Mish Mash

An assortment of things to report. I think I have a good story in here somewhere too, but I can't think what it is right now.

I worked the weekend, and so today is my day off. Sprout and I spent the morning getting groceries and hanging out at the swimming pool. Lawson has a 10-4 Parents and Tots swim on Mondays, which is great. I had to drag him away at 12:30 so we could have lunch, and in a rare move, he fell asleep in the car on the way home. He never does that any more, so I'm having a nice quiet lunch all by myself.

At the risk of sounding extremely dull, I must report that the City is digging up the street again. This makes once this week, twice last week, and twice the week before. The Pollyanna side: it wasn't an emergency this time, so they were able to warn us and we could fill up some pots.

Tomorrow, a colleague and I are doing a computer program in the lab on 'Searching the Invisible Web'. I'm excited (the spots in this program filled up in 3 hours, so we've hit our target!), but cautious at the prospect of doing a new program for the first time.

The grandchild has a name, finally: Elliot. I may have spelled that wrong, since his parents ARE from Vancouver. Perhaps it is Eliot, or Ellioteh ('eh' silent), or Helioaghthhhg!r (most letters silent). Just kidding. We're going out to see them in March, and that's going to be great. Sprout will really like travelling on the airplane. Whether we can get him to sit in his seat for two hours straight is another question.

He's doing really great on the potty these days. There was a week where he was doing great at daycare but absolutely refusing to go here, but that was the few days before his chicken pox emerged. Jim was right: he was just all-over cranky.

Sprout is also just ebbing out of three solid weeks of "I don't wanna". You name it. "I don't wanna go potty." "I don't wanna eat Cheerios." "I don't wanna have a bath." "I don't wanna get out of the bathtub." "I don't wanna put on my coat." "I don't wanna go in the house."

This three-week stint was preceded by the "I am a water buffalo" phase. Anything you asked him, he would say "Yes." "Are you hungry?" "Yes." "Do you want to wear the green shirt or the red shirt?" "Yes." "Can you fly?" "Yes." "Are you a water buffalo?" "Yes."

He turns two this week. I can't believe it. He's so big and yet so little. And so sticky! We have this great book about Arnie the Doughnut. At some point, Arnie has convinced his owner not to eat him, but to keep him around instead. He has to have something to do and they hit on the idea that he can be the man's Doughnut Dog. So Arnie the Doughnut Dog runs around the yard keeping watch, barking, etc., and the neighbours come by, pet him, and say things like, "You're so sticky, yes you are!" Whenever I croon, "Sprout, you're so sticky!", he says, "I not so sticky!" And we laugh. It's our little thing we do.

Aunt Frieda is coming in for Sprout's birthday, which always puts a dangerous edge on things. Auntie F likes to document everything with photography, including 'pose Sprout with the toy I bought him', so she can go home and pretend to her coffee buddies, with accompanying pictures, that we're a big happy family. Hmm.

Ooh, remind me to tell you the 'Ass Wednesday' story. Since Lent is upon us. Now that's small-town Saskatchewan at its finest, boy howdy.

I had one of those alternate universe conversations with a guy at the reference desk the other day. He wanted help finding information on stem cell research and human tissue regeneration. He made sense for the first ten minutes, but then it drifted the moment he started to get chatty. "This ties right into genealogy," he said. "Do you really think so," I queried, with a severe nose crinkle. "Yeah, stem cell research and the study of genes go hand in hand," he said. I corrected him on that one, but started to give up when the "Maybe we should look for 'immunology' too, since tissue regeneration would work better if your body is strong." "Perhaps 'immune system' is closer to what you mean, instead of the study of vaccines?" I squeaked gently. He was a nice fellow, but the vocabulary was hard to follow.

Enough of that. Patrons. What would we do without them.

I am desperate to rearrange all the furniture in the house, but we need to build some sort of Sprout-proof television cabinet first. We have a long-term plan to build a set of fir shelves for books and the T.V., but we need a current workaround. I need a change. Spring fever, I suppose. I'm thinking of taking up the Flylady's schedule, since housework and household beauty is starting to escape me altogether. She has some really good ideas. I've never embraced the schedule altogether, but even a bit of it might help.

I'm stopping now. I haven't even one more small disjointed bit of news to report.