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thanateSo, let's see. I think I mentioned to someone (as opposed to posting here) that my hormonal cycles kicked back in with a lovely new depressive spike for a week or so every month. So some failure to post may be related to that-- we're still at the point of waiting to see if that bit goes away again or if I need to go talk to someone and find out if there are useful options besides "deal with it."
*The Megatherium's "no" grew in about two weeks ago, and then we had a lovely week of extremely accurate reporting on the diaper situation, followed by several days of attempted dissembling because she'd rather go outside now-now-now than have to go back upstairs & get changed, and besides, shaking her head is more fun than nodding. We're starting to equalize, though there are still some yes-no-yes moments about food which make it very difficult to figure out what she actually wants.
*Outside is awesome. Fun activities include moving rocks & bits of mulch, removing fallen maple blossoms from the sidewalk, pulling the heads off of flowers, and eating acorn caps. This last one might be my fault-- her first acorn cap experience was at the zoo, in the middle of a string of my telling her, "That's a very fine leaf, now can you drop it off the pathway?" and I unwisely said, "that's a very fine nut," and into her mouth it went. Oops. We are slowly working towards consensus on things like beheading dandelions but not daffodils or bloodroot.
*Grauwulf borrowed the neighbor's truck & brought back half our pallet of flagstones last Saturday, and my mother and I unloaded them, mostly by way of constructing a dry laid pathway between house & cars. Most of the stones still need to be cut in, but they're not too much of a problem to walk on and far less muddy. While grauwulf was fetching rocks, the Megatherium & I went off to a baby sale and found her a marvelous chair, and then to a native plant sale and got half a fruiting hedge, which I put in on Sunday. Then there was a brief excursion to Robot Fest while I was playing with rocks where reportedly the Megatherium had a mad flirtation with a remote control R2D2.
*I'm semi-consistently "Mom" "Mam" or "Mamam", and there's some motion in the direction of other standardized vocalization (though outside!outside!outside! was yet another distraction.) Most of the Megatherium's communication at the moment is through pointing at things, though, which... has its drawbacks. Grauwulf deciphered the one where she points at my feet as "sit down so I can climb in your lap," which I don't know that I would have figured out on my own. But there's also pointing to foodstuffs (all of which live in about three locations) and DOWN which also means outside as well as "sit down, Mommy." I am trying to push nouns, but we've so far got MILK, BERRIES, and HAT to work with.
*What with the outside and the wandering, I'm trying to do Project Budburst monitoring. Despite being down to three mature trees, plus the elm I planted 5 years ago which does now outmass us, I've got 30+ species of shrub & baby trees to observe, and I'm not counting anything that hasn't been here for at least a growing season, on the grounds that the new plants don't know what to expect. We're still a kind of pitiful habitat in terms of cover, but the biodiversity isn't too shabby. And anywhere her wiggliness chooses to plop down for a minute or two, there are (sigh) plenty of little english ivy plants for me to pull out.
*The roof (after the ridgeline blowing off incident, which was fixed, but apparently only mostly) is leaking just enough to muck up the drywall seams over our bed. If we are crushed by falling sheets of drywall in the middle of the night, it's been nice knowing you. (As yet, the drywall itself is fine; it's just the seam tape peeling up. But it's been pouring off and on all day, so there's no fixing anything until it all drys out.)
*Really enjoying the "Writing Process Blog Tour" meme thing (see Marissa Lingen & Alec Austin for starters) in that way of being fascinated by how other people's brains work. More people should write about it. I would, except [lack of time/brain] and I'm working on sanity & parenting right now, instead of writing anything.
Xposty from dreamwidth.
*The Megatherium's "no" grew in about two weeks ago, and then we had a lovely week of extremely accurate reporting on the diaper situation, followed by several days of attempted dissembling because she'd rather go outside now-now-now than have to go back upstairs & get changed, and besides, shaking her head is more fun than nodding. We're starting to equalize, though there are still some yes-no-yes moments about food which make it very difficult to figure out what she actually wants.
*Outside is awesome. Fun activities include moving rocks & bits of mulch, removing fallen maple blossoms from the sidewalk, pulling the heads off of flowers, and eating acorn caps. This last one might be my fault-- her first acorn cap experience was at the zoo, in the middle of a string of my telling her, "That's a very fine leaf, now can you drop it off the pathway?" and I unwisely said, "that's a very fine nut," and into her mouth it went. Oops. We are slowly working towards consensus on things like beheading dandelions but not daffodils or bloodroot.
*Grauwulf borrowed the neighbor's truck & brought back half our pallet of flagstones last Saturday, and my mother and I unloaded them, mostly by way of constructing a dry laid pathway between house & cars. Most of the stones still need to be cut in, but they're not too much of a problem to walk on and far less muddy. While grauwulf was fetching rocks, the Megatherium & I went off to a baby sale and found her a marvelous chair, and then to a native plant sale and got half a fruiting hedge, which I put in on Sunday. Then there was a brief excursion to Robot Fest while I was playing with rocks where reportedly the Megatherium had a mad flirtation with a remote control R2D2.
*I'm semi-consistently "Mom" "Mam" or "Mamam", and there's some motion in the direction of other standardized vocalization (though outside!outside!outside! was yet another distraction.) Most of the Megatherium's communication at the moment is through pointing at things, though, which... has its drawbacks. Grauwulf deciphered the one where she points at my feet as "sit down so I can climb in your lap," which I don't know that I would have figured out on my own. But there's also pointing to foodstuffs (all of which live in about three locations) and DOWN which also means outside as well as "sit down, Mommy." I am trying to push nouns, but we've so far got MILK, BERRIES, and HAT to work with.
*What with the outside and the wandering, I'm trying to do Project Budburst monitoring. Despite being down to three mature trees, plus the elm I planted 5 years ago which does now outmass us, I've got 30+ species of shrub & baby trees to observe, and I'm not counting anything that hasn't been here for at least a growing season, on the grounds that the new plants don't know what to expect. We're still a kind of pitiful habitat in terms of cover, but the biodiversity isn't too shabby. And anywhere her wiggliness chooses to plop down for a minute or two, there are (sigh) plenty of little english ivy plants for me to pull out.
*The roof (after the ridgeline blowing off incident, which was fixed, but apparently only mostly) is leaking just enough to muck up the drywall seams over our bed. If we are crushed by falling sheets of drywall in the middle of the night, it's been nice knowing you. (As yet, the drywall itself is fine; it's just the seam tape peeling up. But it's been pouring off and on all day, so there's no fixing anything until it all drys out.)
*Really enjoying the "Writing Process Blog Tour" meme thing (see Marissa Lingen & Alec Austin for starters) in that way of being fascinated by how other people's brains work. More people should write about it. I would, except [lack of time/brain] and I'm working on sanity & parenting right now, instead of writing anything.
Xposty from dreamwidth.