Riley and Avery

Yes, that's Avery in the bath! Happy! She actually asked to get in the tub with Riley a few days ago. She wouldn't sit down, and stood and played for a while. Then she got a little nervous, and asked to be washed so that she could get out. She whimpered a little during her washing, but apparently saw it as a necessary evil if her goal was to get out. The next day, she asked all day long to take a bath. I put her off until bedtime, when she had a huge glob of glue in her hair and glue smeared all over her body, and she actually sat and played in the tub for a looooong time! She was splashing and throwing water all around. She cooperated with me washing her, and only wanted to get out after she poured water over her own head and over her face. Hopefully she won't regress. I'm almost afraid to try another bath in case it's all too good to be true...

So this is what I have waiting for me when I got home from school one day. Rudi admitted that the girls had been quiet for a rather unusual length of time, and this is what he found...


Needless to say, I was none too pleased!

So Riley had her birthday ceremony at school. She had a lot of fun and Avery absolutely adores Riley's school. During the ceremony, Avery was sitting in a chair next to me and she wrapped her arms around my waist and said "Love you!" for the first time! Afterwards, Riley said "all that attention made me feel so special for the first time ever!"

Yesterday, Riley wrote a bunch of music notes on a piece of paper, and sang me a song that went like this: "I love you no matter what. You are an angel. I love you, especially when you're nice!" That was so stinkin' cute.

Rudi has a prostate biopsy six days ago and has been laying on the couch since then. Literally on the couch all day and night long. Still bleeding. He did go to Blockbuster last night and it caused him to bleed some more, so now he is getting worried. It's really not that much blood, but it really should have stopped by now. We'll see how it is for the rest of today and I'll call the clinic tomorrow if it hasn't stopped. They told him that he should take it easy for two days (which translates to "sleep all day" in Rudi-speak) but it's been six says. So yeah, I'm worried, but if there's one thing I know about our relationship is that we can't both be openly worried about the same thing. So I'll have to pretend that it's no biggie, otherwise he'd think he were dying. They did take 14 samples, though, so that could be the reason. Last time they took four.

With Rudi convalescing on the couch for nearly a week, the house has gotten really messy. I'm just all thrown off. It seems like I'm making food for either the girls or Rudi all of the time. Somebody's always putting in an order. I try to pick up between, but can never seem to get anywhere. Add to that school work for the new semester and I'm feeling over-extended. And I feel that I haven't spent a quality minute with either of the girls for a really long time. I catch myself always asking them to wait one more minute, or perpetually saying "maybe later." I think tomorrow I will try to stay off the computer. Homework can wait. I do have another blog that I want to post, but I'll probably do that after the girls go to bed. I need to reconnect with my girlies!

So, it's been a while...Well two exciting things happened today. Riley said "I hate you, Mom" for the first time. That made my day. And then Avery called Riley a "poopy head." I can't say that it wasn't justified. Ah, life with a 4yo and a 2yo. Whose idea was this?

School started on Monday. I had Introduction to Cultural Anthropology on Monday and I really like the instructor and I think I'll really enjoy the class. There's a lot of room to explore topics of particular interest to each student. We have several small papers on any topic of our choice. I'm seeing visions of "The Urbanization of Traditional Peoples and the Loss of the Babywearing Culture" or "That's What Boobs Are For?: Public Breastfeeding in America" and I'd like to delve into oral traditions among indigenous people as it relates to storytelling for children. Hmmm....I might need to take more anthropology courses! I really like the professor, a jolly and funny overweight woman. I tend to be irritated by really small things that people can't really help, and this teacher sounded a little out of breath just from talking, and I thought that would annoy me. It did at first, but I really got to like her anyway. Yeah, I'm irritable and judgmental, get over it.

I had a paralegal class today. Contracts. Woo-hoo. The professor is pretty interesting and funny, so perhaps he can liven up a boring topic. His lips and teeth and diction are exactly like Napoleon Dynamite's. And he has the same flat sense of humor. It shouldn't be too bad. It's got to be better than Legal Ethics. That was so stinkin' boring. Tomorrow I have Family Law, which shouldn't be too bad. I was supposed to take three paralegal classes this semester, but I just couldn't add Legal Research to Contracts in one semester. I'd die from boredom. So Legal Research will have to wait. No biggie.

I've logged on to my Indians of North America class, but only a little reading so far. We were asked to introduce ourselves and the instructor (the same one I have for Intro to Anthropology) asked us if we had any native american ancestry. I was one of the first to post and made fun of those white people who constantly mention that they are 1/32 Cherokee (always Cherokee) in their adoptive father's side. Those people really really annoy me. And why is it always Cherokee? Are they the new "in" people to pretend that you're descended from? When white people think of Native Americans, are the Cherokee the only people that they can think of? Is the Trail of Tears such a "romantic" historical event that people just wish that they could be related, to claim a part of something that isn't theirs? So that they can put their curly blond hair into braids and dance at a pow-wow, unaware, as white people so often are, that they are being highly offensive by doing so? Gosh, people, give it a rest. Well, sure enough a woman posted an introduction the next day and said that her great grandfather was half Cherokee, or something like that. Barf.

Okay, I can see that I'm full of sarcasm and venom today. I don't know why. I'm actually in a really good mood. I'll post again tomorrow after Riley's birthday ceremony at school.

These are pictures taken specifically at Avery's request. "Pictures Grandma!" she said and insisted on inspecting every shot. She also asked to put clothes on since she knows that Grandma likes clothed pictures, but we were heading up to take a bath so I vetoed that. I'll blog more later, but I'm trying to get off the computer to do some housework