Author: Zannah

Ways in which Jack is adorable

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Here is a smattering of ways in which Jack is adorable:

  • He “counts”, using the tone I use when I count for him.  He counts when he points at things, stacks things, lines things up, but he only ever says one syllable over and over: “doo”.  I like to think he’s speaking French.  “Deux, deux, deux…”
  • When I point out flowers on our walks, he leans toward them and “mah” gives them a kiss.
  • He thinks it’s HILARIOUS when I sneeze.  Laughs like a loon and then makes his again sign (like a one-handed clap) and says “dat, dat”.  I’ve tried explaining to him that I can’t sneeze on command.  Fake sneezes aren’t quite as good.
  • Since we started reading The Little Engine That Could and The Little Red Caboose, he looks for trains everywhere we go.  Any vehicle attached to a trailer is a choo-choo.  Any trailer without an attached vehicle is a choo-choo, unless it’s a box trailer, and then it’s a guck.
  • We have a Buddha statue in our yard, left by the previous owner, and when we walk by it, Jack says “baa”.  At it.  To it?
  • When he sees a car/truck/van with a ladder on it, he makes climbing-a-ladder motions with his hands.

Hugo finalists have been announced and I am so very happy!

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Two of the books I nominated for best novel are finalists for the Hugo (yay for Gideon the Ninth and A Memory Called Empire!), I read and liked a third (The Light Brigade), and I KNOW I’ll love the Seanan McGuire book because I have loved everything I’ve read of hers EVER.  The Charlie Jane Anders book is likely to be good in a more literary way, and I’m super excited to read The Ten Thousand Doors of January.  All of this goodness is going to make it VERY hard to vote.

And Emily Tesh is up for best new SF writer, and I will for SURE be voting for her on that one.

I have a lot of reading to do.  Poor me.

Defiance

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Recently, Jack has begun doing things he knows he’s not supposed to do.  We can tell he knows because he a) waits for us to look, and b) makes the same face every time, a face that clearly says “Oh ho ho, look at what I’m doing” and dares us to do something about it.  I would love to catch that face on camera, but when I see it, I have to be ready to catch him.

The face, which is similar to “the face” but with so much more devilishness, appears when he’s about to open a cabinet he shouldn’t be in, or when he’s standing on his chair, or when he’s snatching his hand out of mine when we’re walking along the street.  That one is usually followed by demon possession and a growled “NO” when I try to get his hand back, then angry crying while seated on the sidewalk until I can pick him up and distract him.

The sidewalk incidents aside, why does it have to be so funny when he dares us to tell him no?  I knew this day was coming, when I was going to have to find a way not to laugh when I need him to take me seriously, and I knew I wasn’t going to be prepared for it.  Over the weekend, he kept standing up in his blue chair, and John and I had to take turns – one turned away to laugh silently while the other said, as sternly as possible, “Jack, sit down.  We sit in chairs.”  He’d sit down, get that look again, and stand right back up, and we’d switch.

I’d like to say we’ll get better at it, but I’m kind of afraid we’ll just lose our sense of humor about it.  Is it possible to think it’s funny and still keep a straight face and stern voice?

Scrapes

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Jack fell down yesterday. Okay, he falls down every day, but he fell down in the driveway.  Okay, he falls down in the driveway regularly, too, but this one was different.

We were both outside with him, and he started to run/toddle along the driveway.  He tripped and fell (daily occurrence).  He caught himself on his hands and knees (normal), but then he tipped forward.  It happened so slowly that it didn’t seem like it could have hurt him, but he started crying and I hurried my already-in-progress rush to him.  Picked him up, brushed him off – I didn’t see anything immediately wrong.  He had some dirt and a few pieces of gravel on his face, so I took him inside to clean him up.

He calmed down after a minute and went right back to playing.  It was a few minutes before we could really see the scrapes.  His forehead, the side of his nose, some of his right cheek, and his chin all show evidence of the faceplant onto the driveway.  I’m positive it hurts us more than it hurts him.

John said we shouldn’t let him run on the driveway anymore.  Uh huh.  YOU try and stop him.  I’ll just hover a little closer so I can catch his head next time.  Like a helicopter…oops.

No more moo goo gai pan

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Our Chinese restaurant is closing as of tomorrow (Monday) because of the virus, which is terrible for them and both bad and not-so-bad for us.

For them: I don’t know if they’re closing because they can’t afford to stay open or if they don’t have the staff to stay open.  Neither option is good, and I can’t even hope it’s one or the other.

For us: well, no more ordering Chinese food for a while.

  • The bad: No more Chinese food for the foreseeable future.  There’s only one other Chinese takeout place nearby, and it’s not as good.
  • The not-so-bad: NO MORE CHINESE FOOD FOR THE FORESEEABLE FUTURE.  Considering how prone to ordering (and then eating) everything in sight I am when it comes to Chinese food, this can only be a good thing for my overall health.

All three of us enjoyed our last Chinese takeout meal FOR THE FORESEEABLE FUT-sorry.  Jack happily ate what we ate and then guzzled down a full cup of water.

The many meanings of “up”

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Jack says “up” a LOT, and the word keeps getting new meanings (without getting rid of the old ones).  It started out just meaning “pick me up”.  Then, sometimes “up” meant “move, please” or “get out of my way”.  Next, “up” started to mean “down”, as in “put me down” or “I want to get down” if he was already up.  (And if he says “up” and you say, “do you mean down?”, he’ll say “yup”.  He just won’t attempt to say down.)  After that, “up” could also mean “on top of” something or “higher than something else”.  Like, he’ll lift the ladder on top of his fire truck and say “up”, or he’ll stack a toy on top of another toy and say “up”.  Most recently, like new yesterday, Jack looked at John, pointed next to him on the rug, and said “up”.  He very clearly meant “sit down right here, Dad.”  A couple hours later, he was sitting in the big gray chair and he did the same thing to me.  Pointed to the cushion and said “up.”  So I sat down next to him in the chair, and he was happy.

(Up is a super weird-looking tiny word.)

The Raven King by Maggie Stiefvater

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Started: 3/27/20
Finished: 4/1/20

The last book in the psychics/witches/preppy school boys/etc. series that I like entirely too much.  It’s about time something happened.  I mean, stuff has been happening in all of the other books to move the story forward, but this thing they’ve been working toward since the first book is FINALLY HAPPENING.

The ending is good, it’s both unexpected and expected, and I feel like it happened a little too quickly.  I’d realize I was 80% done and think there’s NO WAY it can be done in only the pages remaining.  But it was, and it was good and yay.

Social distancing is not a problem in this household

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This whole coronavirus thing hasn’t changed our lives all that much yet.  We’re already basically hermits.  Jack and I had been getting out a lot, and we do miss our baby friends (and their moms) and the library story times, but the weather is getting nicer and we’re compensating by taking morning hikes and then collapsing into naptime.

“Hikes”, I should say.  We’re walking on level paths through some woods or around a pond, at Jack’s pace.  He’s been doing great – he walks on his own more than half a mile before he asks to be picked up, and even then he still walks a little more.  Then we have a snack and a diaper change, and he falls asleep on the way home and through the transfer into the crib.

We’ve only seen a handful of people, all keeping their distance.  Jack has discovered the joys of scuffing his feet through leaves, pine needles, gravel – whatever the path is made of.  Then he runs, he falls, and he giggles when I brush off his hands.

A very merry unbirthday to you

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I have decided that we are going to celebrate half-birthdays in this house, primarily because it’s an excuse to eat cake.  No one is fighting this decision.

We started with Jack.  He turned 18 months on March 26th, and to celebrate, we sang “happy half-birthday to you”, showed him the giant bunny head balloon I found (he likes bunnies, calls them “hops”), and gave him a chocolate-frosted cupcake for breakfast.

Silver in the Wood by Emily Tesh

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Started: 3/26/20
Finished: 3/27/20

A Green Man story, but completely different from any other Green Man story I’ve ever read.  Really good, and it has a sequel…which isn’t out yet, but it’s due out in June!  And there are only supposed to be two, so anyone worried about getting stuck in the neverending wait that comes with a new series can stop worrying.

Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

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Started: 3/19/20
Finished: 3/26/20

I LOVED this book.  It’s super-weird, but the main character is hilarious (I laughed a LOT and had to force myself to stop reading parts out loud to John), and I LOVED it.  So excited to read the next one when it comes out (THIS SUMMER!!).  Queer necromancers in space.  With swords.  And hilarity.  And death (because necromancers).  Also lots of drama – despite the funny character, it is NOT a comedy. I got this from the library, but I need to own it.  And re-read it.

To any readers still out there

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I never meant for this blog to become mini book reviews only.  I’m at least a little bit grateful that I’m able to keep up with those (or at least catch up every month or two), and a lot of that has to do with how SLOW my reading pace is lately.  I used to be able to read while nursing Jack, but he got faster, and then we started weaning, and now we’re done.  Now I only get to read before bed, or on the rare evening I don’t have to work (like tonight! Except I’m doing this instead!).

Speaking of work, I’m still working part-time (20 hours a week).  My company is still letting me do it, and I have no intention of changing it.  I get a couple of hours in early in the morning (like 5:30 to 7:30), the occasional meeting during the day, and IF Jack naps in the crib, I work then.  If I don’t hit four hours, I do the rest after Jack goes to bed.  During the day, Jack is still pretty…needy? Clingy? Insistent that I be physically attached to him while he plays?  Point: I can’t get any work or reading done while he’s awake.

Jack is still perfect and wonderful, of course.  He’ll be 18 months old in 2 days, which is CRAZY, like completely bonkers.  Not that he survived, or that we kept him alive, but DUDE.  I have an 18-month-old.  Wut.