this was awesome. She was even tolerant of me lying her on the floor of the bathtub so I could get out without dropping her or falling. That is a major concession in her world. So then I wrap towels around each of us and walk in to the changing table. She starts to fuss right before I lay her down. When I bend over to put her on the table I notice…
Big. Huge. Gobs of cheese dripping down my collar bone to my breast and stomach. She’s covered from chin to navel with cheese.
*sigh* So much for not smelling cheesy today.
And of course since she has purged she must refill the tank and nothing will do but nursing for a while.
I used to be able to leave the house in under thirty minutes. Now when I call someone at 9:30 I tell them I *might* be able to get there at 11:30. I’ll call when I can leave the house. *sigh*
Whoa
So the current cover of the Blowfish catalog looks an awful lot like a dancer. One who is like 18/19ish ok maybe more like 20/21ish cause I forget how long ago I did Fezzi’s. She’s a natural redhead who recently went blonde. She was in the 16 year old gaggle the year I did Fezzi’s. Spurious-Logic seems to hang out with her. She was at waltzingmatthea‘s going away party.
Uhm, is it actually her?
The most awesome kind of productive.
The kind that results in food. Cooking dinner with Shanna is a hit or miss proposition. Sometimes she sleeps and it’s easy, and sometimes she is awake and fussy and nothing will appease her but my Full Attention. So today in anticipation of the week we cooked a bunch of food. We made a fabulous roast (it’s awesome) and risotto, a nummy veggie/sausage soup for lunches and an apple cake. Veggies for sides are a steam pan away (I can handle that even with a fussy Shanna) and we have polenta in the fridge that requires about five minutes of cooking. I also grated all the cheese we will need for the polenta and risotto topping for the week.
Noah did more than half of the cooking. He has been wonderful. Yay! And we got to take advantage of Shanna sleeping. Today wins. Which is nice because my stupid family sucks as usual. The plans for this afternoon were canceled and I was all set to be whiny but Noah helped my day rock.
If I shopped correctly this morning we will perfectly run out of food Friday at lunch before we run off to the PNW.
dance scene
I would really like to post to some of the conversations about the sexism in the dance scene with some inflammatory stuff. Maybe something to the effect of: “Those of you who are saying, ‘Well the dance scene is so much safer than other communities’ are stupid!” BULLSHIT. I know more girls/women who have been raped by other dancers than I know people who have been raped in the bdsm scene. I find that fascinating. I know of FAR more ‘mild’ boundary violations in the dance scene than in the bdsm scene. It is worth pointing out that in my mind the ‘dance community’ sort of loosely enfolds Dickens and Faire as well.
The idea that just because the dancers are a “community” women are safer makes me want to puke.
Travel and Socializing
Goodness gracious we have been seeing a lot of people lately. It’s very cool. paulaandandrew came over last night, my lovely flyinamazon has come over a couple of times, we’ve had visits from blate and yanijc and jkuroda and bk2w and tshuma and angelkatharine and noirem and joedecker. I might be forgetting some of my blessings recently as I’m a total space cadet. I’ve gone out and seen a bunch of other people. I’ve spent time with my sister and cousins and no one fought. (Well, we had a small argument because my sister asserted that she won’t be voting for Obama because he is a Muslim. Uhm, whatever.) Ooh! And Debbie is going to come see me next week! It’s been too long. And have I mentioned that it is really neat that I’m hanging out with Britt so much? I haven’t seen dangerpudding in a bit, but that’ll be remedied next week. 😀
And we have a lot of upcoming travel! Portland weekend after next and we will be staying for over a week. bldrnrpdx I still need to talk to Dad about your event. I’m going to try. The lovely and wonderous Ms. blacksheep_lj will be picking us up from the airport and lending us a carseat. w00t! I get to spend a lot of time with my adored shadowsintime oh, and there will be the wedding for ihotpockets. 😀 There will be a trip up to Seattle to see Jefe and Jen and Rachel and hopefully I hope I’ll get to see malixe and imp-of-satan and meet Henry!
Next month is another wedding, this time with a camping trip involved. We’ll see how camping with a baby goes. woof.
We are going to go see my mommy for Thanksgiving. She’s terribly excited.
And New Zealand in February. I think I need to stop complaining about my life. (Ok, I don’t complain much… but any at all seems like a stretch.)
{disclaimer: if I’ve left your name out, feel free to poke me. My memory is not what it once was and it was never amazing.}
{Edited to add: satyrlovesong and ribbin both came over too!} (See, I want to keep track because I get in these moods where “nobody loves me, everybody hates me” and it’s just bolgona. So now I have a list of who loves me. :D)
Whack job Burger King Ad
Quirks
Shanna stops smiling when she sees the camera most of the time.
Shanna, like her father, likes to suck on m chin.
An easy way to let me show love for you is to let me cook you food.
I think that milk product + potato = heaven.
I’m fairly obsessed with my birthday. I just don’t tell people about it most of the time. I secretly want people to pay attention but I hate having to ask. So many years I have sat at home fairly miserable.
Bad dreams
Lately I’ve been having this dream. It’s almost a recurring dream but it picks up where the last left off and continues. Usually I love this sort of story dream. Not this one.
In it Noah keeps telling me that he made a mistake and he wants me to leave. Parenting and being a husband aren’t what he thought and he doesn’t want me or Shanna in his life. I woke up and talked to Noah about it. Of course he doesn’t actually want me to go anywhere.
I can’t shake how bad I feel though. I’ve spent the morning cuddling my daughter reminding myself that I will take care of her no matter what.
I hate feeling this way.
Peektures!
There are a few so I’ll cut tag. 😀
Choices
So the neighbors two doors down have a son who is six weeks older than the munchkin. I went with the mama to Gymboree today. It was silly, but I’m going to give it a shot for a little while because it will be something concrete in my week to do and a reason to socialize with other parents who have kids the same age and who are actually near me physically. Dude. Concept.
This means I ended up talking to my neighbor a lot. She’s very insecure. She’s very nice–don’t get me wrong, but insecure. I feel like I am going to spend a lot of time validating her. Today the biggest theme was “Am I bad because I want to work” and I kept telling her that it’s ok that she wants to work. Hanging out with a baby all the time is bloody boring. It’s ok that you don’t find babbling intellectually stimulating; no, you are not a bad parent. She asked how I can handle it then. I had to laugh. It’s not as if my job was about adult interaction anyway. 🙂 I told her that it takes all kinds. I like to be able to control my days and do projects in my house and do things like cleaning during the day so that when Noah is home we don’t have to deal with much of the ‘work’ of life we can just play.
It is fascinating to me how people have trouble believing that their choices are ok. I’m in the same boat a lot of the time so I’m really not criticizing. 🙂
And speaking of choices, I choose to go to New Zealand. This trip is made possibly largely through the largesse of a really awesome lady. I’m so excited.
Today’s awesome
Today has *three* awesome things.
First was lying on the floor playing airplane with the munchkin. I put a burp rag on my chest to absorb the dripping spit. (That part was for you Mo.) She laughed her ass off. She giggled for probably fifteen minutes straight until my arms got sore. That was just great.
Second was reading that one of the moms on the board I read is getting a new foster child. I’ve been reading her posts for a while and she seems like a pretty good parent (yes, I’m getting a limited view). She posted looking for advice about the next size up of diapers to buy for this new kiddo cause her child was EC’ed and out of diapers by this age. I’m sending her some of the size mediums we bought because she is poor and I am not. I think that foster parents need support. I included a teddy bear in the box so the baby girl can have one of her own. When the mom sent me her address she said she was crying because she’s so grateful. I feel good about being able to help her in this way.
I also got a card from a friend. This is the second one she’s sent me. They always make me happy. 🙂 Yay!
Less awesome but still good: I did a bunch of cleaning. 🙂 I even mopped again. I feel kind of embarrassed that mopping twice in a month is a big deal and something to be proud of. ha. The recently splattered oil means that it really needed it again…
*sigh*
Our fancy pants dessert only mostly turned out. I burned the shit out of the cream anglaise (imagine an accent mark in there). And it never thickened. Whisking was the wrong idea–should have used a spoon. But, the chocolate rum cake tastes good so far. I wanted the vanilla pudding! Damnit!!
I’m so tempted to make jello instant pudding instead.
ETA: Screw the French. Jello’s got my back.
Fucking hippy.
Before anyone gets their back up… I’m talking about me.
I just spent an hour of precious nap time (it’s when I can get up and do stuff unfettered) hanging rope in the backyard and putting diapers up to line dry. I’m line drying my fucking cloth diapers. What happened to my life?!!
Before anyone asks why: the sun is a natural bleach. Diapers, even well washed diapers, eventually start to look like they are catching what they are catching. 🙂 The cloth diaper freaks all swear by line drying to keep diapers unstained so I am giving it a shot.
The real kicker? I raided the toybag for the rope and clothespins. At least I didn’t have to cut up my zippers.
(I need a dirty hippy icon. Or a 50’s housewife. In fetish gear. Hmmmmm….)
Good little housewife
Today my (self-appointed) tasks were laundry and food prep. Now, that may not sound like a lot, but it is with Shanna. I only did two loads of laundry, but I chopped up four days or so of vegetables, made soup, prepped all of tomorrow’s food, and got today’s dinner ready all by four pm. That along with reading (I’m a fair ways into Frederick Douglass’ writing) and playing with the munchkin has made me feel fairly busy.
Noah and I went down to the Scott’s Valley Art & Wine Festival on Saturday. I don’t think I have ever been to one before. I had way more fun than was reasonable for the event. Being with Noah can make anything better. Then we drove up to Los Gatos and walked around downtown. I must say that the Thai restaurant was awesome. Even the non-curry, Britt. 🙂
Sunday we went grocery shopping and slacked. Just another day in paradise with the best boy ever.
I’ve been thinking that I should fill the hot tub. That’s about as much water as Shanna reasonably needs for this level of learning to swim and I miss sitting in water. 🙂
Oof. How did that happen?
Next weekend is going to be nuts. Friday we have our first play date in the afternoon! We (munchkin and I) are going to a Gymboree class with our neighbor. Then there is the county fair Weird Al show that night. Saturday is the wedding of one of Noah’s college friends. Sunday is a BBQ with my family for my nephew and niece’s birthdays. Oh man I hope Shanna has patience for all that running around.
A random question. I now have the garage cleaned up. The house needs minimal maintenance to stay pretty decent. So I’m going to start figuring out sewing. The project that has been in stasis for about four years (good grief) is to finish my Victorian underwear. Given how cute the bloomers and chemise are so far… I’m sort of tempted to just wear them as an outfit. The question: how odd of looks do ya’ll think I would get? 🙂 [for the record: the bloomers are not split crotch.]
screw heterosexism
We were out today and we did baby clothes shopping. We found two onesies that I simply couldn’t pass up. One had a cute little baby chick and under it written “chick magnet”. The second said, “Get In Line Girls”. I figure that if these are appropriate for a boy that age they are bloody well appropriate for my daughter. 🙂