So we finally stopped being a religious slackers and got the kid baptized on Nov. 4. It did not bode well that the baptism would be during DAT's normal nap time (due to daylight saving time change the night before), around lunch time, and DAT had a cold. It boded even worse that DAT threw his second major temper tantrum when I brought him in from ( Read more... )

I accidentally boycotted Halloween this year. I forgot to wear my costume to school, and DAT steadfastly refused to wear his. To make up for it, I wore lots of hats during the evening, and even (briefly) got one on DAT. Ah, well, at least there are left over Reese's Cups.

I need your trash, and I need it before next spring. Here's a list of items that many people throw away that you can instead save for me. I will come and pick them up from you. However, if you live outside the greater Knoxville area, you may not want to participate in said trash saving unless you know you will be seeing me soon ( Read more... )

DAT made his first song request the other day (I sing to him a lot in the car as I don't have a tape or CD player). It was "Take me out to the ball game". He said "sing"...."ball"...."game".

I have a minion now who is helping sort out ants from the other bugs (and snail and whatnot) in my pitfall traps while I identify the previously sorted specimins. I feel a bit bad about having help, but it's kind of nice at the same time (plus Dr. Vail was running out of stuff for her to do). I've actually started writing the chapter of my thesis ( Read more... )

Almost...done...with...bait trap...ant...identification...gah...

DAT's language skills have amazingly taken off these past couple of weeks. Every day I'm surprised and delighted to hear him use new words that he didn't use the day before. In addition to learning more nouns, he's discovered the use of verbs. His current favorites are 'spin' (accompanied by enthusiastic spinning his hand), 'dig', 'bop', and ' ( Read more... )

A week or so ago, we a rotten nectarine into the compost heap. Apparently, nectarine is a butterfly magnet. The next day there were at least a dozen butterflies of 3-4 different species drinking nectarine juice. DAT and I spent lots of time during the day just sitting next to our compost pile watching them flutter around. Pretty spiffy ( Read more... )

So DAT has definitely been influenced by his mother's current gardening obsession. I offer these few tales of my kid's gardening prowess. (I think this might be bragging a bit, but it thrills me to no end that he knows so much about gardening at 18 months ( Read more... )

So I really, really, really want to go to Forestblend's and Smiths_hammer's (hope I spelled their LJ names right) wedding. However, that is the weekend that Ikara_fox is going out of town for a meeting, and I'm not up for that long of a drive by myself with the baby. Would anyone want to ride with me/let DAT and I ride with them? I would need ( Read more... )