Holiday episodes

11.15.15 - Neil and TWD

Neil: "Good god, Walking Dead is terrible. It should be called 'Walking Long Stares, Speeches, and Unnecessary Pauses in Conversations About Our Feelings.'"

I beg to be adored, lost control!

11.9.15 - Jack reading to Clara

11.8.15 - Clean kitchen

11.8.15 - Clara at 8 months

My l'il miss is just over 8 months old now. Recently she's been pulling herself up onto everything she can, often shortly followed by her looking across the room at me and grinning proudly. At first she would get stuck in the upright position and start crying, but now she's getting better at slowly letting herself back down.

Now that she can crawl around she keeps herself busy for longer periods of time. She and I spend the majority of her time in the kitchen/living room area and it's pretty well Clara-proofed so I can get other stuff done (chores, work on the laptop) while just checking on her every couple minutes. She usually starts in the middle of the living room with stacking rings or her blocks and then crawls all around examining the bookshelf, the wicker basket with her second tier toys, the farm magnets on the fridge, and the little mirror on the floor resting against the wall.

Messing up the shoe racks.

Sometimes she'll fuss even though she's not hungry or tired, and it turns out she just wans my direct attention. I often pick her upa nd cuddle her, but other times I'll just lay on the floor near her and let her crawl over to me, smiling, Then she'll use me to lift herself up and she'll have her little hands on my stomach or chest while she stares at me and smiles and giggles. She'll put her little hands all over my face, which I think is her way of being as close to me as possible.

She's also trying to learn to kiss. I'll make puckering noises and slowly get close to her and then kiss her cheeks or lips, and more and more often as I get near her she'll open her mouth really wide and push it against my face, haha. She doesn't get it yet but she is trying.

She's added "ma" sounds to her "ba ba ba ba ba" babbling. You can tell they don't mean anything yet, but it's cute. I notice she does more "ma" and "na" sounds when she is complaining about something. I wonder if that trend will stick. :-P

When I put her on the changing table I very often sing to her, which usually pleasantly distracts her. Even though I'm sure I know a lot of songs, the same half dozen or so always pop into my head. "If I Only Had a Brain," "All Kinds of Kinds," "The Way You Look Tonight," "Walking After Midnight," and "You are My Sunshine" are some of the most common ones. A lot of times, especially if she's a little tired or fussy, as soon as I pull her onesie over her belly I gasp dramatically, and she looks at me and starts smiling or laughing, and I say "Look! At that! BELLY!!!" and then give her a whole bunch of belly kisses while she laughs. I usually repeat that three times, switching to zerberts the last time. It almost always makes her smile or laugh (unless she's *really* fussy).

We Skype with people probably 3-4 times a week, so the sounds of Skype calling or of us calling someone else on Skype are familiar to her and usually she starts grinning hugely and staring at the screen in anticipation. She seems happiest when the person on the other end is Mom, although she also likes Skyping with other people.

She also almost always seems so happy to see Jack come home from work. If I'm holding her when he gets here she'll start leaning toward him for him to take her. It's very sweet. A nice welcome for him.

I'm already feeling nostalgic and bittersweet about how big she's getting and how fast. I'm trying to soak up the baby cuddle moments as fast as possible, because I'm sure it won't be long before cuddling becomes much rarer. I love her so much, it's crazy.

Yay fall!

11.1.15 - Autumn at last

First of all, today it rained. Not just for five minutes, but for the better part of the day. It was a soft rain and it was cool out, but still comfortable enough to keep our windows open and feel the air. At one point I carried Clara out to the front balcony/walkway area to let her see, and she just kept staring at the rain and giggling to herself. She even babbled at it a little bit. Very cute.

Even though it was already afternoon, I decided to stop by Michael's and see if anything was left of their post-Halloween fall sale. I'm so glad I did! I ended up getting the two wooden pumpkins and "Happy Fall" sign pictures, as well as the pinecone turkey. Originally they'd been worth a total of about $42, and I got the whole lot for $8. So happy. :) I try to pick stuff that is just autumn-themed (as opposed to Halloween- or Thanksgiving-themed) so I can leave it out longer, but the turkey was too cute to pass up. And too cheap, haha.

Another good part of the day: I'm getting the hang of using Photoshop, which means I can start animating the videos I'm creating for my dad, which is not only fun but gives me control over the entire creative process. I wait for no man, haha.

Halloween 2015

On Friday (October 30) we dressed Clara as a little ladybug, I dug out my old Jack-o-lantern tshirt, and she and Jack and I went to my program's Halloween party.

Vicious ladybug serial killer.

It was nice, simple, and sweet. I got to chat with Debbie for awhile in the hallway where it was quieter while Jack played scary movie trivia with everyone in the main room. We got free pizza and chocolate cookies and candy. Everyone fawned over Clara, the only child there. She seemed mostly confused and gave everyone her baby judge face all night. I also got to visit with Erin and Julianna.

Julianna went as "50 Shades of Gray" but she also had red and black and matched Clara very well.

Erin's awesome spiderweb tights for her witch costume.

For the actual day of Halloween we didn't make any plans, but it felt like a treat of a day because the graphics tablet I ordered came in, so now I can try to learn to sketch in Photoshop. I spent a lot of time getting that set up but I was pretty excited once I got it going. 

First family Halloween photo. :)

Jack took Clara up to his old work to say hi to people, and I stayed home to mess with Photoshop and skype with Everett before he went to a Halloween party. It was nice to Skype without any Clara distractions and we just laughed and joked around about haikus and his costume. He was originally going to be the spy from Team Fortress but he ended up looking like a more generic assassin. For awhile he considered going as Martin Blank from Grosse Pointe Blank and he even got a pen for his pocked and a name tag that said "Martin Blank," but he had no way to fasten it to his coat. But it gave us lots of opportunities to quote the movie and laugh.

Also, Everett and I have decided to do another bet for the first two weeks of November, so since I will be counting calories for awhile, Jack and I decided to have a night of gluttony Halloween night. I went to Starbucks to get a little work done, then picked up a pizza at Roundtable and some ice cream at Walgreens on the way home. In all three place (Starbucks, Roundtable, Walgreens) the employees were wearing Halloween costumes, which I really enjoy. There was a skeleton and a military man at Starbucks, an elf and a Minnie Mouse at Roundtable, and the Joker's girlfriend Harley Quinn (sp) at Walgreens.

Anyway, so I brought it all home and we just hung out and enjoyed it while Jack worked on chemistry and I worked more on trying to understand Photoshop. Clara and I skyped with Mom for a little while and she told us all about Halloween at Aunt Linda's with Julie's family--Malcolm was a pumpkin and Zoey was a blue airplane that they had made themselves out of boxes.

Also Denny was a bunny, haha.

But the family "costume" of the night goes to Ellen for this amazing setup:

She spent the evening pretending to be a zombie on Dad's front lawn with him.

Neil went out the night before, like us, but unfortunately I have no pictures of it.

Also, as another small Halloween joy, I do love Halloween on FB. Everyone posts their cool costume ideas and their kids getting all excited and I love seeing all of it. Such an enjoyable holiday. 

As evidenced by my earlier post about Five Little Pumpkins, I'm already enjoying the holiday more by re-living my childhood memories of it through Clara, and she's not even old enough to know what's going on yet. I'm really looking forward to the next couple years as she can get excited about it too!

Epic Rap Battles

Tonight on the ride to Starbucks to get some work done, I set my iPod to random and an Epic Rap Battle came on. I haven't listened to any in awhile, and I listened all the way there and on the way home too, the whole time smiling and thinking of memories associated with them (mostly of quoting them incessantly with Everett, also slightly of holidays since there have been several Thanksgiving and Christmas trips where we were really into the latest releases). Quite awhile ago I included Nice Peter in my Joy Inventory, but Epic Rap Battles really ought to have it's own entry, considering how much I have enjoyed them over the last 3-4 years already.

10.23.15 - autumn care package

Today we got a package in the mail from Don and Merlene that was filled with autumn-themed gifts. First of all, there was a bag of kit kats (with autumn leaves on it, even though they were regular delicious kit kats). There was also a note saying the gift "for Mommy and Daddy" (a microfiber cover for our sofa) would arrive separately.

Then there were gifts for Clara, including a Halloween card (I've made a shoebox for Clara's cards to keep), a Halloween board book, a leopard print outfit with leopard ears, and a Thanksgiving outfit that says "Thankful and Loved" with an acord for the "o." It was all so cute. 

I was especially happy about the board book because when Don and Merlene were out here I had mentioned I'd like to collect Halloween books for my kids and put them out every October, like my mom does with Christmas books. This book--"Five Little Pumpkins"--is short and sweet and has illustrations that remind me of how I felt about Halloween as a kid: black cats and ghosts and witches, but nothing too creepy, just festive. I love it.