Wednesday, December 31, 2008

From the best of Craigslist...

To the Minotaur that lives above me.

Date: 2008-06-26, 10:36AM CDT
First off, I must say that I admire your courage. It must be hard living in the world today as a lady-beast. Society judges, oh lord do they ever.


With that said, let’s get down to business. Over the past year, we've had a funny sort of relationship, you and I. When I first moved into the place, it was rather peaceful. It was an exciting time in my life, as it was the first time I would be living by myself. Then came the day that I first heard it. What did I hear you ask? It was sound of your hooves galloping across the hardwood floors of your living room. At the time I thought, “No big deal, surely it can’t always be like this.” Oh was I wrong. It turned out that every time I was at home, you would be up there, stomping around, like the wild lady-beast that you are.


After a few weeks, I determined through a process of elimination, that you are in fact, a Minotaur. It only makes sense.


FACT. Minotaurs have hooves, and that’s sure as hell what it sounds like is hitting the floor when you gallop around.


FACT. A Minotaur posses great strength, the kind of strength that can be felt by a guy laying on his couch, trying to get into a good book. The kind of strength that shakes the dishes in his cupboards. The kind of strength that can wake a guy out of a dead sleep, EVERY FRICKIN MORNING. I didn’t even need to set an alarm clock to wake up in the morning. Instead I wake up to THUMP THUMP THUMP. THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP. THUMP THUMP THUMP. I’m not a light sleeper by any means; I sleep right through the viscously loud police, fire truck, and ambulance sirens every night. I was lying there one morning, frustrated, counting the trips you took between your bedroom and your bathroom. 17. 17 god forsaken trips between the bedroom and the bathroom. Really? Are you kidding me? What could you possibly be doing?


FACT. Minotaurs are half bull. Bulls are aggressive when taunted. Apparently, the time I went upstairs, politely introduced myself, and asked you rather nicely to please quit stomping around, was a taunt. That’s when you got aggressive. You called the landlord and told him that I was complaining about your noise. When he told me about this, he said his response to your complaint was, “Quit making so much noise then.” Brilliant. Go Mr. Landlord! I tried keeping him out of this, but you felt it important to drag him into it.


After a few more weeks of you recklessly stomping around, I made another attempt at a civil confrontation. It failed. It failed because you stomped your way to the door, and you didn’t open it when you saw who was standing there. I know this because I heard your hooves clippity-clop their way to the door. Way to avoid confrontation.


To my surprise, the stomping ceased the next day, and I awoke to peace. “Amazing,” I thought, “It must be a midsummer miracle!!” A few days passed, and I ran into my landlord in the entry way. He mentioned that he received another angry phone call from you. Said that you felt threatened by my confrontations, said I scared you. Strange, since not once did I ever raise my voice or try to be anything but civil. He then mentioned that he told you to buy some slippers to wear around your apartment. Genius! It freakin worked!! Hell yea, Mr Landlord! High five!


Fast forward 11 months. The stomping has returned. No doubt in my mind the hooves have worn through the delicate fabrics of the slippers and are now, once again, banging against your hardwood floors.


Please, for the love of sweet baby jesus, run down to the local Target and purchase yourself another pair of hoof mufflers. I know you can run with those strong legs of yours, probably real fast like! Target downtown is all of 10 blocks away. Go Minotaur, go! Overcome the odds, society is watching! (and judging)

Sunday, December 14, 2008

Ho! Ho! Ho!

We went to see Santa today. I LOVE this Santa. He's at The Bay, Queen St. location. He's very authentic and great with the kids. Christian didn't want to sit on his knee this year, wanted to just stand beside him, but at least he wasn't too afraid to talk to him this year. Jacqueline did surprisingly well. She's not at the making strange phase yet, but she was very cranky due to lack of nap, so it's pretty much a miracle that she actually sat there quietly, or....maybe it's the magic of Santa??!! :)
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Got Milk??

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Saturday, December 13, 2008

4 months

Well, 4 1/2 now. Jacqueline weighs 13 lbs & is about 24.5 inches long. Thank goodness her growth in length has slowed down some...she was outgrowing her clothes much too quickly! She's been in 3-6 mo since about 2ish months and is into some of the smaller 6-12 stuff. It's mostly her torso; she's got short legs, so her tops are getting small faster than the pants!

Developmentally....she's rolling both ways, beginning to laugh, although still only occasionally. She can grab things held in front of her and she puts everything in her mouth! She's drooling like crazy and likes to gnaw on her hands (or mine) so I think she's beginning to teethe, although I think it'll still be a while before we'll see any teeth. Still sleeping through the night (knock on wood) but her bedtime is later than Christian's was at this age. He'd established a 7:30 bedtime of his own accord (i.e. after that feeding, he wouldn't wake up till the morning) but she doesn't go down till 10 or 11pm. however, she'll often wake to eat around 6 or 630, and then go back to sleep till 8 or 9 (which means I get to go back to sleep too, unless it's a Tuesday or Thursday and I have Christian home with us!) She wakes happy too - I'm usually awoken by her babbling to herself, waving her arms and kicking her legs, although I'm sure that it would progress to full on cry if that didn't work.

She's really starting to notice everything around her and finds it all very interesting. She's very vocal - lots of coos and gurgles, starting to make a lot of consonant sounds...ga & gee being the prominent sounds these days. Christian was a very quiet baby, hardly ever babbled, so I can't wait to see how her language develops. We'll be signing with her as well, just starting to do a few now (mainly "milk").

She still looks a lot like Christian at times, but she looks different too. Here's a 4 month comparison shot. His face was much more round and his cheeks chubbier.
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Saturday, December 6, 2008

Christian funnies


"Does a kangaroo have a mother?...yes a kangaroo has a mother, just like me and you" and goes through several different animals. Hugo was reading this book to Christian a while ago. When he got to the page with the fox "does a fox have a mother?"
C: Excuse me daddy, excuse me? (we have been trying to teach him not to interrupt and to say excuse me, to let us know he needs to talk to us, instead of just butting in)
H: yes?
C: that's not a very good drawing of a fox, Daddy. It looks more like a horse.