grimsaburger

Over the Thanksgiving holiday, Nuala became a lot more purposefully vocal. Usually, she just babbles and yells at her toys, and occasionally at me and Spouse, but she found herself a good target Thanksgiving evening.  Maybe it’s her cousin D’s red hair; maybe it’s that he’s a smaller version of the people she’s used to [...]

To work up to that ungodly distance I’m planning on running in the spring, I have to run 3x a week.  Any more, I found out a couple years ago, and my body starts protesting with injuries.  Any less, and I simply won’t be able to make it.  So I’m back on the Tuesday-Thursday-Sunday runs [...]

In the last several days, Nuala has started making syllables.  It is incredibly cute, and incredibly funny as well, since she draws the corners of her mouth down like she’s a ventriloquist dummy when she does her “bwah bwah bwah.”  I don’t know where that’s coming from.  I especially love the “bwah bwah bwah” whispers, [...]

The American Academy of Pediatrics, as well as most breastfeeding-friendly experts, say to breastfeed exclusively for six months.  Nuala’s pediatrician, as well as the ubiquitous advice of Dr. Sears, says to introduce solids when the baby’s ready, sometime between 4 and 6 months.  How to know when she’s ready?  Besides the physical signs (good head [...]

Here we are, six days from her four-month birthday, and she rolls.  Up to now, it’s all been practice rolls–getting almost all the way up and grabbing a finger or a toy to get up over that left shoulder.  But today, she rolled.  And rolled.  And rolled.

Need a map of the United States? Wouldn’t it be nice if you could just whip one up with a pen and paper on demand?

They include improved grip and increased volume.

My mother-in-law tells me that when Spouse was a wee little boy, he followed her around the house talking to her nonstop.  Some things never change–now he talks to me instead of her.  I fear I will be outnumbered in this respect if she keeps this up.

You take the diaper off this kid, and she’ll tell you anything you want to know.

I thought I gave birth to a human baby, but now I’m not sure if she’s one of those human-animal hybrids we heard so much about a couple years ago.  If my ears don’t deceive me, she appears to be half hen.

Scratchy throat.
Runny nose.
Crampiness from being checked yesterday, sore hips, impatient bladder, my own snoring kept me up all night.
Send someone by to brain me with a baseball bat and to cut the fuel line on Spouse’s car while he’s at work out of town, and I think we’ll have a perfect storm for labor to start.
Until then, enjoy this relative oldie but goodie about conditions being perfect for other deeds.

Many moons ago, I had a few ancient and medieval art history classes, during one of which I had the great pleasure to witness the professor descend into a conniption about one contemporary piece (I can’t remember exactly what it was now) that was clearly trying to use symbolism to make its point, but turned out completely literal, and thus made us all a little dumber in the process.  If I remember correctly, the discussion turned to popular culture, at which point we alternated lamenting the proliferation of predictable plot lines and defending the value of id-stimulating natural-disaster blockbusters.  In other words, a typical college class.
I was reminded of that professor’s conniption the other night when we were catching up on the Colbert in our Hulu queue.  I sat slack-jawed watching the clip of Hannity’s co-optation of a classic revolutionary symbol and the tortured over-explanation that followed.  Symbolism is supposed to be meaningful shorthand for complex ideas, and not the other way around.  It can get tricky at times, especially when you’re dealing with symbols used in a time or place foreign to you, which is exactly why teachers teach classes on, for example, early Christian and mythological imagery in ancient and medieval art and literature.  But most of the time, you can and should simply count on your audience to use that wrinkled gooey mass between their ears and figure it out for themselves.  If, however, you find that in order for your symbolic gesture to make the least bit of sense, you have to insert text labels on every constituent part and bend over backwards to show how they’re related, you might want to chuck it out and start over from scratch.  Or stick with the original.