Amelia is learning to smile and, well, if a picture is worth 1000 words I won’t clutter this post with any more.
Author: lief
Work, Soccer, and Pox
It has been a long time since I had some time to post any news.
I have a new job in Seattle to which I ride the Sounder Commuter Train. The commute is about an hour longer each day than I had before but despite that I enjoy it. Despite the fact that I don’t have my commuting partner anymore to discuss the current state of affairs I enjoy it. I miss my daily dose of NPR and I still enjoy it.
Started watching the World Cup on Friday night with a replay of the opening game of Germany vs Costa Rica. It wasn’t the best game I have seen so far but we had a good time rooting for the teams and I had my German flag in tow. Now I know what I will do with all of my flags that I collect. Every 4 years I will drag them out for World Cup.
The most entertaining game I have seen so far was the 0-0 draw between Sweden and Trinidad. Trinidad is a NOBODY team and they came in, only had 10 men for the entire second half, and stuck it to the heavy favorite Swedes. The Trinidad goalie did a fantastic job of being in great position when it counted.
All THAT and now Abby has the Chicken Pox. I should have a picture up on that one soon.
Luckily, she was vaccinated against them and so, at least it seems to me, the outbreak is not as bad as it could be. We will see if Emma gets it. Abby started with the rash on Wednesday. I am REALLY sensitive to all of her scratching and am drawing on my years of scratchy expertise to help make it better where possible.
The will of The Innocent
Have you ever sneezed and hiccoughed at the same time?
Have you ever cried out while swallowing a tonsil?
Have you never heard someone do all four feats together while defying the basic laws of gravity AND not pee their pants?
I, The Eater of Breakfast, did hear this today.
Angela, The Innocent Bysitter, was enjoying a late morning snuggle with Miss Amelia Breastsbane while I had repast in the kitchen. It was here that I experienced the unusual auditory trappings described above. It was a two second snippet from the soundtrack of Rabid Raccoon Fiercely Attacks a Three Legged Hyena Guarding it’s Only Kill.
It will never be heard again.
The Innocent reached for her paperback, pressing the pages easily to her chest to settle in for some downtime when The Creature struggled it’s mighty cephalothorax over the spine of the book. It gained a measure of traction on her left hand and cast all caution to the wind in a failed attempt to end it’s own life.
If only it had held still The Innocent may have squashed it flat at a reasonable distance but with an undeniable zeal this suicidal arachnid jumped the gun and lept headlong from the book, off of her hand, and into her lap.
In this location The Magnificent Maneater persisted for a mere microtick as the universal constant of time was abruptly halted. Gravity was defrayed in the wrinkle of space-time and so through sheer force of will and a healthy dose of the aforementioned sound effect The Innocent did relocate The Significant Beast to a new position across the room.
With the wrinkle smoothed out and the time-constant restored The Gigundus Creature scurried for cover and cowered beneath a mighty tower containing clothes. Here it contemplated it’s future, reflected on it’s storied career, praised Araneae for it’s second chance and a new lease on life, and basically resisted arrest.
Twenty mortal minutes later a room was in shambles while The Tremendous Wall Crawler was subdued, transported, and released back into the wild equidistant from four future dens.
The Benevolent Eater of Breakfast warned it against re-entry lest The Innocents still boiling fury be unleashed against it in defense of it’s charge, Miss Amelia Breastsbane.
Favorite quote
There are many great turns of phrase in quotedom and I have many favorites so calling this one my “favorite” is a bit of a misnomer, but it holds a special place. It is one that I have always remembered. It had a profundity that I hadn’t encountered in other quotes at the time and I have been casually looking for it again for 20 years.
The internet is great for this type of thing.
If the human brain were so simple that we could understand it, we would be so simple that we couldn’t.
-Emerson M Pugh
Weasly golfer
Earlier this morning I went golfing with Tony and it was about the third time in two years I have golfed. Maybe more than that but it sure didn’t feel like it. I did well. I shot a 99. Breaking 100 for me is a big deal.
Now, those of you (Heidi) that don’t think golf is worth a hoot, peep this. While golfing I saw the following:
- Eight Red-Tailed Hawks circling in a thermal directly overhead. One of them called out right as I was putting for birdie (one under par) and I came up short. I blame the hawk but I didn’t mind or hold it against him.
- A rabbit.
- The telltale wake of a muskrat swimming through a small pond bringing fresh cut grasses back to it’s lair.
- A Kildeer protecting it’s nest (from me) by coming in close and feigning injury. I was careful not to hit an egg with my 8-iron or worse squash one with my size 10’s.
- Four HUGE frogs/toads (I can’t tell the difference). They were the size of softballs and they leaped out of my way whilst searching for a stray Maxfli.
- And lastly, and for me the most confounding, Two Long Tailed Weasels one of which scurried between Tony and I at a distance of about 15…inches. I had seen one flash by from about 30 yards a couple holes earlier but wrote it off as a chipmunk. I had to look them up because I hadn’t a clue at the time. Here is a good picture of one.(external link)
So if anyone cares to go for a four hour nature walk through the lowlands of Redmond don’t forget your clubs.
Today I had my cake and ate it too!
What does it all mean?
Let’s start with a detail shot. What do you think the story is here?
Mayhaps a toddler scorned?
Maybe she’s just chewing on some particularly sticky candy?
Or rather contemplating the purpose of the Oscar Meyer Weiner song?
I suppose I can’t speak for the latter but I can, with some confidence, say it wasn’t either of the former. Click here to see “the rest of the story”
Classic Abigail
And I don’t mean her name…
I mean, as many of you know, she is about as detail oriented as they come and she notices everything and lets you know when it is different.
Consistency is huge with children, as everyone knows, and children are entirely too observant and when you are a child like Abigail whose very life seems to depend on honoring the tradition of say…something that happened once…in a movie…during the credits! you tend to make it clear to The Variable (that is me) when any one thing is out of place.
Exhibit A:
About two weeks ago the smoke detector in Abby’s room needed a new battery at 7AM. Boy that chirping was obnoxious. So I got out of bed and removed the offensive little critter…to the KITCHEN.
About 2 hours later when Abby stirred I was anxious to consider the possibility that she may sleep right through till noon. I can dream. Instead she stirred a bit, rolled over slightly and then BOLTED upright in bed. Presently she turned and in a barely quiet “whisper” said
DADDY!
What?
There is something missing!
What?!
There is something missing!
What are you talking about?
Something is always on my ceiling, it is round, and it is right over there. But it’s gone!
This thing is not the only thing on her ceiling and it is at the other end of the room.
She got her smoke detector back that night and I will take the Pepsi challenge with Abby, 10 mattresses, and a pea ANYTIME.
THIS one is sleeping
So the post from a couple of days ago was “awake” and this one is sleeping. No really, honestly.
If you have ever observed someone sleeping you can usually hear or see some relatively unusual eccentricities or cute things they do with their lips. You know.
So Amelia has a script, of sorts, that she follows when she hits REM and starts dreaming. It usually includes the head twitch, a half smile, a full smile, open eyes, eyebrow raising, a sucking motion and occaisionally a sad face thrown in for flavor.
The 30 second video here has all but the sad face. I removed the “sound” to make a smaller file but there was no sound anyway so it doesn’t matter. Don’t smack your speakers around thinking something is wrong.
Here you can see perfect execution of a SleepingHalfSmile-DoubleEyeRoll-MiniSuck-SingleMondoEyeRoll-CheesySmile completed with a nice ReverseHalfSmile-MiniHeadTwitchCombo.
Got Milk?
Abby knows the difference between boys and girls, theoretically. She knows Mommy’s have babies, she knows Daddy’s don’t. She knows Mommy is a girl and Abby is a girl and Daddy is a boy. She also knows Mommy nurses the baby.
Let’s follow the logic here.
Mommy is a girl and Mommy nurses The Peep
Abby is a girl
Therefore
Abby nurses her Baby.
Today, one of the (million) times that Emma was nursing, Abby appeared from her bedroom with her “baby Emma”, a washcloth to catch the burps, and her nightgown hiked to her chin.
She just needs a little milk
Abby then sat patiently, staring vacantly out the window, “nursing” her little cotton doll, held firmly to her little chest. A few short minutes later she switched sides and this, then, is the REALLY funny part. You may or may not realize how detail oriented Abby is but consider this, between switching sides she reached beneath her nightgown from above and fumbled around a little bit with her fingers at her chest obviously adjusting something in preparation.
If you are watching her do this you can easily see that she is imitating The Mommy hooking and unhooking her nursing bra. When questioned although, Abby doesn’t quite understand the point.
An unconfirmed possibility is that she thinks she is somehow turning the milk on or off.
Here you can observe her burping her “baby Emma”, (complete with spit-up cloth) because
You have to get the burps out.
Cat Quote
Love em or hate em cats have a special place in the world. I heard this tonight on NPR, and it got me to laugh out loud.
Cats are the instrument for children to learn benevolence upon
I didn’t hear the poem name or poet but a quick google search revealed this possible source. For my Cat Jeoffrey by Christopher Smart (1722-1771). The line there is:
For he is an instrument for the children to learn benevolence upon.
I also know from family experience that cats are indeed the instrument for children to learn electrical capacitance on.
blief 