Rugrats
About kids, ours and others, pictured or not, and Rugrat Carnival announcements
Now relegated to Blogblivion...Saturday, September 09, 2006
Sadie Good, Briz Bad
I took Sadie with me yesterday, to get her desire to “go” out of her system. I needed to look at a computer with an apparent malware affliction, pick up a check, mess with servers a little, and I wanted to do a trial install of Outlook 2003 on one workstation that could be messed up without mattering.
It turned out the malware affliction was a variant of this lovely thing. I had a certain amount of fun, because I located the files that contained the user’s recent web browser keystrokes, including his webmail URL, name and password, and all the most recent actions, including what I had done in the registry and such since sitting down. I’d heard of viruses or spyware designed to log keystrokes and transmit the info, but I’d never encountered one or seen direct evidence that’s what it was.
When I hit the registry, the most recently modified key was now blank “run once” under HKCU (hkey_current_user), so obviously something had been planted there and had a chance to deploy and clear on reboot. The run key under HKLM (hkey_local_machine) had five items, only one of them legit. One of them was winlogin. It and one other put themselves back as soon as they were cleared.
The file I recognized as not right in processes was ieredir.exe, which I was able to get rid of. Searching on it later told me this was Briz-F or a variant and allowed me to learn more.
The symptoms he was having were that Firefox would not run at all. Double-click and it goes away instantly. Internet Explorer would run but not work. Other things started hanging and not working, including eventually Word.
Fishing through files on the system, I found it was apparently spoofing explorer.exe with its own version, which would explain a lot. Ugly.
He went home. I left it for today, filled with joy at having that much extra to do this weekend. A cleanup of that sort could take hours. Afterward I looked at proxy server logs and found since about 10:00 AM the machine had periodically talked to a suspicious sounding .info URL and a URL ending in .org that otherwise sounded like it could be a credit union site. The latter appears to make you think that it is doing a windows update.
So, remember I had Sadie with me? She is so good! It’s as if she has a built-in sense of decorum. The whole time I worked on that computer, she hung out in that office quietly, chewing on a big pretzel the lawyer gave her and waiting patiently for me. Periodically one of her admiring public would come to the door to say hi to her.
Then we went over to the server room, which is more of a closet. She sits in there with me and touches nothing she shouldn’t. This in a place where she could easily reach out and rip the spaghetti of little phone wires from their contacts. There’s a toolbox she uses as a chair, and someone left a doorknob kit on the floor next to the door, so she plays with the pieces of that.
Then she got a big purple lollipop from the receptionist on our way down to my office, and for the little while we were there she ate the lollipop and played with her computer and a couple of small toys that live there.
She was sooooo good! I know she is generally, but it still amazes me. I still couldn’t take her for a whole day of intense work in the client’s offices, but it’s nice that I can take her for a couple hours or more and not have to worry much.
Sisters
Here’s a more proper photo of Valerie standing in the crib, exhibiting her customary disposition…
And one of the two of them in their room. Sadie is wearing her cutely garish dress that is her Favorite Outfit Ever. She had caught sight of it in the clean laundry, insisted on wearing it and using the white part as a food catcher per usual, and then insisted on sleeping in it too.
To the degree that Sadie is… a bit odd… Valerie has been possibly the best thing ever to happen to her.
Sadie Loves New Clothes
Sadie models her new outfit and demonstrates that she has mastered “contemptuous.” That’s a denim overall dress, with a red T-shirt you can’t see underneath, and a red Pooh windbreaker she wouldn’t take off, or even allow to be partially unzipped without freaking. She selected matching red socks. To go to the playground she wore new shoes with heavy duty rubber treads that made climbing the slides easier. We get the best pass-along clothes!
Thursday, September 07, 2006
Home Office Tips?
I noticed in the latest CotC that Dane Carlson had a post titled 6 Tips for Working at Home With Children. Obviously this is of great interest to me, since I partially work at home, and not just blogging, to the extent that involves money.
Item one was a consideration in selecting this apartment. It’s also used for the bulk of the book shelves and some storage, and it’s not always off-limits, but I do have an office room with a door that can be closed at need. I should probably do so more than I do, but most of my work at home is simply being available and able to respond to e-mails.
All too many of those go something like:
Them: “Help! My computer barfed!”
Me: “What were you doing when it barfed? What did the barf look like? Did you try anything to clean the barf up yourself, or to prevent it from happening again? Isn’t this like the barf that rebooting solves? Let me know and we’ll go from there.”
Several days go by…
Them: “Hey, my computer’s still barfy. Please fix.”
Me: “But you gave me no information to even know what to look at.”
Them: “I don’t have time to know anything about how a car computer works! I just need it to drive me to do my work! You’re confusing me.”
Tip number two is superlative. Merely having music is a big help. In fact, I have long been fascinated by the way music acts on my brain to make me focus. It is almost like flipping a switch.
Sadly, my headphones died months ago and I have yet to replace them. I miss them most late at night if I am up and at the computer. I already sometimes avoided using them so I could easily be called into another room to help with the kids. But then, that’s not hard core working at home when I can be that available.
One of these days I’ll get a new headset. It really is useful, and probably worth the money for a better one than I had. If playing music is like flipping a switch, doing it with a headset is like putting my brain into turbo mode.
The third tip is tougher, because it all depends. I am on call theoretically 24/7, and in reality 10/5, with certain stuff I can’t do at home done best on weekends and in evenings. When I am working hardcore at home, it’s usually an all-hours, nonstop as I can handle project, so there goes having a normal schedule. When it’s lower grade, it’s such a work/home mix as to moot the “work hours” thing. If I were working more regularly and busily from home, this would no doubt be useful.
Meanwhile, we’ve been trying to deal with the conflict between my combined need and desire to do certain out of the house stuff at all hours, and the need for me to be home by 6:00 PM at the latest as much as possible. I’m not sure how other people do it, as it would be ideal for me to be home by 5:00 each day so the kids don’t melt down before supper is ready.
When she’s not charmed and amused by my artist-like habits, Deb is driven crazy by them. Can’t say as I blame her, even as it’s tough to be any other way.
The fourth tip, well, never really been an issue. Oddly enough, Sadie seems to have a sense that she should be quiet or go off by herself if the phone rings for me. The way my office is configured, sound from the rest of the house is baffled even if the door is open, as long as they aren’t actually in the office. Which Sadie also seems to have a sense of minimal invasiveness about. She’s funny like that.
As for number 5, good idea, except if I am home it’s more likely to be something wolfed down at the desk.
Ah, and number 6… heh. I never needed to ask that. We routinely e-mail each other within the house. And if I am doing intense, close the door work, all the more so. It’s just plain convenient.
Other tips? Good question. I think you have to be willing to be a little flexible, which makes it easier for everyone to accept it when you really need to be left alone. I’d say even with door-open work, everyone needs to be aware when to let you concentrate on the task you are enaged in. For me it’s writing and other creative or technical things that can involve concentration, inspiration, or being “in the zone.” Sometimes I can write an e-mail response to a client having a problem and hold a conversation at the same time. Sometimes the distraction makes me lose entirely what I was saying and changes the nature of the response. Sometimes “flow” matters terribly. Sometimes it doesn’t so much.
I go back and forth on the whole home office thing. Given the nature of my work, I will always need one to some degree. The discussion has been whether to go exclusively home, or go more completely home but with some office space somewhere, but not necessarily where and how much it is now.
There are days I’m ready to say “I just can’t do this!” and make sure I always have an office out of the house and spend more time at it than I do now. There are other days when I can’t believe I’m still spending any money for a “real” office, no matter how nice it is to have an air conditioned place to take us all on the hottest days.
So. What are your tips for working at home, with or without kids?
Monday, September 04, 2006
This is what I mean when I say that Valerie burns it all off so it isn’t a wonder she’s tiny.
She’s 6 and not-quite-a-half months old. She’s been pulling up for close to a month, IIRC, and has really gotten into it the last week or so. Now she stands confidently with only one hand on the coffee table. We’ve suspected her of cruising a bit, though we haven’t caught her at it. But yesterday? She has one of those push-toys, you know, wheeled and with a handle at shoulder-height or so. She was pushing it. Push, step, step, push, step step. And today Jay caught her doing the same thing with her baby gym, pushing it across the hardwood and walking behind it.
Wild.
Saturday, September 02, 2006
Mmmm… Pizza
Last night was pizza night; our normal Papa Ginos order of a rustic meat combo and large traditional cheese, with the AAA discount. Val got her first chance to gnaw on pizza bones, and her first taste of pizza cheese, which was also her first taste of cheese, which we decided after her checkup it was time for her to start trying. She needs the fat and calories even more than Sadie did.
Sadie hadn’t eaten to speak of all day, and kept refusing food. She’d woken up too early and had a cranky day. We gave her a primo piece of the meat combo, which she picks much of the meat off of, but she wasn’t that excited by it. My theory was that she wanted a slice of plain pizza, so I got her one.
To our amazement, for the first time ever she picked up the slice, held it like a big person and started taking bites point first. This called for the camera!
The camera all too often disappoints me by getting an awesome shot but making it blurry. I’ll take six pictures of one of them, get one that has a smile or is otherwise superlative, and the camera will have failed me just on that one. Focusing is automated, which also means it takes the picture when it’s good and ready so I miss an outrageous number of “snap it now before the moment has passed” shots. Sometimes video recording refuses to turn on at all, no matter how many times I press the button or how long I hold it down.
The first shot of Sadie with the pizza caught an uncharacteristic smile and was a great picture, but so blurry I wouldn’t ordinarily post it, and wouldn’t make a print out of it. I was so mad I decided to experiment with touching it up. I use Paint Shop Pro 5.
Here’s the fuzzy original (which actually isn’t as bad as a lot of the ruined ones I get):
Here’s the result of surprisingly little modification:
Click the pictures above for larger instances in a new window.
Still not perfect, but better. I was intrigued to see what I could do. Oh, she devoured that entire slice!
Friday, September 01, 2006
“I Don’t Know”
That’s Sadie’s latest sentence, used separately to me and Deb at different times today.
Yup, she can’t talk. Just like the Pope isn’t Catholic.
Tall Girl
These are her new pajamas, the color she selected, size 3T. Which turned out to be a closer fit than expected, though there is room to grow, and they stretch enough to avoid the usual problem of pants falling because she’s thinner than the clothing makers assume. She’ll get a couple more pairs, now that we know they fit and are comfy.
The second shot is her favorite perch, on the back of the couch. Though she also likes being on the couch itself once she has removed the cushions. Very strange.
Thursday, August 31, 2006
Tiny Girl
So Val is still on with her attempts to slide right off the weight chart. She’s under the 10th percentile now, at 13 pounds 10 oz this morning. You should see what she eats, though! In an average day she nurses 6 or 7 times, including a couple of times overnight (and my supply is fine...I’d tell you why I’m so sure but that’s TMI, I think), eats between 2 and four jars of baby food, a couple of big servings of oatmeal and/or barley cereal (with the baby food), a share of whatever we’re having for supper, and sometimes a snack.
She’s also the squirmiest baby ever. She’s also pulling up on everything everywhere, can crawl almost as fast as I normally walk, and changing her diaper has become an affair that involves me sitting on the floor with her where I can pin her arms with my legs. Otherwise it’s simply impossible. And with that skill she deftly defeated the (overly timid, young, new) nurse today, who measured her at 25 and a quarter inches. I know, because I’m the poor sap who has to dress her, that she’s grown more than a half inch in the last two months. My own measurement against her measurements once she left the room and Val calmed a little and let me stretch her out properly was about an inch longer. Which would put her right back at the sixtieth percentile, where I expected her to be (per usual) rather than the thirtieth. Ah, well.
At least her head--being easier to measure--looked like it grew appropriately!
Our doctor, being possessed of a sneaky sense of humor, ambushed me with a blood pressure check while I was there, too. And it stank, as usual, so more meds, as is becoming the pattern. I’m starting to suspect that not having slept a full night in more than six months is what’s keeping it high. God knows we walk enough, lol! And he doesn’t think there’s anything particularly wrong with me that a million bucks and a beach vacation wouldn’t cure (my words, but I’m pretty sure that’s what he meant, lol). So we soldier on. Sleepily.
One. Yeah.
As Deb mentioned, she took the kids for a walk and to the playground yesterday.
When she was telling me about it, I asked if Sadie had gone down the tubes. Except for some exploratory ventures, mainly she went on the slide last time. Well, that and she loved the suspended bridge on the bigger kid equipment.
Deb thought for a second and said, perhaps a little uncertainly, “one.”
Clear as could be, Sadie followed that with “One. Yeah.”
Little twerp. She’s totally toying with us in the talking department.
Well, perhaps not intentionally. It’s as if the brainpower and attention go for processing everything she sees and hears, and learning the language perfectly, but none goes for using the language she’s learned, rather than her own language or symbolism, except when it happens to slip out or become a word of choice. Like ball or key.
She’ll even use a word a lot, then stop using it for weeks or months, then suddenly use it again. That includes the word she invented for candy: gee (with a hard G sound).
It’s funny, we’re probably supposed to be worried, in the age of modern parenting, but we’re not at all. A kid as bright as Sadie, who when she does talk has clarity and grammar beyond her age, will be just fine.
In the meantime, some of the things she comes out with just floor us.
On another note, Deb has Valerie at her six month checkup today. I can’t wait to find out her specs and what the doctor thinks of her antics. What I really can’t wait for is Sadie’s 2 year appointment at the beginning of October. She has grown so tall!
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
Carb Girl
The third picture is especially significant in that Sadie hated potatoes. Even in the mixed veggies babyfood that included potato, she could tell it was there. It took McDonald’s fries to get her to eat potato in some form. Maybe it helps that Val’s first potato experience was fries from Mina’s.
Valerie also thinks toast, bread crusts and pasta, even plain, are wonderful. On the other hand, I am not sure she has ever disliked any food. Declared it “meh” compared to other things, sure, but not rejected. She also loves broccoli at least as much as Sadie did. The bread picture here was actually a bit of garlic bread crust from a meal of broccoli chicken al fredo, of which she’d also eaten the other components.
However well she likes everything else, carbs seem to rule.
Saturday, August 26, 2006
More First Playground Fun
When we first arrived, Sadie wandered around, checking things out, refusing so much as any hints of help by repeatedly saying “I do.”
Not “me do,” as my niece famously insisted to my mother about dressing herself when she was two. No, for Sadie it’s no talking at all except when things slip out, but with the correct pronoun or usage when it happens. Here she is, checking things out and getting close to using the actual equipment:
Here Sadie demonstrates the only proper way to reach the top of the slide:
Yep, the proper and efficient way is to climb up the slide itself. She used the big steps. She tried using the little steps closer to the slide, after watching another kid use them. She wouldn’t take my advice to use them; only witnessing a peer. Same with being reticent about going through the cage-like metal tube until she watched another girl go through.
She went down the little slide once, then it was big slide all the way. Eventually when the right combination of other little kids going over there but not as many people over all being there happened, she made a break for the big kid equipment and used the even bigger slide. However, it was in heavy use by others and she freaked because we stopped her from climbing up the slide and effectively monopolizing it.
Here she is, going down the big slide on the little kid side of the playground:
Finally, Valerie does not want to be little, and insists she can play on the equipment too, not merely swing or be held or sit in the stroller. Sheesh. We let her hang out on this two-tier platform like truncated steps, handy for adults to sit or to access the tubes. She climbed up a step and considered but though better of going into the mesh tube.
Friday, August 25, 2006
Swingers
Looking at the playground pictures reminded me I’d never posted Sadie’s first time on a big kid swing, back on July 22nd. Here she is with my grandnieces Katherine and Julia:
The strange thing was that she propelled herself, as if she had been born knowing how to do it. Except it seems less strange after seeing how she operated at the playground, watching what other kids did and learning, or getting her nerve up, in the case of the metal mesh tube, from that. She probably saw one of the other kids pumping her legs to go and emulated.
The funky safe swings in the little kid (red) section of the playground were a step backward for Sadie, but Valerie didn’t mind. Sadie also didn’t remember how to make herself go. The weird seats made it easy to push them without unseating them, so that was good.
In the last shot you get a good view of the bigger kid equipment, which little kids were also using. Sadie took it upon herself to join them for the last little while we were there.
Wednesday, August 23, 2006
What Is It?
Deb asked what this was, after Sadie had shown way too much interest in it earlier, and I didn’t know so I took a picture like a good blogger. I recognize it as nothing edible, but that’s just a broad “what it isn’t” that’s not a big help beyond basic wild food safety.
It’s sort of a vine-like, weedy plant climbing the suckers at the base of one of the trees our cars nose up to in the driveway.
Tuesday, August 22, 2006
Classic Valerie
Nope, she wasn’t trying out for Blue Man Group: The Junior Edition. She’d found a rogue crayon of Sadie’s. Compared to that, how bad could it be to let her try the chili? Which she loved.
As of today she seems to have grasped and run with the idea she should grin face-wrenchingly for the camera, so she’s gone from serious in most shots to big smiles much of the time. This seemed more spontaneous, and is a classic picture.
Now if we could get her to sleep all night…
Saturday, August 19, 2006
Let Her Count The Ways
How early should a kid learn numbers and counting? With no real effort put into teaching her?
This morning Deb held out her hand and asked Sadie to give her five, something she learned at a very young age.
Instead of simply smacking Deb’s hand, Sadie did so repeatedly.
I said “hold it! Did she just do that five times?”
Deb said “yeah, I think so.”
So I held out my hand and told Sadie “give me three.”
Smack. Smack. Smack. Wise-ass amused look.
Shortly after that we tried four, but she got distracted and lost count after two. Well, kind of. She gave her mother two, then smacked my hand, then gave her mother two more.
After that she refused to play that game anymore. However, she did answer the question “Sadie, how old are you?” by saying “two” and looking amused at how she was toying with us.
Go figure. No pun intended.
Friday, August 18, 2006
Of Trains And History
We walked a couple miles yesterday, and I remembered to take the camera along. This was not enough for Sadie, so she also played in the sandbox for a while afterward, then went with me and hung out in and around the server room and an attorney’s office while I did some work. She is soooo good, being able to do that. Though the lollipop I snagged her from the reception desk didn’t hurt.
This set is the view from two bridges over the railroad tracks looking roughly north, then from adjacent to another bridge looking roughly south. This is the trainyard area near enough to us to fill the apartment with diesel fumes when certain engines idle there, viewed from opposite directions.
In the first pictures, the more spiffed up looking stretches are the ones used by the MBTA commuter rail, which terminates not far beyond these bridges.
The third picture is retouched, brightened 15% because the camera was acting up. Though not as much as it did later, when it corrupted several pictures and ruined my getting a complete war memorial set. The card has now been reformatted and we’re going to order a new, higher capacity one.
In that last picture, the decrepit building to the left of the tracks is the old C.P. Washburn building. I’d noticed they were no longer open for business, but I had no idea why. This is significant because when I was growing up, when they also had a store near us in Halifax, right beside the same railroad tracks, they were the oldest continuously operated family business in America. Besides being a long separate branch of the same Washburn family my father’s mother was from.
This post made me look into it and I learned what happened:
As the survey progressed, we were, of course, eager to learn which is the oldest existing family business in America. The answer seemed easy: the C.P. Washburn Company (1632) of Middleborough, Massachusetts. Then came the crushing news: on November 1, 1998, The Boston Globe reported the company’s untimely demise. Charles P. Washburn IV, a member of the 11th generation, was apparently unable to pay $120,000 in back taxes and the town closed the company’s doors, bringing an end to a noble family business that got its start as a granary in nearby Duxbury, long before this country became a nation.
In the course of this, I also came across an interesting list of historic sites for Middleboro and other towns in Plymouth County.
Another Washburn building is among those historic sites, as is basically the entire part of town where we live, which includes the post office, which is itself a distinct historic site, which would fit with my taking a picture of it because it looks so cool.
As the above implies, there will be more pictures, including a war memorial curiosity I managed to photograph, even though I didn’t collect the complete set. Stay tuned…
Salmon: The Results Post
Yay, Benji won! Oh wait, wrong results…
So, what happened with the salmon?
Above is a picture of it as a small portion appeared on Deb’s plate.
I used my cast iron frying pan, which I was thinking to do anyway because covering it on a burner creates an oven-like cooking effect. Heated it a little with some olive oil, put the salmon skin side down, put some lemon pepper - what seemed like a generous amount - and a slight bit of olive oil on the top, and cooked it for a minute or two on the stove.
Then I stuck it in a “425” oven. Ten minutes later, I was amazed at how slowly it was cooking. Though the pilot runs pretty warm and it would have slow-cooked through eventually. Turns out that no gas gets to the burner tube in the oven, and nothing past the pilot will light. Doh. Probably the burner tube thingy has to be replaced, which when it had to be done when I lived in Quincy cost the landlord $150. But gave the stove decades more of life.
So it was that I ended up with the pan on the burner, per my original plan before there was such a chorus of “and then put it in the oven...” from commenters. Cooked it mostly covered on low heat, and in the end turned it over for a minute, then back, to make the top look more traditionally cooked. Contrary to my normal penchant for cooking things to death, I got it only just done as one is supposed to do with fish.
How was it?
Very fishy smelling. I didn’t expect salmon to smell so stridently fishy. Very strong tasting, if not bad. The lemon pepper was good, but mostly buried under the taste of the salmon. When I saw Jen’s pointer to a recipe for cumin encrusted salmon I thought it sounded way to strongly spiced, but this piece of fish could have handled that and would have been good. I could easily have doubled the lemon pepper, or mixed in or replaced that with some other spices. Not like I have to conserve the lemon pepper; it was fifty cents for a good sized container. Heck, I pour on the expensive spices, when I am on familiar ground.
Next we’ll have to try a white variety of fish. It’s good to know that even though the cheapest of cheap price for fish is $5 a pound, 0.6 lbs was at least a serving more than we needed.
Oh, Sadie hated it. She wasn’t very hungry anyway, and instead of letting her sit at the table and think about trying a piece of the salmon, we enthusistically told her it was “like tuna,” which is one of her favorite things, and gave her a bite in the living room. She was all betrayed because she though “like tuna” meant “it is tuna.” Oh well. As we tell her, all we ask is that she try it, and be open to trying it again sometime in the future when her tastes might have changed or it might be a better version of the food. Since she eats almost anything, she’s entitled to a few exceptions.
Thursday, August 17, 2006
It’s Not Envy
Crayons are also good for coloring your sister, captured here with one of her elusive smiles. Elusive to the camera, that is. They aren’t elusive at all, in general. She’s genial and jovial and all that, as I reportedly was at her age. Yet for the camera Valerie can make serious Sadie look jolly.
You Know You Have Kids When…
Snakes on a Plane? Amateurs. Here we have crayons in a speaker:
This ancient set of computer speakers I bought years ago for my Pentium 200, after I bought a SoundBlaster Gold card for it. Since that sound card has traditional speaker jacks and these speakers have the same, the two go together. I use the speaker cables from a stereo I bought at Zayre in or around 1978.
Because the computer has not been hooked up, the speakers have been kicking around near my desk. Both kids loved playing with them.
When I went to hook them up the other day, I found the controls had fallen into the case, barely lining up with the holes. Not useful. So I opened it up to fix it, and the picture is what I saw; crayons everywhere! Apparently Sadie had been pushing crayons into the speaker unobserved. You’ll notice that no crayon is allowed to remain clothed. The wrappers must be torn methodically off each and every one as soon as possible. She’s so funny.
Tuesday, August 15, 2006
Overheard in Our House
Me: “You’re gonna start talking any time now, aren’t you?
Sadie: “You got it.”
Much excitement and teasing of Sadie for holding out on us ensued. Right about the time we finally started to get worried about the lack of talking (even though she understands everything and can follow complex instructions and be very helpful), she started busting out with more. Sometimes funny, like when she fell and said “doh!” plain as day. Which is what the above three word sentence was; absolutely perfect, unmistakable English. Just before that she had said “I don’t” for the second (if not as clear) time today.
Friday, August 11, 2006
Sad Val
Valerie is up to three real food meals a day, and pretty much thinks each new food she tries is Best Thing Ever and why were we holding out on her. Yesterday she tried peas for the first time, case in point. She’s now had apple, pear, banana, peach, mango/kiwi/apple, carrot, peas, sweet potato, sweet potato/apple, prune, squash, apricot, and quite possibly something I’m forgetting. She also eats oatmeal mixed into other foods. Courtesy of Sadie and a more casual attutude and ravenous hurriedness on her part, she’s also probably tasted and even swallowed things we don’t know about. Probably including peanut butter, courtesy of Sadie. Yesterday she approvingly sampled a Frosted Flake Sadie had dropped.
Yes, she doesn’t know she’s five months old and shouldn’t have the dexterity to pick up an individual flake and put it in her mouth. Let alone a sunflower seed. We got her some banana flavored puffs that will disintegrate readily and serve as a distraction. She loves those. When Sadie doesn’t steal them all.
This morning she tried a little real banana. When we did that to Sadie she thought we were nuts (real bananas and babyfood bananas are entirely different flavors). Valerie declared it yet another Best Food Ever.
She can’t get enough to eat. Yesterday evening we finally figured out that was why she wouldn’t stop fussing, and it took a big jar, a small jar, and some of the puffs to satisfy her. Though she was still unhappy that she got puffs while we got spaghetti, salad and French bread. Not Fair.
She seems to put all that food into height and motion. I call her the Squirminator. During diaper changes she makes Sadie look placidly cooperative.
Thursday, August 10, 2006
That’s Our Sadie
Playing intently with tools from the top rack of the cheap yellow toolbox, after she finally figured out how to open it, while her doll (who Sadie recently named Dee Dee) looks on.
I kept her out of the bottom section, let her play until she was bored, then disappeared the toolbox into the closet with the house toolboxes. The yellow one is supposed to live in the trunk of the Sentra, but that may be moot now (it could also use a few additional items). The truck got the toolbag instead, stuffed full, but I moved that to the Sentra one day when I needed tools before we even got out of the driveway.
Of course, she figured out how to open the toolbox by watching me open it earlier, as I lowered the seat on her tricycle, pointing out what the tools I used were called and how I was using them. Valerie was also fascinated by the demo.
Aha! Sadie’s in a growth spurt and now I know why. I told her she still needed a couple inches height to reach the pedals, even though she can sit on the seat now.
The kid is going to be one of those who will want tools - real ones - at an absurdly young age.
Sunday, August 06, 2006
Poor Val.
Tooth number two joined tooth number one today.
It *is* awfully happy that they came so close together, though. Compressing misery is good, no?
Wednesday, August 02, 2006
Valerie’s First French Fries
And yes, she really was eating them, after sufficient mastication, enough to have consumed a couple good-sized fries worth. She was thrilled! Until she snagged part of an onion ring off the table and no longer wanted fries…
Tuesday, August 01, 2006
Well, that explains it!
Last night was a bad rotten night in Valerie-sleepy-land, with that beautiful little child dragging me out of bed three freaking times.
But this morning she’s got a tooth to show for her troubles!
Saturday, July 29, 2006
Apparently My Briefcase Was Perfect For It
Valerie just pulled herself up into a standing position for the first time! Then let herself down and pulled herself up a couple times. Then scooted a couple steps to the left, which led to her downfall, because she didn’t move her upper body.
Well, that’s for the first time entirely on her own, leaning on/holding something other than one of our hands.
She apparently has no idea that she’s only five months and eight days old.
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
Here comes trouble…
So yesterday Valerie discovered that she can cross thresholds. I wondered where she wandered and it turns out that she was sitting in the middle of the kitchen floor looking something between proud and confuzzled.
That’s not the exciting bit.
The exciting bit is this: when she saw me in the doorway, the girl got up on her hands and knees and crawled halfway across the kitchen floor to come see me. She’s spent the last day crawling and scooting and rolling from room to room to room. This morning she was already visibly stronger and steadier at it than she was yesterday.
I have a five month old baby who crawls. I am in so very much trouble. Fortunately, it’s the best kind of trouble!
(Honestly, if I wasn’t seeing this with my own eyes, I wouldn’t believe it.)
Monday, July 24, 2006
Smelly Trains
One of the odd downfalls of where we live is, sometimes, the trains. Mostly it’s cool, having a big trainyard right here. Then there are times like last night…
You know those trucks you get behind on the road that have particularly foul exhaust; the “how did that pass inspection” kind of exhaust that requires you either drop far behind, pass immediately, or be airtight enough for LEO, lacking only a launch vehicle?
There are train engines just like them, and they will sit in the trainyard idling for an hour or four periodically. Filling our apartment with toxic fumes. Especially my office and Sadie and Val’s room, courtesy of position plus window fans.
Sadie got to stay up for an extra hour past the already late time she was going to bed, else she’d have been shut in an exhaust-filled room. At least with everything open, it can dissipate better. I ended up in the bedroom reading, rather than working on billing. The fumes were making me sick to my stomach in the office.
Eventually we heard the train power up and rumble off, and within a half hour the fumes were entirely gone. The bad thing is that another train briefly did the same thing around 4 AM. Enough for me to wake and notice, anyway. Sheesh.
Friday, July 21, 2006
Mmmm… Food
So today Valerie got introduced to banana, which is the first babyfood not to get the initial “what are you trying to poison me with? Mmm… give me more please!” reaction. Just went straight to the “yummiest food ever shovel faster” reaction.
Apples are good. Pears are even better. Squash is as good as apples, or at least close. Prunes are awesome, maybe even as good as pears. Sweet potatoes? Bring it on! But it may be that bananas beat them all. Which is different, because Sadie never more than liked bananas.
Meanwhile, today Sadie got introduced to watermelon. The farmstand had cut sections 59ยข a pound, so I grabbed the smallest one they had just for giggles. I am not a big fan myself, though it used to fun to grow watermelons, which is touch here because of their long season. Unless you grow the non-traditional smaller ones.
While I was making supper, I gave her some chunks of it. She seemed to like it, and I found it unusually tasty as watermelon goes.
A short time later, when the corn on the cob and burgers were almost done, I look and there’s Valerie, in the exersaucer in the middle of the kitchen floor, with bits of watermelon on her head, hair damp in the front with juice. More watermelon was on the floor and the saucer tray, looking as if Sadie had thrown up. But not exactly; looks like she’d chipmunked it and then spit it out, probably smooshed some of it before we noticed.
So today Valerie got introduced to watermelon. Juice, anyway, which she thought was yummy to get off the tray and lick off her fingers. So much for one new food at a time!
But wait, there’s more!
While Deb was at the doctor, I made myself a ham and cheese sandwich for lunch. For Sadie I took one slice of bread, smooshed it doughy flat, put on some mustard, slice of ham, a layer of cheese, slice of turkey, rolled it all up tight, and sliced it into thin wheels. I ate the two crust ends. Sadie ate almost every bit of the rest, leaving mainly a few bits of bread that got free… and one uneaten roll, which she got on the floor.
Deb later found Valerie gumming Sadie’s uneaten rollup slice. She’s determined she too will have the good stuff as soon as possible.