we’ve reached the apex
anticipation and hope
a rollercoaster
Photos
preparing for the drop
St Louis picture time
I really love St Louis. It always kind of surprises me when I visit, but I really enjoy that city so much. It’s exciting and peaceful with so many things to do.
To celebrate the kidlets birthdays we visited for a few days and I think my favorite spot was right outside the St Louis Art Museum, just past the plaza right on the grass in front of the whole park. It was simply beautiful.
I sat there enjoying the view while the kids rolled, tumbled, ran, and stumbled all over the hill. And while Cody did the Leo Strut. He does this all the time and it cracks me up on so many levels.
It’s easy to feel so small with the sky and gentle hills all around you. Not to mention that the weather was really beautiful considering that it was early December. Things to be thankful for.
We visited a few other places too: the St Louis Zoo, Laumeier Sculpture Park, and the World Bird Sanctuary. I wanted to check out a bunch of other places too (Museum of Contemporary Religious Art, the Missouri History Museum, and CityGarden) but I didn’t think the kids could handle it quite yet. When they get older. I also thought about stopping in the Science Museum since it was such a big hit when we visited two years ago, but we ran out of time.
Definitely one of the best cities to vacation in if you are on a small budget since there are so many activities with free admission.
I also started teaching Jas to use the Nikon (with much trepidation, to be sure) to some fun results. She already loves taking pictures with my Canon and has cracked it a bit on one side, so now my trusty point and shoot is mostly down for the count. Sometimes it acknowledges the full battery, sometimes it doesn’t. But still worth it for some of her hilarious shots.
But the best pictures of the whole trip happened shortly after we left the Art Museum because Cody was having himself a conniption fit. Which I turned into an animation, because lemons and lemonade, amiright? You may have to refresh, since I only set it to loop a few times.
Plus this shot which I’m getting a copy of so that when I rejoin the workforce I have a picture to look at on sad days:
Anyway, a good time was had by all except for those times when it really, really wasn’t. But life is like that. Family shot for November 2011:
the clutter slayer
To me, starting a New Year means getting life in order and purging like crazy. My office is about to be ravaged, ransacked, and rankled. That wooden box holding papers that need to be filed… will be handled. The staggering amount of “practice fabric” will be USED or DONATED because for fucks sake, this is ridiculous.
I’ll be rehoming the roll-top desk and metal file cabinet, as neither system really works with my organizing style. Either I’ll be building, buying, or rehabbing furniture so that I have a bookcase/cubby situation going on where I can use smaller boxes and an organization more conducive to my “Monkey See, Monkey Do” mentality. Like this only affordable or this except made of wood rather than particleboard.
And I’ll be paring down my paperwork immensely.
First step: packing up the Christmas tree. Tomorrow, let the games begin.
chimpanzees
My cousin restrung my violin for me. So now I want to pop on youtube and start playing. But just this morning I made an important discovery. Cody can now vault out of the crib and land safely, although clumsily on the floor. So… probably not going to play tonight.
I had to carry him to bed three times. And now I’m paranoid that he’ll hurt himself trying to escape in the dark.
Also a recent development, he likes to take off his diaper and sling it across the room. Regardless of contents.
So between the bedwetting and diaper launching, it’s like a bodily fluid nightmare over here.
pre-Halloween
We picked out our costumes a little early this year so that we could get some fun pictures together. This picture is why I love mirrors. Family shot circa September 2011.
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The kidlets and I went to a fun Halloween event tonight. I decided against my pretty Indian dress because it was kind of chilly out. So I wore my warm fleece Fae jacket. Added a leafy diadem and BOOM! Instant costume. Cody got some comfy red sweatpants and Jas wore her jacket.
But even with our costumes ready and tickets in hand, it was still a rather shitty time. The lights twinkled, there was music in the air, and people around us were all having fun. We wandered around, stood in lines, observed the attractions. But it felt so awkward, like we were in a bubble.
Cody was a bit sleepy irritable so I carried him the entire time. But Jas spent most of her time asking questions about when we’d get the candy, what was this, what was that, where is the candy, et cetera et cetera et cetera. When she wasn’t questioning the composition of the universe, she was staring around gloomily.
We rode a spooky train ride after waiting about an hour. It’s funny how that wait was the most enjoyable time I had. There were poi performers and I was cracking jokes with the dad behind us. Watching the poi made me miss color guard, especially when they broke out the hoops. It looked like so much fun. Although when one of the guys dropped one of the poi I was surprised the whole field didn’t go up in flames. Smokey the bear would have been pissed. Also, me.
After the mildly frightening train ride, we got in the line to trick or treat to discover that I must have dropped my tickets. The lady in charge of that section assured me that it wouldn’t be a problem. But still, kind of whack that you have to have tickets when you have to pay to get in to the event. It’s kind of a hard place to sneak into, I doubt anyone would do it for the candy.
So we make our way but then Jas won’t even talk to the people to ask them for candy. The traditional ‘Trick or Treat!’. She just dodged behind me. Kind of obnoxious as she was just fine before. So I said it for her, got two pieces of candy, and we went to the next one. I thought she might just have been nervous about talking to the first person so perhaps the second would be better. But she wouldn’t ask them either.
By this time I’d been carrying Cody the dragon around for about two hours and my temper was fraying so I just grabbed her hand and we made our way back to the car. If trick or treating was beyond her, it was beyond me too. I figured it’d be best for us to just go home.
I think it was. But I still feel sad for her. I know she is having a hard time with Andy being gone, which is why I’m trying harder for us to do different things.
I signed her up for two different classes and neither one worked out especially well. She enjoyed her dance class for a few sessions and then refused to go anymore. The ice skating class went even less well. She went to two out of four classes, but only actively skated at the first one. We bought cute Hello kitty gloves to try and make it special and I was going to take pictures that we could print out and show Andy. But still. She wanted no part of it after her second class.
I asked her about it and she said she’d like to learn to play the game with the ball and the nets. Which… based on additional clues, I think she means baseball? I dunno. But this spring, maybe I can get her in tball. It’s important to have a fun hobby on the side and I want her to be able to try different things, so I don’t mind so much that she doesn’t want to dance or ice skate in a formal setting, I just worry that there is a lot more going on under the surface causing her to drift away from them.
She’s not a baby anymore. She’s a girl. And I know from experience, we are very layered creatures. She’s counting down to February, just like me.