Deeply Spaced Out

It was KJ's idea to go, with the excuse of it being our 10th anniversary thing.

We had a good time. Very intense to be there and just immersed in that environment, to where I needed a bit of wind-down time when we got home. There were a lot of displays for Doctors Without Borders (the summer charity) in the hallway.

We played a few pinball machines, tried some board/card games (The Fox in the Forest is really good, if you like the idea of a trick-taking game with a bit of a twist), flailed at Mortal Kombat. Mostly we did watch the speedrunning. The Let's Go Eevee! run was thoroughly a blast. Met up with KJ's friend from work for a few of the games.

Well.


That was certainly worth it.

We're finally out of winter and into warm, sunshiney spring.

I think the toddler is several weeks removed from his terrible twos by now. They weren't as terrible as I feared. He started potty-training two weeks ago Tuesday, and by Wednesday night he was determined to never wear diapers again. Last Friday he further decided he wasn't going to bother with his little toilet ever again. So, that's been going surprisingly well. He still babbles, but I can hear misformed syllables a little more often sometimes lately.

Pooky is pleased to have a proper warm outside to escape to now. I don't think she likes to stay outside very long anymore, though.

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MST3K Season 12 is out! And I didn't expect to see it for a long while because it's streaming-only and we have satellite-only Internet, but we gave it a shot last night and it works pretty well.

Last season was really good, but this first episode is . . . also "just" really good, but you can tell the new crew is fully in the swing of things. Only six episodes, but as long as it's because of scheduling conflicts and not because Netflix is being a doubter I don't mind.

Had a good Thanksgiving. I won at liars' dice when KJ refused to believe I could have three threes when we were playing with six dice, and I will never let her live it down.

Baby nahtm has moved on from Totoro to Ponyo and Lion King, with Little Manhattan still in the rotation. We are still concerned about his lack of speaking vocabulary and other issues, but he's going to get some speech therapy or whatever it's called, and hopefully that will un-bottleneck whatever's going on in his head. He's also skipping a day nap half the time and staying up until like elevenish, so that's another phase we hope passes very quickly.

I just need to figure out one gift for Christmas and I'm pretty well done shopping. Nice.

Two weekends ago, we had a driving snowstorm with whiteout conditions. It took until Friday for things to finally start warming up for good. I came home to baby nahtm walking around outside with Grandma. Stomping in puddles and enjoying himself. He came over and tried to get in the driver's seat with me. It's one of his new things: adults get in that door and do interesting things, so he will too.

He's also started his terrible twos well ahead of schedule, have I mentioned? Mainly it's about food, but occasionally he gets upset about doggies not being set free or being told not to touch the DVD slot. The other day we finally removed all his fruit pouches and snacks from the cupboard so that he doesn't "have" anything to eat instead of his dinner. He also doesn't get pouches with breakfast anymore. It seems to be working, and he's happy to start with Daddy's cereal as long as Daddy pours it fast.

Mostly I think the tantrums come because he can't deal with having opinions about what should happen next that aren't shared by reality. A lot of adults have the same problem.

But he still likes going up and down stairs, and he can do that better now. Even walking downstairs at home with his hand on the wall. I think I trust him more on stairs now than I will in a few years, when he's more rambunctious about life. He's very cautious about heights, even just getting down from his high chair. He gets upset when he can't reach his foot down and touch the ground.

Right now, his big blocks are one of his favorite toys. He likes to dump the whole bin out on the ground and take apart the blocks Daddy puts together. He's also got his various electronic light-and-sound makers.

He still likes to stomp around when he gets excited. His repertoire now also includes going to the middle of the floor to spin around until he (gently) falls over.

This past weekend was a little smelly, as the septic line got clogged and, uh, invaded the basement. So Sunday I was given nahtm and told to go to church and wherever else and stay out of the way while that was dealt with. And he had a grand time at church. We got there early and he got worked up listening to the band practice, and then the boy and girl behind us got into the music during the service, and he held hands with them and danced at them. And then we went to Goodwill to drop off spring cleaning victims. I found a BD gift for KJ and a yellow polo for baby so he can match me at church this summer. We visited a few other stores too, picking up a few things at JCP and finding nothing at the Babies R Us closing sale, and he was running around happy at all of them. Just a really good day, the kind that makes the tantrums worth it.

Here are the pictures from the Czech and Slovak museum I mentioned in the last post. A few excerpts for those who have bad connections:
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Saturday we went ice fishing. I cut my hand and baby seemed to have cut his, so we didn't do much, but baby had fun grabbing a slush dipper and trying to dip/drop it into the hole. And then I spent Sunday sneezing half the time.

More first-time reads than last year, not that that was hard to do. I followed up on my desire to read more "classics", picked other titles up on whims, and got burned by a book or two.

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Three days with snow out of the last seven, and this fluffy batch is starting to accumulate on the gravel driveway. None have accumulated on the actual road yet, but hopefully KJ gets home from work before it gets serious. The driveway's all the way white now.

KJ has, in fact, gotten a nice little raise. At this point, she's probably making as much as the both of us were managing in Columbia, at least when I wasn't struggling with the dairy department. For that matter, I'm making more per hour than I was at the grocery store except when I was dairy lead. So financially moving has been a good move for us.

Baby has added "ummm" to his working vocabulary. I think he said "red" today, too, in response to his remote control saying "yellow" and "green". He had an infection in his left ear, which made him flop over randomly, but medicine seems to be taking care of that.

I got new shoes. Expensive this time, and half a size larger, and with netting at the front corners that will hopefully ameliorate the wear and tear from creasing. I'll have to walk more carefully and more slowly, but you know what, I can feel myself slowing down anyway. As healthy as I ever was, but I don't have the zing I had in my 20s. Whatever.

We've moved into the house for the winter. I just need to finish bringing in a few last things and the barn will be available for general use again. Hopefully we'll be in a nice big house of our own by this time next year, with a fence for the dogs and cat, and that will be an end to hopping around the Midwest.

Picked up All Dogs Go To Heaven and Songs From A Secret Garden at Goodwill. Songs is nice, not as good as Dreamcatcher but it has most of the best tracks from there so I'm happy.

So Discovery apparently premiered a few days ago, to less than impressed reviews. Hopefully the season gets better. I want it to succeed, lackluster PR campaign and expensive subscription nonsense notwithstanding. One day everything will be online, whether we like it or not, and we'll probably have bundles just like cable and satellite have now. For now, I'm not spending a penny, and sounds like the first episode is unpleasant so I'm not wasting an hour of my life on it. I hope it turns out the creative team knew what they were doing. (The theme/intro is definitely a good one.) Instead, we've been finishing this season of Doctor Who, which is definitely back to knowing what it's doing. That last two-parter, a lot of "wham" moments and it worked much better than Capaldi's first season. So bummed to see him go, but glad Moffat's gone out on a high note, and glad we're going to get one more Christmas episode out of Capaldi and based on the last moments of that last episode I am pumped for wherever they take it. KJ was upset at the lack of a preview and I said, no, that was just preview enough.

Have I mentioned the leaves are starting to change up here? Because they are. The baby's walking, too. He's very happy about it, only occasionally feeling the need to grab a hand for stability, and he's decided that falling on his rear isn't the end of the world after all.

We skipped a Carbon Leaf concert up in the Cities. KJ was just too tired from work and having spent a few days sick with whatever the baby gave me to pass on to her, though I think she got this iteration from work. And between work and her commute and baby and dogs and family and my own distractions, I just don't get as much time with her as I want.