Pleasantness

Yesterday, Aislin was such a wonderful baby. She was very pleasant and only cried a few times. When she did cry, she had very discernible concerns that I was able to meet. She took some naps, but even when she was awake, she just cooed when I couldn't play with her. It was a very nice day, considering she's teething.

Lately, she's been more difficult. She now has a tooth on her lower jaw, so that's super exciting. That excitement is countered by her mood. She's been very difficult. That seems to have passed for the moment, though.

Last night, she slept very well. The night before that, she slept even better. The night before that, she didn't sleep at all. It's a much better situation now.

We've been trying to prepare for our trip to Canada this Saturday to visit Kate's grandparents. This is our first time traveling with our baby; all of our previous journeys with babies have been both generally unpleasant and concerning babies that aren't ours. They were either crying or kicking our seat. Aislin won't be like that though. Not if she keeps up this pleasantness.

Yesterday, she was so pleasant I even got some transcribing done. Peggy sent me a file on an e-mail, and I downloaded it to my computer desktop and started working on it. I was about 40 pages in when I decided to move the file into the proper folder. When I opened the file again to make sure it moved okay, it was blank. I freaked out. After a few phone calls and about an hour of panic, I finally found a back up file that had most of my work on it. So I think we're good now, but it was scary. And frustrating. I'd never had anything like this happen.

Lately Kate and I have found the joy that is Modern Family. Yeah, it's been around for a year now, but we just found it. It's funny stuff. Didn't know.

The horizon isn't as far as you think

I haven't written in a long time. There are a couple of reasons. I've been busy in body and mind.

It seems like as soon as Aislin develops a recognizable pattern, she breaks it. Lately, she's been sleeping through the night (mostly), she takes a short morning nap, a short afternoon nap, normally eats around 9:00 AM, about half an hour after Kate goes back to work after lunch, and then again around 3:00. Around 5:30 she gets hungry again, but Kate's almost home so I just try to distract her.

Aislin rolls with relative ease now. She'll be lying on her back and roll onto her side, then she'll be on her belly. The way she moves, it's as if she knows how to crawl already -- she's just not strong enough yet to do it. She lifts her head as high as she can, kicks a little -- trying to find purchase, and sometimes she moves a little. So far, she's kept at it for a few minutes and then screamed in frustration. She's also chewing her toes a lot. She's been doing that for a while. She doesn't laugh reliably. She's giggled, and now both Kate and I have made her make a laugh-like sound, but most of the time she just coos with a big smile on her face when she should be laughing.

Over the weekend, Kate and I looked at our finances. Always a depressing activity. Still, I paid off a loan completely that I'd been working on for a few years. That was nice. Also, over the weekend it was Talk Like a Pirate day, so the Monkey Island games were super cheap. The classic ones are normally $10, but they were on sale for $5. The newer ones are normally $35, but they were also on sale for $5. This is a big deal because Kate loves adventure games that test your wit and puzzle-solving capabilities over your reflexes, like King's Quest, and these games are totally in that ilk. So I bought 'em. She's been enjoying them.

I've been trying to find a new place for us to live, but as the last person I called said to me, "this is the absolute worst time to try to find a place." I'm pretty furious with our owner. I'm not angry with our property management group at all; they've been super friendly and sympathetic. The person who owns our building, though... He has our building painted and raises our monthly rent $150. That's expensive paint. Comparatively speaking, I'm sure we still have it pretty cheap compared to what some are paying, but it's far out of our budget for us. Whatever. We'll just move and it'll be fine. Still, it would have been nice to have our rent raised at some time when there are actually apartments available in Corvallis. A lot of things would have been nice.

I think it says a lot when the highlight of my week was doing laundry with Ted.

Misadventures and Baby Laughter

Just sort of catching up. There are a few things that I need to tell all of you, I guess, but nothing really ground-breaking. Well maybe. I don't know. Enough stalling. Here goes.

Aislin has made a few landmarks lately. First off, she's sucking her toes. More often than not, she'll grab her foot but get distracted before it gets to her mouth. Sometimes though, she'll start sucking away. It's pretty cute -- except when her feet are grubby and stinky. Then it's kind of gross. Still, it's a developmental landmark.

The other day, I was changing Aislin's clothes and I started tickling her. One great thing about having a beard is that babies find it really ticklish. So I was tickling her belly and she totally laughed. It was short-lived, but I totally heard it. I stand by it, even after I've showed Kate and she says she's heard her do that before and it doesn't really count. She laughed. And it was because of me. Booyah.

On the working front, transcribing work is pouring in. So that's good. Also, I got a call last week from a guy who needed someone to type up his letters. He didn't have access to a computer, and he was writing a letter to a judge so he needed it to look as professional as possible. He lived a ways away, but it was work. I drove out there and picked up his letters. I began to think it wasn't such a great idea. First of all, his place was a mess. I'm uncomfortable around new people anyway, but this guy kind of scared me. The letter was easy enough to type though, so I did it up and got it back to him. I undercharged him, but I was okay with it as long as we parted ways. Then this past week, he called me again and expressed how happy he was with my work, and wanted to employ me again. It was work, so I agreed. We also agreed that I needed to be charged more. This time, he was working at a friend's place doing yard work for $5 an hour. First, I went to the wrong house and walked up the front walk. There was a dead decomposing mouse on the walk that yellow jackets were feasting on, and it creeped me out. Turns out it was the wrong house, but it's an appropriate metaphor. I met the guy's friend, and he called himself "the sane one." Yeah, ominous right? To be "the sane one" implies there's someone around who's insane. Well. I got these letters from my employer and typed them up. They scared me. It was as if they were written for another part of himself. They were a stream of consciousness that bounced off the loose screws. When I got these pages back to him, I told him I was falling behind on my transcribing so I couldn't do this anymore. He took it well, I think. We shook hands, and then he said "I guess I'll just have to rip down all your signs on campus, then." I laughed, shrugged, got in my car and drove the heck away. He paid me, but it was then that I remembered a policy regarding my freelance editing: if they can't e-mail it to me, we can't do business.

It's sad how this blog is supposed to be all about my time with daughter, but on posts like this I breeze right over her and talk about my misadventures with crazy people. As soon as Aislin does things as convoluted and involved as a crazy person, I'll tell you all about it. I promise.

Post Labor Day Sale!

Happy Labor Day (belated) everyone! I hope everyone had a good three-day weekend.

As is common with most vacations, I didn't get as much done as I wanted. My dad had been wanting to work on the dog run all summer, and he and I punched it out this weekend. In years past, the rainy season (Fall-Spring) would wreak havoc on it, and Sage would have to jump over huge puddles to get into her house. Not so anymore. We hope. Now, there's a drainage pipe beneath a foundation of treated 4 x 4s and paving stones. It looks much nicer. The hardest part, in my opinion, was getting the stinking thing level. After struggling with it, I admitted to Dad that it probably didn't have to be TOTALLY level -- I mean, she's a good dog and all, but... Anyway, it's done now.

For Labor Day, our friends Julia and Sam came over for breakfast and ended up staying for a late lunch. It was great hanging out with them. Also, Kate and I had learned that Dutch Bros was having a special: $1 for any drink any size. So they brought us coffee, too. They also brought their son, Colin. Previously, Colin and Aislin didn't get along as well as we had hoped. Colin thought Aislin was the bees knees, but Aislin wasn't impressed. This time, they got along swimmingly. There were pictures taken.

I've been doing some transcribing, and I recently got another editing job, so our financial situation is totally looking up. Also, I've found some apartments and some duplexes for rent, so we might be able to move before they raise our current payments. So encouragement abounds. Oh nuts. I forgot to go to Bi-mart for Lucky Number Tuesday. Well, it's not too late. I better be off. First I'll see about uploading some pictures.