Baby Una, 18 months old

This is actually from about five days before she turned 18 months old, but close enough.

I'm going to call her "Una" here, although that is not her real name, because I like Tomato Nation's method of using pseudonyms for people. And she is our first, so: Una. At some point we hope to have a second, so I guess he or she will be Secund(us/a), or maybe Deuce. Then I guess, if applicable, Terti(us/a) and Quattr(o/a). Or perhaps more obvious pseudonyms will present themselves. I could also call Una "Pumpkin," since we do all the time and she was born in October, but I like "Una" better.

...and then I joined Facebook

I did take pictures for that previous post, but before getting around to adding them to said post, I joined Facebook, which promptly sucked up all the miniposts I might have got round to posting here, along with additional scarce computer-puttering time. Will now start attempting to rectify that a bit, providing my blog is still here -- it's giving me an error when I try to look at it right now.

notes to the neighborhood

(Los C--- edition) <-- i feel all nineteenth-century doing that.

Dear coffee-brown two-story house,



I admire your decor, with the stonework on the front matching the stone wall around the front yard, and the flowers just outside the wall are wonderful. Most of all, I covet your left-side bougainvillea, the one whose flowers are cream-white with pink tips. I've never seen one like that; it is gorgeous.




Dear pair of adobe-style houses,



I admire what you've done on lots that are half the size of most of the other lots. Did the others used to be your size and everyone else combined them, or did someone split a regular-size lot and build two houses on it? In any case, you left-side house in particular have done a really nice job with the front courtyard with the little fountain, and the bougainvillea (regular bright color flowers) that adds just the right amount of color to the setting. Anyway, good going on your architecture (what I can see of it, anyway).

[edit 2010 Apr 16: they both have neat fountains. the other one is in a slightly different spot, and I hadn't noticed it before writing this/taking the pictures.]


Dear brick-front house with the gable second-floor windows in the dark-shingled roof,



You remind me of a common look for houses in the Philadelphia suburbs where my husband's family lives. It's a good thing; it means you remind me of vacationing every time I walk past. Though, in general, I feel that the effect of a facing on the front of the house, such as brick or stone, is dissipated somewhat when it doesn't continue around the sides. But I still like you.


Dear little house with the covered porch running the width of the front,



I admire the neatness of your front yard. Your porch looks nice and cozy and is the sort of thing I wish we had on the front of our house, with a few design differences (ours would be above ground-level and wooden railings instead of brick floor/pillars). Thus you inspire me to thoughts of home design every time I walk past, which I enjoy.

-----

Hm. I should perhaps have pictures with this. Maybe I'll manage that soon.

[Edited, finally, on 2010 Apr 16 to add the pictures. I took them only a day or two after writing this entry, but.]

of a feather

The Players: Two kindergarten-age girls, four slightly older boys.
The Setting: upstairs on the play equipment at Walteria Park.

Girl #1 possesses a large black feather that is way too big and fluffy to be from any local bird. It probably fell off someone's hat.

The following is transcribed to the best of my recollection.

Girl #1: Look at my feather! (Goes over and waves feather at group of boys, who are clambering about the connecting chain-net-ladder-thing like a group of little Spidermen.) Isn't it awesome?

Boy #1: The feather is boring.

Boy #2: How old are you?

Girl #2: I'm in kindergarten.

Boy #3: Well, we're in the grades, so there.

Girl #1: The feather is awesome!

Boy #x (possibly more than one): The feather is stupid.

Girl #1 (to Girl #2): Come on. (They go to the other covered portion of the equipment.)

Girl #1: They are stupid and they LIE.

first tooth

Right lower front. Emerged last weekend, seen here on Tuesday in a lucky photo. It's becoming more and more visible above the gum now. Bother, I think this means I have to start brushing it soon.

iconic

the travails of mr. penguin

o, the fickleness of young girl's heart:

four months

of CUTENESS. Not that I'm biased or anything.

since the eagles weren't in it

We all wore Steeler yellow on Sunday, although hers took the form of teeny yellow flowers, which I suspect is slightly atypical as Steeler fan-wear goes.



It is now a trend that when a new generation is born into my husband's family, the Steelers will win the following Super Bowl. It happened with him, and now with our daughter. Steeler Nation: you're welcome.

libra rat with sheep ascendant

This is our daughter(!!!)'s seventh week.



Although these pictures were not taken this week, she still looks pretty much like this.

down the flume

228 to 205 to vote down the bailout. That's 433 out of 435. Not bad considering that my understanding of the daily usual in the House is a few people speaking to an empty hall, aside from the C-SPAN camera and the other few members on the list to talk that day who are still waiting their turn. A bit curious who the missing two are, although not quite curious enough to go search them out.

(Assumption that the information is available somewhere, and probably on the web. Whatever did we do before the Web? Yet it's only existed in its current expanded state for about a decade.)

Heh. The Yahoo link to the AP article is labeled "financial_meltdown". Dudes, y'all ain't seen nothin'. Even a 550+ drop in the Dow, where we are at the moment of writing, is only about 5 percent. The really big slides have been in the double digits. Although, maybe the computers kick in to prevent those happening all in one day now. Guess we'll see where we are in a week.

Interesting times, as they say. I know that's supposed to be a bad thing. I can't help finding it a bit exciting. I should really hold my excitement until I at least have a functioning vegetable garden again. Which, given imminent baby, is unlikely before, oh, ... I have no idea.

one week late

Another nonstress test yesterday. Another round of happy (?) wiggling. I am getting contractions more often the last few days, but nothing has ended up coming of them yet. We set her a deadline, though, for later next week. If she's not out by then, we're a-gonna get her out.

I hope she decides to appear before then though; I'd rather she picked her own date. I know I don't like being interrupted when I'm in the middle of something.

Too bad she didn't pick yesterday; it would have been M's grandfather's birthday, who died just before we discovered I was pregnant. Of all the potential "target" dates in these couple weeks (and there are surprisingly many), that would have been particularly poetic. Ah well.

zero plus four

This would be a fun date for her to pick also: our engagement anniversary. But still no particular signs. I don't think Braxton-Hicks contractions count.

She was perfectly happy (nice and wiggly, anyway) during the nonstress test yesterday. Which is good. At least one of us is comfortable. :p

zero plus two

I confess to harboring a secret hope that she might be born on Bilbo and Frodo's birthday. I know I would have enjoyed that for myself, although I'm happy with my actual birthday which is also my dad's (and a great-grandfather's!). But still no signs so far that she's going to make it out today.

Turns out that those who care as much or more than me about such things have figured out that, due to differences between the hobbits' Shire Reckoning calendar and ours, September 22 in our calendar isn't actually their birthday anyway -- it was September 13, this year (due to this being a leap year). Oh well.

Shire Reckoning, by the way, has always seemed eminently more logical than our cobbled-together Gregorian, but the hobbits' old-school season-based holidays (Midsummer, Yule) that don't belong to any months would, I suppose, confuse too many people used to our modern three-day-shopping-weekend system.

zero hour

So today is/was the due date. So far, it doesn't feel like anything's up today. Considering I myself was nearly two weeks late, this does not greatly surprise me.

I am really rawther ready for her to be out though. She's getting ... big. I am ready for my ankles not to puff up anymore, for it not to be such a chore to roll (literally) out of bed or get up from a chair, for visits to the bathroom to become less frequent, for my regular clothes to fit again (I know I've got a few months yet on that one). I don't know if I'm ready for one or two hour blocks of sleep, or diapering, but ready or not...

At least the house is more ready for her now. Bedrooms were painted several weeks ago. Nursery is ready. Crib, dresser with changing top, glider chair (I'm actually looking forward to trying the nursing, providing we both can get the hang of it OK), a few toys already in the closet along with diapers and various other gear. Clothes, blankets, check. Stroller, car seat, check.

But most of all, it's just the curiosity. I am so very interested to finally meet her.

sock it to me

Baby's getting bigger. Not actually sure where six-ish more weeks of baby/me growth is supposed to go. But I guess this is how it works.

Bigger stronger baby is good, but it does mean that she has begun actually kicking or prodding me in my lower right rib, from time to time, in a rather painful way. As in IT REALLY HURTS. I don't want her to come out until she's ready to, but I am very ready for her to BE out, if you follow me.

...well, except that the nursery's not quite ready yet. We've been playing musical-furniture with the house while we reshuffle and reorganize, and fix things that need fixing, and figure out where everything is going to go. Today we're getting our internet cable moved from the front bedroom (formerly our computer room) to the familyroom, where for the next indeterminate length of time, our computers/desks will sit in the corner all "um, hi, pay no attention to us, just go ahead and watch the TV to your right there, enjoy." Meanwhile M's 40+ shortboxes of comics on their utility shelving are camping to the left of the fireplace, which situation may or may not be altered by the time cold fireplace-using weather arrives. Anyway, after our internet is moved and functional, we can paint the front bedroom. Then we can move our bedroom stuff into it. Then we can paint the nursery-to-be, formerly our bedroom. Then we can move the nursery furniture in and put the crib together and be finally ready.

The plan is for this all to be done by sooner than six weeks from now, so that paint fumes have time to dissipate properly. Seems a reasonable period of time, doesn't it? I think we can, I think we can...

tickled

I'm not one to go overboard on the saccharine even though we're having a girl. It's just not me. But when I was poking around on a forum and saw someone with a ticker similar to this one, it was the pea-in-a-pod "marker" that hooked me and made me want to make one. I'm unlikely to use it as a sig anywhere, but I had to succumb to the cuteness at least this much:


It's mainly the "ta-da!" of the pod-pea. Seems appropriate, since baby is big on making her presence felt, lately. oof. (It's a good thing.)

boom de yada!

I didn't get last Friday's XKCD until I read this post from someone who'd been in the same boat, who found out what it was: a Discovery Channel commercial that is 31 flavors of awesome. watchy watchy.

Apparently there are already people making other riffs on it. Note that since I have now discovered this meme, it must be at least half over, but I will be enjoying it for a while because I like the song so much. Another interesting bit of information from that forum thread was that the tune is from a children's song called "I Like the Flowers."

I have a strong suspicion that baby will become quite familiar with this tune in some version or another.

wiggle POKE

For many weeks now I've been able to feel baby moving. It's a bit odd, hard to describe (but here I go, trying). There's the flutter, faint enough that I'm not always sure it was her. On the other end of the spectrum, there's the kick or punch that can make me say "guh!" out loud, like she's doing right now to my right side as I type. She seems to be over there a lot today. It doesn't hurt, exactly, it just feels reeeeallly strange (and also tends to take me by surprise). In between are a variety of things that feel kind of wiggly or gurgly or like a popping sort of sensation. There's also a thing that started more recently that I guess might be her turning around, a sort of tight feeling of slower constant movement for several seconds.

...dih. there she goes some more. liking the right abdominal wall this evening, yes indeed.

She seems to wake up and get moving somewhat consistently around 10-10:30 pm (among other times), when I tend to be going to bed. I know this is only a small hint of the battle that shall be waged against my sleep patterns (and won, by her) starting around three months from now. .... whee. but she will be cute and worth it.

cars and effects

Seems to me, over the last several months, the congestion of my freeway commute has been less bothersome than in the past. Not gone, just a bit less. For example, on some mornings in the past, my drive north on the 110/Harbor would go bumper-to-bumper starting just before the 105 interchange. That hasn't happened in months; the slowdown is still there, but it starts after I'm already past the interchange (varying by day exactly how far past, with congestion generally peaking Wednesdays barring random accidents). My evening return seems even smoother. Slow traffic south through downtown and a while after is not entirely unknown, but feels rarer and rarer.

Then the other week my mom mentioned driving down to Orange County or somewhere during the afternoon into rush "hour," and her surprise at how non-gridlocked it was, relative to historical comparisons. So while I don't have any hard data to support my perceptions, I think it's not just me. My mom and I suspect the gas prices.

(Image lifted from this Pandagon post because it is so awesome i wanted to share)

Despite my beloved Jetta's expensive 91-octane taste, I can (so far) afford the hit and appreciate the slightly clearer path, but it's a bit unnerving to actually see my region's economic life squeezed before my very eyes. Once again I say FIE upon those who killed the Red Line electric trolleys, and wait with great impatience for the slow slow expansion of Metro Rail. (But at least they ARE expanding...)