Ah, two-year-olds.

Matter-Eater Lad: "Hey, V--give me five!" [holds out hand]

V: "No. No." [shakes head] "No five. No no."

V walks away into the next room.

V: "V five!" [high-fives herself repeatedly, switching hands]

* * *

Me: "V--time to put on shoes!"

V: "No, no. No shoes!!!!" [shakes head, starts crying] [stops crying]

V runs away and giggles: "HEE. NO SHOES!" [hides in room, giggling]

I am considering a trip to The Mall in order to drink tea at her.

http://www.kare11.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=827856

A complete lack of common sense.

"The R5 train's front car started to smoke on the tracks at the station. Conductors told everyone to move to the rear cars. Some passengers got off before the train left the station, others moved into the other three cars"

FOR GOD'S SAKE. If ANY OF THE CARS ON THE TRAIN ARE ON FIRE, GET OFF THE TRAIN, NO MATTER WHAT THE CONDUCTOR SAYS.

These people apparently trust authority figures much more than I do.

What does it take to get on the ballot in Minneapolis?

The first choice for mayoral candidate on my ballot this morning?

Joey Lombard

Party?

Is Awesome.

Quote of the day:

"Oh, V, after you finish making them your art projects aren't for *you*--they're for *us*."

--Matter-Eater Lad

I am really surprised that I haven't seen this idea anywhere yet

The modern Republicans, especially the C-Streeters who are affiliated with The Family, are Victorians, with all of the public morality and private vice that implies.

HEE.

Motivators

Two things I learned from V this morning.

A bear is a puppy.

A kangaroo is a moose.

Then later a kangaroo was a puppy instead.

That is all.

Was my last post really in May?

More to come very soon. I have not gone anywhere. I have just been very, very busy.

A friend posted this on Facebook. And I feel like everyone should see it.

At Politico.

But I grafted the toe! And wove in the ends!

I have been working on the Embossed Leaves socks in Dream in Color's Smooshy Go Go Grassy. Lovely, fairly simple pattern. Lovely socks. I like the tension I got with the #1 needles. While I was reducing the star toe on the second sock, I noticed at one point that I was one stitch short on one needle. No worries, I thought, I just spaced at some point and reduced on a knit-only row. I fixed it by not reducing on that row, and I thought all was well--I couldn't even see the mistake.

I finished the toe and grafted the last 8 stitches (I hate gathered toes, so I modified the pattern). I tried the socks on. I thought "that's odd. I don't think the other sock has yarnovers right there on the outside of the toe OH CRAP THAT IS A DROPPED STITCH.

And that's where that stitch went. I managed *not* to curse OR throw the socks across the room. I did put them in a bag rather than ripping out the toe and fixing it last night. I'll fix them when I no longer hate them.

It's a start.

Or, rather, the middle of a start.

You do know what that phrase is slang for, right?

I'll be drinking my tea today.

Updated to add:

Brain not work

I checked my email this morning and then marked a message as "unread" because I wanted to make sure to deal with it later.

And then, as the screen refreshed, I thought excitedly, "OH! New email!"

I may need to get more sleep.

While I am thinking about it.

So that I don't forget, here is a V vocab update for today. She has used these words (or an approximation thereof) repeatedly in context with no prompting :

Mom
Dad
Elmo
Elephant (sounds the same as "Elmo," have to figure out which she is referring to by context)
No
Up (as in "please change the state of this thing to what I want it to be--pick me up, put me down, open this box, etc.)
Down (not very often used, see "up")
Out (as in "go out")
Carseat (as in, what she climbs into when she would like to go out)
Circle
Yum (as in "yummmmmmmmm" I am STARVING WHY HAVE YOU NOT FED ME??--this usually is used when she has been happily playing and someone else starts to do anything in the kitchen)
More & "more" sign, although sign is used to mean "eat" quite a bit and she uses the "eat" sign to mean "nurse"
Book
Cat
Fishie (she has a fish kite in her room)
Hi
Bye

That is what I have for the moment, although I feel like I am forgetting some.

I am not in charge here.

Last night Matter-Eater Lad was reading in the recliner and I was stretched out on the sofa while V puttered around playing. She was happy to amuse herself, and we were happy to let her do so. Then she found a little frog prince finger puppet she likes--not even something we have played with a lot lately. She picked it up, toddled over to me, straightened one of my fingers, and put the finger puppet on my finger.

I guess she wanted to play with the finger puppet.

Perspectives

March was hard for me the first couple of years after I moved to Minnesota. In Washington, D.C., where I had lived before, by the end of March it is firmly Spring, with the cherry blossoms blooming and all. In Minnesota, March is not what I would have called the beginning of Spring. Sure, it is no longer subzero. Sure, the snow has started to melt. Sure, we see liquid precipitation for the first time in *months*. However, 45 and rainy wasn't Spring to me. In D.C., that would be called "winter." I love living in Minnesota, but March was hard.

It is funny how one acclimates. This year I realized that it has been several years since I thought of March in that way. March *is* the beginning of Spring here--the beginning of Spring just means something different than being able to go outside in a light jacket. It means that the harshest part of winter is over, that the snow has started to melt, and that the temperatures are no longer subzero. The promise of the long, lovely actual Spring and the mellow Upper-Midwestern summer is there*. The days are getting lighter and lighter. The promise of easier weather is still there, and that is what Spring is about, here.

Even today, when it is wet and 45 degrees.

*Everyone who has not lived in a place like D.C. in the summer who lives in Minnesota can shut up right now about how "hot" the summers here get. They are just lovely, and not generally very hot or humid at all. The days are pleasingly warm, and the evening are pleasingly cool. And the other people who agree with me but wish for "real" summers? You are insane. I bet you have mostly encountered "real" heat in places that don't get very humid.

It's about damn time.

The Executive Branch has a lot of control over how laws are implemented. No matter how well- or clearly-written a bill is (and they are rarely either), rules have to be promulgated based on the law and there is a whole, long process between the passage of a bill and the implementation of that bill, during which there is a whole lot of room for interpretation.

However. The use of signing statements to guide that implementation as a regular step has not only ended, Bush's signing statements are being undermined as much as is possible.

(What? You thought I would just be throwing up baby pictures and videos forever? Sometimes my brain still works.)

Heh.

My child? Looks like Plastic Man in this (crappy, cellphone) picture:

Far be it from me to imply that my child is not the most fascinating, interesting one-year-old in the world.

However: really, Internets? Of all of the videos of V I have put up on YouTube, this one:



is the one that has been viewed many more times (still only 44 views, so it isn't viral or anything, but the ones with more views have been up for months and pretty much have demographics indicating that they were viewed in places where we know people) than the other videos I uploaded at the same time, and by people all over the US, in Chile, Saudi Arabia, Japan, Hong Kong, Mexico, Spain and Thailand?

One amusing note: apparently a Japanese blog has linked to it, and the other links on the blog are mostly to videos of a bunny rabbit. I don't know any more, because my browser won't display the characters (not that I read Japanese, anyway, but with the Internet Tubes at my disposal I might have deciphered some of it).