January 22, 2011

Dear Calvin,

I almost forgot to post this, not because I forgot that it was your seven-month birthday today, but because we spent the day with Todd, Molly, and Jack. You and Jack are actually acting like friends now. He pets your head, you try to grab his ears, and you poke and prod at each other until your mean mommies pull you apart. It's for your own good; babies are fragile things, and we don't want you causing any lasting damage.

You ripped a coaster in half this evening. It was one of those cheap paper cardboard coasters that you get at chain restaurants, but Molly was impressed. You also jump and kick like crazy and I can tell you're developing muscle. When you try to crawl it looks like swimming, but you're moving backwards a little and making progress. Jack is crawling and cruising now, and you'll be there soon.

I took you for a helmet consult the other day. It wasn't fun, because I don't want to get you a helmet, but it wasn't as bad as I had feared. Since I got your numbers I'm going to set up the follow-up appointment to get you all checked out so that insurance can tell us whether it's covered. I'm pretty sure you're not bad enough for them to cover it, so I'm not too worried, but if they do you'll have a cool space helmet to wear for three months. That's how I have to look at it so I don't worry as much. I feel like it's a mean thing to do to a baby, but I also don't want you to have a deformed head. We'll take care of you the best that we can.

I love you so much, and you're so cool.

Love, Mama

Going Back to Carolina

Well, Calvin and I are taking our first solo flight (meaning: just the two of us, so "solo" is grossly inaccurate) Monday afternoon to spend a solid week in beautiful scenic Gastonia, North Carolina! I hope he's as good as he has been on other flights. I will be packing the baby Advil. Right now he's grunting in his room, trying to avoid falling asleep, I think.

Rather than spend a lot of time writing things, especially since I don't have much to say right now, I'm going to go get the baby and play with him for a little while.

My First Blizzard

Yeah...we have about 18 inches of snow, and there may be another blizzard next week. It's very pretty and I'm glad I don't have to drive in it. Tomorrow I will be taking Calvin on the baby sled. Molly, I miss you.

Sabado Gigante

xkcd 771: "Period Speech"

We are supposed to get MORE SNOW on Wednesday, starting around midnight. Our area's looking at about a foot, if the weather people know what they're talking about, but this week has reminded me why I don't want to teach up here: school doesn't get canceled if it snows. North Carolina (and the rest of the Southeast) got snow today, and most places are getting at least two days off because they lack the infrastructure to deal with it efficiently. That's all well and good, but up here they plow immediately and you're expected to just go on like normal. That's why people in the South love snow, I think, and why Northerners don't care about it. Up here, we can't enjoy it. Down there, everything stops and you can just...have a snow day.

Calvin has learned to sit up from a reclining position, say "dada" over and over again, scream VERY LOUDLY AND FOR NO APPARENT REASON, and inch himself backwards in a circle. It's the strangest thing to watch. It's also really scary how fast he's learning things, and I'm starting to think about childproofing in a big, real way. He's obviously my number one concern as far as that goes, but also, I'll be starting to take care of Jack regularly next week, which means making sure that there's nothing for him to seriously hurt himself on or with (and he crawls and cruises, dear God) and that the house is clean. So that's the rest of the week's assignment: make the house clean enough that a mobile baby can navigate it safely.

Also, I'm going home in two weeks for Anna Lisa's wedding (and a visit with the family, including my mom's parents, who haven't seen Calvin since we moved). This means Molly and I will have seen each other for just under half of the month of January due to our respective trips.

Also-also, Fallout: New Vegas has a ton of bugs, and is therefore not as much fun as I had hoped when I got it for Brandon for Christmas. Sad face.

Give me the gold

Brandon has given me permission to go clothes shopping. Now, before anyone makes any comments about the whole marriage contract and patriarchy or whatever (not that you would), he's the one with the job, so it's really all his money. I've been really careful about how I spend money lately, and I hate a lot of my wardrobe, so I'm going to go exploring around Natick tomorrow and hit up a consignment shop or two, as well as finally going to Savers and picking up a few necessities at Target. Oh, and I'm getting my hair cut for the first time since OCTOBER, good grief, and getting a massage. It will be a good day.

Oh hey, it's snowing. Apparently someone in New Hampshire fell through the ice on a lake while ice fishing--ice fishing? They do that in New England?--and I'm just hoping that the roads are good tomorrow. Shouldn't be a problem; it doesn't look like anything ridiculous. Also, some lady lost her snake on the T. WHAT IS THIS I DON'T EVEN. I love local news.

I can't remember if I mentioned that we saw True Grit and it was awesome. I have a few upcoming movies that I'm really excited about, namely: The Green Hornet, The King's Speech (waiting for that on DVD), Rango, Pirates of the Caribbean 4, and The Tempest. Also, Sucker Punch looks interesting.

This is an old prompt from NaBloPoMo: Describe what happiness means to you using just six words.

"My baby has the best smile."

I Hate Your Blog

"The time has come," the Walrus said,
"To talk of many things:
Of shoes--and ships--and sealing-wax--
Of cabbages--and kings--
And why the sea is boiling hot--
And whether pigs have wings."

This is going to be a blog about literature I don't like. That poem is one. I adore Lewis Carroll, and Alice is one of my favorite storybook heroines. She's very logical. I appreciate that. The world of Wonderland is a fantastical and bizarre creation, and the characters are rich and multi-dimensional (if extremely odd). But this poem depresses me for the simple, inescapable fact that they eat the oysters.

I also dislike the Brontes and Jane Austen. For the most part, Victorian literature is not my cup of tea, but especially that written by women. I expect men to have crappy female characters, but women! We have better things to do that simper and seek out husbands! Elizabeth Bennett might be my only exception to that rule, but all of Austen's other ladies are husband-hungry weaklings. And the Brontes! Jane Eyre is totally milquetoast, and Catherine Earnshaw is just heinous. There's some variety, at least, but none of it's good.

And while we're at it, I don't like The Catcher in the Rye. I don't identify with Holden Caulfield and I don't like how the book is written. He's a jerk and his way of talking, while quaintly conversational, belies the ignorance he carries around and even flaunts.

I love my friends, but sometimes I miss being around English majors. Lisa's friend Laura, who lives in Somerville, is an English person, and we share a mutual hatred of Noam Chomsky, who lives in the city. We went past his office, I think, and started going off about what a jerk he is. It was a thoroughly enjoyable conversation. Most of my friends (and Brandon's) are in the sciences, in some form or another--and I'm including computer science here--and it's rare that I can have a conversation like that.

So for those of you who don't care about my literary tastes, or the fact that Noam Chomsky is a phony (as Holden Caulfield would not-so-eloquently put it), thanks for reading anyway. The fact that you put up with me is why I like you.

What up, 2011

Well, here we are in 2011 and we have a long, holiday-less stretch of winter ahead of us. I sincerely hope that this is a better year than 2010 was. Although honestly, I think the best way to put it is that the 2009-2010 SCHOOL year sucked out loud, and after that ended things kind of slowly improved.

We spent Christmas in Texas, and had a lovely time; meanwhile, the northeast was preparing for the blizzard of the year, and on Sunday morning we realized that we might not be able to make it back. Our flight to Philadelphia was canceled pretty early, and so we rerouted ourselves through Charlotte and left earlier in the day. We spent the night in Charlotte when our connecting flight was canceled, but the nice thing about a flight through Charlotte is that I have parents who live 20 minutes away and have a guest bedroom and a Pack and Play. So we stayed there and ate Bojangles' and Krispy Kreme and got to see both families at Christmastime.

Calvin is the proud owner of a bunch of toys now, including a couple small ones I bought him and a couple big ones from his paternal grandparents, as well as some new clothes and pajamas. He received a Radio Flyer wagon and an activity table, which are on their way via the postal service, and we're going to have so much fun playing with them.

We spent New Year's with Todd and Molly (and Todd's mom, who is awesome), and Lisa's been visiting all weekend, which has been a lot of fun. She just got back from her Peace Corps stint in Ghana, so it's good to see her again, and we went into the city to visit her friend Laura and her boyfriend (both awesome people as well). I kinda wish we lived closer to the city. I love the subway and being able to walk places and all the cool stuff there is, like cupcake shops and weird eclectic stores.

Also, I'm thinking about applying for a job for which I'm not at all qualified, but would probably like a whole lot. It's a developmental editing position at Bedford/St. Martin's. I don't know when it starts, so I don't know how interested I actually am, but it's for English textbooks. And it would mean finding childcare, which is terrifying, and if it's this semester, messing up a prior commitment, so it's probably not happening. That was an example of me talking myself out of something.

New Year's Resolutions: Lose 35 pounds, feel better about myself, and clean something in my house every day.