afternoon

This afternoon Gavin and I headed down to the campus area to visit Aileen, who has just started classes there. Before going to campus, we stopped at Wild Oats (where I bought some Dr. Bronner's liquid soap - lavender scented, mmm- which they sell bulk for $4.29/lb instead of the $12-something/lb you pay if you buy the pre-packaged bottles), and then at the Half-Price Books on Lane Avenue. I'd never been in the Lane Avenue HPB before (just the Bethel Road one) so I was quite impressed by it. Found many, many books I wanted, but bought none since the one I wanted they didn't have.

Campus was, as always, much changed from when Jason and I were there as students. It was different even than the last time I was down there six weeks ago. So much construction going on, so every week it looks different.

Aileen met us by the Central Classroom building and we walked to High Street, where we were going to eat at Beekman's, a bagel sandwich shop where Jason and I ate many lunches during our time at the university. We walked down High Street and were assailed with political flyers and people wanting us to sign pledges and petitions. Most of the flyers were from Lyndon LeRouche's organization, which oddly seems to be supporting Kerry. Last I heard, which is admitedly a long while back, LeRouche was running for the presidency, so I was baffled to see that, but whatever.

We walked to the south edge of the campus area of High Street before I realized I hadn't seen Beekman's yet, so we turned around and walked back, managing to avoid having yet more flyers and petitions thurst at us. We were careful to hold the flyers we had taken before out in front, our tickets to being left alone apparently. When we got to where Beekman's should be, I was sad to discover that it is no longer there! Jason and I just ate there last year, but now it's gone. No more yummy Beekman's sammiches. At least we got to eat there one last time.

We bought pizza at the Flying Pizza insteas, and took it across the street to sit on the steps by the Wexner Center. There we sat in the shade, eating our pizza and talking. Or rather, Aileen ate her pizza, and I stole bites while wrestling the pizza from the grip of the Gavin in my lap. As we talked, I noticed a girl walking around and around a few feet away. She seemed to be looking for something on the ground, so I asked her if she'd lost something. She responded that her boyfriend had been here just five minutes before and said he had left a key for her on the fifth step, but that she was having trouble finding it. Aileen and I got up and helped her look, but we couldn't find it. Eventually the girl thanked us for our help and said she had to go or she would be late.

After a while, we left to walk back to Aileen's dorm. It was a gorgeous day, warm but not hot, with a clear blue sky, and I was really enjoying all the walking, but by the time we got to her residence hall, my hip was really hurting. I'm not sure why, except that I haven't exactly been Ms Exercise lately and carrying Gavin all that way in the sling must put extra stress on various bits of me. In her room, Aileen showed me around and introduced me to the suitemates who happened to be there. We talked some more, but after an hour, Gavin was getting restless and fidgety and needed a nap, so I got up to leave. Aileen mentioned needing to go to Target, so I offered to drive her there. We went and shopped a while. I found a lovely orange backpack style purse that I really, really, really wanted. It was even on clearance. But I resisted. Still fighting that urge, actually. I really liked that purse. It would have doubled as a mini-diaper bag. It was orange. It had a little pocket on the front for my keys and cell phone so I wouldn't have to fish for them. It was large enough to carry a book with me but not so large I would lose Gavin in it. It... ahem. I digress. All in all, a wonderful, perfect kind of day. One of those days that I look back on and feel all warm and fuzzy about.

no more traveling, please!

I used to love traveling, but anymore it just exhausts me. We took two trips last week. On Thursday we went to Pennsylvania to visit my grandparents, who are preparing to move here, since much of the family is here and they are needing a bit more attention from family these days. It was an out and back trip all in one day, but it wasn't too bad, at only around 4 hours each way. We left around 9 in the morning and got back at about 10 that night. In between we had a really nice time visiting at their house, for what will probably be the last time I'm there, as I don't see us returning before they move. (Not that I'm particularly upset about never going there again. The house they are currently living in isn't "Grandma's House", and I have no great attachment to it.) Jason and Tom helped my grandfather move some boxes and heavy items from the basement into the garage, and we collected some of the smaller items that they want to give us.

This weekend we drove to Indiana to visit Jason's brother and his wife and their boys, who live in Valparaiso. They had a birthday party for the boys, whose birthdays are about 5 weeks apart in September and October. So we went, since none of them had met Gavin yet, and we haven't been to visit them since Thanksgiving last year. We had a very lovely time, and just adored spending time with our nephews. They are such sweet critters. Little Ethan ran up to me when he first saw me and climbed right up into my lap, with a look of sheer delight on his face. It couldn't have been more cute.

We returned home around six this evening, and now I'm all traveled out. I can't sleep, despite how tired I am. So here I sit, working on a design prototype for some contract work I happened into recently. I haven't done any significant web design in ages, and it shows; I am very rusty and finding myself very short on ideas.

mama

Gavin said "mama" for the first time this morning as I was changing his diaper. He was crying in a plaintive, whiny sort of way when he did it (what other way would any good baby first say "mama" than while whining?), and from then his crying was just "mmmmmmmmm-maaa-mama, mmmmmmmmmmaaa, mama mama." Very cute. So much so it was hard for me to remember he was crying and feel appropriately sympathetic for him.

Poor little bug is feeling yucky though. I think he's got a tooth or two that are going to pop through any day now, judging by the vast rivers of drool that are issuing forth from his mouth. He's clingy and whiny and fussy. He's still a bit affected by the shots he got on Tuesday, too, which isn't helping at all.

6 month WBC

Took Gavin for his 6mo WBC this morning. He's doing awesome - 26.5" long (50th %), 20 lbs 4 oz (95th%), and 17 7/8" head circumference (90th%). Everything looks good. I love out pediatrician, he isn't pushy about starting him on solids at all. He's perfectly accepting that he is still exclusively breastfed. I'm so thankful. That is one fight I wasn't looking forward to having!

mobility

Gavin has achieved mobility. He's not crawling - not yet. Give him a few days and he will be, I am sure. Last week he was scooting around in circles and going backwards. Now he's pulling himself forward with all his might, and he's dangerously close to being able to pull himself up on furniture. He can get anywhere he wants now, and he seems to be in heaven. This morning I watched while he pulled himself over to the basket where we keep his toys, pull out the toys, and put the basket on his head. It was sheer bliss for him. For me, it's a combination of "Where is my wee baby?", "Ooo cool, look what he can do!", and "Oh no! Nothing's safe now!"

As for my hair, I have adjusted to the loss of length now. I still hate the cut. It's not terrible, not in the sense that it makes me look like a hag. But it's not a nice cut. I'm going to go have it fixed, I'm just not sure when. If you really want to see the bad cut, look here. Don't say I didn't warn you.

new look, too

And if you hadn't noticed there's a new look, too. I found an old design I never used and whipped it up real fast this morning. That blue was starting to bother me. I'll have to work on fixing the side stuff later. I'm not sure what's making it start way down the page like that!

comments fixed

My apologies to anyone who has tried to leave a comment in the last few days. I got fed up with the comment spam the other night and went in search of a solution. The blacklist script I'd been using just hasn't been living up to its promises, and while I am sure it has prevented a lot of spam, it was still letting through far too much. The breaking point came when I logged into Movable Type and saw more spam and started deleting it, only to find that the number of comments wasn't changing. Turns out I was getting hit at that moment and for every spam comment I deleted, the bastards were adding one! It really illustrated the futility of it all to me, hence my search for a real solution. Hopefully this is it. From now on you'll just have to type in a small code, shown on a small graphic in the comments popup, each time you post a comment. Real simple, and relatively painless.

And I have to say, Jason kicks ass all over the place. I was having problems with the script and couldn't figure them out, so he helped me. It turned out to be a really stupid probem (uploaded as the wrong type), but I probably wouldn't have thought of checking that on my own. Yay Jason!

the Itch

About two weeks ago I saw a picture of myself from last October. My hair was short, growing out from the very short cut I had last summer. It was just barely past my ears, but it was cute. I liked the way I looked. Seeing that picture gave me the Itch. Since then I have been toying with the idea of cutting my hair short again. As I usually do once I get the Itch (the Itch being, of course, the intense desire to chop my hair off), I waited. And day by day the Itch hung around, so I assumed it was what I really wanted and not a passing fancy.

Today I went and got a haircut. I went to a cheapy place, because that's the level of splurging we're at right now for nonessentials like unnecessary haircuts, even haircuts to satisfy the Itch. Perhaps I should have waited a while longer and gone to a somewhat less cheapy place. I don't know if it would have made a difference. I may have hated the results no matter what. And I don't know if I hate the cut itself or if I'm grieving the loss of my hair. In my mind it looks hideous. All puffy in the wrong places and sticking out funny in other places. When I look in the mirror, it looks, well, okay, I suppose. A little puffy, a little sticky-outy, but not hideous. But once I turn from the mirror, my mind twists the memory of my reflection right back into hideous.

Maybe after a day or so to play with it and learn how to make it behave, I'll feel differently. Maybe I just need time to adjust. Maybe it's not so bad. But I'm not so sure. Right now I miss my long hair, even though it was only just past my shoulders and even though before I cut it off it was driving me nuts.

It's not even as short as it was in the picture that sparked the Itch. I could go back and have it fixed, but that would require making it even shorter, and right now shorter is very much not what I want my hair to be, even though it was darn cute in that picture, if I do say so myself. Perhaps I should go have it cut that short anyway. Another inch isn't going to really make much of a difference at this point. It's already gone. Being upset about it won't make it grow faster. Damn the Itch.

six years

Happy anniversary to us!

two and a high chair

Two. That is the number of shiny, red tomatoes I got from my four - yes, count 'em, FOUR - tomato plants that I planted this summer. Two. You expect tomato plants to unleash a deluge of tomatoes upon you, that they will bury you in tomatoes so you don't know what you'll do with all of them. But this time, no. Just two. I hope it's not a portent of my gardening skills.

I got out Gavin's high chair the other day because he's seeming to want to be up closer to us at dinnertime than he was sitting in the bouncy seat. It gives him a nice platform for banging things on while we eat. Plus, this way he'll be used to it for whenever we introduce solids. He looks so small in the high chair, though! His head pokes up over the top and he is barely tall enough so his arms reach the tray.

home again

We took a trip over the holiday weekend to visit Jason's dad and his wife near Greensboro, North Carolina. Dad and Julee hadn't been able to make a trip up here to visit ever since Gavin was born, and they were dying to meet him. We decided to take the visit to them. Julee came up with the idea to make the trip a surprise, as their anniversary was Friday, and she wanted our arrival to be one of her gifts to Jason's dad.

So Friday we got up early and were on the road at 7:00. Gavin handled the trip fairly well, sleeping for the first three or four hours. After that he was fussy and didn't like being in his car seat so much. I spent the last half of the trip in the back with him, which helped, but didn't entirely alleviate, his boredom.

That afternoon we called Julee at her office around 2:00 pm to let her know where we were (near Winston-Salem). We were about an hour away from Greensboro at that point, so she asked us to come by her office. We would then proceed to their house, where we would hide our car, then hide us and wait for Dad to get home for the big surprise.

When we got to Julee's office building, we parked out front and unstrapped Gavin. I began to feed him, so he would be a happy bug for his first meeting with Grandma Julee. While we sat there, Jason's phone rang. It was Julee. Their conversation went something like this:

Jason: Hello?
Julee: WHERE ARE YOU?!
Jason: Right out front of your building!
Julee: Oh no! Drive! Drive! DRIVE!!
Jason: What?
Julee: DRIVE!
Jason: We can't, Gavin's unhooked... why?
Julee: Alan's HERE!
Jason: He is?
Julee: Yes, five minutes ago my door opened and I looked up and it was him. I said "What are you doing here?" And he said he was dropping off my present. I said "Gee, thanks honey" then I stood up and grabbed my phone and told him I had to run to the bathroom.
Jason: Ah...ummm...
Julee: Oh dear, well, hang on, I'm coming out to you.

And she did. Plans changed at that moment, so we were now going to surprise him right then and there. So Julee took Gavin and we followed her into her building to her office door, which thankfully was closed. She hollered in to Dad for him to close his eyes and face the door. He did. She opened the door and walked in and said "happy anniversary!" He opened his eyes and stared somewhat blankly at the baby in Julee's arms. It wasn't until he looked behind her and saw Jason and I that it clicked that it was Gavin. His face lit up and he was so happy - not to mention surprised, shocked, and amazed! Gavin was a bit overwhelmed by all the loud voices and laughing and new people. After about 15 seconds in Dad's arms, he started bawling at the top of his lungs and didn't ease up until I took him and gave him some Mommy Snuggles. Then he was okay and went back to Dad and Julee some more.

We spent some time at Julee's office with her and Dad, then he had to go back to work and we left to go to their house. That evening, we barely saw Gavin, as his grandparents joyfully stole him away from us and cuddled and snuggled and played with him until at last we wrested him from their grasp to put to bed.

Saturday we lazed around while Julee and Jason's dad played with Gavin, until he had to go to work. We took Gavin outside and enjoyed the afternoon, which was absolutely gorgeous. Looking up at the beautiful bright blue sky with puffy white clouds, it was hard to imagine a few hundred miles to the south that hurricane Frances was ravaging Florida. We visited Jason's dad at work later that evening and had dinner in the mall food court. Julee bought Gavin a really cute outfit for the fall, in which he'll be just stunningly handsome. Everyone loves a man in uniform.

On Sunday we had a picnic lunch outisde and celebrated Gavin's five monthday with a slice of watermelon.

Jason's mom and sisters drove up to see us and brought our three and a half year old nephew Sean (Jason's brother Thomas' son). It had been over a year and a half since we'd seen Sean. He has grown into quite a cute little boy. He discovered a nasty infestation in Dad and Julee's backyard: Dragons. So Jason and Anita and Sean spent many hours that afternoon hunting out the buggers and despatching them quite handily.

Monday was yet another lazy day. Julee watched Scooby Doo with Sean and Gavin watched Sean -- he was enthralled with his cousin!

Tuesday we woke early and dragged Gavin away from his grandparents and drove home. He did much better on the return trip, sleeping nearly the entire time. Of course that played hell with his sleep schedule and he was up nearly every hour all night long, and during the time he was asleep he was incredibly fidgety. All in all, though, he did much better with the trip than I expected. Now we're home and happy that all the grandparents have met Gavin!

more about spam

I don't mean to go on and give yet more attention to the horrid comment spammers, but this amused me. The typical comment spam is a short, sub-par (to say the least!) English message with non-existent spelling and grammar. Tonight I found 48 spam comments (one for each entry in the journal, hurrah), and each one was different from the last. What's more, each one had real, honest to goodness English. Some examples...

In so far as a scientific statement speaks about reality, it must be falsifiable: and in so far as it is not falsifiable, it does not speak about reality.

In general, I feel if you can't say it clearly you don't understand it yourself.

Remember that no man loses any other life than this which he now lives, nor lives any other than this which he now loses.

And my favorite one:

The Creator, if He exists, has a special preference for beetles.

baking

I was bitten by the baking bug this afternoon and baked two batches of cookies and foccacia bread. I'm not entirely happy with any of it. The chocolate chip cookies are dry and don't have enough sugar, and the sugar cookies are dry and a little heavy. The foccacia bread is a tad overbaked, because it needed a couple more minutes after the timer went off. I foolishly thought I could NOT reset the timer and just remember that the bread was in there. I did remember. Ten minutes later. Oops. So my baking bug is unsated. I was seriously contemplating trying a fourth something - more bread, pizza dough, more cookies. I really wanted to make molasses ginger cookies, but I stopped myself. I think given my trend in baking today I'd be better off not attempting anything else.

In Gavin news, he has discovered yet more sounds. He now raspberries like mad, doing it over and over while he sits and plays. And he sits! Did I mention that? He now sits completely unsupported, for up to ten or fifteen minutes and plays with toys. He can lean to the side or stretch forward to reach a toy and sit back up, all without falling over!