deird_lj

I think I'm going to have to start devouring children's pop culture, just so I can talk to my nephews.

Yesterday, Caleb told me he'd watched Rack, Shack, and Benny. (From Veggietales.)

I know from experience that "Really? What happened in the story?" will get nothing but blank looks. But having seen R,S,&B multiple times, I could instantly ask "Really? Did they sing the Bunny Song?" and other intelligent questions.

This presents a problem. Because eventually, they're going to be watching/reading/whatevering things that I've never heard of - and I'll be back to "what happened?" and blank looks.

I can see myself avidly watching the latest Power Rangers equivalent...

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- Voted in an election that still has no result. Apparently, our country has no firm opinions, and can't decide who we want in charge.

- Went to a birthday dinner for my sister. Three excitable nephews, LOTS of pasta, and a nice time. Also, the boyfriend met the rest of my family. :)

- Abandoned the new novel I'm halfway through, and picked up an Agatha Christie novel I've read several times. Had just got to the first murder (strangled girl guide) when I remembered that I'm actually trying to learn Latin and haven't looked at it for a while. Abandoned murder mystery before the second murder (drowned grandfather) and turned to Latin accusative forms - and then realised the second murder is where the whole thing gets interesting, and returned to Agatha Christie.
I seem to be indecisive...

- When I got home last night, Smudge (the kitten) came running to the door, realised it was me, and walked off disappointed. He's definitely a one-woman-cat.

- Played Knightmare Chess with the boyfriend today, who beat me very quickly - despite the fact that I'd ended up with 4 queens.

- Am halfway through House season 6. I think this might end up being my favourite season of the show. It's brilliant.

- Next weekend, by hook or by crook, I am getting new plants for my garden and planting them where the Evil Roses Of Doom have been sitting. It's spring, and I need my pretty flowers!

NICE: playing with Caleb, and having him decide that opening a toy car's doors would make the car into an aeroplane.

NICE: feeding chooks with Caleb, reading books with Caleb, and pretty much anything else I did with Caleb this morning.

NOT NICE: cleaning up the many dishes left by Caleb, after he went home.

NICE: seeing boyfriend.

NOT NICE: having boyfriend go home to study.

NICE: eating sticky-date pudding, and patting two purring cats.

NOT NICE: picking up far too many chairs at my church, carrying them to another room for a few hours, then carrying them all back again.

NICE: coming home to two still-purring cats.

Overall? A good day.

Caleb is coming here to spend the night, tonight.

The poor boy will probably be horribly confused - because, after all, this is Nan and Pa's house. Except Nan and Pa aren't here and Auntie Deird is here instead, and WHAT IS UP WITH THE WORLD????

I anticipate fun and loveliness, though. :)

Very busy day.

( yesterday ...with footnotes )

The reason for all the packing? My parents are going to America for two weeks, and I'm housesitting for them.

I am now sleeping in my old bed, cooking in my old kitchen, and feeling eerily teenagered.

My cat is NOT happy with this sudden relocating, and is running around meowing in upset tones. This is impossible to sleep through - and the reason I was up before 6 this morning...

Last night, Caleb read The Cat In The Hat Comes Back to me - half through reading it, and half through memorising bits.

*is proud*

There was also a long discussion of language, in which we decided that apostrophology should be a new branch of science, dedicated to finding the shapes of punctuation in star constellations.

Spent this evening watching Frasier, and eating mini M&M's. Life is good. :)

Friday: Got to see a slightly sick Caleb, and play board games in front of a fire until it was far too late to be awake.

Saturday: Made apple muffins. Shared apple muffins with family - including Alex, who steadfastly insisted that he didn't want one, until he suddenly realised we liked them so much that we'd eaten them all. Then he demanded that I make more.

Saturday evening: Went to a housewarming, mostly consisting of people I didn't know. Had just settled down in front of the bonfire when it started raining... *sighs* Still, got enough firey goodness to be going on with.

(Really, I should just move into a house with a fireplace and light a fire every night. They're so nice.)

Sunday: Went to church - twice. Got to hear the same sermon twice (but once as a "here is an illustration for married-people-with-kids to relate to" and once as "here is a similar illustration for unmarried-people-in-uni to relate to"). Got food after both services. (Very yummy.) Also walked around the neighbourhood - which was nice, and scenic, but also freezing.

So... good. Busy, but good. :)

Apparently I have SUPERPOWERED WOMAN HEARING.

It's that whole thing about how men wake up at the sounds of snapping twigs, and women wake up at the sound of a crying baby. I knew about it, theoretically speaking, but have never had the opportunity to see if it was true. Being the youngest in the family, I have never ever been in a situation where someone else called out for me in the middle of the night... until now.

( much nephewy goodness )

I've discovered that I own really cool bath-toys.

Yesterday, I was fairly convinced that I didn't own any. Especially since I've never actually bought any. But the boys requested bath-toys, so I went in search - and realised that the plastic building squares (that slot into each other to build interesting towers) are actually hollow, and would therefore float around the bath.

So I presented them with a bunch of building squares.

(I say "squares" because they are actually square rather than circular - but they're not solid square shapes. They sort of look like donuts. If donuts had corners.)

Anyway, I expected the boys to float them in the bath, and possibly wave them around a bit. Alex, on the other hand, is way more inventive than me, and instantly started building interestingly-shaped towers and then floating them around.

They work really well!

...in other news, Caleb and Alex are spending the night at my house. We are having a fabulous time, and have made an incredible mess.

Currently, I'm listening to them pretending to be asleep but actually talking in whispers in the belief that I can't hear. I'm giving them two minutes, and then I'm getting stern.
*practices stern face*

Yesterday Caleb discovered my walking stick and asked what it was.

So I explained how it worked, and demonstrated by holding it and hobbling along slowly going "Oh, my poor leg," in a very theatrical way.

Of course, Caleb promptly had to try the same thing. Not really caring that the walking stick was taller than he is:

(This included the "Oh, my poor leg" whimpers, by the way.)

( four photos )

...that's all, really. :)

1) That storm is still going. We're now onto Thunder Round 3, still accompanied by huge amounts of rain. No more hail, though.

2) It really bugs me that everyone who's ever talked about it thinks that Whitehat is about Nancy retaining her memories of the Wishverse afterwards.
It's actually set in early season 2 - which I've given clues to by having Larry still being a jerk. And everyone apparently thinks it's in season 3 and that Larry's just being a jerk because I wasn't paying attention... *sighs*

3) Caleb has started saying "Mum" and "Dad" instead of "Mummy" and "Daddy". This is weirding me out.

4) In preparing for yet more storm I went candle hunting, and discovered a huge supply of candles I'd never realised I had. I don't even remember buying them...

5) In season 5 of AtS, I agree much less (than the other seasons) with Angel's decisions, but still sympathise with him much more. Anyone else have similar reactions?

6) I now know many interesting facts about the Battle of Vienna. This editing course has unexpected side-benefits.

I'm back in the land of the living!

For the last few days, my life has consisted of short bursts of activity followed by long stretches of sleep. Acting shouldn't be this exhausting, it really shouldn't...

But as of this morning, things are back to normal, and I can finally start answering all the email I got last week.

Also:
- Josh has discovered the delight of taking my glasses off my face and getting them covered in fingerprints. A nuisance, but so cute!

- I'm trying to write two fanfics, and not doing very well. Need plotbunnies, dammit.

- Having mints and then tea makes the tea taste like coffee. Bleargh. Horrifying.

- Happy Birthday to

washa_way and (belatedly) to

dreamincolor! You guys rock!

- Trying to convince myself I really can afford to go to Writercon UK. After all, getting to England can't be that expensive...

- Editing course starts this evening. I'm excited, but slightly intimidated.

Today was Caleb's birthday party.

( photos under here )

I saw my sister's family the other day, and my sister asked Caleb if he could remember what bees do. (ie - go to flowers, get nectar, go home, make honey...)

He couldn't remember what nectar was called, and settled on "special juice!" before his mummy reminded him.

Then later...
"...and then, Auntie Deird, they go to the flowers and get the special juice."
"Really? How interesting!" (says Auntie Deird, in a fascinated voice) "And do you remember what the special juice is?"
"...special juice."
"And what's the name of the special juice, Caleb?"
"It's called special juice."
"Yes, but do you remember what Mummy called it?"
"...juice?"

When I got home, I found a pigeon sitting on the windowsill, smugly taunting my cat, who kept shrieking and trying to throw himself through the window, in a vain attempt at bird catching. In retrospect, it's probably a good thing that the window was in the way - he'd either have caught the bird, and left me with a big pile of bloody feathers to clean up, or have failed, and spent the whole night sulking.

- "Auntie Maz, I missed you when we went on holidays." (Auntie Maz's heart expands to about fifty times its size...)

- "WHY?" .....at least 80 times.

- A very serious conversation about mosquitoes, and mosquito bites ("But why do they bite?"), and how mosquitoes eat people's blood ("Why do they?"), and how really, if they're going to bite people, they deserve "walloping" before they get to bite you.

- Many explanations about how he can do more stuff than Caleb, because Caleb's younger than Alex is, and Alex is already three.

- More explanations about how it's fun sitting up high, because then he can swing his legs. Also, "then I can see grown-up's faces, and not just their legs".

My nephew is rather awesome to talk to.

So, what have I been up to for the last week or so?

1) Christmas shopping. Finally got it all done, and then discovered on the day that I'd bought Alex the same present as Mum had - so I have to return one of them.

2) Christmas celebratoryness. Otherwise known as a church thing, a family thing, another church thing, another family thing, yet another family thing, and an ungainly collapse.

3) SLEEP. Yesterday I was still taking a three hour nap in the middle of the day... but as of today, I think I'm actually back to normal.

4) Nephew-sitting. Which included supervising two little boys, who have decided that the best part of bath time is getting to throw water at each other. (I also had to smack Alex for the first time ever at one point, which made me feel horribly guilty, even though it was the right thing to do. But he started crying, and looked so horrified, and... *guilts*)

5) Watching Josh almost walk by himself. He's so close! Any second now he's going to be walking without any help from anyone.

6) Having my housemate leave. She's decided to move back in with her parents. So I'm by myself again...

7) Trying very hard to come up with a fanfic for this week's challenge. And failing. I am idea-less.

8) Doing cross-stitch. (I am SO SICK of stitching in brown and yellow.)

9) Staying indoors, where it's vaguely cool. Outside, it's 36 degrees (97 F).

10) Watching episodes of Big Bang Theory, and laughing hysterically.

To my sisters:

You are both utterly wonderful.

And you know why? Because you did not name your eldest sons Ceryn and Failcat. For which I will be forever grateful.

*dreamt about crappily-named nephews last night, and woke up sweating*

Alex loves playing games (such as dominoes) and gets very stern with me when I don't play them the right way.

Caleb insists on me sitting next to him while he watches A Bugs Life, so that he can tell me all about it. ("Now there's the mean bugs. See - the mean bugs. They're very nasty, Auntie Deird...")

Josh recognises his own name and smiles whenever I say it.

*is rather besotted*

I currently look like I should be in a sixties tv show, where all the girls have hugely curly and exciting hair.

Seriously. Look at this:
( fun hairstyles, and pirates )

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October 2010

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Entries tagged with nephew love

conversational issues

This Weekend

summary

babysitting!

stuff

smart nephew

In summary...

Superhearing, and other fun things.

Sleepover!

New Concepts

Cute boy, and cute kitties.

Some Randomness

Catching Up

Cute Nephews!

fun evening

Today's Conversations With Alex:

I'm Back! (in a non-commentaryish way...)

BAD dream

Nephew Update

Freaky Hairstyle and Fun Day