Preludes And Nocturnes

I used my christmas crafty money from Jim to get some watercolor pens I had been eyeing up for weeks, and then I took a class at the store on some techniques. I had not thought to use stamps and then to colour them in with watercolor, but here is my first real attempt with one of my favorite stamps:

And then I moved on to try some doodles of my own freestyle. I was trying to figure out how the pens would blend and how to get differnt effects with colour concentrations and so on. Plus, just kinda goofing around.

This was tonight’s work. I am having so much fun! The first one I had troubles with getting muddy and controling the water content (plus I was working rather quickly at mom and dad’s as they amused Malcolm). But the second one I got to play around more with the water content and using paper towel and a clean brush to soak up extra liquid.

And here’s the toof picture. Please note that today when I finally got into the mouth of the beeb (he has been very careful about not letting us in there for days), I found a SECOND toof!  The buckets of drool make much more sense now, yes?

Toofs!

I think this ‘do deserves two pictures, yes?

It is now super thick and much much more blond, like his daddy.  He has kept the blue eyes, too.  Also like his daddy.  Good thing there is no questioning the mother’s link to the kid - what with her dark hair and brown eyes…

So did I mention that I’ve had PPD?  I’ve been on anti-depressants and they totally help out. All praise them drugs. But the worst of the anxiety leaks into my brain as I go to drift off to sleep.  I hate it!  Last night my brain decided to think about how much it would have sucked if when we crossed the border to the States if they had taken Jim and I into custody and made us leave Malcolm alone in the car.  Yep. That is what my brain does at 11:03pm when left on its own. I got going on trying to get back to Malcolm and saying that we would just go back to Canada. They wouldn’t listen. They were leaving him in the car and dragging us away.

Stupid brain!!

And stupid border guards!

The rest of the time I’m all good.  No worries.

It is going okay. But I think we don’t really REALLY qualify as we’re kinda just hitting one full-time job between the two of us (outside job) and then sharing the one full-time job at home together.  I like having a clear reason to put on pants three days a week. I like my classes. I like seeing people at work again. But I miss the boys when I’m out.

It is nice, though, to get greeted on those three days when I return home.  Malcolm does his happy feet boom boom boom and flaps his arms.  There is sometimes also a squee noise (I don’t think that one is Jim).

Classes have pretty much settled into place. I teach one after the other and that is fairly effective. I try to get most of my prep done at school, but then spend a few evenings a week working at home.  I’m doing something new this term. Two of the three major papers for the class are being written in-class.  The first is at the end of this month and we’ll have one class to write, one class I’ll hand the papers back out to be peer edited by someone else in the room, and the final class that week to re-write.  This means they’ll will have to produce the whole body of work right then and there - but they still get the time to edit and think about things at home.

I hope this helps avoid some of the sloppy plagiarism issues of the past. Times that were not cut and dry - but when students could not resist getting a bit too much help from Mr. Internet (or their “tutor”).  Their final research paper is being completed in the final exam time period.  They will be able to bring in a detailed outline and ten pages of photocopied research (directly from books or articles). They will have to write the actual paper in three hours and everything is handed in at the end.

I will let you all know how this goes. I’m hopeful.

And here is some beebers for you all:

And here is everyone hanging out while I put away Malcolm’s clothes in his room (you know, the room he doesn’t sleep in yet but that is all set up with all his stuff…) The Bears have decided that since Malcolm isn’t yet using his crib, they would keep it warm for him until he switches into that room. Rupert just thinks every bed is his.

Malcolm thought this all was too much fun!

Ruper says, “not as much fun as a BAG in a PAN on the COUNTER!”

This morning Malcolm turned 8 months. And while chewing on my finger as we lounged about in bed for a few minutes this morning, I felt his first toof!  It has just got the three little bumps poking through, and I looked in and could see the white of it.

Very exciting!

And very weird.  All of a sudden this toof - of all things - is telling me that he is a kid. A person. He is going to get teeth, and grow even taller, and start walking, and talking, and become a real boy.  I don’t know why the tooth is doing this to me, but I’m gobsmacked.  We made a person!  With teeth!  (Well, a toof.)

In other news, it was kitty death match 2009 last night. Malcolm and I came downstairs and there were no kitty greetings.  We then heard a little mew that said, “I’m trapped!”  We walk around the corner and the powder room door is closed. They have done this 4-5 times now. When we go out of town, we leave something to block the door from closing.  But we don’t think to do this each night.

They get going with the kitty-smack-down and tumble into the bathroom. Then they hit the door and close it.  THE CAGE - ONLY ONE WILL EMERGE!

Well, yeah, they both get to come out. But they leave behind about one whole cat in hair.  Chuck comes out to pee right away, Rupert eats.  Rupert doesn’t need to pee as badly because he pees in the sink.

*sigh*

Beeb
Beebers
Beebers McBeeb, Millionaire
Monkey
Monkey-butt
Monkey-Baby
Monkey-Beebers
Malcolm-Bear
Malcolm-Boo-Bear
Beeberama
Sweetie-monkey
The Hairless Cat (that is when we are voicing the opinion of Orange Cat about this new member of the household)

Also in the household we have:

Monkey-Kitty

The Orange Cat

Rupert J Rupert (the J stands for Rupert because he can’t spell)

Rupert J Rupert, Millionaire (he owns a mansion and a yacht)

The Rupertine Rabbit

Rupertous Jones and the Temple of Doom

Roop Roop

Chuck Norris

Chuck-a-boo

And:

Mamamamama

Dadadadada (please note, this is what Jim and I will call each other ‘for’ Malcolm - he pretty much just grunts at us still)

They need to make drive-thru shopping centre.  Today, for example, I would drive-thru for the following:

*A curtain rod

*Some masking tape

*Salad greens

*A seven foot white finished kitchen storage pantry

I don’t want to get out of the car. I want to drive up, give them my cc, sign, and (at the next window) have them load it into my car.  I don’t mind driving to the four different stores I’d need to go to. I just don’t want to get Malcolm out of the car, into his stroller, through the store, get help getting stuff out to the car, yadda yadda.

Of course, one could probably point out I was willing to do all of that this morning to buy the four tops from the clothing store.  But given that yesterday was my second day teaching this week and tomorrow will be my third and I had a tough time finding an outfit YESTERDAY, I needed four new tops.  Plus, hello, 30% off of sale prices meant they were $7 each. And pretty.  I bought a cute little 3/4 sleeve top button jacket (what is this called.. you know what I mean, the poofy 1950s inspired jackets) that I wore this week. I looked so stylin.

I should make a paint picture of how I looked.

We’ve all continued with the sickness. We went to the doctor, and he was awesome. Said it was the right thing to do to bring Malcolm in - and that he was fine. He was sick, yes - but we were doing things right.  True to form, his cough got much better in the day after the doctor visit.  But both of us are still coughing a fair bit, and life has narrowed down to getting the basics done.

Started back to work yesterday. I am very happy, but really tired. As such, my sinuses are killing me today and strange colourful things keep coming from my nose.

But all in all, Malcolm is feeling better each day and that makes us happy. A sick beeb is quite horrid!  Poor little monkey. Here he is getting a present from Auntie Carmen!  He LOVES his pooh bear (and licking things).

Thanks you to everyone who sent us Christmas cards!  We didn’t get any out this year for many reasons. But we had plans for this whole e-photo card thing.  I hope it works out next year.

Jim is beeb-wrangling three days a week and having a good time with it all.  They seem to have loads of fun. My brain is too stuffy for me to think of witty little stories to tell you all - but they are there. Somewhere.  I promise.

To anyone who still has an address of ours starting with A 4211, please let me know. I need to get to you a new location.

xoxo And, in all, HI!!!