incidents and accidents, hints and allegations

SteelyKid just made me a book about when I was born, so I think it's past time we got her some age-appropriate books about human reproduction. Recommendations? She'll be five this summer (OMG, five) and we'd like something that acknowledges the existence of family structures other than just biological mother + biological father = biological child, the way her actual family contains. Also, brown people. Thanks.

There will be a developmental post someday, I promise. Meanwhile, three pictures of them playing with awesome knitted snakes from their Aunt Stasia.

Have some Internet things:

One: The guys on an ESPN football show apparently decided to work in as many Princess Bride quotes as they could into a half-hour. Hilarity ensues, by which I mean, I hurt myself laughing at this 1:38 clip video pulling out all the references.

( embedded video )

Two: I've started re-reading The Hobbit chapter-by-chapter over on Tor.com; here's the Chapter 1 post. Do stop by, it should be fun.

Three: SteelyKid has started sending email. No, I'm serious, she hunt-and-pecks the letters, sometimes asking us for spelling but not always, and then we click "send" together. She's visiting Chad's parents right now and behind the cut I have the very best email chain ever.

( emails from SteelyKid )

I'd send her back a smiley-face but I'm not sure she's understand. Gosh I love that kid.

Four: con_or_bust is now taking requests for assistance from non-white fans/fans of color to attend SFF cons in January, February, and March 2012—including Arisia, FOGCon, and EightSquaredCon (the 2013 Eastercon), which have all donated to support Con or Bust. See this post for information on how to request assistance.

Things I am grateful for (or that, depending on the phrasing), daily during November.

( past days, for my own reference )

15. Gotta go with the Internet today, for all kinds of things, not just the above.

Very briefly because I should be in bed:

• Three teeth in one month (new total: five), more on their way.
• Puffs! Cheerios! Kix! Self-feeding is the best thing ever.
• Except raising and lowering a blanket on his own to play peek-a-boo and blowing raspberries on my arm. Deliberately causing people to laugh is the best thing ever. (ETA: also, the "hold my toy!" game has arrived.)
• Except pulling up on all the things, walking while holding onto the couch/chairs/grown-up's hands, pushing a walker, and climbing the stairs all the way to the top. Mobility—the true best thing ever.

  (Except for his sister, who was the reason he went all the way up the stairs the first time.)

So basically everything is awesome except teething, the occasional head full of snot [*], and mild separation anxiety (as comes with mobility).

Pictures: the ones previously linked here and a couple good ones at Chad's resurrected blog.

[*] As I said on FB recently:

Me: "All day today, I was thinking to myself, 'My children give me love, affection, delight . . . '"

Chad: "' . . . and disease.'"

Me: "Well, I was actually going to say sinus headaches, but yours is better."

Also, while talking about kids: a video of SteelyKid discovering her new playset, which I don't think I actually linked here.

SteelyKid will be four on Tuesday, and we had a party for her at the house today. Most of the pictures of her have other kids in them, so I'm not posting them, but behind the cut we have some of the Pip standing and of her enjoying her frosting (cake optional). These are ones Chad's mom took with my camera; Chad took more that I will point to when he uploads them.

Edit: and here they are.

( Read more... )

The party went very well—we rented a bouncy house thing with a sprinkler system, which since it was 8 million degrees today worked out particularly well, there was more than enough food, no-one had a melt-down, and everyone went home gracefully. Thanks to all who came.

Yesterday over lunch SteelyKid told me that she had a monster in her stomach. This monster is named Allosaurus; I can't remember now if it was made of mac & cheese (what SteelyKid was having for lunch) or simply eating it, though at dinner it was making a pet out of toast, so that weighs toward "made of." Throughout the day we were informed of various other characteristics of this monster—it was a friendly monster [*]; it was going to be big then little then medium; it was going to be a daddy then a baby then a mommy—until, late afternoon, she told us that the monster in her stomach was going to come out later.

She has no idea why I immediately started laughing, and I'm glad, because a friendly variable-sized stomach monster named Allosaurus is something I'd not miss for all the Alien jokes in the world.

And this has been your "my family is awesome" moment for the day.

[*] Although, she also told us that it was going to eat the unicorn in the bathtub, so her idea of friendly may be a little skewed. (Orientation for summer day camp; one of her new counselors made her one of those folded-paper fortune-teller things, which according to her advised that we were going to find a unicorn in the bathtub. Also one in the shower which was going to be a different color from the one in the tub, so maybe they aren't rare in SteelyKid-land—well, why would they be? That's another piece of pop culture she doesn't know either.)

ETA: in further discussion this morning, SteelyKid referred to it as a "mac & cheese monster," so there you go.

The Pip was six months old yesterday. ( vital stats and some feeding/weight angst )

( happier stuff )

Okay, you can tell I'm exhausted and strung out because I'm rambling. Teal deer: very active, happy, adorable and adoring child. Yay.

SteelyKid is now 3 3/4. ( much shorter notes )

( pictures and anecdotes from Chad's blog )

G'night, everybody! (She likes Animaniacs, though sometimes runs away and then cautiously peeks back around the edge of the TV for loud moments, and obviously has no idea what's going on a lot of the time.)

Remember how, earlier today, I was so proud of myself for getting SteelyKid new keys and a large neon-green keychain to put them on so they wouldn't get lost?

You guessed it—in the five minutes between dinner and bathtime, they vanished into thin air and half an hour's determined looking by Chad and I together have not turned them up. (And I foolishly did not buy a duplicate keychain too.)

And of course she's a toddler with very patchy short-term memory so she has no idea where she left them.

On the bright side, we found the clear key that these were meant to replace.

The Pip was two months old on the 7th. ( the usual )

( SteelyKid, briefly )

And ( four picture links: )

As always, no unsolicited advice.

The Pip is a month old today. SteelyKid is three years and four months.

( Status of the Pip: )

( Status of SteelyKid: )

Picture links for both of them, not many because we've been pretty busy, and a few already seen here:

( pictures: )

And that's the state of the children in Chateau Steelypips.