DragonBlog

Rayn the Impaler...

I had lots to blog today. Comments that came swooshing through my head and then moved over for the next one. However, now that I finally sit down to type them up, I am merely left with impaled Fisher Price people. Yes, that's right, I said impaled. On a bottle-drying rack that is...

What more can I say after that?

*evil grin*

G'night.

Playdate...

After two days of saying I was going to blow off stuff and just relax, today I finally did. I'm booked pretty solid tomorrow, and Friday is the service for Brian's grandmother, so I figured today would be good. I slept in a little, although not too terribly, hung out with RainMoon and her daughter for a few hours, and then played some computer games in between watching to see if the "severe thunderstorm" warnings would yeild anything cool. Overall the day was fun, but the storm was a bit underwhelming. A little bit of cool thunder, but the lightning wasn't very impressive and the rain itself passed by far too quickly. Oh well.

I am amazed at how well Jareth can seem to get along with RainMoon's daughter even though there is a 7-year age gap between them, and yet doesn't seem to want to have much to do with kids his own age yet. I keep taking him to these meetups to give him more time around kids his own age, but he tends to want to be in my arms or shy away for about half the time. The rest of the time he plays tenatively alongside the other kids instead of with them. At least I find some encouragement that he warms up the LittleMoon pretty quick and seems to forget his shyness around her. There is also the possibility that it's because he's always playing with her here at my house the couple of times they've played, but then he's also shy around other people who come here that he's seen more often than her. I'm not sure. It's just good to see him playing with someone.

Speaking of playing, I'm going to tuck my little guy in and then make my day of relaxation complete with a little bit of time playing computer games with Brian before he goes off to bed too. I expect I ought to pack it in early tonight myself, as I've got a bunch scheduled tomorrow.

G'night!

Fresh Air...

It really is spring. Despite the fact that my little weatherbug thingy says it might snow tomorrow. Today I finally got to open the windows for a while and let some air into the house. Ahhhhhh.

*happy sigh*

Defiant as ever, my son and I have been running around the house barefoot today in celebration. We've taken turns wiggling and tickling toes and enjoying the buzz that comes from having the fresh spring air wafting through the house.

I've been having trouble getting up in the morning this week. Maybe this new infusion of spring will help. I did plan to blow off a bunch of stuff yesterday and relax and only did so for maybe an hour or so. Today, I made the same plan and haven't really done so at all yet. Instead, I'm working on a new web site relating to a group I'm involved in. Instead of kicking back and spending the day playing mindless computer games in between playing with my son, I spent that time typing away, making text and html work their magic together. Yeah... I kinda get into this stuff. I know - I'm a geek. At least I admit it.

If you want to watch as I fumble my way through tweaking and fixing things on the web site, you can go to www.paganparents.com to see it. Yesterday I got the domain name and put up a basic site to start with. Today I put up some beginning content and tweaked some stuff. I also figured out how to set up the bulletin board the server (cleverdot.com is who I use for all my pages) has available. I still haven't set up the stylesheet yet though, so the board doesn't remotely match the rest of the site in colors. I'll get there. At least it's up and functioning.

And, before I forget...

Would you rather:
1. be at the epicenter of a major earthquake OR in an area under severe tornado warning?
Tornado warning. Definitely. Cool storm to watch! Yeah!
2. have to replay your worst birthday over and over (like the movie groundhog day) OR your most embarrassing day in high school?
Most embarrassing day in high school. I can't remember anything in high school being so horrifically embarrassing that I couldn't survive it, but I have had some pretty miserable birthdays.
3. have hair that feels like coat hanger wires OR skin that feels like a cat's tongue?
Cat's tongue. That sounds a whole lot less painful. Eep!
4. have skin that always looks dirty, no matter how clean you are OR feet that smell like cooked cabbage?
You can mask the odor of smelly feet so I'll take that one over the dirty-looking skin. I'd just have to find a strong but nice-smelling perfume. Or soak them in tomato juice every morning. Something is bound to work.

That's all for today folks.

G'night!

Dragon TV...

Busy tonight. My in-laws taped the dragons thing on animal planet for me and we're watching it. (That's one channel we lost out on when we switched over to the Dish Network's top 60 plan) We've taken a break to put the little one down for bed. So far I think that it's both very cool and a bit of a stretch. I'm having a hard time viewing dragons as merely "animals" instead of highly intelligent beings. But that shouldn't be a huge surprise. If it is, look at the web address your reading this on eh? Duh.

Time to go tuck the little one in and then finish watching it.

G'night!

Easter

Easter has been through my house today. With it came relatives, food, gifts for our son, and a whole lot of commotion. On one hand, it was a day of family gathering, good food, and conversation. On the other hand, it was a little frustrating realizing that we have not yet made others to understand that we, meaning Brian and I, do not celebrate Easter specifically. We were celebrating Spring today. We did a slightly nicer meal on the actual date of the Spring Equinox, but we chose to do our celebrating today in order to compliment their Easter celebrations.

I think that pretty soon we will need to have a few discussions with our family on what it means that we are defining our spiritual paths in our house. Because we're not "good Christians". Hell, we're not even bad Christians. On the spirituality form, I guess we'd have to check the box for "other". And as for the Easter Bunny? Or Santa Claus? Nice stories. Good stories to share. But, no matter how many men and women dress up in fuzzy bunny suits and pose for pictures with kids at the mall each year, it will not make gifts from the Easter Bunny magically appear for those children when the date rolls around. If you bought the gift for my kid - take credit for it! I don't care that you bought it for him because it's "Easter" as long as it's not something with specific religious connotations attached. You can buy my kid gifts any holiday you want. (You don't even have to wait for a holiday to roll around if you don't want to.) In fact, I think it's a sweet and generous thing for you to do. Just don't go telling him that it's from some mythical bunny rabbit.

*sigh*

I'm not upset, just frustrated. I don't know how to best explain to people how we want to handle holidays when we're celebrating something different from what everyone else around us is celebrating. Not only that, but we're moving our celebration date (since we're in the minority here, after all) over to the day their's is in order to better fit in. I'd bet there would have been at least one relative who would have had a fit if we'd asked them all to move it to last Sunday and celebrate our holiday instead!

*sigh*

I need answers. I'm in a pagan parenting group, but it's really just us and RainMoon's family. She and I are going to try and kick-start it since she's the organizer. I'm going to get a web site up and put together some flyers we can put around with cards on them that people can take. It will give me a forum to discuss problems like this one at least. Hopefully I'll find some answers that will help me figure out how to make myself heard without alienating the family in the process.

Oh... I think the lamb went over well. Brian and I both liked it, anyway.

But now, I'm wiped. So...

G'night!

P.S. - I had this terrible urge to title this post "Be Very Quiet, I'm Hunting Wabbits!" instead. I don't know why... *grin*

Hookin' up the Kid...

My son - my 22 month old son - now has his own computer.

Yeah. I wasn't expecting to be hooking him up quite this soon!

But, see, mommy made an error in judgement. Earlier last week, I hooked him up with a keyboard and mouse - you know, like mommy has! - so he'd maybe stop constantly trying to get his tiny, grimey little fingers on mine. Well, he got a kick out of that, so I started looking for programs for him. I mean, what good is a keyboard and mouse if you don't know that they can do something, right? So I found some programs for "keyboard bangers" that are designed to do stuff or teach him stuff whenever he hits a key or clicks the mouse. Yesterday, I introduced him to one of the programs on my computer...

So, tonight, while Brian and I were kicking back for a bit on our computers, he wasn't happy to just sit in one of our laps or play with his usual toys. No, he wanted to play on the computer too! He wanted me to set him up with mine. He pointed and waved and finally grumbled and cried until I caved in and set him up on our other machine. It's not as nice as what we run on, but it works just fine for the little kiddy programs he's using. So he spent part of this evening clicking and playing on his own computer - just like mommy and daddy do - except with programs more appropriate for his age.

Some of the programs are actually rather cool, and encourage learning the alphabet, shapes, colors, and other similar stuff. I'm liking the alphabet one the best for him so far. But the best part tonight was when we realized that he was giggling because he figured out that when he moved the mouse around it made the cursor on the screen move too. Wow.

So much for waiting to give him one when we're ready to upgrade ours eh?

I took pictures, but I'm charging up the battery right now so that it's set for tomorrow when the family comes over, so I can't upload them onto the computer yet. Maybe I'll put one up tomorrow.

Speaking of tomorrow - wish me luck. I'm roasting a leg of lamb. I've never cooked a leg of lamb before. I don't even know what it's supposed to taste like! Eep!

G'night!

Point & Click

It is time. We have finally reached the point where our son is ready for his first computer. He's not even TWO yet! But I want my chair back:

G'night!

Etched in my memories...

Today, the Howard family grieves as another woman's name is to be etched in stone. Current generations will stand in rememberance and future generations will stare at the letters and numbers wondering what she was like when she was alive. Brian's grandmother, his father's mother, has passed on to her next journey after 91 years spent in this one.

In the time I have known her, I picked up on calling her "grandma" very easily, like finding a warm sweater that was meant to wrap around me in a comforting hug. I actually mentioned her here only just last month, when we spent part of a Saturday visiting with her. She was clear-minded and full of life, despite being physically tired out from age taking it's toll on her body. In some ways, we've known for the last few years that our time with her was limited, but she has always been stubborn about making sure she was able to take care of herself and was rather unhappy when they finally took her driver's license away. Despite her very old-fashioned ways of sending thank you notes for your thank you notes (something I found endearing as I amusedly wondered if I was supposed to send thank you notes back for hers too!), she had an adventurous nature about her. And, now that I think back on some of the stories of hers I had the chance to hear, I can't seem to recall her talking about the bad times she and her family had been through from time to time, but focusing on the stories of times when things were going well instead.

So now, as I reflect on the time that I knew her, I will be focusing on the good moments, and try to remember the stories she shared for when I show my son the pictures we have of him sitting on her lap. I will tell him of his Great-Grandma Howard, and how she kept reminding me that she was my grandma too, and that I was part of the family. I will let him know about her tin of cookies and how she kept letting him eat them, despite my feeble protests, as an old grandma ought. And how she amazed my sister with her intellect one Christmas when she happened to know all sorts of information on dinosaurs, when that was one of my sister's interests at the time. How, at 91 years old, she could still program her VCR without batting an eye, and apologized for being too tired to cook us up some snacks!

Wilma Howard (1914 - 2005)

She will be fondly remembered.

Goodnight.

Guilty Pleasures

So, last night and tonight I came waltzing back into my house around 11:00 at night. Last night I went and saw a movie with RainMoon and then we stopped for pie and coffee afterwards. Tonight there was a meetup group that ended up just being RainMoon and I again, sitting in a Borders Books cafe sipping drinks and shooting the... um... you know - talking. Yeah. Good, wholesome, conversation. Uh-huh. *grin*

Last night, Brian was still awake. He went to bed very shortly after I got home, and he'd mostly lost track of the time. Or at least that's what he said. He's not the type to get all worried and wait up anyway. Not usually.

Tonight, however, he was already in bed when I arrived. While I was taking off my coat and shoes I had this rush of guilt wash over me and felt like I was sneaking in after curfew or something! What the hell was that?

I mean, I'm not in trouble. I didn't do anything wrong. I have every right to have both friends and fun that don't always include my husband or my son!

I'm just not used to it.

When I was growing up, I was rarely allowed out of the house as it was. Coming home late was not an option, or it would mean forgoing the chance to ever go out again at all. My mom was often an all-or-nothing kind of woman. If I didn't obey the rules, I'd lose it all. As evidenced by her taking me out of all after-school activities after one, single, poorly-timed incident of getting home late from one. Poof - all activities now forbidden. I watched my peers getting involved in theatre, choir, speech team, the newspaper, dance, sports, etc. while I miserably trudged home each day to chores, babysitting, and homework. So, once I finally got to join up again, I didn't break the rules. I ran the straight and narrow.

So now, I come home to a quiet house and feel like I'm supposed to be in trouble for not getting here before my husband has gone to bed? It's not like Brian will be unhappy with me! He tells me to go out and have a good time and come back when I feel like it. I didn't specifically "wait up" for him when he went out to his drum circle, even though he came back pretty late. I just stay up that late normally, and I did want to hear how the first one went for him. The first meetup I went to, he stayed up too - wanting to know if I had a good time. But, on a normal basis (especially on a weekday for him, when he needs to work early the next morning) we don't plan to specifically stay up waiting for the other one to get home. It shouldn't be necessary. We're both adults.

Oh yeah... I'm a grown-up now.

So why did I feel like a teenager, sneaking in and trying not to wake anybody up and have them find out what time I came home? Especially consider that 11:00 pm, from a teenager's perspective, is hardly late at all! LOL!

There are some parts of my mold I definitely need to shed before my own son hits teenager years. Fortunately, I've got quite a bit of time yet.

G'night!

And now,

Would you rather:
1. have a giant sunflower grow out of the top of your head OR cotton balls under your arms?
Although the sunflower could be more circus-worthy, I think I'd rather deal with the cotton balls. At least they'd soak up sweat.
2. always yell at the top of your lungs OR never be able to speak above a whisper?
I think I'd rather never be able to speak above a whisper than yell all the time. I don't think I'd want to deal with being super annoying by yelling all the time. It would be easier to just tell people they'll have to come close and listen.
3. not be able to say the letter 'B' OR make all your 'S' sounds like 'SH'?
I'd rather not be able to say the letter 'B' instead of telling people to 'shit down over there'. Yah. *nods* Then again, I am the one who came up with Quick Shtick Writing, sooooo...
4. eat EVERYTHING covered with chocolate sauce OR have a side of graham crackers with every meal?
Even I can admit that not everything will taste good with chocolate sauce on it. A couple of graham crackers would be a lot better than losing the variety of flavors that come from all the wonderful foods to be found out there. And chocolate-covered burritos or spaghetti sounds simply awful!

Flashback one year...

Last year I sent an e-mail to myself as part of a project done by Futureme.org. They hold the e-mail for one year and then send it to you. The trick is that you write it to yourself. I got mine last week. I've been trying to decide what to write for the next one.

Mine reads as follows:

(this message was composed on Wed, Mar 17, 2004)

Dear FutureMe,

Are you pregnant? It's been a year since you wrote this little bit... Have you gotten more clients or have you abandoned www.doingforyou.com for something more lucrative? How are the plans for the coffee shop going? How's your writing doing?

How's Brian? How's Jareth?

How is therapy? Have you gotten past some of those issues that were worrying you so?

Remember...

It's all good.

Learn.
Grow.
Be.

Do you love yourself yet?

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
delivery brought to you by futureme.org
like hearing from your past?
we like gifts and donations: http://www.futureme.org/donations/
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Wow. so much in one year. I don't know if I'm pregnant, to answer the first. I'm avoiding thinking about it or finding out for fear we will be denied insurance if I do get pregnant. Needless to say, our efforts to do so have been somewhat lackluster in enthusiasm on some levels. I want to be, but I'm scared of it ruining our chances to have insurance for all the other stuff.

Doingforyou.com is my business web site, which is small and hasn't been updated very recently. I haven't abandoned it entirely, but have been putting my attentions more solidly on my son instead. With Brian's lack of permanent position, I haven't let go of that thread of my life that might be required if I'm the one that goes back to work permanently. With his temp position right now, I've not put much attention on it, but it is always lingering there in the back of my mind. A year ago, I didn't know that he was going to be laid off. The future looked different then.

The coffee shop idea seems to have been abandoned, at least for now. The writing, on the other hand is at least being done daily on Quick Shtick Writing. It keeps the creative juices flowing and builds some writing discipline at least. That's always a good thing.

Brian is good, although I can tell his current temp job is wearing him at the edges sometimes. He has to listen to a lot of unhappy people for good chunks of his work day.

Jareth is learning more and more. Recently he learned to say "mommy" and "daddy" instead of "mamamamamaa" and "dadadadadaaa" although we're still working on getting him to say it without prompting. He knows what the words mean though, along with a few others. He is slow on the talking scale, but I can tell he understands a lot.

Therapy ended when my pregnant therapist had her baby and then we lost the insurance. I did get a good running start on things though, and I like to believe I'm still moving forward on my own pace. I wasn't in therapy because life was bad, but to make life better. I think I'm continuing to do that. As for loving myself... well, I don't hate myself. And I'm getting prouder of myself as I explore my abilities to be a mommy to my son. I think that's something.

It's still all good. Yeah.

Oh... but Kit Kat bars are evil. Very, very, very evil. Especially when you buy a bag full of the snack-sized ones. Two days ago. And you only shared two of them with your husband. And you're about to eat the last one from the bag...

*sigh*

So much for the dieting this week. This is why I normally just don't buy them in the first place. But they were very yummy!

*wicked grin*

G'night!

Dinner and Candlelight

We didn't really do a whole lot to celebrate the spring equinox except a little change in the meal plan for the day, which resulted in dinner by candlelight...

That's all for tonight.

G'night!

There was a WHAT over WHERE?!?

I didn't blog last night. Partly I forgot. Partly I spent most of yesterday evening just feeling lonely, which is no good when writing one's blog. It was better left alone. I was feeling good enough to not ask Brian to stay home from work or his meetup thing (which he blogged about, and sounds like he really enjoyed), but not feeling perfect by far. I got some stuff done anyway yesterday, since I didn't want to get behind on the laundry or dishes. I also got another box out from behind my desk and sorted it out. that leaves only two boxes of "to be sorted" stuff sitting back here, and one of those is actually more of a project than just sorting. Mind you, I still have piles of sorted stuff that I still need to deal with on one level or another, but at least I now know where it's at. I'd better not move my desk for a long, long while now that I've finally got stuff this close to being organized. It's a record for me.

Today was errands. I hate doing errands on a Saturday, but because I was sick and forgot to send Brian for groceries the day he stayed home, I ended up dealing with it today. I'm still not feeling my best, but we managed to trudge through both Wal-Mart and the grocery store despite the fact that there was a dreary sort of rain today. The kind of rain that just hangs on you, instead of feeling fun to play in. Cold and damp. Overall, it left me weary.

We got a late start, so Jareth's nap was quite a bit late today. Just after I put him down I heard a police car's siren going and peeked out the window to see him clockin' it down the street. I see a lot of cops drive by around here on a regular basis, but they rarely zoom like that. I didn't think much of it though, until later when we got a phone call from the Daily Herald. Brian took the call, and they aparently wanted to know if we knew anything about the shooting around 4:30pm on our block today...

Um... the WHAT?!?

Egads!

No, I didn't hear a thing. I suspect that's what the police car was making haste to get to though. I haven't found anything in the news about it yet, but believe me I want to know. I know the area I'm in isn't yuppieville or anything, but I didn't think it was that bad for goodness sake! I don't live in a "hood" or a "ghetto" here... sheesh! *watches her property value drop and sighs*

I have to say that I just don't like the idea there there might be guns nearby to begin with. Much less people willing to use them.

So, anyway...

Tomorrow is the spring solstice. We're not sure how we're going to celebrate. Probably by flushing out our plans for everyone else's holiday next Sunday - Easter. Which we're hosting at our house.

I am planning a nicer dinner for us tomorrow though, and I picked up a coffee cake for breakfast instead of the usual cereal or oatmeal. We can at least recognize the day with a change from the usual diet. Brian is looking into other ways we might celebrate. I would suspect we should do something nature-related, but that will likely depend on the weather. No - we're not the type to go dancing in the buff at some forest preserve, so don't get your hopes up for any stories like that. If it were nice - I'd think a picinic and some kite flying or something. Of course we'd have to get kites... Whatever. We'll just have to wait and see.

That's all for now.

G'night.

Hum-de-dum...

Still sick today. So much so that I had Brian stay home after all. I probably could have survived without him staying home, but I have a better chance of getting better instead of worse with the extra rest. He's been taking care of Jareth all day and me too when I've been awake. Taking care of me has mostly meant bringing me food and drink, and keeping me amused (and our little boy out of my hair) while I've been awake. We played some computer games and I totally forgot to send him off to the grocery store during our son's nap like I had planned to! Oh well. It likely just means I'll be handling it tomorrow or Saturday. He is able to go in on Saturday this week to make up the hours he wasn't able to work today, which means my being sick won't hurt us so much financially, but our Saturday is now gone. That's a relief. Our budget is a little tighter than normal this month with Cinder's vet stuff. I just hope I feel better tomorrow, so I don't have to ask him for another day.

There's plenty of stuff to say, but some of it I can't mention just yet and the rest doesn't excite me enough in my befuddled, drugged-up, stuffy-head state of mind. So I think I'll stick to just this for tonight.

G'night.

Again !?!

Oh hell. I'm sick. I've got this damned throat thing again. It's going around. And around, and around, and around. *sigh*

I didn't notice it coming. My ears have felt a little moist, which often happens when I get sick since they don't technically drain properly or some other such nonesense a doctor told me when I was very small. My left ear in particular usually starts to ache some too. But my ears get funky when the weather is funky, so I paid it no mind.

Then there was the "feeling cold" bit. I've been feeling especially cold the last few days, but then it kept snowing outside. It occurred to me at one point, while blowing on my hands and rubbing them to warm them up, to wonder if Brian hadn't turned down the heat and not mentioned it, but a quick check confirmed it was set at the usual temperature. I just assumed that it was chillier because I had the shutters open to let the sunlight in by my computer.

But no, it's me. I'm sick. Damnit.

It is so annoying having to tell my little boy that I can't hold him as much, when he's gotten so snuggly lately...

*sigh*

I've got Brian on standby tomorrow in case I wake up extra miserable and need him to stay home from work. I'm really hoping that won't be the case. I can't tell right now though. I feel icky, but I survived today, though I didn't get squat done. I have a feeling I won't be going to my meetup tomorrow at the very least. I'd have to feel pretty extraordinary to run the risk of infecting the other moms' kids. I was looking forward to going too, and even willing to risk wearing green for St. Patrick's day despite the red I've dyed into my hair. (although I'm letting the dye grow out for now. We'll see how long until I break down and dye it again) And I was planning to do the groceries tomorrow too. I'm not sure about that one either.

Anyway, I'm heading off to take some more Nyquil and hop into bed early in the hopes of some healing while I sleep. Wish me luck.

G'night!

And now,

Would you rather:
1. be responsible for an oil tanker crash off the coast of alaska OR cause a rebellion in a developing nation?
Rebellion. It would probably be less harsh on the environment in the overall scope of things.
2. get locked out of your house while naked OR throw up all over yourself in the middle of an important meeting?
Throw up. Maybe at least the co-workers would be sympathetic (since I'd obviously say I was sick or something). I'm not comfortable enough with my own appearance to have all the neighbors see me in the buff, and I'd likely get arrested or something in my neighborhood!
3. wake up to find your feet have grown two sizes OR hair all over your back that grows back every night?
I think I could deal with having bigger feet easier than the hair.
4. eat nothing but cheese for a week OR only chinese food for two months?
Chinese. Easy choice.

Terrible Twos...

Today we went to this "open gym" thing. They had a bunch of different toys strewn about a gymnasium so that parents could bring their kids and let them run wild and free for a very small fee. It's specifically for kids under five years old, and Jareth seemed to enjoy it a lot. I've found out that they hold this thing every Monday morning, and I have a feeling that we'll be regulars. I'm planning to join up with their little organization too.

He ran all over, checking things out and showing some of them to me. Sometimes I played with him or showed him how something worked. Other times I stepped back and let him have some space, hopefully encouraging him to test his independence a little. He seemed to do really well. So much so that he threw a fit when we went to put on his jacket and leave. Such is the case lately.

Thus, we have officially entered the "terrible twos" stage. If he wants something and doesn't get it - he throws a fit. If he doesn't want to do something - he throws a fit. If he can't communicate what he wants - he throws a fit. This kid doesn't let me know when his diaper is full to exploding with nasty, warm, goopy, sticky poop, but you just try telling him it's not time for dinner yet if he's already hungry! Sheesh! We're taking a stance that involves sharp words and then turning our back when it doesn't work. We've found that if we ignore his little tantrums he will sometimes stop them in order to gain our attention again. It doesn't always work, but frequently. Even now, with the terrible twos going on, I can still say he is usually a very cute and well-behaved little boy. I'm a very proud mommy.

Now it's time to go tuck my little monster into bed.

G'night!

The return of the kitten...

The last two nights I rushed through my blog entries, wanting to get back to life at large and whatever enjoyable thing I was doing. Tonight I have a little bit of time to write it in, so I will include one topic I hadn't mentioned - Cinder. On Thursday morning, the vet came to my house and gave Nora her shots. Then he left with Cinder, whom I had gotten into her carrier before he had arrived (mostly so I could ambush Nora and lock her in the bathroom by bribing her with her canned-food breakfast. Otherwise she can sense the vet's car coming in the drive and tends to hide the moment she knows). Friday morning, before we headed off to Kid Rock, he arrived again with the newly neutered, declawed and microchipped Cinder. Poor kitty. The look on her little kitten face and the way Nora has been treating her since she got back has been giving me heartache. Her little front paws obviously hurt her and she has been meowing pitiously at me when I pick her up no matter how hard I try not to jostle her belly. Fortunately, over the past two days I have been seeing some improvement.

When she first arrived she was groggy and giving me that look like - what the hell just happened to me? Nora didn't exactly give her a warm welcome - hissing a lot - but I tried to make her welcome with what little time I had before we had to breeze out of the house to go to Kid Rock and a short grocery trip. I did try to make it up to her some the rest of the day, however, and she spent quite a bit of the afternoon and evening in my lap or nearby where I could pet her. There was one point where the drugs were making her eyes roll off to each side. That worried me some. Fortunately, that was a short-lived concern. She has slowly been perking up, although it is obvious that her paws still hurt her especially. Brian has been helping me give her the pain medication, which seems to help a lot. There's also an antibiotic that she gets with her canned food. I was concerned she wouldn't take it, but she finally did.

I went through a wave of guilt, despite the fact that she really really needed declawing, and I don't want a kitten litter to accidentally become an issue if she were to get out of the house. I felt no guilt over getting the microchip put in - I've been assured that she won't have really felt that, and it's value in identifying her if she gets out and is found and scanned is important. Even if she were to get out and be hit by a car or some other horrible thing, I might find out what happened to her because of that little microchip.

But she's doing better today - markedly so - so the guilt is slowly fading. She will hopefully be a little calmer now, and unable to destroy quite so many of our possessions or continually cause our son to back away when she goes for his feet. While she has taught him the understanding of gentle, she has also given him cause to learn the word "ow" - usually when she goes after his feet with her claws. Hopefully this means we can all have an even better relationship with our little kitten.

It's all part of the experience, in the end. Cinder's experience too.

In other news, tonight was a Sunday dinner night, which was at the in-laws. Good times. I'm starting to think that spreading them out to every other week makes me appreciate the family time that much more. This is a good thing. Family time should always be appreciated.

G'night!

Who needs chores anyway?

There was this list on my desk. Two lists, if you want to be precise. These lists dictated some things to get accomplished for today.

We didn't touch it. Not one chore. Nope. Blew the whole damned day off.

I loved it!

We started in bed. Jareth woke up crying, so Brian got to him first and snagged him up out of the crib for a changing and then they "snuck" (I played along, even though I'd been woken up by the crying too, when Brian got out of bed) in and "woke me up." This ended up with us spending about a half an hour playing in the bed. We snuggled for a while and I read Pat the Bunny to him. It's one of those books I had when I was a kid (although I had to buy a new copy for him - mine vanished somewhere along the line) and I keep it "safe" so he doesn't destroy it and I can read it with him. So I put it in our bedroom for mornings such as this one. There's a page in the book that talks about "mommy's ring", and has a hole he can put his finger into, which prompted me to show him how to put rings on and off of fingers and let him check out a couple of real ones. He got a kick out of that, so it evolved to me pulling a drawer of bead necklaces out for him to see too. He liked shaking them and pulling them on and off over his head.

After that was breakfast and then Quick Shtick Writing. We each wrote our entry while the other one played with Jareth. Then Brian and I snuck away for an hour to be alone together while Jareth played quietly. Of course by "quietly" I mean while he happily played on the Casio keyboard we have. Interesting background music to have during one's lovemaking I might add - music to giggle by. *grin*

Around lunchtime we craved pizza and ordered it. Jareth needed his lunch sooner, so he had to wait until dinner to get pizza, but we ordered a large enough one that we'll still be eating it for lunch tomorrow. Mmm. Once we'd had our fill for lunch we did the one thing that has become truely unusual for us lately - we logged onto EverQuest. We're still logged in, actually. We left our online characters sitting facing a wall when we went for dinner, and we spent the evening killing fictional evil things and playing with our son after that. Sometimes Jareth liked to watch our screens. Fortunately it's not one of those gorey type of games. I'm not ready for him to watch us vanquish the evil with realistic blood splatter just yet. Eeech. He's a happy child, I'd rather not give him nightmares.

So I'm going to post this little entry now and go back to the slaying. I can hear the game's background noises even though the window is minimized. It's waiting for me. It may not be the addictive game it once was for me (no, real life is much cooler!) but it still has its fun value now and again.

G'night!

Yesterday... all my troubles seemed so far away...

I mentioned that yesterday was a fun day, and it was. Despite the meetup in the morning being held at the rat mouse house, the company was good. I felt as if I finally started feeling more comfortable with the other moms there. Over the past years I've become less and less of a social creature, so these meetups are not easy for me. I generally feel much happier sitting here in front of my computer with my kid pestering me than I do in a crowd of strangers, no matter how much they might be wanting to get to know me. But I do feel like the ice around me is slowly melting.

I think I have to attribute some of that to the friendship with RainMoon, mind you. Just meeting someone and having that quick (and unexpected) connection was a boost in my optimism for the success of other meetups. I'm feeling a little more sure of myself. Not overly so. But enough so that after RainMoon had been over for a visit yesterday afternoon, I invited her to have dinner with us. Her husband couldn't join us, but her daughter did and it was kind of a rush for me. Other than Brian's folks, I don't have a lot of people over to the house, and rarely for dinner. I'm hoping that next time her husband can join us too. It really seemed like Jareth enjoyed RainMoon's daughter's company too, despite the fact that there's an age gap. He warmed right up to playing with her and was clearly disappointed when she left. It was nice to see him making that social connection too.

However, at the final class for this session of Kid Rock today, he did a lot of the usual shying away from the other kids again. I think it was a little better though, and I'm hoping that having two classes (one Kid Rock, one kid gymnastics) next session will give me a chance to see what aspects of the class he likes and doesn't by comparing it with his reaction to a different class too. He can be very social once he knows someone, but breezing in for a 40-minute class full of loud noise and chaos can be a bit unnerving for him I think. The gymnastics class might be done differently. I think the grownups get more exercise in the Kid Rock class than the kids do. We stand up, sit down, stand up, chase the kid, sit down again over and over. It's not unlike if you were to attend a Catholic mass while standing on a treadmill. Sheesh.

Over the past two days, Jareth has been asked to give someone a "high five" no less than three times. This prompted me to teach it to him, and I think he has it down now. I hadn't thought to teach him that. It's not something I generally have had occasion to do regularly, so it never occurred to me that someone might expect him to know it. It makes me wonder what other little foibles like that I've missed. Things that the other kids might have been taught but he won't know because it's not something we really do. Some of those things I won't want to teach him, but others I will. The social interaction will help with that too, I suppose. I can watch the other moms and kids to see if I've missed something. Hmm.

Alright. Enough for now. It's getting late and I want a little wind-down time before bed. Time flick the switch on the brain and put it into lethargy mode.

G'night!

The Walker

I've been meaning to write about the walker for some time now, but by the time I sit down to write this each day I've got other things on my mind and put them down instead. Today, when I saw him again, I resolved to write him in here finally.

I call him the walker because that's what I always see him doing. I don't know where in the neighborhood he lives. I am, of course, making the assumption that he does live here in the neighborhood and doesn't drive all the way here just to walk. That would be ridiculous, really. I can think of far nicer places that I'd rather go if I was going to drive somewhere to walk. Like forest preserves. Or neighborhoods with really expensive, elaborate houses that are fun to look at and dream about. Those would be worth the drive.

He always wears a cap over his hair, and I think the color of it changes depending on which coat he's wearing. I think I've seen three different coats on the walker, of varying weight depending on the weather. Today's was more of a hoodie than a coat, really, with a blue cap. He usually wears jeans and a pair of heavy-duty looking boots. The kind that look good for hiking or climbing in.

He seems to be in pretty decent shape, although it's no wonder he would be with the amount of walking he does. I've seen him at several different times of the day. Usually I see him as he passes my house. The reason I noticed him in the first place is that sometimes he stops at my neighbor's drive and turns around. Sometimes he turns and heads perpendicular to us (we're at a T intersection) and goes around the next block. If I see him go past, it's likely I'll see him again after a certain amount of time passes - heading back in the other direction. I did once see him way over at the other end of the subdivision entirely however, so his path isn't always limited to past my house. I swear I've seen him walking more than once per day although it's not like I keep a log or anything.

I'm not one of those women who sits like a spinster in her house, watching the neighbors. I've just seen him pass often enough that he's caught my attention. (That, and the fact that he's not bad looking - at least from a distance anyway - but shhhh, don't mention that part to Brian, okay?)

He's probably just walking. Staying in shape. Which is cool. But my imagination rarely lets such things alone. In my imagination, he's a secret agent - keeping tabs on some foreign spy hiding out in our neighborhood. Or he's a famous marathon runner or olympic athlete and part of his daily exercise routine involves walking several miles a day. Or maybe he's just really broke and doesn't have a car, so he walks everywhere. Or he could be really anti-pollution and refuses to buy a car so he walks everywhere.

Who knows? I may never know. I swear he doesn't like it when I look at him directly. I think it unnerves him, so I generally try to pretend I don't see him walking by. But still... he walks... on and on around our neighborhood.

Today was a good day. Full of friends and fun. But I wanted to get this little story finally down, so I'll save today's adventures for mention tomorrow instead.

G'night!

The show must go on...

So, after a long discussion last night, we decided that we'd wait another month before deciding if I'll join Brian at his meetup thing. If nothing else it will give him more time to get comfortable and decide whether my going would be an intrusion or not. Thus, I am sitting here at home while he's off mingling and otherwise making friends at his meetup.

Feeling the usual 'lonely' coming on, I treated myself to a glass of wine. It took me a while to venture a sip, however, as I'm not sure how far back the bottle was originally uncorked. I'm pleased to say, however, that it has not yet turned to vinegar. Mmm. A little white wine from Italy. You can blame Mindy about the wine. Any time she talks about cooking dinner she's mentioning uncorking something or other. It made me have the inclination to treat myself to a glass. I may not be able to afford to make lobster some other gourmet-sounding entree, but I do happen to have some leftover wine from the holidays. I think it may date back to Thanksgiving, but... you know, let's just not think about that, shall we? Yeah.

Meanwhile, I'm home this evening procrastinating on all manner of things I could be doing. I'm using the excuse that my foot hurts and maybe if I rest it some today it will hurt less tomorrow. So far it's been hurting more each day for almost a week now, but I'm just trying to attribute that to the idea that I've not had time to give it a rest. I've had the energy to try and get some stuff done around here lately, and I'm not going to let some stupid pain in my foot hold me back right now. Nyah.

So tonight I'm propping the foot (well, both feet actually) up and relaxing with my audience of one. Assuming you don't count the cats. Or the iguana. Whatever. The only trick with having your own enraptured audience, however, is the requirement that you perform. Fortunately, this audience is reasonable easy to please. Assuming you don't count the cats, anyway. They're just never happy.

However, I'm off to appease my little fan.

G'night!

Car Phone

Yep. This picture titled itself before I even snapped the shot:

Score one for the Kid!

No, this is not an absurdly early entry for Wednesday, it's really an extra entry for Tuesday instead.

This evening, we were hanging out in the living room, watching a movie, when I heard a scuffling. The kitten was messing with stuff by the coat closet door, which is generally not unusual as I have a cat scratching thingy hung on the doorknob there. But the door doesn't stay shut on it's own, so I've also got a pair of my shoes acting as makeshift doorstops. Usually it works. I have serious drilling to do to fix the door, so this has been a nice temporary solution until I have the time and inclination to figure out exactly how to fix it.

But, the kitten managed to move the shoes out of the way, and get the door open on the closet. Once the door was open, she wanted to go in and explore it. We didn't notice the part where the shoes moved, nor the part where she entered the closet.

What we noticed, was the scuffling. From inside the closet. The closed closet. With the shoes neatly placed in front of the door.

Where our son had kindly put them back, after closing the open closet door. Thus... locking the kitten inside!

Oh my, I haven't laughed so hard in ages...

The poor kitten, confused by her predicament, trapped in the dark closet, was poking her paws out from underneath, trying to get ahold of something that might render some assistance. My other cat seemed highly amused, by the way, and spent a short while teasing those little gray paws with her bigger black ones.

When asked where the kitty was, Jareth went over and pointed to the closet! He knew the kitten was in there!

Needless to say, we sat there and laughed a while, letting the kitten stew in her little predicament for a short bit before we let her out. Maybe she won't want to get in there again. We'll see. Countdown until neuter/declaw - two days, basically. The vet comes on Thursday morning. If all goes well, we get her back sometime on Friday. I've already gotten the softer paper litter for the box when she gets back - thanks to Brian for remembering we were going to need it.

The real question has become - what will Nora be like while Cinder is gone? Will she be pleased or worried? Hmm.

Also, so I don't forget...

Would you rather:
1. be stuck in an elevator with luciano pavarotti OR donald rumsfeld?
Pavarotti. I wonder how the acoustics would be?
2. have to kill a bird with your bare hands OR have to run over a dog with your car?
I would never purposely do either! For the purpose of argument, however, I'll say dog. I just don't think I could snap that little bird's neck with my own hands. But I might be able to close my eyes and pretend I was hitting a rubbermaid trash can or something. Maybe. *sniffle*
3. have the power to fly, but have to use the bathroom every 30 minutes OR have super strength but be blind?
Too much industrial use for super strength these days - I'll take flying. Flying would totally ROCK! I mean hello - DRAGON - duh! Depending on where I am and whether it's #1 or #2, I could always piddle mid-flight right? right? *listens to the crickets chirping*
4. look like alfred hitchcock OR edgar allen poe?
What did Edgar Allen Poe look like? Since I haven't a clue, I guess I'll take Hitchcock. At least then I know what to expect.

Hey, I was still awake, so it's still Tuesday for me.

Okay, now I really do have to get my butt off to bed.

G'night!

Mommy Fix...

That's what I say sometimes. "Mommy fix. Give it here. Mommy fix."

I overslept this morning, and inevitably woke to the sounds of tears in the room down the hall. I hurriedly tugged my sweatpants and socks on and breezed in and out of the bathroom before I went into "mommy mode" and entered his room. I'd anticipated that his tears were from a loaded diaper, or worse - one that had leaked. We've been trying some slightly more industrial diapers, and they seem to be holding a little better. They still aren't perfect though, and some mornings he's still damp around the waistband if nothing else. At least they make kid's sweatpants absorbent too.

To my surprise, that wasn't the case today. Instead, he was weeping over the tragic bow removal from a stuffed bunny he got last Easter from Brian's Uncle Bill and Aunt Lynn. The multicolored bunny had a multicolored bow that was held in place onto the bunny's neck by a couple of stitches of white thread. When I arrived on the scene, he held the bunny out to me and pointed on the floor, where the bow had ended up. He seemed awfully remorseful about the whole thing.

After breakfast I pulled out the sewing bin (yes, I do actually own some sewing supplies, despite my claims that I can't even sew a button back on properly), and did some bunny/bow surgery. Jareth sat quietly in the chair across from me, watching intently as I sewed the bow back onto the bunny with great care (and many, many more stitches than it originally had). I then presented the newly restored stuffed critter back to my overjoyed little boy, who hugged it tightly.

Go on... say it... you know you wanna...

Awwwwwww.

Yep. Mommy fix. *beams with pride*

Of course then there was later. When my personal learning curve dipped slightly. I was in the process of gathering supplies to go scrub our bathtub and put down some grippy strip things to keep us from slipping in the tub, when I realized that Jareth was hanging out behind my desk an awful lot.

And it was quiet. Too quiet. So quiet that I never heard the tell-tale sound.

Click. Clickety-clickety-clickety....

Oh crap. By the time I got over to the desk, I found that he'd had enough time back there to open no less than six programs on my computer - one of them twice! I frantically closed the windows and then put the mouse waaaaay out of reach this time before returning to my cleaning efforts.

I guess I learn a bit slower than he does these days. He, on the other hand, was saying "R" and "Y" quite well when he heard me tell him that those were the letters on the blocks he brought me. Whether or not he remembers next time he sees them, I don't know, but he is really learning to mimic the proper sounding of them quite well.

Oh yeah - and the bathroom tub is super clean! So's the sink and mirror, while I was at it. I didn't touch the floor or toilet though. That's Brian's job. I'm sorry, but if you're the one who piddles all over it, you're the one who has to clean it up! That's one of the nice things about being a girl - we don't generally miss the mark when it comes to potty time.

That's all for now.

G'night!

Hell, sometimes *I* say the darndest things...

Me: I've been doing the candle thing at night recently, lighting the ones around my desk.

Him: Yeah?

Me: Yeah, 'cause you know there's nothing like burning all the oxygen in the area to help make a person lethargic enough to go to bed...

Strange Days...

It's always strange when Brian is home on a weekday. It used to be that everything pretty much got put on hold, and we'd spend the day watching movies or playing mindless computer games when he wasn't napping if he stayed home sick. Nowadays, I went on as if it were a usual workday. The only real difference for me was that he was nice enough to keep an eye on Jareth for a while before they both went for naps, while I went off to run errands. I'd forgotten what it was like to run errands without carts. I used those little baskets you can carry on your arm instead. LOL. I wonder how long until I can convince Jareth to walk for the small trips and stay near me in the process. I've probably got a while yet. Whenever I set him down in a store he wants to run around and check the whole place out, not follow me.

I got him some cars today, at this dollar store that RainMoon showed me. I found some that are just the right size for his hands. He's been into zooming what vehicles he did have around on the floor, and was thrilled with these. He hasn't even seen that he's got three more down in the family room yet - just the two we gave him for the living room. I let Brian be the one to give those to him, since it always seems like I'm the one giving Jareth all the new little things. Most of the stuff I give him is actually stuff that was technically mine... no, not toys from when I was little - stuff I've collected while a grown-up. Don't ask. I'm just still a kid at heart.

We are vegging out in front of the tv for a movie tonight though, so I'll make this a short one. I've got to go tuck my little guy into bed anyway.

G'night!

Sickness abounds...

Seems like people keep getting sick around here this year. Brian is sick today, and might even stay home from work tomorrow if he doesn't feel better in the morning. We didn't go to his folks today for dinner as planned, because his mom is also sick with the flu. We seem to be going round and round with illnesses lately. I'd like it to stop please...

So today was low-key, for the most part. I had both Jareth and Brian napping at the same time today, so it was quiet this afternoon. It ended up feeling more like a weekday, with me doing some of the more productive things at my desk.

But today, I'm working on a little dilemma - Brian has a meetup group that he has been to once and is attending this coming week again. The topic of it is one that I find myself interested in as well, and I'm wanting to go to it as well. The problem is that I don't want to intrude on what Brian is doing. Other than work, there isn't a lot that he does that I'm not somehow involved in as well, so this meetup group was originally thought to be something he'd be doing as a "him thing." He has, however, suggested that I might go to it too, especially since there's a spinoff meetup that's starting up that I wouldn't be involved in. But I'm worried about intruding on his thing. He's already admitted to wondering if he will act differently with me there than he might otherwise. Hrm.

I have to decide before Wednesday, since that's when the meetup is.

Decisions, decisions...

G'night.

In the Candlelight...

We're busy finishing up a battle in our roleplaying game. My character is helping some dwarven colonists fight for their independence from the dwarven nation and the bad, greedy dwarven prince. We're making our stand at a keep in the colonies. I think we're going to win, despite the fact that my character just had to retreat back into the keep and return to using his bow instead of his sword. He kind of got hit really hard with an axe. Dwarves may be small, but they sure are strong... Ow.

Yeah, so I'm a geek. So sue me. What did you do with your Saturday evening anyway? Jareth likes to mimic us playing our roleplaying games. I've got him dice of his own, and he pulls out his crayons and paper to match our pencils and character sheets. Tonight I gave him a clipboard and drew some stuff on a sheet so he could have a "character sheet" too. He also spends lots of time in my lap, rolling some of my dice. I don't allow him to take off with mine though - choking hazard galore! He only gets to play with them if he's sitting in my chair with me - directly supervised.

Speaking of supervised play, we let him see the candle again at dinner, and so I whipped out the digital camera and messed around with manual exposures to see if I couldn't get some neat pictures. This one's the best (don't forget you can click on these nowadays to see the bigger picture):

Okay, time to put my little pyro to bed and return to plugging imaginary arrows into more fictional dwarven military...

Sometimes I love my strange little life.

G'night!

Countdown until the cat gets declawed...

I think I wore myself out with all the productivity of the last couple of days. Not only that, but I hurt my right foot somehow - twisted it or something - so I'm kind of trying to give it some rest. I had errands to run today, so I did those. I overslept however so we didn't even make it to Kid Rock. I suppose it will give Jareth a week off from potentially catching some other nasty thing from the other kids there, since I think he's fighting off a cold right now anyway. But we still needed to do the errands, so I couldn't just stay in and totally off my foot.

I put a collar on Cinder finally. I tried to a few months back, but her head was still so small that the collar didn't get small enough to stay on her, so I tucked it away. It might stay on her now, I'm not entirely sure. She's totally freaked out about it, and tries to get it off. She does manage to get it as far as her mouth, which concerned me at first, but I just saw her get it back down out of there so I guess it's safe. At least I know it's a break-away collar so if she starts trying to rub up against stuff to get it off it won't choke her. Nora managed to do that once in our last apartment, and I found it dangling by the kitchen sink. Next week is declaw/neuter time for her, and I need to talk to the vet about whether or not it will calm her down some. Something has to give - this kitten has been destructive. Far more than Nora ever was. If she doesn't calm down, I need alternate ways to discipline her. She runs when I squirt her with water, but she just goes right back to getting in trouble the minute I turn my back. Arrrgh. God help me if we ever get a puppy in this house. I can't handle an errant kitten!

That's all for now though. It's bedtime for Jareth and television for us for a while yet. More tomorrow.

G'night!

The unlikely neat freak...

It's as if, despite the fact that there is snow on the ground, I can feel spring coming. Yesterday and today have been extraordinarily productive, as if the need to clean and organize is taking me over.

Very odd. Very, very odd.

Everywhere I turn in my house I see something that wants straightening, tidying, cleaning, sorting, or otherwise dealt with on some level or other. Perhaps the fact that I've been scheduling things to do with these meetups is causing me to make better use of the time on the days I spend entirely at home? I don't really know. If it means I can get caught up with all the clutter sooner - yay to me! And my "to be sold on e-bay" pile seems to be getting bigger. So's the pile in the recycle bin - with old magazines, papers I no longer need, and empty boxes that are too battered to save. Of course a lot of things are being sorted into piles for further sorting, but I'm making headway. Lots of headway. I get to see floor! Which just reminds me that my family room carpeting... is crap. I don't know what the people before us spilled on it, but... eww. One of these days I'll have to actually clean it proper and see if any of it comes out or not.

So today I got rid of more clutter around my desk, organized and cleaned some kitchen, tidied up a bathroom cabinet, sorted through a slew of photographs from the last four months, tried to fix problems on Brian's computer, and... well, also the usual mommy things I do every day too.

*yawn*

And yet, just sitting here I see stuff that wants sorting/organizing/etc, and my fingers almost itch to do it. Almost. Instead, I'm making a mental list in my head of things I might do if I have time after Kid Rock and errands. I've got about three different stores to go to, so there's no guarantee on how much time I'll have left. Probably Jareth's naptime though, and I usually get my most productive stuff done then.

Okay brain - slow down please. We need sleep mode... sleeeeeepy... yah.

G'night.

Just like his mommy...

Jareth is definitely my little boy. I've been working hard these past couple of months at cleaning up the family room. I had boxes and boxes of stuff that needed sorting out that were stacked near my desk so that I would get to them sooner. Today I managed to make a huge dent by getting most of the filing filed. A lot of the files themselves still need sorting through, but at least the majority of the papers are in files now, with the exeption of a few things that aren't as critical (owners manuals to stuff we own, for example). With all the overflowing file bins suddenly out of the way, I was able to open up the room even more. Now the only area within the room that is gated off is over by Brian's desk. Building him the shelves helped, but he still could seriously use some drawers. My desk has drawers, but his doesn't. We kind of got it for free though, so we took what we could get at the time. Mine we got from his old job when they were selling off old office equipment for cheap. I got it for about $15-$20 and it's an ugly beige metal thing with a wood top that's covered with stuff (laminate?) to make it look like nicer wood than it is. It's ugly, and heavy as sin, but it works and has drawers. I like drawers. I need drawers. Drawers are very useful when you're a third generation pack rat.

I still have a bunch of stuff behind my desk, but I'm usually there to make sure that Jareth doesn't get into any of it. The rest of the room is now reasonably secure from a "don't leave him alone down there for an hour or God only knows what will happen" perspective. I hardly leave him alone anyway. He's become my little shadow these days. And, ever since he was sick, he seems to want extra time in my lap. How can I possibly resist when he looks at me with that adorable face and those big blue eyes and holds his arms out, waggling his fingers at me? Yup. I can't. I been gettin' my hug on lately. *grin*

So, here I am today, working on getting all this crap filed, and what do my ears suddenly hear?

click. clickety-click. clickety-clickety-clickety-clickety...

My first thought was the kitten. Cinder is always getting into all manner of trouble lately. I will be very relieved when the front paws are declawed on the 10th - she's removing the carpet upstairs before we're actually ready to be removing it. So I stand up, prepped to yell the cat's name and fumble for the nearest squirt bottle so I can peg her furry little ass with a nice dose of water.

When I see... my son, standing all tippy-toed so he can reach up onto my desk...

Yep, that's right. He had his hand perfectly on my mouse, just like mommy does. Clicking away...

I didn't know whether to laugh my head off or yell at him. I did do the stern thing, since I don't want him in the habit of playing with my mouse, but I followed up with some kisses - he pouts really cute too when he knows he's gotten into trouble. Fortunately, he hadn't managed to actually click on anything. I keep things minimized when I'm not using them, and had all but winamp either closed or minimized just then. I also put a ton of icons down on my taskbar and in my MS Office bar to keep the number of icons on my desktop to just one row on the far left. I dislike clutter on my computer desktop.

His other new thing lately is sitting in chairs like we do. I have a battered-looking computer chair sitting near my desk so that another person could sit there with me. It was meant to serve as a chair for the "work computer", but I haven't really used one since I moved stuff to this one and later gave Brian the laptop for him to use right now. After everyone has gone to bed (but me), Nora claims the chair as her own generally. Nowadays, however, Jareth will point to it and I'll lift him up and sit him there. He hasn't figured out that he could turn around and get off of it himself though, so he gets my attention and points at the ground when he wants to get down. I cleared enough space today so that it has more room now, and it can rock back and forth a little. He figured that out, and stretches both his arms out to reach the armrests with his hands so he can hang on and make it rock back and forth! I'll have to try to get a picture of that one, it cracks me up. He loves sitting in my big recliner upstairs too, and I'll push it back and forth to rock it for him. I have to love the irony that he loves to rock now, but wasn't as big on it when he was just an infant.

With all the moving stuff around and sorting and filing I was wiped by the time Brian got home tonight, so I asked him to make dinner. He was a sweetie and lit candles on the table, which absolutely fascinated Jareth. After eating, I took one of the candles that was in a glass globe-like holder, and brought it over to set on his high chair tray for him to get a better look at. He was very good, and heeded our warnings not to put his fingers in to touch the flame, and was thrilled to just look in and watch it. He got a kick out of us blowing gently on the flame to make it dance too. He is so definitely my kid...

I think, maybe, I'll just light myself some candles tonight while I unwind.

G'night!

And now,

Ever have one of those surreal days where you feel like you're outside yourself? Today was one of those. Some instances just felt like deja-vu, others just felt disconnected. Not all of it though. I was present and accounted for sometimes. Mostly whenever I was directly interacting with the people around me. Otherwise I was floating nearby myself. I know where I was, it's just hard to put in words properly.

So, instead, I'll do the usual Tuesday thing, Tuesday is Chooseday:

Would you rather:
1. have your purse/wallet stolen OR your car stolen?
In all honesty - my purse. I generally don't keep a lot of cash on me and only one credit card with a small limit. It would be easy to report everything stolen in a short period of time. I'd be more ticked off at losing the pictures in my wallet than anything else in there. My car would be tougher - then we'd have to replace the carseat too, and I doubt the insurance would cover that. Not to mention having to wait for the insurance to cough up the money and then go find another car that I like. That would suck.
2. have a ticket to the grammy awards show OR the academy awards?
From a prospective observer standpoint, I'd rather have the grammy awards ticket - I think the entertainment for the show would be better overall. However, from the "mingling" standpoint, I'd like the academy awards. In the end I'd probably take the academy awards show, just so I could see how full of themselves those actors really are.
3. be three feet taller OR three feet shorter?
Neither - I'm pretty average height, so either would make a huge difference! I guess I'd take shorter before taller, but I'd prefer that my weight and bone structure be reduced accordingly please, otherwise I'd look really strange! I wouldn't want to be three feet taller or I'd bonk my head on everything all the time!
4. for the rest of your life, talk like yoda OR breathe like darth vader?
Yoda. At least then I have the option to not talk and nobody would know. You can't not breathe! Besides, I could probably market the yoda voice somehow...

G'night!