Life with Gaz

Magic Toenail!

2011-11-19T22:01:00.001-08:00

So, on our trip down to the grandparents on Wednesday night, I played the soundtrack to Brak Presents The Brak Show Starring Brak for Gaz, and just tonight as she was reunion chatting with George, she suddenly brought up the Magic Toenail. The things that get stuck in her mind!

Sci-Fi Songs

2011-10-23T22:11:00.001-07:00

On the way home from a law school family thing today, Gaz borrowed my jacket, wearing it up over her head. She looked like a Jawa or a squat little gnome. She said she looked like a little Dalek, and George added “short and stout.” This led to the following:

I'm a little Dalek, short and stout;

Here is my plunger, here is my spout.

When I see the Doctor, then I shout:

EX TER MIN ATE! EX TER MIN ATE! EX TER MIN ATE!

POWERPUFF!

2011-10-16T16:46:00.001-07:00

I introduced Gaz to the PowerPuff Girls soundtrack yesterday during shopping, which led to some youtube investigation (since our collection got lost along with all our other children's DVDs at the time two moves ago), and OH MAN, I HAVE CREATED A MONSTER!

Shopping!

2011-10-15T16:29:00.001-07:00

So, the other week, Gaz and I were doing the weekly shopping, such as we usually do, and we ended up taking a turn down the toy aisles in Costco. She did the usual “ooh, look at the cute Hello Kitty thing!” and “wow, Barbie laptop!” and “that's a great kitchen set” sort of business, and I was all “yeah, yeah, very nice.” But we went down the other aisle, then, and she's all “Awesome, Legos!” and “that's a cool model car” and “I want that science set, it's got a real microscope!” and … you know, I couldn't muster the same sort of annoyance.

Oh, we still didn't buy anything, I told her that up front, but I was just pleased that her interests range all over the place. I think it would have been more egalitarian of Costco to organize their toys more randomly, mixing up the science kits with the Barbie playsets, but I'm not in control of those things, sadly.

2011-10-12T16:32:00.001-07:00

Monday, Columbus Day, Gaz had the day off school, so I had to take a day from work for childcare. We went to the Field Museum with these passes George had received, and amid our various adventures, we wandered into a taxidermied-animal room with a lot of art students sitting and sketching. Well, after seeing what they were doing, Gaz asked for paper and a pen. She spent the next hour or so making tiny pen sketches on my little notebook.

At some point, we'll have to post some of the sketches, but all the way home, Gaz was on about going and finding things to sketch, and how she was going to make her room into an art studio. When I mentioned indoor still lifes, she was amazed. She didn't do anything about it yesterday, but I come home tonight to see a number of sketches of various household items. Also a birthday song to Batman, but that is incidental.

2011-10-08T20:56:00.000-07:00

(Posted to FaceBook during showing Gaz "The Princess Bride" for the first time)

Cristina George Rizen: Baby's first "inconceivable!" :D

Cristina George Rizen: And now she's fencing with Auntie Aiiieee. And now they're playing Aiiieee's guitar.

(Admittedly, the last didn't have much to do with the movie...)

In Bosnia, You Get a Free Cat

2011-09-21T20:45:00.000-07:00

Well, you get the free cat if you set out food and the cat likes you enough to keep coming around an let you pet it.This is one of the stories Gaz has related to me from one of her school friends, whose family is from Bosnia and who sometimes gets to visit. I love it, not only because it's a cool story, but because she's thinking about places that aren't here, learning that things are different and not-so-different in these distant places. I hope she gets to see all the wonders of the world, preferably on her own dime, but I would gladly use her as my excuse to do some globetrotting if I could.

Gaz has almost finished three weeks of school now, and today was open house day. I got to meet her teacher, who not only seems very nice, she's a Loyola alum. That just makes me like her more, since I have yet to meet a reprehensible Rambler. And Gaz is, in Mrs. H's own words, an angel in class. A very messy angel, though--I saw in her desk, and couldn't help but clean it out a bit. I did leave the lollipop wrapper in there, but put all the pencils and crayons in their proper place, and I located the long lost eraser. But the important things are that she's doing very well (100% on her first spelling test), she's focused in school, and she's tolerating the after-school time with the neighbors reasonably well.

It's Marathon Kids time again, and she's crazy excited about that too. She's talked one of her friends into coming with us to the kick-off. I'm not sure how well this friend will do with running a whole mile, which is what Gaz tries very hard to do, and might even succeed this year, with her longer legs and increasing stamina. I got her to run with me for a half a mile one Saturday before she got distracted by a playground

School for me is very intense and makes blogging and photo uploading even more sporadic. It's been a good Gaz day, so I wanted to get this down before I fall alseep. Which will be very soon.

Gaming!

2011-09-03T17:42:00.000-07:00

From G's FB status:

Cristina George Rizen
Gaz's first Star Wars RPG game was a rousing success!

Mark Mitchell: She got bored during the description parts, and a lot of the plan-making and such, but she did really well with the action scenes and the one segment where we asked her to role-play. We fed her some lines, but she did the performance and came up with her own expressions and reactions. It was awesome. Well, within the realm of gamer "awesome."
Cristina George Rizen: And since it edged into bedtime, we started losing her earlier than she might otherwise have been okay for.
Bill Sanderson: Hey, maybe Fletcher can play over Skype. He's been bugging me again recently to play again.

More fun.

2011-08-30T18:47:00.001-07:00

The daughter is back from staying by herself with the grandparents ("by herself" meaning no parents). Overheard from the other room: "No, I don't think we can wear swim flippers to bed..."

Catch-up

2011-08-20T12:59:00.001-07:00

Since I discovered FaceBook, I've been using it as a much more convenient posting of random fast observations and recollections. It has been pointed out that I'm neglecting some of Gaz's best bits here, and there's a segment of the audience that doesn't use FB. Therefore, let me go through and see what I can mine.

---

Hoarse from all the high-pitched shrieking on both sides that is an intrinsic part of Daddy-Daughter Tickle-Time. But it's good cardio. ---

Wife: (upon Daughter's discussion of something objectionable) Let's not talk about that at the dinner table.
Daughter: Okay, I'll go talk about it in the other room. (leaves the table, goes into the other room, speaking is heard indistinctly, returns) Okay, I'm done talking about it!---

Just finished reading the Daughter an hour of collection 1 of "Thor: The Mighty Avenger." It's an all-ages book, got a bit of (non-graphic) violence, some suggestions of complex themes, but nothing up front, and quite a bit of action of the "smack it with a hammer" variety. And the art is gorgeous, the faces expressive, the framing and action just wonderful. So, yeah, a good hour well-spent, there.---

That's my girl! Thanks, Greg!

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g60/golem21/agathablockingbullets.gif

---

She's a little less controlled on her sword-work, but we have time to fix that.

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g60/golem21/agathaswordfighting.gif

May 22 at 11:53pm

---

Daughter was reading parts of her homework aloud, and doing it in weird voices from word to word.
Wife: "It's like living in a Monty Python sketch."

May 25 at 6:55pm

Jesika Sanders Ellis I suspect she comes by this naturally ... May 25 at 6:57pm
Mark Mitchell Ahem. I have no idea of what you speak, madame... May 25 at 6:57pm
Tim McQuaide What.... Was she saying: "Ni, Ni, Ni"?! ;^)
Mark Mitchell No, more " soft LOUD" over and over, then she shifted to " EVERYBODY only me" over and over, and continue for pretty much anything that passes through her consciousness. That reminds me, she may be up for some Monty Python soon, but they sometimes get weird-gory, so I'm not sure about that. May 25 at 7:01pm

---

Gaz has been changing up lyrics lately. She sang "Bat Hat!" recently ("na-na, na-na, na-na, na-na, na-na, na-na, na-na, na-na, BAT HAT! BAT HAT, BAT HAT, BAT HAT!) and now she's singing "Pink Fluffy Death-a-Corns Dancing on Rainbows." She's pretty nuts; glad we kept her!June 7 at 7:29pm

---

I hate to always make these posts about Gaz, but honestly, she's the most significant thing that happens to me on a daily basis. Today we did our shopping while she was dressed as Batgirl, with the mask and everything. And she insisted on hitting the comic shop to show off.
June 12 at 11:05pm
---

So it's been a long and cranky day for the girls, and very tiring for me, too. But on the way home from an "emergency" dinner out, Gaz and I get to talking about Doctor Who again. She wants to be a Companion, both on the show and in real life. And she wants the Doctor as her dad. On the show only, she reassures me with a squeeze of my hand.

June 15 at 9:47pm

Mark Mitchell After that, the plans get a little impractical. June 15 at 9:47pm

---

(after a trip)
Made it in, and Gaz's front tooth is so loose it hangs out of her lips, looking like a cartoon baby mouth. I arrived and she immediately started trying to bite me. Tonight, after some reading (Marvel Women graphic collection; they also picked up a Wonder Girl collection), I asked her how her day was, she said:
Daughter: "Crunchy."
Me: "Crunchy? Is that all?"
Daughter: "And meaty."
It's all about the tooth.June 25 at 2:04am

---

Also, this exchange at bedtime:
Daughter: "I'm going to sleep, but you may see me sleeping with my eyes open."
Me: "... I think that means you're just going to be faking being asleep."
Daugher: "Huh? What was that? You woke me up!"
June 25 at 2:04am

---

Spent much of the evening helping Gaz create a character, then for tonight's reading, it was the introductory sections of the "Star Wars Role-playing Game - Revised and Expanded Edition." West End Games version, of course. She said "It's really interesting, and it's also boring, which makes it perfect!"June 28 at 9:15pm

Mark Mitchell Her character is Starfire Strawberry, who is as tall as Mom and has pink hair with blue streaks. She's got good Dexterity, superb Knowledge, Strength, and Technical, and she excels at Blaster and First Aid. We figured her archetype is "Young Action Scholar." Overall, I figure she's going to be a kick to see Gaz play. June 28 at 9:17pm

---

Going to be an early night for me, but I had to report that Gaz was talking about accidentally washing herself with "death" today (she says she thought it was her soap, but it was a bar of death) and then she is a Dalek out to give me death. She's even got the rising-strident-voice of the Dalek delivery down.June 29 at 8:08pm

Mark Mitchell It's scary how much she's adapting the things we show her to her own craziness. And she's still all pink and girly. Weird. June 29 at 8:09pm
Char Iversen I would not want to meet your daughter in a dark alley way... June 29 at 8:14pm
Dillon Moorehead Davros is not pleased with the soap June 29 at 8:56pm

---

Today, going to pick up dinner, Gaz and I chatted Star Wars, specifically Starfire Strawberry's background. I asked about her parents, and she said her planet had been blown up! So naturally, I assumed she was from Alderaan. This makes it easier for her a) to join the Rebels, and b) to have either Mom or Auntie Aaiiee play one of her dead parents' family friends, who look out for her. Good drama, little girl!---

Not to detract from my previous post about the wonders of AC, but the girls are now home, and Gaz is watching The Avengers cartoon (I should say re-watching) in her costume of paper-plate mask and former-Halloween-costume axe. She's an axe-wielding superhero. It's too bad that Axe Cop is already taken!---

Things I found out during Gaz's bath. 1) we die suddenly and for no reason. 2) evil babies eat us. 3) we repeatedly turn into many things, such as tables, scrubby toys, automobiles, and lamps. 4) evil babies continue to come eat us. 5) Gaz likes singing about evil babies.---

(while watching animated Thor put the smack-down on some Frost Giants with lightning)
Daughter: Wow, those guys are really dead!
Me: Actually, they could just be shocked unconscious. Frost giants are pretty tough, you know.
Daughter: (singing a sprightly tune)
They are so deaaaad
Hooray they are deaaaad
We'resohappyyou're deaaaad

Dead-dead-dead-dead-dead deaaaad

---

Gaz Types: frst you die, then the evl babes et yoou. then the evil cows et yor skeluten. then the evil babes tac out yor har. then yor har ets yor bran.---

Thing I Actually Found Myself Saying To A Six-Year-Old Tonight: "No, he's not a zombie. Well, he is dead, and he's reanimated, so I suppose he's kind of like a zombie. A science fiction zombie. Look, Kai's just this walking dead guy, and he never lets you forget it..."---

Gaz and I are about to go on the birthday-party-day shopping trip, but she's too busy talking to Auntie Aaiiee (Angeli) about the evil babies, once again. Girl invents a cosmology, she sticks to it. Surprising for a 6-year-old.---

So, we were reading about animals in National Geographic Kids, and she tells me about these bees that landed on her arms, but didn't sting her. This sounded awesome, but then she commented she could see their mouthparts moving saying "hi." Then she spoke of these three foxes she spoke to and hugged and spoke to before they ran off, showing imagination in full force. "I swear, I must be some sort of Nature God," she says in wonderment. "Except alive, of course."---

So, we agreed that if she wanted to, Gaz could start watching The Fellowship Of the Rings. And she did! She managed her way through the first disc of the Extended Version (longer, yes, but better, and it comes with that convenient half-way break). We had a number of pauses to remind her of names, relationships, goals, and prepare her for spooky bits. But she got a grin and a shiver from "If you want him, come and claim him!" like I hoped she would.---

Second half of Fellowship went down easy this evening. She reacted to a few jump-scares (which she correctly identifies, now), and didn't really have issues with the fight scenes. It kept her attention generally pretty well, but as soon as they started talking about destiny or "no one chooses to live in the times they do" then she starts babbling or looking around or whatever. It'll come, it'll come.---

Since then, we've seen The Two Towers, and this afternoon, while G sleeps off some of her icky feeling, we're looking at the Return of the King. Well, I am. There's a lot of talky stuff, so Gaz is fidgeting with a Mr. Bump cooler that's been left out. She'll get more familiar with this stuff later, I'm sure.

Hope that catches everyone up!

Stop the Presses!

2011-07-24T20:57:00.000-07:00

I finally uploaded pictures! Not a lot (I haven't taken many the past few months), but they're all good. The link just goes to the Gaz set, but if you like pictures of clouds and trees, you might want to check out the rest of my photostream.

School and other things

2011-07-09T05:31:00.000-07:00

School's been out for a few weeks now, but I wanted to recap some items from the kindergarten year:

Having volunteered a few times both in the classroom and at mealtimes, I can say that Mrs. K. did a hell of a job in light of the kids and their various behavior issues, and that she was a much more fair judge of Gaz's academic and social situation than I was (more on this in a bit).
The kids really don't have time enough to eat either breakfast (seven minutes) or lunch (12 minutes). I hope that Mayor Emmanuel's plan to extend the school day gives at least a few minutes more to either meal, preferably lunch.
It only took me most of the school year to figure out that most of our after-school meltdowns were on days when I let Gaz play for more than 15 minutes on the playground after school. She needs to run and climb and hang out with her friends, but she also needs a substantial recharge period after the stresses of the day. Now I know to show up with a proteiny snack and get us heading toward home after 10-15 minutes of play. She has many opportunities to play with the neighbor kids, so she's really not being deprived.
The final report card? Perfect.

I take back my grumpiness about Mrs. K. Having watched her at work, she constantly displayed more patience and demanded more correct behavior than I had expected. She didn't rule with an iron fist, more like a well-worn leather gauntlet. It was a hard bunch of kids. Some are very poor, and some clearly come from homes where they do not get much attention or affection. One little girl whose backpack I fixed continued to run up and hug me every time she saw me the rest of the school year--the wonders one safety pin will do. Some kids were clearly intelligent but lacked focus or were intelligent but obviously spent a lot of time around mean people. The children weren't mean spirited, even the the one kid who usually looked and behaved like a rabid caveman, but they clearly displayed their upbringing. This makes me all the more conscious of what I am teaching Gaz by my example.

Gaz has been promoted to the gifted class, along with a number of her friends. We are all excited and relieved. Two of the neighbor kids have already gone through this class with this teacher, so we know in advance that she's pretty tough and doesn't have much patience for silliness in the kids. I think this will be good, if difficult at first, for Gaz. She's smart, but easily distracted. With the whip being cracked on everyone, and the less-than-interested-in-learning being removed from the classroom equation, I hope she'll improve her focus and learn to reign in her own goofiness, at least at school.

Right now we're enjoying day camp. It cramps our travel plans, but she's having a great time, making new friends, and she gets to go on a field trip every week and has pool time every day, weather permitting. She keeps calling it school, though, and that's a bit strange to me. But considering that it runs identical hours to actual school, I suppose it makes sense. It's a little culture-shocky, despite its fun, though. At school she's the ethnic minority, but at camp . . . let's just say that there's not one but two Madisons in her age group. Strange that there's not more of the younger neighborhood kids at camp. We do see a number of her school friends after camp lets out, and they usually cavort together on the playground for a while.

And with that, I better post this before I forget again.

Travelin'

2011-05-27T21:48:00.001-07:00

So, we're up at Aunt Emily's for the weekend, and the Intrepid Screaming Nieces (tm) are all clamoring to sleepover with Gaz. The two elder are going to be overnight with their father tomorrow, though, so they get priority tonight, while the youngest will have full run of Gaz tomorrow night. Whee!

The drive was... crazy. What is it about people on the highway that makes them bad drivers? I mean, we're all adults, someone changing lanes ought not to make the entire lane of traffic behind them stop. What are we, fresh out of driver's ed? Fully stopped in the fast lane no less than seven times (probably more) and only ONCE was there a lane closure, and no accidents or someone pulled over. I bring this up on the Gaz blog because we were not even out of Chicago, much less Illinois, before Gaz starts asking if we were almost there. Oh, no, sweetheart, we've got six more hours, because of this traffic. Time was, the trip would take six hours total, but not on this weekend!

She watched some stuff on the way up, though. A Kim Possible movie which she hadn't seen in months, and her favorite disc of Samurai Jack (the one that starts with the "Jump good!" episode). She got involved and excited about the story, which didn't help George's headache any (she's been under the weather a bit this past couple of days), but I liked the fact that she was staying interested in a narrative. That generally means a lengthening of attention span, and that's good! She was pretty quiet on the trip, though, so no gems to share.

Incidentally, we're also on FaceBook, if you're on there, gentle reader, and it's usually more convenient to share bits and pieces on there. Just FYI.

Report Card time again

2011-04-07T18:15:00.000-07:00

And we were unsurprised by another good one. There's still room for improvement, but all her teachers were very excited about her work and her behavior. Her gym teacher thanked me as soon as we walked in the door for raising a polite kid. I am grateful that these lessons have soaked in, even if they aren't always obvious from her home behavior.

Our little Gaz is quite the athlete! She's jumping higher and farther than anyone else in her class, and Mr. S. says that she's got the natural ability to do well in sports, which is something that Pehpaw Charley has been saying for years. Ah, validation! :)

While chatting with her teacher, Gaz sat down with a dry erase board and wrote out some adorably misspelled sentences. But this is the goal: not spelling but just getting comfortable using words (that at least make sense to Gaz) to express thoughts and feelings and actions. And boy did she. I should have copied down everything she wrote, but I was also trying to carrying on a sensible conversation. Gee, and I wonder why teacher conference day always wears me out.

We're doing well right now. We've had some dramatic ups and downs this school year and some spectacularly bad days, but things are more or less leveled out. Even still, Gaz constantly complains that school is boring. She likes it, but it's really not challenging her. Many days she's got her homework half done before I get back to the table with my cup of tea. She does a good job of guessing at spelling, and she writes the best S's in the world. Mrs. K. said she plans to really advocate for Agatha to get into the gifted class (they did finally test the kids, but the results aren't in yet; Gaz said it was hard), so we'll see. Maybe soon we'll be hearing "Mom, it's too hard!"

And it's book fair time, too, so we've now moved into the world of Goosebumps and the Poison Apple series. So far she's not spooked by them, but it's hard to tell with her. She gave me one of those looks when I told her that my favorite silly song when I was a kid was "Go Get The Axe."

In not-Gaz-related, but still schoolish news, I've accepted admittance to a very fine (but not too fine) law school, and will be matriculating in August. I will try really hard to keep this occasionally updated, but after mid-August it might be more Mark than anything here.

Happy Valentine's Day!

2011-02-14T17:28:00.000-08:00

Gaz is intensely into Valentine's Day, and has been for at least a year; last year, she was building the buttons for her Box Batmobile, and she had a heart button that would tell her it was Valentine's Day, although we broadened its function to cover all holidays.

In any case, so I bought both of my ladies cards on the way home from work, and let me tell you, there's nothing sadder than a Walgreens Valentine's card display late on a Valentine's Day afternoon. But I found perfect ones, anyway. So, they, the two ladies in my life, realized I'd gotten them something, and they hadn't gotten me anything. So they "secretly" set out to make something for me. "Refrigerators!" they claimed. "Lasagna!" "Baby Poop," Gaz insists, though LovelyWifeGeorge vetoes this. "I'm right over here in the chair, people," I keep wanting to say, but I'm too amused by the whole process.

Well, at one point in this event, Gaz turns to LovelyWifeGeorge, and says "Mommy, can you cut out my heart?"

...

I admit, both of the adults in the room lost it a little bit there. I mean, immediately, I go to the Aztec place. I can only imagine LovelyWifeGeorge does the same.

And then Gaz follows up with "Oh! I mean refrigerator! Can you cut out my refrigerator?"

It's a laugh a minute, in this house.

Briefly: Literacy

2011-02-10T09:07:00.000-08:00

I'm under deadline, but wanting to post this before I forget again.

Gaz is reading, with little to no help from us. Every day so far this week, her Roberto tally starts with a book that she's read aloud to us, and finishes up with what we've read to her (another visit to The Voyage of the Basset and our first foray into The Wonderful Wizard of Oz). She wrote some simple words on her homework last night (it was "extra homework for smart students only," so Gaz said) and not only did I not have to give her any help, she was off and writing before I could even offer assistance.

Last weekend she read The Monster at the End of This Book to Gabe, and I suspect she will read to him again after his baptism on Saturday. She is really looking forward to reading a story to Trixie, and also to giving her some hand-me-down dress-up clothes.

This morning I also attended the awards ceremony for the kindergarten and first grade kids, and Gaz got the only two awards kindergarteners can get: perfect attendance (in your face, winter!) and good citizenship.

Basically, we're all glowing with pride over here, and working to keep the good momentum going.

New Niece!

2011-01-24T04:43:00.001-08:00

DSC01726 ps
Originally uploaded by malicious planet

One week ago today, Mark and I got a new niece and Gaz got a new cousin. My brother Sean and his wife Hillary welcomed little Trixie into the world with a bit of drama, but that seems to be the way with these Rizen babies anymore.

Gaz is very, very excited, particularly since she just got to meet her future godbrother, Gabe, earlier in the month. She was very good about sitting calmly, and even sang to him and rocked him a little as he slept. It was one of the cutest things I've ever seen. Until we get down to Kentucky, that is!

Or, if we could get all the goils together in one place . . .we might all develop pink poisoning, but I'm sure it would be precious.

Now, Trixie is not her standard issue nickname, but unfortunately I have a bad habit of giving Gaz multiple nicknames and using them often. I've been calling her Bee for years for no good reason, and while I have tried very hard to stop, I figured an alternate nickname would probably be safe to avoid confusion. Fortunately for me, Trixie's other auntie had the same idea! So now we can both go on annoying our respective siblings. The world is as it should be. Gaz is so pleased with the new cousin that she isn't even insisting that she (Trixie) be named after her (Gaz) anymore. Now that's love.

If anyone can spare a good thought for Trixie, she's being a lazy nurser and isn't bulking up as fast as a baby ought to. I am confident she'll figure it out sooner or later, but I'm sure she'd appreciate some cheerleaders. :)

Gah

2011-01-14T15:25:00.000-08:00

Just gah. Gaz just came in to show me she's naked and just about covered in marker ink. It's not the kind that washes off, or dries fast, either, so she's pretty much banned from the couch for the next hour or more. Anything she touches will get marker ink on it. And now she tells me she's off to decorate her back.

I swear, that girl.

One of Gaz's Favorite Books

2011-01-04T18:41:00.000-08:00

Voyage of the Basset

No brain for a review right now, but it's good. Gaz even dressed up as Cassandra for her school Halloween party. We're finishing up another reading of it now, and it's still good.

All Her Siblings

2010-12-31T15:07:00.000-08:00

Gaz has been telling me about her imaginary sisters, all of whom tend to copy her. They all have powers, from tales and legends, and can transform into other creatures to be adaptable (anything from carnivores to dung beetles, apparently), and they are trained in karate. In fact, they helped train Samurai Jack.

Their names are Anna, David, Book, Computer, Electronics, Weather, and several others where it became apparent she was just naming her sisters after things in her field of vision.

I'm not sure exactly what their purpose is (other than surviving and training superheroes), but I'm sure I will be told shortly.

You'll Never Guess

2010-12-29T16:10:00.000-08:00

Every so often, Gaz will stop and kind of knock the side of her head.

I used to ask what she was doing. I don't anymore, because the answer was always the same.

"Thinkin' 'bout Gelflings," she would say, in a weary and resigned voice.

Well, all right, then.

Additional Stories

2010-12-28T19:03:00.001-08:00

I have been informed that I must blog a bit more about our further adventures of the day at the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum.

I took the day off so that I could burn some vacation time to get below the five-day limit for carrying over. One of the things we decided to do was to get some passes from the library, and one of them that Gaz most wanted to go to was the Nature Museum. So I checked that one out, and we went today.

A good time was had, but not always as the people intended. The museum is good stuff, particularly notable for its butterfly sanctuary, a big room with hundreds of butterflies. We were just looking at the first few exhibits on rivers when someone announced that they had a snake available to be touched in the other room, and we went to see. Gaz sat down with the rest of the kids, and listened to them talk about the corn snake (named Pumpkin for its pale orangey color, like pumpkin pie filling) (which led Gaz to comment that nobody would like snake pie) (except maybe a coyote or another snake predator), and she answered many of the questions the presenters asked. When one of the boys described a snakes movement as wiggling back and forth, she volunteered "I believe they call it 'slithering'," even. And she was first in line to touch the snake, and she petted it very politely and without the least bit of fear.

Of course, much of our time was spent in the Learning About Trees room, where the kids almost uniformly try to nest and care for these giant robin eggs (and steal them from each other, and house them in places other than the giant model "nest" and so forth). And Gaz, of course, got into the whole game. At one point, she and this other little girl were caring for the eggs, and they started talking about how they were dinosaur eggs. And then Gaz put her ear to one and said "Listen, you can hear them fighting!" The girl's mother asked who was fighting, and Gaz replied "Godzilla and Mothra!" The connection being Mothra and her eggs, of course.

Well, the mother didn't know who Mothra was, which kind of speaks more to our own disconnect, because I didn't realize there were still people out there who didn't know who Mothra was. Well, I had to step in and straighten the whole thing out, by admitting to her parents' geek cred. I have no idea what the mother thought at all that.

Those were the two that stand out in my head. There's possibly more, as she's always coming out with little sayings and phrases and observations, but at the moment, that's all I can summon up.

And She Hasn't Even Seen Sprockets

2010-12-28T17:19:00.000-08:00

So, we're watching a little TV before bed, after a long day at the nature museum, Gaz holds up the cute pink monkey stuffed animal we got her and said "Does anybody want to touch my monkey?"

George had, of course, just taken a drink, so she had the most studied, suppressed smile on her face as she tried to keep from laughing or spitting liquid up her nose or something undignified like that.

Me, I just touched the monkey.

Happy Holidays!

2010-12-24T12:34:00.000-08:00

Sending our love to all our family and friends, in all the various places you wonderful people are!

Here's a picture of Gaz showing off our new tree--totally homemade and awesome. I think we're going to do this every year.

Letters and St. Nick

2010-12-06T17:20:00.000-08:00

Can you tell I've got a bit of time off work?

In last week's homework (for which she must practice writing a letter--upper & lower case--and then draw a picture of a thing that begins with that letter), E was for Earth. It was originally "Evil," but there was editorial disagreement over how one would draw it. I suggest a mean face, but Gaz insisted that would be too easily confused with "angry." Earth is much easier to draw.

Today, F is for Ferris-Whee-at-Navy-Pier. I've been trying to talk her into at least writing out "ferris wheel," but it seems that if she can't write out the whole thing, she won't write down any of it. Since she drew in a huge crowd all around the ferris wheel and popcorn stand, I'm guessing it will just have to stay untitled. We had nary an argument about getting the homework done, or sitting down to the homework, or anything at all homework related, and for this I am infinitely grateful.

I hope you all have had a happy St. Nicholas Day! Gaz got a chocolate snowman from the German market, new paints, a bracelet, and many stickers, some of which she took to school to share with her class. Mrs. K. was so excited that Gaz wanted to share her shoe loot, because she celebrates the day in an appropriately German fashion at her house too.

Reteething

2010-12-04T11:37:00.000-08:00

Gaz has six (SIX!) teeth coming in right now. All four six-year molars and the two lower incisors. I have tried to explain to the molars that, really, they can wait a bit, but it hasn't worked. The two on her left side are almost totally out. The others are lagging a bit (the top more than the bottom), but I suspect this has something to do with her chewing more on the left side than the right.

Her irritating habit of wanting to bite my fingers suddenly makes sense. Again.

You would think that since she's infinitely more verbal than she was last time we went through this that she would let us know early and often when her mouth is paining her, but just like in the good old days, crankiness is the first and most reliable sign of mouth discomfort. Now that we have chewable pain reliever stuff at least she doesn't fight us on that. She doesn't trust any medicinal liquid, and I don't blame her. Most of them are nasty.

As noted in my earlier post, pictures are indeed uploaded. And now that I have adjusted the link to point to the latest set, you can even find them.

In other news, Mark has introduced Gaz to Ultraman. Her geek/nerd culture education continues apace.

In other, other news, I just heard Gaz announce to Mark that "Now I'm going to label you!" Whatever this means, I should probably supervise.

ETA: "Mommy, I just labeled Daddy and he's worth two nickles. We can buy him with just one dime!"

Photos Soon

2010-11-23T08:39:00.000-08:00

Now that I've found my camera cable, I'm uploading pictures. I've mislaid some from the summer (I've just upgraded my laptop, and while I know all the pictures got copied over to here, I forget where I've put them), but the more recent ones are included. Of course, probably half of them are of interesting clouds, but the majority of the remainder are of Miss Gaz being wonderful and photogenic.

The upload is currently in progress, but within an hour they should be available, I'd think.

Tooth Addendum

2010-11-20T08:25:00.000-08:00

She also lost her second tooth (lower incisor) just over a week after the first jumped ship. The others seem like they're sticking around for a while, so I don't expect we'll have another gap just yet. This is good, because if she lost the top two right now, she'd look like a brawler.

She's also got a new molar that's almost entirely free. It's pretty close to the existing molar. I'm trying not to fret about how close these new teeth are coming in.

Report Card, etc.

2010-11-20T08:18:00.000-08:00

I know, my post titles are so exciting.

One thing that is actually pretty exciting is the report card we just received. Gaz aced everything that's been introduced except shoe tying, but with some direction she's already showing she *can* do it. It's more an issue of how attentive she is at any given shoe-tying attempt. I filled out the authorization form for gifted testing (which isn't mandatory, but since our school has a gifted program we don't have to strain ourselves to get Gaz tested), and so that will take place at some time in the near future. Mrs. K. says she thinks Agatha will do well with that, and I know we will soon reach the stage where she needs more challenge at school. Now that she's got a better handle on the social and time challenges that full-day school pose, she's probably going to be chronically bored by the end of the year. Mrs. K. also gave us a tip on a young author's contest that either the school or CPS overall does, so we'll see if she might want to do that. She tells some killer stories.

Another bit of excitement has been with some local friends, Lis and Todd, who were expecting their son Gabriel in early December. He decided to beat the holiday rush and made his grand appearance this week, and is now enjoying the full-service care of their local NICU. I got to see him on Thursday and he is tiny, pink, but he nurses like a champ. His only problem is that every time he has his paci, he stops breathing and forgets to start up again. While he's really not as sick as many babies I've known, this is still quite the problem. If you're in the habit of thinking good thoughts for the health of babies, they would not go unappreciated.

Gaz, of course, is totally stoked to get to hold Gabe as soon as humanly possible, not to mention cousin Grady, and the impending Rizen girl (whose name, I am relatively certain, will not be Charlie, much to Papaw's chagrin).

I am daily amazed by what my girl can do, and what she chooses to do. She picked out one of her animal cards to give to Gabe (a strawberry poison dart frog, which Lis noted Gabe somewhat resembles right now), and lent him a book (the board book version of "The Monster at the End of This Book") so he can hear stories while he's in the hospital. She already has plans to teach all the babies about her favorite dinosaurs and impressive words. She's definitely a helper. Maybe not so great at helping at home, but at least she's an able assistant for just about everyone else.

Perhaps I should make her a "Minion" shirt. That would make a pretty good hand-me-down for when she's old enough to graduate to "Mad Scientist."

I know I am way, way, WAY behind on uploading pictures. Part of the problem is that I have misplaced the cable for my camera. When I do find a bit of time to do stuff like that, I have ended up spending it searching for that damn cable. One of these days, I will find it and I will then have to spend a year sorting and tagging everything. But I'm running out of places the cable could be hiding, so it will probably surface soonish. I hope.

Remember the Tooth!

2010-10-28T15:18:00.000-07:00

I've been quoting the Dune movie a lot lately because Gaz lost her first tooth! It was very very wiggly on, I think it was Tuesday, and then we were brushing our teeth and she spit out foam and sait it was pinker because there was blood from her tooth, but I noticed a little something in the sink wash, and after splashing some water to rinse it off, it was, in fact the tooth!

Gaz wasn't in pain, she didn't freak out, she thought it was actually really cool. Now she has a little gap in her lower smile, but she'll soon have brand new adult teeth making their appearance.

First she teethed early, now she's losing her baby teeth early... I shudder to think about her wisdom teeth!

Toys!

2010-10-23T16:36:00.001-07:00

Gaz has been collecting ZuzuPets, those toy hamsters. Beastly things, but she adores them and the little toy environments they come with.

She's got a new exercise wheel, so we have the whole habitat out in the living room, and Gaz has been bringing in all her other toys. The My Little Ponies are all in the kitchen area of the habitat.

George just walked in, saying "Oh, my goodness! It looks like a pony party in the hamster house!"

I think that could be a euphemism for something, but I'm not sure what.

Rainbow Metal Girls!

2010-10-17T17:01:00.001-07:00

Tonight I brought up the idea of whether Gaz might like to act. She's been watching Justice League Unlimited on DVD from Netflix, and she loves it, and frequently she likes to get up and act out Wonder Woman's parts. So asking her about whether she'd like to get into acting seemed a natural choice.

She got very excited about the idea, but she had very specific conceptions about the roles she wanted to do. I told her that all sorts of roles weren't always out there; she normally had to do what people had available. But, I said, if you really want to be a superhero girl, you could always do your own movie.

So we've spent the past few minutes talking about what sort of video she might like to make. We've mostly talked the basics, and she seems to want to shoot it all right now, but I told her, if you want to do it right, we have to plan out what the story is, what we're going to shoot, who we're going to shoot it with, what we're going to say, etc.

We've determined that she wants to be a Rainbow Metal Girl, that there's more than one of them, but she wants to be Red Metal Girl (on the ROY G BIV rainbow scale), because that costume can have some pink in it. We've decided that the Rainbow Metal Girls should have powers based on metals (iron strength, lead density/toughness, mercury quickness, etc.), and that they should be seen eating dinner in the video. The main action, according to Gaz, should take place against invisible zombies that only the Rainbow Metal Girls can see (though we may have to make a special effect so that the audience can see them sometimes). Beyond that, it's still in development.

I am reminded of Axe Cop, which is a webcomic written by a hyperactive five-year-old, now six, as told to his nearly-30-year-old artist brother. I fully intend to put Gaz down as co-writer as well as lead actress. I hope we can recruit some of her friends as actresses, but that is a fair distance away; we haven't even designed the superhero costumes yet.

Ideas and suggestions are welcomed, by myself and my co-writer, who has approved this message.

Library Card!

2010-10-12T19:28:00.000-07:00

So Gaz has her first library card, and in fact her whole class took a walk to the local library, where the kids heard a story while the parents had a library tour, and then everybody got to check out books.

We got the usual suspects: a couple of Mo Willems books, a book on sharks, a book on rollercoasters, one or two things I'm forgetting, and the prize of the collection: two books starring CAPTAIN RAPTOR!

Captain Raptor! Hero of a thousand missions for the planet Jurassica! With trusty blastopack on his back and webcaster pistol strapped to his hip, he protects the spaceways for dinosaurs everywhere!

Yes, it's pulp sci-fi kiddie stories with high-tech dinosaurs! And I gotta say, there's something just glorious about an allosaurus jetting through the air via rocket backpack! And it gets Gaz, in her own words, "all geeked up!"

Yeah, yeah, yeah...

2010-09-27T21:31:00.000-07:00

Okay, well, the tantrums are still occurring at random intervals, along with the moodiness, but I hope it's beginning to even out. The transition is difficult, going to full-day school, and G's freelance gig has been heating up a lot lately, so that good ol' Mommy doesn't have as much free time as she once did. And believe me, Daddy is no substitute whatsoever.

However, that told, Gaz is still doing funny things. We occasionally play all sorts of odd musical bits, here and there, and she latched on to the opening bit of Devo's "Uncontrollable Urge" (check it out in your online music source of choice).

The opening has Mr. Mothersbaugh going "Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah, yeahyeahyeahyeah!" And Gaz adapts that rhythm to whatever she wants.

"Salty peanut, salty-peanut, saltypeanut!"

"Macaroni, macaroni, macaroni!"

"Hello Kitty, hello-kitty, hellokitty!"

So that's hilarious.

We also have this elementary school program called "ROBERTO" which stands for Read Or BE Read TO. And we read to her nightly. The requirement is 20 minutes a day, but it's not uncommon for us to run 30 minutes, and last week we had two nights that stretched to 60 minutes. So that's good, right? Problem is, I'm hoping her teacher doesn't actually check what it is they're being read, because she'll see a lot of issues of "Batman: The Brave And The Bold" (which is a pretty fun kids Batman comic) and "Tiny Titans" (which is like Muppet Babies only with the Teen Titans, so more like PreTeen Titans) along with the usual Seuss and Disney and Kipling (Gaz loves Kipling's "Just So Stories" for some reason).

Tonight I read her an issue of the Scooby-Doo comic she had me buy over the weekend, and finished up with the wonderful "Bats on the Beach." That's a good mix, I think. But then after I turn out the light, Gaz wants me to tell a made-up story, and while I can do that, I'm pretty tired myself, so I do what I've been doing the past week or so: I tell her about comic book characters. She's heard the origin stories of Superman, Wonder Woman (a favorite), Batman and Robin, Green Arrow, Green Lantern... what little I remembered of The Flash, and Martian Manhunter. On the other side of the fence, I've told her about Spiderman, the Fantastic Four, and tonight I explained The X-Men.

Oh, the X-Men. She'd caught a glimpse of a little sketch of Wolverine over my shoulder when I was looking at a comics blog, and she asked who that guy was, so I had to explain mutants and Professor X and as many of the X-Men as I could recall offhand before I started to describe Wolvie. She was really impressed with his healing factor, and she loved the idea of an unbreakable metal skeleton, but she got really tickled when I explained the claws. However, despite thinking they were really cool, what she wanted to do if she had Wolverine's powers was to jump around really high! And she'd want Nightcrawler's teleportation, and Jean Grey's telekinesis power (I didn't explain to her about the whole Dark Phoenix thing becuase... you gotta leave room to grow, right?), and so on. This girl is gleefully investigating the whole nerd culture thing, and she's not even into her second hand worth of years. I love it.

I suppose I should investigate Wikipedia to refresh my memory on some of the superhero origins for tomorrow night... we'll see how that goes!

School, etc.

2010-09-08T20:16:00.000-07:00

Jeez, now that Blogger has stopped telling me about all it's fab new features, I can finally type something! Not that I will be typing a long something, though, because I'm about to fall over. But first things first.

Gaz is finally in school. (Check out her back-to-school get-up! She picked it out herself, as you can probably guess.) I got her registered with little trouble on the 2nd (the third attempt being the charm), and classes started this week. It's somewhat shorter days this week, which is a drag on many levels (one of them is Gaz's lunch period is so short that she's not eating most of the food I send with her; that's one drag that I am especially frustrated over), but it's a massive adjustment for everyone. I'm still not sure how *I* feel about this school, but I don't think it's monstrous. Gaz's teacher *does* have some strange, trollish teeth. . . . But anyway, I'll be happier when Gaz is less keyed up all day and night.

Gaz loves school. She sins excited songs every morning as we walk to school, and the stretch of sidewalk that takes us to school has one section where someone once drew a Batman symbol on the wet concrete, so we even get to geek out in a DC Superfriends manner twice a day. She enjoyed gym today, and is looking so very much forward to art class that she has plans to bring in a special piece of painted wood to give to the art teacher, whoever she is. She's in class with one of the neighbor girls, which is more fantastic than I can begin to describe. They get along already, and now not only do they get to spend more time together, we have an easy connection for getting Gaz to and from school in the event of some kind of emergency or schedule insanity. We love the neighbors anyway, and now they're even super useful. What could be better than that?

We have had some difficult sleep this week (Gaz woke me up in the wee hours of Tuesday morning to ask me to tell her a story, and to ask for a drink of water, and to ask for company on a bathroom trip . . . ), and my girl has been much more short-tempered with everyone and clingy with me. I know this is just a transition thing, and I am trying to give her all the extra support she needs to keep on being her big, crazy self. We'll get through this. We did okay overall with preschool and weaning; we can survive the kindergarten adjustment.

But how am I holding up, people ask. You would not believe how well I am doing right now. I've got so much editing work that I have been desperate all summer for school to start up again. Working from home and being the stay-at-home parent at the same time has been nothing short of hellish for me* and has resulted in many weeks where the dishes overtook the kitchen and started singing medleys about overthrowing the slovenly human oppressors. (You who have mechanical dishwashers: you are lucky, lucky creatures who darned well better appreciate your modern luxuries.) We're managing to maintain appropriate levels of apartment hygiene, but clutter is another story.

So no, I'm not at all upset by the start of the school year. It's making life tolerable again.

But once more, I am frustrated by the needs of work interfering with my spending time with Gaz, especially now that she needs extra cuddles and reassurance to get her past the stress of full-day school. I try to spend the time from after-school to Mark's arrival home and dinner time with her, scheduling my work day for before she's up and while she's at school, but she's been waking up quite early. We're having to do the other hard transition of less me at bedtime and more Mark, and she's really used to me being the one who gets her settled in more often than not for most of her life.

I am very far behind on blogging, uploading pictures, replying to email, visiting relatives, and who knows what else (apart from the dishes; I know how miserable the dish position is on any given day). I have no idea when I will be digging out from under the backlog, but between Gaz and work both needing me and everything that had to be done for school registration, I have been completely tapped out. I do hope to get more regular with the blogging again, but anything longer than your average Facebook status update or Twitter entry is difficult for me right now. Please be patient (and send patience. And coffee. And scones. And sleep!).

* And specifically: exhausting and cranky-making

Wedding Gaz

2010-07-17T11:40:00.000-07:00

So, this weekend, we're up north in Gurnee for Auntie Lis's wedding, and Gaz is Flower Girl, and she's intensely excited. Oh, and Mommy is co-Matron of Honor, as well, but that's incidental.

We came up yesterday, and were up really late. This after Gaz got up at the crack of early. But we got her some peanuts and snack food to carry her through until her late dinner, and she had pizza, which ended up all right.

Today, so far, we went to the hotel pool while Mommy went to get her hair worked on (about 7 or 8 hours before the ceremony, which seems weird and too early to me, but I'm not a bride or bridesmaid), then had a bath to actually CLEAN her, and then went out for lunch. She wanted Chinese, so we just drove around Gurnee until we found a Thai place, and Gaz said that would work just as well. Turns out the owner/operator of the place used to live in our neighborhood in Chicago, but moved north for better school districts when her kids got old enough to hit high school. We had a nice talk with her, and Gaz practiced her chopstick technique.

Now we're just hanging until Mommy comes home. It's pretty low-key, but we just worry about the major things, and frankly, the Flower Girl's preparation is only minimal. And me, I need no preparation, as I'm only audience.

So that's the weekend.

Red Red Red Red RED!

2010-06-22T11:56:00.000-07:00

Gaz loves her new art class at the Old Town School of Folk Music (the happiest place ~~on earth~~ in Lincoln Square). She loves it so much that I'm still not quite sure what all they did besides something involving the color RED. She exploded out of the classroom chanting RED and has only kind of stopped (mostly while eating her post-class snack).

We've got plenty more to do today, so I better get to it.

Sugar and Spice and Everything Serpentine

2010-06-19T18:32:00.000-07:00

We've recently gone through a couple of months of having to watch Barbie in A Mermaid Tale repeatedly, so when she said she was ready to trade that in for something with dinosaurs, the grown-ups were quite relieved. Barbie was better than some things she's watched (this subject will get its own post one day), but dinosaurs are something we can all enjoy equally. Thanks to Netflix, we got rid of Barbie and ended up with Prehistoric Planet. It's fun little show, and I never get tired of hearing Gaz go on about the old ornithocheirus. She's really into pterosaurs when she's not obsessed (as most kids are, I guess) with T-Rex. Though for the latter, we can probably blame Sue, or rather, our fondness for the Field Museum.

The reptillian fun hasn't just stopped with the constant viewings of dino-drama, though. I picked up a Step Into Reading book on snakes, since we had just been talking about the old family pet (a sweet little corn snake named Biscuit). While I was at it, I picked up a more herpetologically involved book for myself because, amongst other things, I've always been mystified by snakey taxonomy and was hoping to figure it out for once.

What I didn't figure on is how much Gaz would flip for the many color photos in my book, or what her tolerance for mommy stumbling over long Greek and Latin words that don't mean anything to her (and sometimes me) would be. She is in love with the eyelash pit viper and was quite disappointed when I told her they're venomous. But two nights in a row now, she's fallen asleep to me reading random snippets of squamate biology, ecology, locomotion, and evolution. But I am only allowed to read the pages that have photos. Is any of this actually getting through to her, or is she just dozing off to the sound of my voice? I don't know. But I do like that I am able to share something cool about the world with her, and I think snakes are pretty darn cool.

I don't know exactly where this attraction comes from (though the grass snake featured in the kid's book looks like the Utahraptor from Prehistoric Planet, we agreed), but I am so pleased that she is interested in learning about the weird looking creatures and isn't afraid of them. Of course, we've only seen one very tiny garter snake out in the wild, so she might change her tune when she sees her first enormous black rat snake. (Okay, maybe that's just me.)

Still, this all has me thinking about the logistics of getting another corn snake. I'm not sure our landlords would go for it, but when we're ready, I've got a game plan in my head. It would be nice to have a reptile around again.

Goodbye, Blue Sky

2010-06-17T06:49:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was the big end-of-the-year party at Gaz's school and now we're kicking off our summer vacation by lounging around in pajamas far later than we generally could on a Thursday.

I dropped Gaz off at the usual time and ran back home to finish making the snack Gaz has been promising her friends and teachers all week ("apple smiles," which are apple wedges with cream cheese and mini marshmallows arranged into a mouth-like configuration). I got there just in time to start up the video camera and record the singing portion of the party. Gaz, naturally, was the one who announced the performance and somehow, despite her height, ended up being in the middle of the front row. She apparently spent all her ham points then and there, though, because later when the kids wanted to take pictures with her, she was suddenly very shy.

The kids got little preschool diplomas and a copy of the book "I Ain't Gonna Paint No More," which was a big enough hit that I had even heard the chanting at home. My disk ran out of space part-way through the stuff distribution, so I have no video of the chaos that ensued once all the food was unpackaged and set out (and there was TONS of food--our neighborhood knows how to throw a serious party). We had three tables full of food, and about 1/3 of that was cookies, cupcakes, and donuts. Gaz only had one cupcake, and only fought me a little when I insisted that she start with some spaghetti. As I expected, she completely ignored the apple smiles.

Gaz had a moment after a while where she was suddenly upset and tearful, but not well able to explain why. She's gotten really attached to school and the routine and especially her teacher, Miss Monica. So I let her dance and helped with clean-up for a while. At long last, I coaxed her away from school by telling her of the present from Nana that I'd been holding for just such bribery: her very own pair of Twinkle Toes shoes. They light up a dark hallway like the sun and she loves them to pieces. For most of the afternoon yesterday, she wore only underpants and her new shoes.

And so we have said goodbye to Blue Sky Classroom. I'm sure we'll be back to the community center again, especially if we are able to make use of their after-school-care services in the future. It's a little bit sad, but we're working on things to keep us occupied. We've got phone number for play dates and I've rounded up a couple of friends to invite to Gaz's birthday party. I've blown it with respect to finding an appropriate day camp program (most are for 5-year-olds and up--so close!), but I'm sure the Old Town School will not fail to give us something to provide a bit of structured fun.

Bonding with Cousins

2010-05-30T21:59:00.000-07:00

Gaz played with her third-cousin here at the parents place today. Also yesterday. Cousin is equivalent in age, and they have a good rapport. Heck, yesterday, she pitched a total fit when asked to leave their house. But she was pretty good today; Gaz gave her one of the Polly Pockets dolls she recently got, and cousin gave her some Barbie jewelry, so they could be best friends forever.

It's good when Gaz bonds with her family. She's got first cousins who she doesn't see very often, but they're not entirely compatible; we always see them together and they have their own sibling dynamic and none of them are directly equivalent in age. She loves them, but doesn't relate to them quite as well. Third cousin, though, it was like gangbusters.

I don't know that I ever connected with any of my relatives like that. I get along with everybody, but I never entirely bonded, as friends. There's a few folks I would have enjoyed getting closer to, I suppose, but everybody's so spread out these days. Ah, well. Even still, it was really cool to see them getting so close.

Actually, me and third cousin's father, my second cousin, we got to talk a lot while the girls were playing, and honestly, I'm really glad I got to talk to him. Perhaps I will be bonding with relatives after all.

But this blog isn't about me, it's about Gaz. So she got to do a lot of things this trip; it's been a very successful father-daughter trip out to the parents. I think we've gotten along pretty well, even through a couple of melt-downs. We've gone through worse, and I think she's pretty pleased with how it turned out, as well. We'll be able to tell tomorrow, though, once we got back to LWG and Gaz tells her story of the weekend.

PS: we went to a Chinese buffet place for dinner, and one of the waitresses really took a liking to Gaz and third cousin, even tickling them when they were playing. Gaz seems to have that effect on people; she kept showing off her Polly Pocket and her jewelry and just smiling like an angel. She's awesome like that.

Pasta!

2010-05-27T20:31:00.000-07:00

The new DVD we got for Gaz from Netflix has a bunch of new dinosaur species in it. We were looking over some of the names in one of the special features, and found "Postosuchus," which we wondered if it was pronounced "pasta-succhus".

Which led Gaz to say in a very disparaging, almost scolding voice "There was no pasta in the Triassic!"

She ain't wrong.

Dental News!

2010-05-25T09:33:00.000-07:00

Last week there was a collision at school, and Gaz's mouth took the bulk of the damage. The teachers weren't at all worried, but Gaz very animatedly explained how it took THREE times of rinsing her mouth out for the bleeding to stop. She did have a little cut on her lower gum, right under and around one of her two front teeth there, and upon closer examination I found that the tooth was loose. The dentist said that as long as she wasn't in a lot of pain and the site didn't look dramatically swollen or otherwise infected to just keep her on soft foods over the weekend, apply NSAIDs as needed, and check back with her if we were concerned.

Well, yesterday I checked her mouth again, and the tooth is even more wiggly than before, but completely not painful to the Gaz. It looks like she's really getting ready to lose her first baby tooth. I could probably go check the archives and see if this is in fact the Very First Tooth that is working up to escape velocity, but I've got to fetch her from school soon.

She's very excited and has already told us both that the wish she plans to make on this tooth (with inflation, I guess kids now get money *and* wishes in exchange for teeth) is for a pink lollipop. Just what a kid needs.

But she's not a Virgo...

2010-05-24T19:03:00.001-07:00

Today our wonderful Aunt Niki sent Gaz a book of 201 experiments to do with science. It was already annotated with her own notes, but she added a bunch of helpful (and aesthetic) post-its bringing Gaz's attention to specific experiments... post-its which Gaz methodically removed and stacked in an organized fashion before G was able to see what she was doing.

It reminds me of when she and her class colored the paint-spotted dog pictures from a story they'd read, and Gaz put the right colors in the right places, exactly as it had been in the book.

That kind of precision and methodical attention to even insignificant details is, I understand, supposed to be a trademark of Virgos, which both G and I are. But she's, like, a Leo, I think. I have no invested interest in astrology, mind you, but I do love to think what people who DO would think about this. Can astrological signs rub off?

Confidence

2010-05-23T14:52:00.000-07:00

It's been an up and down day. We went shopping, which went well, but the temperatures are very high today (forecast was 86, but it read 90 earlier), and we got a bit cranky. But we relaxed and were having a good time by the time Mom came back from helping out Auntie Aaaiii. Gaz started playing with her balloon in the fan air currents and basically playing balloon, as you do.

She squeals and bops and runs around, and then goes "Man, I'm good!" She frequently tells us how fast she is, or how strong, or how clever she is. And she is darn good. I just worry that she'll keep tooting her own horn as she gets older, and get a rep for egotism. But maybe I'm putting too much thought into it.

Jello!

2010-05-22T18:39:00.000-07:00

It's been a bit of a cranky week, for no reason we can easily determine, but last night we had good old Uncle Greg stay over, and she got to see him off this morning. She wouldn't go over and give him a hug, but when he was standing on his way out, she threw her arms around his knees and said "If your legs were Jell-o, I'd eat them up!"

I'm sure it was meant fondly.

Jello Legs! Sounds like it oughta be a nickname of some sort. "Hey, there, Jello Legs, you seen Google Brain around?" "Last I knew, she was going out to the store with Fan Hands."

... Like I need more nicknames in my life.

Elder God Pajamas?

2010-05-16T20:50:00.000-07:00

So, we're picking out pajamas today, after a lengthy day out at the zoo and a decent evening and lengthy bath, and she goes "Okay, we'll get the Mystery Pants" i.e. these pajama shorts that aren't connected to any pajama top that I know of "and the Cthulhu shirt."

"We don't have a Cthulhu shirt!"

She started mumbling something about ancient evil that I think she remembered from when we read the box for Loveable Carl Cthulhu. We eventually picked the shirt with the jaguar with glow-in-the-dark eyes, but I was amazed and entertained by her attempt at Lovecraftian foreboding, even if she was half-giggling the entire time.

Heard at Dinner

2010-05-12T16:24:00.000-07:00

"Boy, doing the same thing a whole lot sure can wear you out!"

Yes, yes it can.

Ease

2010-05-09T11:30:00.000-07:00

Watching a movie this afternoon, Gaz starts burrowing behind the couch cushions.

Me: "What are you doing?"

LWG: "Are you trying to hide?"

Gaz: "Yeah, but it isn't easy!"

Singing!

2010-05-08T17:51:00.001-07:00

For a number of years, Gaz has made up songs when she feels the urge. Tonight, after a decently long day and a watching of this Barbie mermaid movie we have through Netflix, she's been singing in the bath. It's LWG's turn to give the bath, so I've only caught snippets over the past half-hour, but a few:

"...you'll try to win it for Malibu, you'll go crazy for Malibu..."

"...you'll surf for a million years..."

"...then you gotta curl, oh, yeah..."

Now she just needs to work on rhyme and meter, and she's got a career.

Gaz v. Science

2010-05-07T16:10:00.000-07:00

Today at dinner, after I came up with residual static as the reason the very slick Old Maid cards were sticking together, Gaz proceeded to explain my explanation right back at me. Then she asked "Is that scientific?"

Why, yes, yes it is. Just like when you told Mom about how the sun isn't a planet, it's a star made up of gasses that melt together and create heat and light and energy. That is indeed scientific.

She said she's good at science, and we opined that she should see if her first science fair went well, whenever that happened. I proceeded to tell her we've got a number of friends who actually work in science, so if she ever needs project ideas, we have aunties we can go to. I was particularly thinking of Auntie Nikki, in part because she was recently at a science fair, and she loves science! (and reads this blog), but we would take ideas from anyone!

Anyway. Science is good!

Addendum

2010-05-05T17:03:00.001-07:00

Incidentally, happy Cinco de Pie-o!

We had pumpkin and strawberry cream (which, the filling was actually banana).

Hope everyone's Cinco was excellent!

Vocab!

2010-05-05T16:54:00.000-07:00

So, the other night, we're doing the cool-down in the bed, waiting for Mom, and we're goofing off and she laughs, and then tells me very seriously (albeit smiling-ly) "I screamed with laughter!"

"People also say 'shrieked.' 'I shrieked with laughter.'"

"Shrieked!"

It's much better when she learns words as opposed to what she's learning on the playground. No, not sex and drugs ... poop jokes!

We've got a playground friend who is friendly and enthusiastic and a fair bit bossy; it's only just recently that Gaz is beginning to stand her ground. But anyway, once they were on the tire swing, and I was pushing them around, as one does on the tire swing, and friend starts telling a joke. And it's always something like this:

"I've got a joke!"

"If it's anything like your others, I don't think that..."

"Who put the poop in the toaster and put the toaster in the potty?"

"That's actually pretty disgusting..."

"YOU DID!" (pointing at me and shrieking with laughter)

And it goes on like that. It's not even jokes, just an excuse to talk about disgusting things and make fun of Dad, basically. Which I'm up for, that's fine. But somebody's got to play the straight man, I suppose, and I'd really rather have, like, an actual punchline. Heck, even a banal, Carrot-Top-like observation would be fine. But maybe I'm spending too much time sabotaging our small appliances in disgusting ways. If you ask Gaz on the playground, that's all I seem to do.

Tantrums and Behavior

2010-04-30T17:59:00.000-07:00

Gaz has been taking me to the park just about every other day. We have some friends we see there, and she always makes friends when she goes to playgrounds, anyway, but it's good to see some regulars.

What's interesting, though, is how she's been reacting to time to go. I usually have us rolling just before seven in the evening, but sometimes she kind of throws a fit. Sometimes I have to coax her out from under the playground equipment, and I almost have to pick her up and carry her away.

Other times, she's ready. Like, most recently, I said "we have an hour, and I'm setting my watch timer." So, when the last few seconds counted down, I held the watch near her, and when it beeped, she looked up, and immediately took off down the path toward home. Her playmate looked all confused, I had to shout after Gaz to have her say goodbye, and then she was booking it so fast, I had to chase after her.

I don't know why that is. Sometimes, she's ready to go, sometimes she's too engaged to want to stop what she's doing. I suppose that's true of anyone, but with a smaller child, the mechanics of it are so much more out in the open.

Star Wars Ice Cream

2010-04-29T17:27:00.000-07:00

So, as we often do, we're talking Star Wars, and playing nonsense word games. And somehow, the conversation got to making a Chewbacca out of ice cream.

"And then you could eat all of him," she says, "especially his eyeballlllllssss!!!" She really drew that last word out. Then she pauses, and continues in a sprightly tone. "I tell ya, they're quite delicious."

Of course, if she had access to an ice cream Luke Skywalker, she'd eat his stomach. "I would destroy him and eat him!" she said repeatedly.

While trying to get into Blogger and tell you this, she would not stop pestering me. Even now, she is trying to lick my feet to gross me out (it's working!). But knowing that people on the internet are going to be reading what she's been saying, she wanted me to tell you all she wanted to eat your brains, because she's a zombie. And, like a real zombie, she has no shame about it.

That's my girl!

Photos, Life, and Bloggy Help

2010-04-28T20:12:00.000-07:00

I'm in the process of uploading many photos. Don't look now--it will probably take all night. I haven't labeled or tagged any of the pictures. Since it's been so long, I figured that people would just rather see them first, clever captioning be damned. So that's what you get.

My potentially exciting news, which I am still partly waiting on (very impatiently, as I was to have heard something in "late April," only we're just about out of April) is whether or not I'll be starting law school this year. If not, I am determined to get in next year. I'm on the waiting list, but I was hoping to have some kind of definite idea by now. (As it turns out, there might not be any definite idea until the start of the Fall semester, but I sincerely hope that I know one way or the other before then.)

Other than my schooling, I'm also having fits about Gaz's. The CPS is not really the most functional organization in the world. I applied to some magnet/cluster schools, but we're languishing on waiting lists there too. Registering at the local neighborhood school is also a frustration, as we can't accomplish that until August (when Gaz gets these two ridiculous vaccinations that the CDC doesn't even complain about until you're over six), and looking into after-school care (assuming that in the fall I will either be in school or seeking employment) at the community center has also been frustrating for many little reasons that don't bear whining about on the Internet. Suffice it to say that I feel like we're in a Joseph Heller novel, but with less war and more children and bureaucracy.

Which brings me to my final point alluded to in the title. Mark has finally consented to blog those little things that slip my mind before they can get posted. Gaz says some amazingly weird things constantly, but with all the LSAT preparations, I am not retaining the adorableness as eloquently as I once did. So hopefully you'll be seeing more frequent posts in the near future. Just as soon as he accepts the invitation. (Mark, if you're reading this right now, that's your cue to go click the link.)

And now it is way past my bedtime. Enjoy the pictures, once they're up!

We're here!

2010-02-16T14:35:00.000-08:00

I promise! Life continues in a lifelike manner for the Rizen-Mitchell conglomerate. I've been incredibly busy, but (fortunately for you) I've caught a debilitating cold. While I'm useless on other things, I'll try to catch you all up. I apologize in advance for the disjointedness. I've had little G home all day, though, so I am at least not hopped up on anything stronger than Cold-Eeze and Halls.

The holidays were spent with the Mitchells, and we took Auntie Aiiiiieeeeee along with us. There are photos up on Flickr documenting the fun that was had there (and even a bit of the un-fun that was had on the long and snowy drive back north). Gaz received many awesome presents, including a veterinarian play outfit that also does duty as a nurse's outfit. Specifically, she's the nurse from Curious George Goes to the Hospital, only I can't remember the name right now.

School is school. She loves playing with her friends, having gym time, and exploring the science area in her classroom with tweezers (don't ask me!), but she hates circle time and sitting still. Some mornings I have to remind her about the other cool things she gets to do in order to charm her out the door. The psychotic cold and the many layers she has to wear every day for our seven-block stroll are also part of the problem, I think. Finding a place to stash the snow pants at school is also a treat for me, but Gaz likes changing out of snow boots and into her little pink mary janes.

I just received a valentine last week that was completely written by Miss Gaz. It said "Happy Valentines Day" and "I love you" and her name and something that is either "SOLO" or "5010." It's my favorite thing in the world.

She's putting me through my crafty paces the past few days. Over the weekend she asked me to make her a mailbox, which we all ended up helping with but I take credit for the design and drawing the template. Then today, after receiving a Batgirl costume in the mail, she decided that the box would make an excellent Batmobile. I made a steering wheel, dials, and buttons and taped the box just so. Of course, now that that's done, I'm looking at it and the roll of black duct tape we've got hanging around, thinking that maybe Mark needs to give it a makeover tonight.

The Mommy Report is also a thing in progress. I'm not pregnant, but I've got some stuff going on that might bear an announcement in the future. Suffice it to say I've got good reasons for not being more bloggy.

And on that note, I am going to sleep through dinner now that Mark's home.

Oh, I just uploaded some new-new photos, even more recent than Christmas! Also, there's this:

It starts with Gaz singing "Yo Ho Ho, I'm ready to go!" to herself (because she hasn't figured out the difference between pirates and Santa yet, go figure), then hijinks until the teachers try to take control, at which time Gaz rats out another little girl. Precious.

One of these days I will have time to edit down the rest to tolerable-sized pieces. Right now it would take days to upload the files I have. It's a project, and it's cute. You'll just have to forgive me.

Nice day for a haircut

2009-12-11T17:32:00.001-08:00

New Hair
Originally uploaded by georgiegrrrrl

Today after school we got the crazy notion to explore one of the bazillion local hair salons (we walked past at least five on the way to the one we wanted). This is how short I asked for it to be cut last time, and finally someone took me seriously!

We all think she looks great, and if she wants to keep it this length, I think I'll have to talk her into a Flapper costume for next Halloween.

Much better

2009-12-11T07:25:00.001-08:00

Today we employed the snowsuit and the hood of her coat instead of additional pants and itchy hat, so there was much less fussing on the way to school. The new scarf worked perfectly, keeping her face nice and covered, and keeping her legs warmer made her less upset about everything else. It also helps that the windchill is dramatically less than it was yesterday.

Live and learn. I ran into our neighbor on my way home this morning, and she said that they had trouble getting to school yesterday too (they go to the elementary school we walk past to get to our little school), so I feel less like a moron.

Yesterday as we made our way home, Gaz asked if I could pick her up today with the stroller instead of her having to walk. In light of the nap she took yesterday (and this kid hasn't had an afternoon nap, apart from days when she was really sick, for about two years) I think this is a good plan. I just hope her legs aren't so long now that her feet will be dragging!

Not entirely arctic, it turns out

2009-12-10T08:26:00.000-08:00

Today it is cold. It's Chicago cold. There's the coldness (1 degree, according to the news this morning) and then there's the windiness. Weather.com is reporting the winds now as 19mph, but I think it was a little worse this morning. It's definitely gusting somewhat harder than that at times.

I got Gaz bundled up for school--way more bundled than she likes. I explained that it's horribly cold and that this was the reason for the multiple pairs of pants and socks and the reason for the horrible itchy wool scarf that mom crocheted being put to use. All was well as we made our way down our street. There's plenty of snow for Gaz to stomp in and kick around, and this is always fun. Yesterday on our way home from school Gaz threw herself onto the sidewalk to make a sudden snow angel, much to the amusement of the lady walking just behind us down the sidewalk. Snow is our friend and so much fun to play in that I have to remind her constantly to keep walking.

Then we turn the corner.

Within seconds of being face-first into the driving wind (most of our walk is due west, right into the wind) she is hysterical. No matter how I try to explain that crying just makes her face colder, she says she can't help herself. She wails all the way to school, but at least I don't have to remind her to keep walking very often. A lady who is walking her son to school gives me this horrified look and asks me what's wrong. I explain for the first of many times this morning that this is the first time she's had to walk to school in the horrible cold and then spend the rest of the time waiting for the traffic light to change trying to cuddle my distraught girl.

We get to school and she has mostly stopped crying, but she refuses to look at any of the teachers because she doesn't want anyone to see her crying. Eventually I get her stripped of her outer layers--not the extra pants, though; she wanted to keep those on--and carry her to the bathroom. She's so upset by the cold that she clings to me for another five minutes (while ignoring her best friend, who came by expressing concern) before I talk her into a potty break and she manages to calm herself down the rest of the way. I explain what a ski mask is, and she says she would like one.

Now I've been to the thrift store where there were no ski masks, but I did find a nice soft purple scarf that at least won't be scratchy. I did find a ski mask, black of course, in a nearby shop, but I forgot my cash when I left the house. What are the odds of finding such a thing in pink and covered with flowers?

At least on the way home we'll have the wind at our backs. My poor not-quite-arctic child. She'll get used to it, but it's not going to be easy on either of us.

(Edited to add: I did find a floral polar fleece balaclava thing on Amazon, and it's now on it's way to us. I hope the new scarf will do the job until it gets here.)

essential media

2009-11-22T10:13:00.000-08:00

Well, any child of ours.

Now that she's four, it's time to start her on Daddy's favorite things: comic books and Star Trek.

Her first two comic books, which she picked out herself at our usual comic shop, are Super Girl #8 and Scooby-Doo #143. Super Girl was the last half of a two-parter, so it was confusing for all of us coming into a new series with nothing but half a middle and an end of a story, plus, it features Mister Mxyzptlk, which I tell you is a sheer joy to have to read to your kid over and over and over again.

Scooby-Doo was suitably Scoobish, and the first adventure in the ish took place at the White House. There was some cryptozoology bit in there too which was actually interesting and not insane. Overall, I think Gaz picked some winners. Now we just have to teach her about the virtues of mylar sleeves and acid-free cardboard. Oh, and she'll need her own box. For the moment the books are (gasp!) on the coffee table.

For Star Trek, Mark started her off yesterday on "The Enemy Within," which would not have been my first choice, but Gaz seemed to enjoy it. Now they're watching "The Corbomite Maneuver" and she's asking a million questions about every possible plot element you could imagine. It's cute if you aren't trying to actually watch the episode (for instance, if you're blogging in another room). But she really digs aliens, and the spinning cube thing was a big hit.

school and vaccines

2009-11-22T05:53:00.000-08:00

Gaz's second week of school was marred by an evil, evil chest cold (what is it with this kid and chest colds?!). On Tuesday as we walked home, she complained that she didn't feel well, and also that she wasn't looking forward to the fire drill the next day at school. I assumed the two were related until she developed the cough and fever that evening. Friday we went to the doctor to get an official opinion on the cold and get Gaz on the list for the H1N1 vaccine, which our doctor assured us they keep getting more of, but they only do the vaccines by appointment.

This past week Gaz made it through a whole week of school again, but we had a little meltdown on Thursday. I thought the week would get easier for her as the days wore on, but I hadn't allowed for the cumulative exhaustion of each day building up quite so much. It was picturesque and memorable, and I hope next week we can completely skip any sort of tantrum. She's been insisting on an earlier bedtime this past week, so I think if we just roll our schedule back a little that will fix most of our problems. At least, I hope that works, as she refuses to nap even while sick.

This weekend we had a nice but all-too-short visit from the Grandparents Mitchell. While everyone else was out having a good time, I went to check out the free city-sponsored H1N1 vaccine clinic at a conveniently-located city college. Since I'm in the high risk group (asthma--don't get any funny ideas, youse), I thought I should take advantage of the opportunity. I was surprised to find that they had the flumist as well as the injection, so I may bypass the annoyance of dragging her down to the pediatrician's office and just take her to the next clinic day. I hope Gaz being generally healthy as a horse will qualify her for the flumist. I can't avoid the needles, but it would be nice if she could. If not, they do have a Blue Bunny ice cream vending machine in the lobby.

School Daze

2009-11-06T15:39:00.000-08:00

Gaz has now successfully completed her first week of preschool. Best of all, we managed to survive it.

Getting to school was only an issue twice, and then only because Gaz frequently refuses to believe how cold it is outside and so refuses to put on her coat. You'd think she was a Yukon nudist or something. After I explained that we weren't leaving the house without her coat on, and if she never put on her coat she would never get to school that day, she grudgingly complied. I didn't even make her put on a hat most days (though I brought hat and mittens every day, in case she wanted them). I suppose as problems go, that's the kind you want to have. And I know in a few years that whole "if you don't obey you can't go to school" thing won't work quite so well. I'm milking it while I can.

Coming home from school is a very different animal. She really doesn't ever want to leave once she's there. Day one there was a screaming, sobbing tantrum all the way through lunch (fools that we were, we thought going out for lunch would perk her up) and all the way home, to the tune of about an hour and a half. Day two we didn't go out for lunch, and just screamed and cried all the way home. Day three I bribed her with Halloween candy. It worked much better than I expected, and she was so very compliant (and I was so wiped out) that I took her out to lunch. Day four the candy worked again, though there were tears about not getting hold the black bear. Day five I bribed her with the promise of a special treat (Dunkin' Donuts is on the way home) but she was still mopey about not being able to bring the pink floam until we started collecting a family of bright yellow maple leaves that had freshly fallen on the sidewalk. I was glad to have taken hand sanitizer with me so we didn't have icky leaf hands when we got our treat.

While at school, Gaz is apparently a joy. I have yet to hear about her having any difficulty at all, and yesterday when I stopped in to get her, the program director came up to me with Gaz's file (oh no!) to give me a printout she made of some goofy face photos of Miss Gaz (whew!). They had been taking the kids' pictures to put with letters to Santa and Gaz made a lot of silly faces. She's definitely my kid! So we've got bonus pictures. I love 'em. We've also got school pictures coming up soon. I'm excited to see how this goes.

In other school-related news, Gaz and I journeyed forth to River Forest last week to ~~entertain~~ enlighten some psychology students as to the workings of a four-year-old girl's mind. She said a lot of things that made my little nerd heart glow with pride ("What do you want to be when you grow up?" "A Transformer! Or a fairy that transforms into a scientist!") and some that made me groan a bit ("What animal would you like to be?" "I would like to be a pig, because pigs don't have to poop in the potty."). It turns out that that pig comment, according to the professor, represents thinking on a higher level than most four-year-olds, though, so I guess that's a win. What a way to prove your mental prowess! Gaz was a champ with the interviewing, and even wrote her name on the board (and I quote: "AGAAAA"). We had a good time and want to thank Auntie Abby again for inviting us out to her class. :)

Happy Halloween!

2009-10-31T21:55:00.001-07:00

Thorn & Mr. Lizard Mummy
Originally uploaded by georgiegrrrrl

On Friday we went to the community Halloween party at Welles Park, where Gaz had oodles of fun playing games, winning prizes, and, most importantly, starting her candy collection for the year. She was not disappointed! She even ate most of the apple they gave her for breakfast this morning.

Today she woke up late and wanted to go trick-or-treating immediately. We delayed with meals and art projects as long as humanly possible, then got her dudded up to hit the shops in Lincoln Square. We didn't notice any trick-or-treaters out in our neighborhood, and I figured the safest place to take candy from strangers would be at easily-sued places of business. It turned out to be everyone's good idea to stroll the avenue and collect candy there, and Mom even got to duck away for a bit and have some coffee while Dad and Gaz concentrated on the serious business of sugar acquisition.

This year's obscure costume (Thorn from Scooby-Doo and the Witch's Ghost,, if you'll recall) was actually recognized by one lady, who even sang a bit of the Hex Girls song! So if you're ever in Lincoln Square, throw some money at Hanger 18, and tell them it's because someone behind the counter there recognized the costume. :)

We're doling out the treats very conservatively. Can't start down the cavity path when we've had such wonderful dentist visits so far.

The other big news is that Gaz finally starts preschool on Monday. She's been moodier than usual lately, and I expect this to continue until she's settled into her new schedule. For now, she's excited but nervous. I think she'll do fine after this adjustment period. Waiting an extra two weeks for things to get started didn't help, I'm sure, but it's a brand new program and they needed a little more time to get things ready.

Creativity and Questionable Influences

2009-10-20T22:43:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, Gaz said a number of things that had me laughing and/or scratching my head.

First, she had a little plastic Stitch (you know, from Lilo and Stitch) who had been playing with her little plastic Sue (you know, the big ass T-Rex at the Field Museum). She brought both of them over to talk with me, and upon seeing the numbers on my keyboard, Stitch remarked "I can't count all the way up to zero because my nose isn't as good as T-Rex's." I still don't know what that's supposed to mean, but if I had to guess, I'd say it's a mixed metaphor.

Then at bedtime I heard some singing coming from what I thought was a sleeping Gaz. It turns out she was singing "Hush Little Baby" to Stitch, only she made up some new words. I listened quietly as she quietly sang:
"Hush little baby, don't say a word
Mama's gonna buy you a mocking bird
And if that mockingbird don't sing
Mama's gonna buy you a diamond ring
And if that diamond ring turns brass
Mama's gonna buy you a looking glass
And if that looking glass gets broke
Mama's gonna buy you a lollypop
And if that lollypop makes you sick
Mama's gonna buy you a poke in the eye
And if that poke in the eye starts to hurt
Mama's gonna buy you a billy goat. . ."
Somehow I managed not to howl with laughter during her performance. I checked with her this afternoon (in the presence of Auntie Aaaiiieeeee), and Gaz confirmed that she had indeed sung about the lollypop and the eye poke. We were both amused and confused.

At dinner she sang again, this time with Mark listening in, and he confessed that the poke in the eye thing was his fault. No one can remember all the original words to the song, so he made some up a couple of weeks ago when he was on bedtime duty. Lucky for us all, that's the line that stuck. The lollypop one was all hers, though, and at dinner she also created some more verses based on items found on the dinner table. My favorite was ketchup, but I can no longer remember what the ketchup was supposed to do. That is probably for the best.

I haven't taken pictures of Gaz in her full Thorn get-up, but stay tuned. There's a nice black and red wig involved now, and as soon as I figure out how to restrain all the blond hair, she will look so much like a goth rock chick, you won't recognize her. Unless you've watched that Scooby-Doo movie as much as we have.

Mark it on the calendar

2009-10-14T16:41:00.000-07:00

This evening, Gaz has been reading. A whole pile of animal names, a few verbs, and even an article. Tonight in addition to reading *to* her, we're going to try having her read a bit to us in one of her "pre-reader" books. I think she's technically read other words before now, but I didn't make a note anywhere as to what she read or when, so I could be misremembering. But I'm pretty sure she read something while we were out in recent days.

All was well until she tried to write the letter K. But we've got a plan to get up early in the morning and work on that.

Five days remain until she starts Pre-K. She's very antsy for the schooling to commence. I hope her enthusiasm continues!

I know, I know

2009-10-05T11:56:00.000-07:00

It's been AGES! And I have no good excuse now that we're all reasonably healthy. I still have this nagging cough, but that's nothing a little Delsym can't handle.

So what's up with us? First, let me direct you to the Flicker link o'er yonder, which I have just this second updated to go to the set for this Gaz year. Whee! There's not a whole lot there yet (we left our battery down in Evansville during the last trip), but there's her birthday party and assorted madness.

Gaz has been feeling fine, but unfortunately her follow-up urinalysis showed bacteria again. We pumped her full of antibiotics before she had a chance to get really sick again (woohoo!) but it looks like she has some imaging tests in her future. We're just waiting on word from the doctor as to when she wants them done. In the meantime, we've got a little collection of empty specimen jars to facilitate the process of keeping tabs on how much bacteria she's growing. On the up side, she's back in the land of the toilet trained and has been having no problems remembering to get to the bathroom in time. We've had only one nighttime accident (apart from the one when she was sick, which doesn't count IMO), and she's quite pleased with herself over her progress.

School has started through MidWestWorld, but we languish on waiting lists. Things may be looking up, though, so Gaz might yet make it into preschool this year. Keep your fingers crossed.

Let's see. . . Gaz can write her name, though she sometimes gets the letters out of order or runs out of space on the page with her giant letters. We do a lot of pre-reading workbook activities, and she follows directions from books much better than she does for me (isn't that always the way?). She's covered in stickers that didn't come off in the bath as well as I had hoped. Which is to say that some of the picture parts came off, but the sticky stuff lingers and is covered with fuzz from her blanket.

This weekend we went to the Milwaukee Art Museum and discovered that she doesn't like art, because it's boring. She did like watching the "wings" close on the building and the little markers and watercolors I got her at the gift shop, though. She was mildly impressed with her first visit to The Safe House. I expect that will change as she gets older.

So that's the general update. More news as it happens (and I remember to blog).

Family Bleh

2009-08-17T10:47:00.000-07:00

Just after my last post I came down with a raging sinus infection. Just as I got in to the doctor and got myself squared away for some casual recouperation, Gaz got sick. Not just a little sniffle, there were 104-degree temperatures and hallucinations at one point.

So there was an ER visit (we like the nearby hospital) and a visit to our normal doctor's office, and many lab tests and phone calls later we find out that Gaz has a urinary tract infection and we get her her own prescription for a bit of amoxicillin. So much for that casual recouperation.

Since Wednesday we've had fevers, chills, vomiting, and tantrums over taking any sort of oral medication. Even the easy to chew stuff that tastes like Smarties. I've gotten little sleep, but at least my medicine has taken care of my infection just as well as it's working on hers. She's already looking a lot better (though still vomiting every now and again) and acting more like herself. We're back to diapers for the moment because she's having a hard time being awake/energetic enough to get to the bathroom in time for anything, but I know she would like nothing more than to get back to normal.

And we will, but it's probably going to take a little while yet.

Birthday and groveling

2009-08-10T06:36:00.000-07:00

Gaz is now four and seems to be loving it. I think she hit the annual growth spurt early this year, so she's been a bit grumpier than usual and a bit more ravenous. Her appetite has returned to normal, but she's still a little more whiney than normal. I'm hoping that will be decreasing any minute now.

We had the birthday party on August 1st out in the park near our house. We had a few kids attend, and everyone seemed to have a good time. Gaz requested a red velvet cake decorated with a rainbow and sprinkles, and that's what I made. She even helped with the sprinkles and the rainbow, but mostly she ate sprinkles and begged for icing.

By now you're probably wondering where the pictures of this merry event are. It turns out that after years of playing with the camera, she's finally figured out how to delete every single picture from the camera all at once. You can imagine my glee. Now I don't have a picture of her from her birthday morning, etc. etc. Fortunately for you all, the party was documented by the fabulous Auntie Darci, so you all will get to see pictures that are probably a lot nicer than I would have taken with my crappy old one that sometimes like to zoom all the way in for no good reason.

Anyway, the birthday was had, the presents were all deemed acceptable by Her Majesty, and cake and ice cream were shared by all. We had a fine time, despite the incredible winds that threatened to blow food and everything into the river.

probably way too much information

2009-07-18T11:37:00.000-07:00

Gaz has her first Barbie. She's stripping her as I type, of course. I don't think we've got a clothed doll in the house. And already she's planning Barbie's first haircut ("Your hair is too long! It goes all the way to your butt!")

This is a good thing: An evil sorceress put a spell on Barbie so that she could only be released from her cardboard and plastic prison if a certain girl pooped in the potty. It only took months for this fairy tale to reach its conclusion.

But actually the doll was not the prime motivator. She kept asking for a diaper and we told her that she could have one if she sat on the toilet for ten minutes. I guess all it took was a little conveniently timed boredom.

I'm unbelievably excited at the prospect of not having to change diapers much longer. It's about damn time.

Baby's First Big Girl Haircut

2009-06-25T14:11:00.001-07:00

Originally uploaded by georgiegrrrrl

By which I mean, the first haircut done by a professional.

Gaz was a total champ the whole time, even though we had a bit of a wait for her turn to come around. She was reasonably compliant with all the "hold your head this way" and "okay, don't move" business, and now she looks (as you can see) fabulous! She got some new headbands as a treat, as they are the one hair taming device she actually enjoys wearing.

I have my fingers crossed that this will help make this summer a bit less unbearable for her. Now it's less of an issue that she refuses to ever consent to ponytails, even during a heat wave.

Us girls are heading down to visit my alma mater tomorrow for a girl's weekend out, so look out for pictures of the impending Hooisierification of Gaz!

2009-06-20T13:54:00.000-07:00

This afternoon Gaz and I were Queens of the Wild West. We wore rainbow-colored dresses and sang songs. We also saw a cloud shaped like a bunny with really lumpy skin.

We finally got around to sorting out the back porch, so we even got to do our imagining out doors, while snacking on our newly lounge-friendly porch.

Now I have to go here the one-queen band in the living room.

Gaz says

2009-06-13T09:25:00.000-07:00

Thursday was a rainy day, so we stayed inside and amused ourselves in the usual manner (tea parties and various excuses to move all the toys from one room to another), then Gaz announced that she was going to write a speech to read to Obama.

You see, she's got a bit of an Obama obsession. I take responsibility for this, as I did make her watch the whole inauguration (well, we played with toys and I listened in, but I did take a break from toys for the big speeches and oaths), but it's really grown into something strange and wonderful inside her head. Every time she sees a magazine with him on the cover she says, "Hey Mom! There's Obama!" The other day, her alien toy didn't believe that Obama was the president

, even singing a song about how he, the alien, was president and not Obama. Gaz set him straight in the end.

Then she started asking about speeches, and why do people make speeches, and what do they say in them, and what was Obama speaking about in this or that news clip. Then, on that fabled rainy day, she asked me for a pencil because she was going to write the speech she would be reading to Obama. And so she disappeared into her room for a few minutes and emerged with a bunch of random letters on a page. I should scan it for posterity.

The best part was that she couldn't read it to any old imaginary Obama. She had to read it to Mommy pretending to be Obama. So I did my best to sound presidential and listened attentively to Gaz's speech about her favorite things, her favorite toys, and what she likes to do (play games, play with her toys, play with the kids next door, etc.).

I wish I had had the foresight to have the camcorder handy, because it was definitely a YouTube moment.

Other fun that's happened lately:

What happens when you cook a fossil? (Inspired by waking up with her knitted nautiloid this morning, she insisted we find pictures and information about nautiluses, which naturally ended up by checking out pictures of Lituites lituus. I've been trying to explain fossils lately, but we're still at the "if it's a dead animal, what happens when you cook it?" stage. Don't ask me to explain this stage. I don't get it either.

Of the Greedo key fob she found today: "He's a skeleton guy with clothes on. But he lost all his bones!" (She did not respond to questions on how he can be a skeleton guy and be missing his bones at the same time. Greedo is just so much fun to play with, I suppose.)

Many apologies for the long dry spells between posts. It's been a crazy few weeks, between disturbed sleep cycles and general random cranky three-year-oldness, but I'm trying to catch up. I'm even not ashamed of the kitchen right now! The living room on the other hand . . .

Well, one thing at a time.

Life Marches On

2009-05-27T12:44:00.001-07:00

100_7699
Originally uploaded by georgiegrrrrl

Even when I fall down on blogging chores.

We're in the midst of a whirlwind visit all over the place, but I will sit down and write a decent entry soon.

For now, enjoy the new pictures I've just uploaded to my Flickr site, featuring mostly photos from the Spirit of Vincennes Rendezvous. Check them out!

New pix and such

2009-04-13T19:39:00.000-07:00

Hello! We're still around, starting to stir from our winter hibernation. Okay, so the winter hibernation has mostly been in my head, but we really are spending more time outdoors despite the chilly temperatures that continue to plague us.

We've just last week returned from a trip down Tennessee way, for Grandpa Great's interment. We buried his ashes in this gorgeous little cemetery, in the Montgomery family plot right next to his wife. And when I say we buried, I mean that rather literally. Since this was a small affair and a small cemetery, the minister (a distant cousin) handed out shovels and he and Mark did the hard work while the littlest ones (Evynn, Gaz, and Merynn) helped by tossing in handfuls of red Tennessee earth. It was perhaps a bit morbid, but still very sweet. If I can't manage to finagle a sea burial for myself, I would love to be buried by my grandchildren and great-grandchildren (though that's getting very much ahead of myself on several levels!)

Sadly, the pictures from the cemetery did not turn out very well at all, so I haven't uploaded those yet. I need to do some work to try to fix the weird color/exposure issues with those, but I did upload a bunch of other photos from before and during the trip.

The first part of the trip (can't do anything in order, can I?) we stopped through Evansville for a night and had an early Easter egg hunt with Nana and Pehpaw, then headed down to the Nashville area, where we spent a couple of days visiting the Sandersons and their kids: Fletcher, Lily, and Malcolm. Lily was born just a few weeks after Agatha, and they combined their unholy affection for all things pink and princessy into something truely awe-inspiring. And loud. But they had fun and little Malcolm wasn't too traumatized, I hope. (As for the adults, we all had a great time too, but we wore many fewer loud clomply play shoes and did less fighting over mermaid costumes.)

We met up with the Mitchell clan at Henry Horton State Park, down by Chapel Hill, TN. When we weren't at the aforementioned cemetery, there was a fantastic dinner at a Mexican Restaurant, and a spontaneous trip to Lynchburg for some of us legal folks to go check out the Jack Daniel distillery. While Mark, Emily, Kyle, and I were there, the kids and Grandma and Grandpa planned a show for us, with singing and some acting, and a side of ham. Gaz had a really fabulous time, considering the funeral overtones, but she is still trying to grasp mortality.

On that subject, she found a dead squirrel in the park a couple of weeks ago and had many questions about what "dead" is. This has come up enough over the past year that I'd hoped I would get a break from those questions, but no dice. I guess it's part of the deal.

Other than the above events, life here is much as it ever is. There's a lot of art projects going on, a lot of singing of strange little narratives, and a lot of toys everywhere.

Lernin' with Gaz

2009-03-08T16:21:00.000-07:00

The Biology Lesson:
"Hawks believe in people, but they don't know what they are. Hawks think people are their food and they eat them up. And they eat their birdseed very well."
"Before I was born, I used to climb up and look out of your mouth."
"When scabs run away, they leave little pink footprints behind."

Stay tuned for more edyoocayshun!

Bloggy Maintenance

2009-02-17T17:49:00.000-08:00

As you who do not read with an RSS thingy can see, I've been fiddling with the layout. Blogger went and got all modern and the old layout wasn't cooperating with their new toys, so I decided to change everything around.

In the process, though, I lost our links, which are probably somewhere, but I'm a bit busy lately to go digging for them. So if there was a link there before that you want me to put up now, just leave me a comment.

And now, back to me doing productive things!

Bulletin!

2009-02-16T17:17:00.000-08:00

If you put a crazy straw in the keyhole of Gaz's bedroom door, you can use it as a lever to release the alien octopuses that eat people.

In more sane news, Gaz sends her thanks for all the nice Valentines she received. She's also been making a ton of her own, and we are now practically drowning in hearts. She's having a good time, though, so can't complain too much.

Today

2009-02-12T14:49:00.001-08:00

Gaz colored the bottom of her right foot with a black marker and went for a stroll all over our beige carpet. I was more than a little angry, sent her to her room without the markers, and thankfully the Atlantis cleaner thing removed the marks that I found. (I think I just found another one, but the light is strange this time of day.)

I checked on her in her room, and she was busily and cheerfully coloring me a picture (with nice, washable crayons, I might add) to help me feel better.

Then we made a pot of Montana Gold tea (which is, incidentally, the best tea in the world) and drank tea with milk from her groovy 70's plastic teacups. The cucumber sandwiches didn't go over quite as well with the Gaz, who prefers her cukes and her sammich to be prepared and served individually. I sure ate well, though.

Now she's sitting next to me, buried under all the couch pillows, sighing heavily. "I'm having a rest because it's been a hard day!"

"What was the hardest part of the day?" I ask, expecting the morning's drama to figure in somewhere, or maybe all the coloring. Or maybe even all that patience that had to be exercised while waiting for tea to brew, waiting for me to finish some phone calls I had to make. Something like that.

"Drinking all that tea today was REALLY HARD WORK, Mom." Of course.

Dentist

2009-02-05T07:46:00.000-08:00

Oops! I forgot to post after the check-up! I ended up with some surprise editing work that ended up taking more time than I expected, which wiped me out and so forgot about blogging for a while.

The dentist is completely wonderful. I heard many tales of her awesomeness on a local mailing list, so the choice wasn't hard. Even better, it's just a short bus or train ride from our new place. There was much praise for how well we brush her teeth, and Dr. T. told Gaz that she needs to let us help her with her toothbrushing until she's eight. I'm sure she'll really love that as the years progress. Her molars are a little close together, so we can go ahead and start flossing, or at least getting used to floss, but her front teeth are nice and spacious--lots of room for the permanents. And because Gaz started cutting teeth so early, she'll probably lose her first tooth early too. Like, maybe around five. We've got time yet for that milestone.

The spot I was worried about is, thankfully, not a cavity! It is a little pit, but it's "hard as a rock" says Dr. T, so we'll watch it and make sure that area gets brushed extra well. ::insert massive sigh of relief here::

Agatha got all kinds of goodies (Dora toothbrush, SpongeBob toothpaste, a purple dental mirror of her very own, crayons with pictures of toothbrushes on them, and a little sand timer to make sure we're brushing for long enough) and I got the lecture about the Horrors of Fruit Snacks. Which are only Gaz's favorite thing in the world. Dr. T says she'd rather see us give her ice cream for a treat than any kind of gummy anything, so I guess the fruit snack issue is pretty serious. Did we even have vast quantities of fruit snacks on the market when I was a kid? We're going to have to rethink our treat plans.

I've taken the opportunity of the dentist visit to push the "spitty toothpaste." Gaz is a very stubborn creature, and it makes life easier for everyone if I find a creative way to make things seem like they're really her idea. Getting her in the bathtub? We say that we're going to take her bath for her, which plays into her competitive spirit and gets her into the tub quite cheerfully most nights. Switching toothpaste wasn't too hard given it's novelty (and it's sparkliness), but it takes some doing to get all the way through the brushing without Gaz freaking out a bit about the volume of foam generated by spitty toothpaste versus the training toothpaste she's so fond of.

Apart from teeth, not much else is going on. There's been a lot of grumpiness the past couple of weeks, so we've not been as social as I'd like. We've been painting many pictures, working on writing letters and numbers, doing all sorts of drawing and putting stickers on paper and things. Oh, and cards. Making lots of cards. I finally found my giant stapler, so I made some little books that she can decorate, and that's been lots of fun.

Yesterday we opened up the "Mummies and More" kit my mom got me a while back, and Gaz painted the pyramid bank from that. Today we're still decorating it, but we ran out of My Little Pony stickers.

Gaz stuck a big crescent-shaped sticker on her forehead yesterday and is refusing to take it off, I think because it's stuck to her eyebrows. I figure if I can get her to run around enough, the sweat will loosen it up and make it easier to yank off when she's distracted. And it's not like I have to fight with her to get her to run around.

The Scooby-Doo obsession rages on. We just discovered the Netflix movies you can watch on the computer, so our SD library has expanded greatly. At least we don't have to watch those horrible old movies with Don Knotts anymore. She's probably the only three-year-old who even knows who Don Kotts is.

Such is life around these parts. One of these days it won't be so horribly cold and we'll be able to go out and run around. Come on, spring!

And she hasn't even seen Raising Arizona yet

2009-02-02T07:37:00.000-08:00

Today's conversation, while looking at a book about dragons:

Me: [pointing at the one dragon on the page that I've not yet been lectured on] What does this dragon eat?
Gaz: She eats sand.
Me: She eats sand?
Gaz: She eats sand from her dragon beach.
Me: Okay then.

In a few hours, we've got her first trip to the dentist. It's nearby (yay!) and kid-only (double yay!), with lots of cool and undoubtedly expensive gadgets that make check-ups faster and easier on kids. Best of all, I get to stay with her the whole time, and if she gets skittish she can have at least part of the check-up while sitting on my lap. Unfortunately, I think there's a cavity involved, but I'm still hoping it was a weird shadow or something completely innocuous. She's not in pain or anything, so at least she's in a pretty good mood, apart from not being excited to have to go do something boring like see a dentist.

2009-01-27T20:25:00.000-08:00

By and large, there hasn't been anything entertaining to say. She's just about three-and-a-half. She gets frustrated easily, gets overstimulated easily, throws tantrums at the drop of a hat, and generally needs plenty of work, but not of the sort that is really that much fun to read about or hear tell of over the phone. Actually, if you try to call here and have a conversation, it's likely to involve many asides to tell Gaz to "stop doing that, I said STOP DOING THAT. RIGHT NOW. I have to go." Fun! But there's an almost equal number of times when she'll insist that we make a card or paint a picture for someone, or give me a big hug and kisses all over my face and tell me she loves me.

Which is actually fun, but gets repetitive when it's written down. So here's a few little strange things that aren't about tantrums, diapers, her inability to cover her nose when she sneezes (so, so, SO sorry about your lunch, Tamara!), or even any of the glurge. I hope that in the future it won't take me a month to gather this much shareable stuff.

In amongst the usual bundles of "why" questions, Gaz has had a few weird ones that she's been asking. While out having some quality time with Mark, the subject of our wedding photo came up, and from there sprang, "Where was I before I was born?" And then she pretended to eat Mark's brains (he was carrying her on his shoulders at the time). She gets the uterus thing, and she gets the being born thing as much as she can, but she's always wondering what she was doing when Mom and Dad kissed that one day in the picture, and what was she doing when we went to Italy? Thankfully, she is not insisting on immediate, concise answers.

Gaz likes to "shave" (with a play razor and foamy soap) her face lately, so this is now a component of every bath time. I'm guessing that she'll outgrow this well before puberty, but if not I don't know how I'll break it to her that she won't be growing a beard any time soon. In true Gaz fashion, she has named her razor Captain Wookiee--formerly Mr. Wookiee, but it turns out that the razor is a girl, and she didn't want her to feel bad about being called "mister." No, she hasn't seen any Star Wars movies yet, but she has seen a documentary about the movies, which is where I think the Wookiee bit came from.

So last night she's putting foam on her face and she starts to sing: "It's your mom and your dad and they're SHAVING!" And I couldn't stop laughing. I still laugh when I think of it. It's a surreal show tune sort of song, and it's coming out of my daughter. I don't know where she gets this stuff. Shaving I get, but parents shaving and this being a song-worthy event is something I would never have considered. The songs pop up all the time and tend to involve riffing on the "you can do anyting you want to do" theme. You can jump on the bed if you want to, or you can not jump on the bed if you want to, or you can jump on the bed and then get a snack if you want to . . .

But now mama's going to go to sleep because she wants to.

2008-12-30T12:34:00.001-08:00

Gaz sez, "One day when I'm bigger, but not as big as you and Dad, I'm going to have long, long hair and a long, long dress, and I'm going to sing a perfect song." This will, she says, take place on a stage upon which she has put up a lot of Christmas lights.

We've both been upgraded from "Mommy" and "Daddy" to just Mom and Dad. It seems too soon in some ways, but is perhaps evidence that she is thinking more about the things she says now.

She's also taken to saying "muh" instead of "my," as in, "Mom! There's poop in muh diaper!" It's funny the first five times, but after that just gets kinda weird. Are we the victim of a hillbilly changeling?

Last night she woke up and called for me, "Mom. MOM." Not panicked or whining, just insistent. I went in to check on her and found her sitting up in bed. I reached out for her and she grabbed my arm, held it close to her chest, and relaxed back onto the bed, face-first. I stayed bent over the bed rail (fun!), rubbing her back with my free hand, until she fell back asleep. From that vantage point, I saw that sometime before summoning me, she'd retrieved her sippy cup from the bedside table and had a drink of water. It was not so long ago that it took a lot of work to get her back to sleep if she woke up enough to call for me, and really not so long ago that she would thrash about in bed, crying for her cup of water to be brought to her. Now she remembers where the cup is, and she knows that I'll come, and she doesn't need quite so much to soothe her back down. There will be days when she does need more, but I do appreciate these days of relative ease.

I think 2009 is going to be a good year, full of lots of good new growth. Speaking of which, she's grown another half inch. Not much longer for some of those 4T clothes. And she wants everyone to know that she's "getting this snapping thing." Maybe for next Halloween I'll dress her up as a little Beatnik.

New photos up!

2008-12-23T13:23:00.001-08:00

Pretty, pretty pirate
Originally uploaded by georgiegrrrrl

Lovely new images of life from just before and just after the move.

Happy holidays, everyone!

success!

2008-12-15T15:59:00.001-08:00

We have ironed out our technical problems, which are a whole long tale of woe that I won't get into here, and so there will be updateyness more regular now. Also, photos will be uploaded here in a bit. We've got some from our first scouting mission, I think, that still haven't been uploaded, so there are some shots of the new neighborhood in somewhat warmer times.

The weather here, as I'm sure you all know, is not so pleasant. We've got icy steps out the back, and all our lumber from the old place that used to be shelves are now vaguely woodish icicles on the back porch two floors down. But our neighbors there are very generously not using them for frozen firewood. Huzzah!

How's Gaz handling the move? Not quite how I expected. I was waiting for sleep disturbances, because that's historically how she's handled routine disruption in the past (also grumpiness, but I'd always just filed that with the sleep issues). She's sleeping like a rock, but she spends a lot of the day screaming and getting mad at me for various random things. I would not trade this for the night terrors, though. Those have taken years off my life.

Some days, Gaz wants to go outside without coat or even pants:

Me: If you go outside without pants today, you'll freeze your legs right off!
Gaz: Then I will walk around on my blood!

[Insert stern glance at Auntie Aiiiiiieeeee for starting the whole blood thing.]

But pants have prevailed more or less. Gaz even wore the scarf I crocheted for her yesterday. It wasn't even a very scarf-worthy day! I glow! I think this is the first time she's worn something I made from yarn since she was small enough to wear the baby hats on which I ruined my tendons.

But anyway. We are here, we are sorting through boxes and contemplating exciting new shelving arrangements to accomodate all of the box contents. And now we can do some comparison shopping for needful things with the awesome power of the Internet. Most importantly, Gaz can play games on pbskids.org now. We know where our priorities are in this family.

Right now, the Gaz priority is explaining to Mark about proper application of (imaginary) perfume. I still don't know where she gets this stuff.

we're all still alive

2008-12-10T18:34:00.000-08:00

Just technologically impaired at the moment. This will hopefully be corrected on Monday. ::crosses fingers:: We have new address and phone number, so drop us an email somewhere and one of these days we'll actually be able to access it. Or call one of us on a cell phone, because those were not affected by the relocation.

We're mostly moved in, mostly unpacked, and barely sane. Gaz loves her new room and all her "new" toys. She has been ordering me to call various people so that she can tell them endless and surreal knock-knock jokes that she makes up on the spot.

We're all a little worn out and grumpy, so there's not much else to report, except that we've been having a mighty laugh at our governor's expense. Ah, Illinois, where corruption reaches across the aisle! (And that's all the politics you'll get here, so enjoy.)

the big update

2008-11-16T10:40:00.000-08:00

Hello! We've had a lot of stuff going on here, and now we actually have some things nailed down that we can go on the record about.

1. We're moving back up north next month. Yes, that's soon. No, we aren't nearly packed enough yet. Yes, we're working on it (actually, Mark is doing some work on the library as I type). We are gratefully accepting the help of a number of locals, and if anyone wants to send piles of money our way, we wouldn't say no. ;) The new apartment is right by the Chicago River (picturesque!) and there are not one but two parks less than a block away (convenient!). We'll also be just a short bus ride away from Auntie Aiieeee, which is another good and useful thing. The rent is also cheaper, which is a big motivator.

2. Proton, our beloved/reviled feline companion of more than nine years is currently on his way to his new home in Kentucky. My mom came to fetch him, and is taking him to a lovely new home that's way bigger than anything we are likely to own any time soon, with fewer scampering, tail-pulling three-year-olds. He's been progressively more irritable the past year or so, and while this change of venue is definitely increasing his stress in the short term, I hope that he can now live the rest of his kitty life in more comfortable surroundings. The rest of us here are, of course, very sad at his moving (thought I'm not sure why, since he did his level best to destroy everything we own in recent weeks) but it's for his good and ours. Most notably because our new apartment doesn't allow pets. We will still be able to visit him, since we have a built-in excuse to be in Owensboro as long as Uncle Sean and Aunt Hillary reside there. We're hoping to see him again (hopefully settled) when we are in the neighborhood around Christmastime.

Why all this change and why now? Money. Until we can manage to increase our income, we need to trim our spending. After the first of the year I'll be looking for work (freelance and otherwise), which will bring even more change if I end up employed once again out of the home. I'm not looking for work now because 1) we're moving and 2) this might be the last chance we have for a good long while to visit grandparents without screwing up anyone's work schedule and 3) I'd rather look when the seasonal-hiring thing is over for the season. Once we're settled in our new place I'll be in a much better position to find employment that we can all tolerate as well as possible.

There are a lot of issues involved in all this, which I'm not going to get into here, but I hope everyone knows that we are factoring everything into our decisions and doing what is best for our family.

Brevity!

2008-11-06T15:02:00.000-08:00

Pictures are up on Flickr. Not sorted or titled or captioned, but they are up.

Must go do things. Update later.

and now for something completely Gaz

2008-11-02T12:52:00.000-08:00

"Ladies and Gentlemen! Boys and Girls! Please! Bake me a cake!"

Shouted through an improvised megaphone today while we sat in her room, wrapped in blankets, having "cold time."

Festivities and Frustrations

2008-11-02T08:39:00.000-08:00

Sorry there are no pictures up yet. There are technical difficulties. Rest assured that pictures exist, and I'll get them uploaded as soon as I can.

So Halloween has now passed us by, and this is the source of my biggest frustrations. First off, the costume itself did not go well. I had a lot of errors to correct, because I have been extra exhausted lately, which translated into inattention and clumsiness. Another issue is that Gaz has a huge growth spurt to the tune of an inch or so immediately after her birthday, so she ended up a bit too big for the biggest size of the pattern I had from last time. There were problems with the plan I had, too, which is annoying because the whole plan was for this to be easier and less hand-intensive than last time. The long and the short of it is that I spent a whole month and no small amount of frustration and blood and banjo time to make this thing.

After all this, she wore the Mothra costume she insisted on for all of ten minutes on Friday before complaining that it was itchy and made her "a little pink" (which I think means it was hot), so she frantically demanded that I get her out of it. I did get some pictures of the finished costume. I took it with us to the Halloween event we went to up at our old favorite park, but she refused to wear it, even after seeing all the other kids dressed up. She got her bag of treats there, courtesy of Ald. Gene Schulter, and then was totally done with Halloween. She already had a bag of candy, so why would she need to dress up in that itchy old costume and go out in search of more?

I have resolved to not make Halloween costumes anymore. I'll make play clothes and assemble play costumes, and she can just pick from those next year.

Complicating Halloween this year is the passing of Mark's grandpa, whom we call Grandpa Great now that there are a bunch of great-grandchildren in the family. He lived a good, long life (he just turned 95 earlier in October) and died peacefully and without pain. It's not a surprise and he's definitely in a better place now, but it's never fun to say goodbye. I'm going to miss his thrilling tales of working at NASA.

so much to say

2008-10-12T16:53:00.000-07:00

But to start off, here's what Gaz said at dinner when I asked her how she signs "strong" in her own version of sign language: "Strong is when you eat a little monkey and chew it!" Not sure where we get monkey eating from (unless you've been telling her stories about the Navy, Papa Charley!), but she did go to the zoo yesterday with Mark, where she played with a little girl named Emily. Today she went to the park and met a girl named Lucy and they had a great time. We'll have to see if we can connect at the park more often.

Let's see . . . We visited all the grandparents, who are all doing well. Gaz got to visit another funeral home, when my cousin's grandmother died. It was a situation not unlike what we went through with Grandpa in February, which was a little surreal for me, and all the Sawyers remain in our thoughts. Gaz made the best of it, though, and spent most of our visit there running around outside with another little girl. She makes friends everywhere she goes!

We're in the middle of a big Scooby-Doo kick lately. Lately, she's all about watching "Scooby-Doo and the Witch's Ghost," so don't be surprised if she sings one of those abominable Hex Girls songs to you. And speaking of all things Halloweeny, I'm working on another Mothra costume. But like Mothras from the movies, this one will be different! I'm not so much styling it after a particular movie, as I am working on alternatives to the foam wings I made last year. This year, once I get the basic construction done, Gaz will be helping. I'm looking forward to that. She gets a big kick out of anything artsy these days.

Particularly, she loves painting. I tape some paper up on her easel, and in no time she's completed a masterpiece and is demanding more paper. If I can get the scanner working, maybe one of those will become part of the blog here. Today she decorated a pumpkin with googly eyes and yarn hair. She was frustrated with the mouth she drew, but I think it's beautiful, of course. There are pictures, I just need to sort out the hundreds that are on the SD card.

That's it for now. More as I remember things!

shameless mommyness

2008-09-26T17:58:00.001-07:00

For any of you reading who are interested in another pursuit close to my heart, you can check out my banjo blog. Now you can bounce back and forth between Gaz's childhood and that of my banjo playing.

I know I am very far behind here, and just as bad with photos. After I catch my breath, I'll be posting a proper update. But really, it's just more of the same, except for when it's not.

milestone!

2008-09-15T15:10:00.001-07:00

Yes, we've finally done it. Only threeish years after getting the necessary documentation, today I took Gaz and her Very Important Papers to the bank and got her a savings account. Those of you who sent checks for her birthday will be happy to know that not only did we finally cash them, they're now actually in her very own account! This has all been on the to-do list for a while, and since it's finally stopped raining, I decided it was high time we get out for that errand. The nice bank men even had a fresh shipment of child-placating stickers, which Gaz immediately stuck to the nice bank mens' desks.

And then we went looking for a bath toy and ended up bringing home a Hello Kitty dollhouse, complete with furniture and Hello Kitty and some of her friends. They've moved all their furniture onto the back lawn and a dump truck, and have been happily eating fish crackers there ever since we got home and got everything unpacked.

Other milestones are in the works, sort of, but still a ways off. After crowing about Gaz's near perfect potty record, we had a relapse and have been oscillating wildly between "we don't need no stinking diapers" and "Mommy, I want to peepee in my diaper." She knows exactly how things work, and has no trouble with using her potty chair or the big potty (with the assistance of the step stool and a little seat of her own), and will even use her potty chair with no prompting, then empty it, clean it out, and put it back together before throwing herself into my arms amid joyous squeals that she did it all by herself! She just doesn't feel like using the potty all the time. And forget about anything of the more involved potty activities. She's sure she doesn't want to do that in a potty.

So we're in a holding pattern. Big girl underpants, with fairies and everything, were not enough to encourage her, so we are back to pull-ups/diapers, with the option for training pants or big-girl underpants being presented often. One of these days she'll make up her mind that it's worth paying attention to, but it clearly has to be her idea. I'm cool with that. Mostly.

She's singing right now, one of her many songs about I have no idea. The joy of nonsense is extra joyful these days now that she's realized that not only can she babble when she speak, she can babble when she sings! It's like living in a foreign soap opera musical with plastic tea sets and other things that hurt when you step on them.

As the World Whirls

2008-09-10T16:44:00.000-07:00

I know, it's been too long! Many things have happened.

Birthday! The pictures are up, but I haven't commented. The weather turned out to be as beautiful as the beginning of August could possibly be. We had a break in the temperature and the humidity, and, bestest of all, the neighbors with the aggressive barking dog finally put up the privacy fence they started last year. Woo! A peaceful and lovely time was had by all. Gaz had a great time with the cupcakes and presents, especially, and she scored many awesome gifts, including some that came all the way from Norway and Iceland (courtesy of Grandma Judy and Grandpa Will's recent travels). The only thing we forgot was the enormous pink burro pinata, a last-second request from Gaz that she forgot as soon as she demanded it. It's still sitting in the library, and she likes to go in and take care of it. She does still want to break it, though. Might have to wait until we visit someone who's got a tree on on their property, as we have none.
Cooking! She loves helping whenever I'll let her, which must be often. I am getting better at figuring out busy work for her so that she doesn't try to do any helping that involves grabbing a knife. If I cut up veggies in the dining room instead of the kitchen, for instance, then I can distract her by sending her to the fridge for all the other veggies I "forgot." She had the best time making corn tortillas with me the other day because I let her operate the tortilla press. She was so focused, I was very impressed by her attention span. It wasn't quite long enough to last through the whole batch of dough, but it was good. The tortillas were tasty and Gaz was very proud, as well she should be.
Art! Another thing I've learned is that if I bring her art easel into the kitchen, she will happily paint pictures while I wash dishes. Usually she wants to "help" with that chore, which of course, makes it take twice as long, and if it's been a few days since I've really been on top of getting the dishes done . . . you see where I'm going with this. The Play-doh Fun Factory also works wonders for getting various things done (except keeping the room with the Play-doh clean).
Smartening! As I type this, Gaz is typing words with Daddy on his laptop. They're sounding out words together and finding letters and having a great time. Earlier today she had me making words with alphabet blocks: cat, fat, keep (she insisted we use the K and P), and then chair. Then she added U and P to cat, and we laughed over UPCAT, and then the teachable moment devolved into an orgy of stringing random letters together and making me try to pronounce the five-foot words. She's been doing this for a goodly while now, but today she used more vowels. Progress!

In addition to these things, she's said and sung so many pithy, random, insightful, and hilarious things. I can't remember them, now that I sit down to record them for posterity, but I assure you that you would be mightily impressed by her giant brain and how well she uses it. We still have our RDA of tantrums and frustrations, but considering that just after her second birthday she became a complete monster, this year we're not doing so badly.

More updateyness as I remember things!

very far behind

2008-08-26T22:15:00.000-07:00

I am so far behind, I have no words for my behindness. Except that I am behind.

In the meantime, I have uploaded birthday party pictures and some more recent goofiness, and also updated the link here so that it will go to the new set I just created for Gaz's fourth year.

I swear, I will have update soon.

Kid Logic

2008-07-29T09:08:00.000-07:00

This morning I was in the bathroom, when I heard a loud banging coming from the dining room. I called out to Gaz, asking her what all the noise was. She came running over to me, and said, "I was just trying to understand Proton. By BANGING!"

"I don't think that's going to work," I replied. It was hard not to laugh.

"But it worked yesterday!" she asserted, and ran back to understand Proton some more, but now with less noise. I'm still not sure what she was doing, but I know she wasn't banging on the cat.

In other news, we're gearing up for her birthday party on Saturday. She's been asking for make-up, of all things, and is convinced that she'll be getting some on her birthday. I'm not sure where the cosmetic mania has come from, but we'll see how long it lasts.

Haircut time

2008-07-15T10:22:00.001-07:00

New Hair
Originally uploaded by georgiegrrrrl

I couldn't stand the tangles anymore, so last night I cut off the oldest bits of hair. Don't worry, I saved them this time, unlike when I first trimmed her bangs.

The bad news is that her hair isn't curling up higher now that it's shorter, so I think she's going to be maybe just wavy to mostly straight-haired. Oh well. It's not like I passed along much other appearance-related DNA. No point being vain now. Besides, she's beautiful.

Thanks, Auntie Aiiieeee

2008-07-07T16:33:00.000-07:00

Today at dinner, Gaz was happily eating her pasta when she said, "I eat the pasta and then it turns into blood, right?" I shake my fist at thee, Aiieee!

But it's cool that she's retaining some information about her circulatory system. While discussing knee owies over the weekend, we talked about "why red comes out" when you fall down. I'm sure most of it was over her head, but some of it has to have soaked in by now.

And speaking of things I would rather her not bring up in public, she's been singing quite a lot lately. A current favorite is "Sometimes People Don't Poop All The Time," which, I think, is an ode to constipation. I guess that's one of the side effects of potty training. You have to talk bodily functions so much to get the whole point of the potty across, and then the kids don't always know that it's time to not talk about poop anymore. Joy.

Anyway, we've just gotten back from a trip to Shelbyville, where we visiting Grandma Judy, Grandpa Will, Great-Grandma Wasson, and Grandpa Great. If you can, send some good thoughts to Grandpa Great, as he's just been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. We're all hopeful, since it looks like it's been caught before things get difficult, but still. We worry.

Today we went outside to look for bugs and Gaz spent some time catching ants with one of the neighbor boys. It was hard to drag her back inside. Oh, and she's really pestering us for a bike now that everyone else is out on them these days. I don't even know if she's tall enough. Please, someone tell me that she isn't tall enough!

Gah, it's been a while

2008-06-21T16:32:00.000-07:00

I had no intention of being so lackadaisical. Many things have happened, followed by Mark saying, "that's the kind of thing you should be blogging!" and I would say "I will blog!" and then I wouldn't. Because at the end of the day, I'm really tired and into laying on the couch. Read a little or watch a little teevee and then go to bed. Lather, rinse, repeat. In between fits of beating myself up for this, I suggest to myself that maybe this is just one of those times (like August - November last year) when Gaz just completely wears me out to the point that I shouldn't try for too many or too involved extra-curricular activities. But mostly I'm just hard on myself.

Like, I should have blogged about serf (surf?). Gaz has a little pink Disney Princess tea set (which I did actually buy for her myself, because we were desperate for a tea set and there were no others in my price range), and just as soon as we got all the pieces out of their nuclear fallout resistant packaging, she started saying that the cream pitcher was "surf" or "serf," it's hard to get a kid who can't read to spell out the words she makes up. So this goes on for months. "Mommy, would you like some tea and serf (surf)?" is the question I'm always being asked, to which it is my duty to reply, "Yes, that sounds lovely." And then finally, a couple of weeks ago, she comes running up to me with the little pink pitcher, holds it aloft, and yells "SERVING WENCH!" At which point I realize that surf (serf?) was as close as she could get to saying serving wench, and this is a major accomplishment for a complex term like that coming out of her mouth. And also that she picked this up from a What's New, Scooby Doo? cartoon we have on DVD (it's set at a Renaissance Faire, and some guy hands Daphne a pitcher and says, "Serving wench! Take this hence.") and I am both amused that she picked up the most hilarious term from that and embarassed that it's patently obvious to the world how much television she must watch from her ability to quote Scooby Doo. It's still funny, though.

And then yesterday (someone should sound the scatological post alarm now) Nana Cel, Papa Charley, Gaz, and I were in Borders, picking out some new books for Gaz. She was lurking in one corner of the kids' section and we all kinda figured she was probably filling her diaper. So I went to look at a kids' book about Barack Obama, and Agatha suddenly came running up to me shouting "Mommy! I dropped some poop on the floor!" over and over. I calmed her down, sent her off to the bathroom with Nana, and all I can say is thank God I had wipes in my purse. And also thank Gaz that it wasn't as messy as it could have been. Somehow the poop completely missed her clothes, her legs, her shoes . . . everything but the carpet, of course. But it didn't make a mess really, except for it's undeniable presence. Anyway, thank God for wipes. I can't say that enough.

But the best part is that she did all this right next to the potty training books. And it should go without saying that we've had a good laugh or eight since then.

Since the subject has already come up, potty use has dramatically increased. She's generally not peeing in her diapers anymore at all, and is pretty responsive to questions about whether or not she has to pee. Today we got her some training pants with flowers and such all over them to help encourage her to keep up with the potty habits. I have to say, except for the late evening/early morning potty requests, this is all rather effortless. I'm glad I haven't pushed her to get out of diapers. Encourage her progress, yes. Push, no. She's so willful, I suspect it wouldn't have worked anyway.

As we near the third anniversary of Gaz's birth, I can report that she is as tall, blond, silly, and nursey as ever. I've long said I would happily give her three years to breastfeed and after that we'd negotiate. I'm still not feeling the need to negotiate, though. How much she nurses varies so much depending on the weather, travel, owies, etc., it always makes sense when it comes up. So sorry if that weirds you out or you think it's crazy. It's worked fine thus far, and so long as it works for me and Gaz, it'll be part of our lives and I'll probably blog about it from time to time.

Now bathtime nears and we must scrub bug repellant off Gaz. Gotta love that west nile virus.

Looky

2008-05-26T21:32:00.001-07:00

Tea Party
Originally uploaded by georgiegrrrrl

Did I mention that photos are uploaded?

Still Here, Still Busy

2008-05-24T09:31:00.000-07:00

Just not posting often. A thousand apologies!

We've finally wound down from a crazy bunch of traveling. Since this time last month, we've visited Evansville, Michigan twice, and Joliet, all on back to back weekends. This is our second weekend in a row at home, and we're finally feeling like we've recovered from all the travel. Not that we don't love seeing everyone, but all that time in cars does take its toll on a person. I caught a cold around the first of the month, and it's taken me until just recently to sleep it off. My lollygagging hasn't been entirely due to laziness. ;)

I'm working on uploading a huge quantity of pictures and will update here when that's done. Stay tuned for puzzling evidence.

Let's see . . . Gaz continues to surprise and entertain me. We're doing a lot of singing, and she picks up lyrics really fast. After a few listenings to the Jimmy Driftwood songs "Straighten Out My Laig" and "Down in the Arkansas" she could belt out the choruses perfectly (well, the words, not necessarily the tune), and she's picking up some Elvis Costello and They Might Be Giants, as I've been playing some of that lately. We also do this thing where I'll start to tell her something, and maybe she's not listening, so I'll start singing a little song about what we need to be doing, and she'll answer me in the same tune, and we'll go back and forth like this until one of us (usually me) gets tired of singing. Sometimes it's the difference between arguing over getting out of the house to go to the grocery store and having a happy, pleasant child willingly take off without protest.

Two days in a row we've had good potty mornings. We get up and first thing she and I go to the bathroom, where I've been able to talk her into sitting on her potty. She's got the usual amount of patience for a two-and-a-half-year-old, so getting her to sit down long enough for her to actually go is usually the problem. But she's so excited about being involved in emptying the potty chair into the toilet and flushing that she's slowly starting to come around to the joys of potty use. During the day she still doesn't think much about having to go until after it's already done, so I don't see an end to diapers any time soon, but we're making progress. She's generally dry all night, so this is good too. We're trying to figure out some kind of reward we can do consistently that doesn't involve food or stuff. Maybe trips to the zoo? We're working on that.

The vocabulary is enormous. We have many more thoughtful conversations than we used to, and Gaz is more sensitive now about how she speaks and how she sometimes misspeaks or misunderstands words. I've been admonished several times now "don't laugh when I say that!" because she'll say something that comes out wrong but adorable, and I just can't help myself. I keep trying to explain that sometimes the words come out and the words are funny, not Gaz herself, but she's my little diva. She takes herself pretty seriously.

We've been doing a lot of cooking and cleaning together. Right now she and Mark are vacuuming (she with her little play vacuum), and she is my constant companion for dishwashing and general straightening up. Earlier in the week we made cookies, which was educational for both of us. She learned the dangers of flour (getting it all over herself, in her eyes, etc.), and I learned that she is the exact opposite of attentive. Or she is attentive and keeps doing what I tell her not to do to see if I'll give in. Periodically we'll have these battles of wills, and while that is, I know, a part of her understanding what the boundaries are with me, I just wish she would schedule these for more convenient times. Not when I'm trying to get cookies in the oven without burning myself.

She's having a great time lately going to the library, and now that the weather is getting gradually nicer, we're taking strolls down that way much more often. Each time we go she ends up grabbing a book from nearby the area where I am looking for things, and most recently she picked up a cute little tiny book (entirely without my input!) called On Bullshit. I am sure a couple of great-grandfathers got a big kick out of that. I know I got a kick out of the look on the librarian's face when Agatha relinquished the book so she could scan it in. (It should go without saying that I didn't read the book to her, but she enjoyed reading it to me. "Once upon a time a girl walked down the street. . .")

I'm sure there are a million other things I could (and probably should) relate here, but I'm tapped out. Probably better focus on the uploading.