celticdragonfly | Recent Entries

Alanna can correctly answer by pointing at the body parts for toes, nose, eyes, and ears. And when I asked her "where's your mouth?" she crawled over to me and kissed me - then pointed at her mouth, to make sure I got that she knew, I guess. Awww, so sweet! She'll also put her hands on her head when I ask her where that is. So she can identify six body parts.

Current Mood: cheerful

Alanna is 14 months old now. I've been meaning to get weight and other details, finally doing it today. She weighs 29.8 lbs. It's pretty hard to figure out her height, but I think it's about 30".

She's a very sweet affectionate child, with willful streaks and occasional bad days from teething molars. She loves to give and receive hugs and kisses. Her favorite word is "Up!", which she'll often repeatedly whisper at you with great intensity to get picked up. She loves to bounce. She climbs up and down from chairs, couch, bed. She loves to go explore things. If you give her something, she'll say "Taa!" in a tone of voice that sounds like she's thanking you. She loves The Itsy Bitsy Spider and will do an approximation of the motions.

She can be very shy around strangers. Today in the store I saw examples of that - if somebody she didn't know tried to make eye contact or talk to her, she would yank her head down, chin firmly into chest, and utterly not look up or make a sound.

She has good hand-eye coordination and can feed herself a lot of things. She doesn't use the spoon to eat yet, although I've seen her pretend with a spoon and cup, so she has the general idea. She's still trying to eat crayons, so no drawing yet.

This picture is of her playing peekaboo with me with the blanket.

One of my guildmates made me an awesome World of Warcraft forums siggy:

Current Mood: impressed

So it has been decided that since Maggie is doing a lot more household work and helping with her baby sister, she's now getting a small allowance every week. Since we're concerned that she'd either lose it or that Jamie would take it, not knowing what it really was, we're not actually handing her cash. Instead,

selenite has set up a spreadsheet on his computer with her account, and will add money to it every Saturday.

She's VERY excited about this. We're trying to teach her about savings. Right now, at the end of each month she'll get 10% interest on what she saves.

We've talked about saving up for something she wants. Mostly, she wants to save up for her own computer. She's so excited at the idea. I told her that will take a LONG time to save up for. Fortunately,

fordprfct can build computers from components, so it won't be as long a wait as if she had to save for a prebuilt one. I don't know if she'll be up to the wait or not. I expect there will eventually be some parental matching, if she does a good job saving.

Current Mood: pleased

WoW silliness last night in Quel'Danas: ( Read more... )

Current Mood: amused

For my fellow World of Warcraft addicts - I made some nice advancements. Several levels ago I got my frostsaber mount, and have been meaning to post about it. And last night my first character dinged 70.
( screenshots or it didn't happen )

Current Mood: bouncy

So I spent a large chunk of today in the ER with a fellow World of Warcraft player. And they had a TV screen with a movie channel showing. The 3rd movie we sat through was The Wizard of Oz.

Now, I'd gone off for some dinner, and came back in about an hour into it. So they were just meeting the Cowardly Lion. I was noticing the clearly defined road, and the wilderness to either side of it, and commenting it looked like a WoW zone. We decided it was Stranglethorn Vale.

Then there was the poppies scene. Clearly they were crossing a zone boundary - and then, look, they went off the road, and encountered an AoE debuff. Clearly a stacking moving debuff, they didn't move quick enough through it. Only affects humanoids and beasts.

And they didn't have the key to Heroic Emerald City, we could see that.

As they went down the hall towards the wizard, I was commenting "I think I've been in this instance."

So the Cowardly Lion is the druid, and he's doing a quest to pick up an anti-Fear trinket. The Tin Man is the tank, and we think he's getting into the RP/character concept thing, as he's looking for a chestpiece with a Spirit bonus, despite that not being very useful for tanks. But look at what pains he's taken to get the matched set of armor, and he's using a one-handed ax despite having no shield - clearly optimum stats are not his priority. Dorothy is a hunter, as she can't go anywhere without her pet, and she needs a new hearthstone. I guess the Scarecrow wants to be a mage, but needs an intelligence boost first - and he really needs a better fire resist set.

Um. Yeah, we're geeks. Although this is better than the WoW-related silly train of thought I went off on during church...

Current Mood: amused

So I must reboot and I'm closing up tabs, and found this, found from

selenite doing it.

Your result for The Steampunk Archetype Test...

The Charming Noble

9 Swashbuckling Engineer, 0 Crazy Clockwork Tinkerer, 87 Charming Noble, 33 Roguish Pirate, 15 Mechanical Fian and 8 Aetherist Bodger!

You are surrounded by adventure and mechanical marvels which you helped bring about. You don’t dirty your hands with the details, instead having one of the many engineers, bodgers, and tinkerers under your employ do the work. Your time is better suited for balls and social occasions where you charm and regal bearing makes you the center of attention and you can keep the conversation steered away from the unsettling topic of the anti-royalists who keep posting flyers all over the city.

Take The Steampunk Archetype Test at HelloQuizzy

Recently Maggie has taken up photography. She sweet-talks me into loaning her my digital camera, and goes off to take pictures. (There was a plan to put a new data card into the old camera and just give it to her - we really need to find it and put this together and do this. Family, help me and remind me?)

So here is a selection of her pictures. For the most part, without commentary, since they're her shots. Anything that was an obvious blurry failure I took out, as with the times she decided to take a picture of the TV screen while watching a video.

Some of these are silly. Some are kinda good. Her baby sister is definitely her favorite subject for photography.

( Read more... )

I had been promising kid pictures. Those who share my addictions will understand why early Tuesdays are the time I'm most likely to catch up on posting. (We're UP already, but I promised myself I'd get this done first.)

( Pics here! )

Current Mood: cheerful

Because I am a sucker for purple things, what can I say. If you click it for me, we'll see what happens.

I'm waiting for Karl's computer to finish scanning, so he can play with me some more.

I have photos I need to put up - but it's late. Somebody nudge me if I haven't done it tomorrow.

For the other WoW addicts on my flist - if you ever roll Horde on Earthen Ring, I recommend Alea Iacta Est to you. Here's a letter I'm sending them tonight.
( Read more... )

Current Mood: impressed

We've just spent a pleasant time on Teddybear Beach this evening.

You see, since high school I've had a fuzzy brown blanket with a big teddybear design on it. Usually these days it's folded in quarters and laid down on one side of the living room as Alanna's nap space. But Maggie and Jamie have been playing with it lately. They had it all opened up and spread out in the middle of the living room, and it was Teddybear Beach. They invited us adults to join them on the beach, and we did. They had everything imagined out. The rest of the carpet was the water, the light and fan was the sun, and we could see the patterns in the clouds of the ceiling. Hear the seagulls? And the two kid-sized green beanbags that were given to Maggie as a birthday present several years ago were their boats, that they could climb into and paddle around as they scootched them along the carpet. Alanna was just wandering around, climbing in and out of "boats" and flinging herself at adults for hugs.

We had a lovely time on Teddybear Beach. There was dangling legs into the water, scrunching toes into the sand, and several marauding hand-crabs, bent on tickling innocent feet and ribs. Jamie got Brave and first was stomping crabs, then retrieved a pretend rifle from a boat and was shooting them. Since we've been working on getting Jamie braver and less fearful, this got lots of congratulations.

I love my creative imaginative kids.

Current Mood: cheerful

I have the Crown of the Fire Festival!

And a Captured Flame.

Yes, I'm a WoW geek.

Current Mood: cheerful

Okay, that's the second time this year that I've managed to knock a glass jar of minced garlic out of the fridge and onto the floor and have it shatter. I'm thinking maybe I should just go back to the dried powdered stuff - it comes in a plastic bottle.

The hideous pounding nauseating headache I am having today *was* starting to give in to the ibuprofen, but that much garlic scent is bringing it back.

Gah.

Current Mood: sore

Birthday party pictures and commentary, from Sunday
( Read more... )

Today - joint birthday party for Maggie and Alanna, over in Euless at the apartment. Games, pool party, two cakes, presents. Lots of fun. Maggie's getting more comfortable in the water, and Alanna is going to be a natural.

Pics on the camera, I'll see about getting them up tomorrow and writing more, right now I am exhausted. Was fun. Tired now.

Current Mood: tired

Alanna is one year old today!

She's 26.8 lbs and 31 inches long.

( Click for the picture )
She got to see her Mamaw Linda today, and get pretty new outfits. She got to go to the church camp evening gathering tonight and be sung to and share cake with people, and then go out to dinner with the whole family. She's been made much of.

Some thoughts about her at a year old. She walks and runs confidently and well, and can bend over, pick something up, and stand back up without (usually) falling. She has a couple of times gotten down off my bed without falling. She is starting to talk, says things like Mama and Kitty and simple words like that. She can sign to nurse, and bring the boppy over, and say "nuh!" She can sign for more, and for cup when she's thirsty. She can sign for diaper, and even occasionally signs it when she needs to be changed.

She's a very loving child, cuddly, you pick her up and she snuggles in and puts her head down on you, and will often reach out and pat you on the back. She likes to give kisses and blow kisses. She thinks "foofing" is funny and will foof on our necks or arms. She LOVES "The Itsy Bitsy Spider" and will ask for it repeatedly, sorta signing the start of the song and saying "Pider? Pider?" We'll sing it to her - not just the adults, Maggie and Jamie will, too - and she's started signing the song along with us for about the first half of it.

She has six teeth now. She eats solids pretty well, and is still nursing. Tonight she had cake, and bread, and a bite of meat, and a bit of potato, and some caramel apples, and a lot of steamed broccoli.

She has the most ADORABLE giggle. She likes attention, and likes to SHOW us things. She has just recently developed a really cute little angry pouting face when things don't go her way.

( Growth charts )

Current Mood: cheerful

Maggie is six years old today!

We're having her party next weekend, jointly with her baby sister's. But yesterday she went off and spent an overnight with her godparents, and had a lovely time. They gave her a beautiful butterfly necklace and bracelet, she adores them. We met at church this morning and went out for brunch afterwards.

She baked while she was over there, a bunch of cupcakes and a little cake, and apparently she really did lots of it herself. So we took pictures of that cake tonight.

She's 44.8 lbs now. (Her brother, 18 months younger, is 55 lbs!) She is a bright, charming, exuberant, sweet little girl. She likes to sing. She loves her brother and sister. She likes to try playing Rock Band, and will "help" us play World of Warcraft. She is reading reasonably well for her age, and interested in books, but does get frustrated when I have her read a lot. She loves to play in the water, and wants to learn more swimming. She and her brother got awfully sunburned Friday, playing out back in the little kid pool.

( Pictures )

Alanna got tooth #5 today, upper left 2nd incisor.

This just inspired the following dialogue here:

selenite: "You can tuck her up to your ear. She's newtooth enabled!"

fordprfct: "The trouble is, the nearest largest thing I have to throw at you is HER, and she doesn't deserve that!"

selenite: "Well, neither did you, but who else could I use it on?"

Current Mood: amused

Alanna just asked for a diaper change!

I've been saying "diaper" and making the sign for it, when she's on the changing table, and she's been responding with an approximation of the word and the sign - and then she'd started to say/sign it first, always on the changing table. As if she was saying "aha, we're doing this thing called diaper!"

Just now she was in the high chair eating, and fussing some, and said her approximation of diaper and signed it - and yes, she was messy and needed changing. Yay!

Current Mood: excited

Okay, we have batteries, so here's a couple of pictures.

	2008-05-14a Our 11 month old girl, having gotten her cute outfit ALL wet, looking up at the camera.
	2008-05-14b She loves to run up to the camera - this time came all up to the gate!

Current Mood: calm

Alanna is 11 months old as of Monday.

I can't give her weight, because we can't get her to hold STILL well enough for the finicky scale to register us properly. And there's no way I'm getting her to hold still enough for a measurement of length. So no growth charts.

I thought I could at least put up a picture, but we're totally out of the right size batteries for the camera. Pity, she's in a CUTE outfit. Perhaps later.

Anyway. She's adorable and sweet. Her hair is longer, still quite curly, especially when she gets worked up and sweaty. She likes baths. She adores her sister. She is starting to have some really definite opinions - for example, she used to eat banana, but now she will NOT. She likes bread and biscuits, and cereal with apples and bananas, and loves to chew on croutons. The top two teeth are partway in, the bottom two are totally in, and the next pair on the top are swollen under the gum. She still nurses a lot - she'll sign for nurse, or sometimes bring me the mini baby boppy (the full size one is a bit much for her to carry, but she's figured out the little one can symbolize the big one) and say "nuh?"

She says Mama, and says No. ("Nao". Very cute) She says papa and dada and sorta says kitty. She's trying to say cracker and button. When I prompt her on the changing table, she will approximate the sign and the word for diaper. She walks very well, and can crouch down, pick something up, and stand back up with it. She likes to untie things, and generally will take one shoe off in the car. When she drinks water, she spills a LOT of it all down her front - on purpose, I think. She blows kisses and plays peekaboo and is very interested in the Itsy Bitsy Spider.

And we love her very very much.

Apparently I like remoulade.

Now and then, I go out to Central Market and make myself a lovely big salad from their salad bar, and bring it home. Sometimes I also get some of the cold grilled salmon, which is just SO tasty. I used to be so-so on salmon, but have grown more and more fond of it as I've gotten older, and have had just some LOVELY salmon dishes this spring.

Last time, the lady put two little plastic cups of some sort of orange sauce in with the salmon. I didn't have the slightest idea what it was, but decided okay, I'll try it. Oh. My. Goodness. YUM! It was marvelous.

So this time, when getting salmon, I got more of it - I will have some for breakfast, yum - and asked about the sauce. She was out of the little cups, but was happy to go fill some for me from their sauces bar, and I followed her since I wasn't clearly hearing what she said in the bustle. Remoulade. Oh. Well, it's GOOD.

So I looked it up when I got home. Interesting. Originally a French condiment, it mentioned French, Danish, and Louisiana versions. It seems the French version is white, the Danish "creamy yellow", and the Louisiana remoulade "bright red to ruddy-orange". This stuff is definitely orange, more than yellow, but I don't know about "ruddy-orange". Perhaps I have a Texan variant on the Louisiana remoulade.

In any case, it was YUMMY.

Current Mood: full

Maggie had her six-months dental cleaning and checkup today, so I picked her up a bit early from school. I'd told her about it yesterday, and her reaction was "Yay!" Okay, this tells me I've done a good job of making sure she doesn't have the kind of dental experiences I had young!

She again went to the back on her own, with me staying out in the waiting area with Jamie and Alanna. The hygienist came out later to tell me that all was well, except that in the first of her 6-year molars, which is most of the way in, there was a hole - not a cavity, just a hole in how it was formed, but that's the sort of spot where bacteria would collect, so they wanted to check if insurance would cover them doing sealant on it, if I approved. I was all for this idea, and insurance said yes, so it was done. Dr. Ballard told me afterwards Maggie was very good, a joy to work with. So I passed that on to her, and told her I'm very proud of her.

Current Mood: impressed

( Today's adventures )

Current Mood: cheerful

( More WoW game rambling )

Current Mood: cheerful

Alanna has learned to say "No". And she has been bringing me the little baby boppy pillow, the miniature one, and holding it up and saying "nuh?" when she wants to nurse.

( Tonight's WoW fun )

Current Mood: cheerful
Current Music: Witch Doctor

Alanna's upper right incisor broke through today. And clearly the upper left one will be coming after it very soon.

Poor kid - teething is rough!

So I haven't posted much lately, dunno if anybody noticed.

I've been busy in other new directions. And I've been having a BLAST, a lot of fun. But I've hesitated to post about it.

Because what I'm having fun with is a game. After Jamie's surgery, and a whole LOT of other chaos and stress, having heard

fordprfct and

mposa talk about it, I decided I wanted to try World of Warcraft, and got

fordprfct to let me try a character briefly on his account. Oh my. That was FUN. Then we got me a trial account - and

selenite, too - and those were VERY quickly upgraded to full accounts - and I've been having such fun ever since.

Part of me wants to geekily squee about the fun I'm having and the various odd things I pull off - odd difficult places I've gotten my character to explore at levels where she shouldn't be getting there yet, or the vagaries of the fishing tournament, and stuff like that. But - I'm expecting that many people will have no clue what I'm talking about and may be annoyed. And - in the past, I've made the mistake of sharing with friends enjoyment I was taking from a game, and pleasure in how I was doing, and got razzed for it, given a hard time for talking about the game. So - now I'm uncertain. It's like people think I shouldn't enjoy a game, that it's somehow an unacceptable pastime, a dirty secret. Yet - this is a lot of what I'm doing these days. So - not much posting.

And yet it's doing good things for me. I'm having FUN. I'm learning that my own enjoyment actually counts for something, and I can be a priority for myself, rather than just spend my life completely taking care of others. I'm learning to handle failure better, learning to be less conservative, improving situational awareness, keeping my dexterity up, finding something that challenges my thinking and keeps my mind going faster than caring for small children does. I'm making friends, deepening other relationships, and having something interesting to talk about with the others in my life who do this. And it lets me spend time with people I care about even if they can't be in the same zip code with me at that time.

So,

autographedcat recently posted a poll on this, and I'm going to do the same thing.
[Poll #1179895]

Current Mood: unsure

So I have been busy and not getting around to posting much, and I should.

Maggie's been taking Irish dance since last fall. April 19th she attended her first feis. I hadn't thought she'd be ready to compete for a long time, but her teacher wanted her to, and pitched it as mostly a chance to get used to how a feis works and be used to them so that it doesn't intimidate her when she's older.

So we did. Went Friday evening and got her gillies and the socks - she's been dancing with ballet shoes to start, but she needs the gillies to compete. Her teacher had contacted the shoe vendor to make sure she had some small enough, but they're still a bit big, she can grow into them. And they'll stretch, so she will be wearing those for a long time. She was excited, and spending time with her teacher's daughter, who's a good bit older but likes Maggie and is the type of girl to take younger girls under her wing. They were practicing together, and having a lovely time. Jamie wanted to get up on the stage and dance, too - I am so looking forward to when he's caught up enough to start dance classes.

Saturday was crowded and a bit chaotic for me, but we got through. Maggie's age group danced very early. She was only entered in beginner reel. She wasn't really doing her choreography, she was following the other girl who was up there with her, sigh. But, she went through the process well, quietly and did what she should, was in good positions, was good "on the line" before and after, and it's her introduction to a feis. So that's good. She wants a fancy outfit and the curly wig SO so bad. I told her no - repeatedly - that's for when she's a more advanced dancer in the future.

I entered the vocals competition, and found out last Thursday from her teacher that I'd tied for 3rd. We'd left before results were posted, as Maggie and I were exhausted and hungry.

Maggie'd had a lot of people who love her there to watch her dance - myself, her brother and sister, Karl, Miles, and her godparents Mary and Bruce all came. But the others had left earlier.

Here are pictures of Maggie before the dancing - you're not allowed to take pictures or video during the competitions.
( Read more... )

Our little sweetie in one of her new outfits from Mamaw Linda, after coming home from Wednesday evening at church.

And here's a little video I took of her - and yes, I goofed up, and forgot that I was holding the camera sideways - and there's no way to fix that. Sorry. But I figure the grandparents will want to see it anyway.

Current Mood: cheerful

Alanna is 10 months old today! So I have updates on her, and some pictures.

First, a few pictures I took in the last few weeks but didn't get around to putting up earlier:
( Pictures of her still at 9 months )
And here are pictures of her at 10 months.
( Read more... )

Alanna is an absolute sweetheart. She's a sunny, cheerful child, with a marvelous disposition. She's loving. She loves to give kisses, and has been learning to kiss her hand/blow kisses. She's toddling more, and gets very excited about it, and wants to clap about it and be clapped for. She will occasionally show us things, and will point at things. As well as simple words like mama she will point at a cat and try to say "cat" - it's somewhere between cat and kitty, but it's definitely a K sound. She signs for nurse, and waves hi and bye. She sorta has a drink sign. She loves playing with her sister and brother, and is a very giggly baby. She is ticklish.

Overall, she's just the amazing Adoragirl.

Current Mood: cheerful

Alanna was standing holding onto my knees, and turned herself, and let go, and took two steps, and then grabbed Karl's chair.

Right on time, they've all done their first steps shortly before 10 months. Not that she's fully walking yet, but she did it!

Current Mood: excited

Softball doesn't get any softer. Jamie just invented his own game - he brought me the baby plush cube to throw, and he's using a plush whale as a bat. Karl got a bit of video of it. We were playing for quite a while, and now Karl's taken over as pitcher. It's so cute. When he misses, he sometimes says "Not again!"

Current Mood: amused

Pictures of the kids dressed up to go to Maundy Thursday and Good Friday services, and LOTS and lots of Easter pictures from today.
( Pictures and commentary behind the cut )

Current Mood: cheerful

Pictures and a video of the kids in their dressy spring outfits from Mamaw Linda.
( Read more... )

Current Mood: cheerful

Life is good. Oh, I'm sure there will be another crisis along shortly, there always is. But it doesn't worry me - we take care of each other.

It's been a great weekend. Saturday we threw a surprise birthday party for

fordprfct. Many thanks to those who came and helped make it so good. We had quite the crowd! I had a lot of fun. Talk, stories, laughing, cake, games. Cute kids running around playing together. Generally fantastic. I think the funniest sight of the night was Linda taking one of the sticks and helping Tom play drums in Rock Band, co-op drumming!

And we got in three motorcycle rides this weekend - including a relatively short one yesterday that was just used to get him out of the house so the surprise could get sprung on him, a bit of a last minute idea that actually worked out. Whee!

It's been a gorgeous weekend for it - completely sunny yesterday, only a scattering of clouds this morning, admittedly a lot more this afternoon, but we got a lot of sun, the temperature was great, and we had a really good time on the road.

selenite will be meeting up with me shortly with the kids - I've decided it's really time to go shoe-shopping for Alanna in preparation for her walking and spring weather when we'll want to take her outside, but I don't know if there's anywhere that would have good stuff that would be open tonight. We'll see.

Current Mood: happy

	2008-03-12d1 Alanna at 9 months old. She's cruising, occasionally letting go and standing for a few seconds, and crawling very well. She says Mama, and sometimes waves and says hi or bye. She can sign to nurse, and we're working on teaching her to sign "more" and then other signs after that.
	Weight chart, 9 months old Can this be right?? 27 pounds is what we got on the scale.
	Length chart, 9 months It's HARD to measure a wiggly 9 month old with a measuring tape. I was guessing 29 or 30", but I see she was 30" last month, and I doubt she's shrunk.

Current Mood: impressed

The Charming Noble

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