Tuesday in the Rain

So, another library trip to put on record.

Today's stats (after the trip): 35 items checked out, 5 on hold. We returned 2 CDs and 3 books, and came home with 2 DVDs and 3 books. El Burrito specifically requested the garbage trucks "CD" (DVD, actually) that we had checked out, oh, about six months ago. We didn't find it, but we did find one about buses and planes. It's part of the same series, which unfortunately means a slightly irritating host, but I'll survive. There have actually been two hosts for the series, both named Dave. They're both a little too goofy for my liking, but kids seem to go for it. They need to work on their facts, though - I know definitely that a seed drill doesn't have a third bin for dirt to scatter over the seed and fertilizer. That's what the little wire finger-things are for.

We returned:

• Chant
• Chant Noel
• The Whistling Season (this year's OneRead book, which I never finished)
• The Complete Idiot's Guide to Astronomy
• Hollywood Science

We also went to the book sale; this was the first sale of the month, so it's the bigger sale that El Burrito's buddy's usually working at. She was there, and glad to see El Burrito as usual. She'd forgotten the book she had for him, so she let him (or me) pick a book out for him and she paid for it. She's a really nice lady, and I plan to have El Burrito draw a picture for her. We'll take it next month and give it to her.

We found some good books today, and spent $26.50. Part of that was for my books - the big finds were two Will James books and a nice copy of Frog, the Horse that Knew no Master, from the Famous Horse Stories series. I paid $8 for it, but it's gone for more on eBay, and the cheapest copy on Amazon right now is $14, so it was a good deal. I'd like to have the whole set, but that'll take a while to collect. Otherwise, El Burrito found some Pooh and Clifford books, among other things. And there's an autographed Marguerite Henry book in the silent auction that I drooled over briefly.

Then we stopped at Office Depot and the dry cleaners, and made it home at 2:00 for a very late lunch.

An inauspicious start

It may not be a good Friday today.

As of noon, I've been thrown-up on twice, and El Burrito and I are both on our third set of clothes for the day. In retrospect, waiting an hour before I started that load of vomity laundry would have been a good idea.

Oh, and the house has a faint odor of sour milk and banana now (El B's breakfast).

(El Burrito's not a vomity kid so far. He was the king of spitting up when he was on a bottle; even after we switched to soy, he'd sometimes spit up an insane amount of formula, for no reason at all. But since then, he's only thrown up twice, I think. Once was my fault, when I tried to get him to eat his first gummy vitamin.)

Library again

Today's library numbers: 34 items out, 7 on hold. We returned 4 books and checked out 3. And there are 2 CDs to return next time, after I read the liner notes.

• Mr. Monk goes to the Firehouse
• Without a Map
  
• Better basics for the Home
• The complete book of activities, games, stories, props, recipes, and dances for young children - Not quite what I was expecting; it's geared for teachers, and I just want some new songs to sing. "Itsy Bitsy Spider" is getting old.

I'm still waiting for Donna Kooler's encyclopedia of crochet; I've had it on hold for months now, since May at least. There's a scarf pattern in it that I'd like to see, according to Ravelry. I'm thinking their copy is lost somewhere.

We spent $3.50 at the book sale, El Burrito scored some good finds today. (We missed the copy of Corduroy somehow - I was the first one at the kid's cart, and didn't see it. But then I missed Horton on my first browse, and we've got a paperback copy of Corduroy. I'm putting a hardcover copy on El Burrito's Christmas list, though, since he reads it a lot.) We found a nice copy of Horton Hears a Who, plus a Richard Scarry book and a couple others, and a VHS for me.

Renaissance Festival 2008

Warning: Lots of pictures ahead.

Our RenFest trip in pictures, 2008.

We left at a decent hour (8:30) and were in the Festival grounds by 11:30. (We were delayed by a pit stop at Feldman's Farm & Home, which I like to call "the last indoor plumbing for 500 years" - although there are flush privies at the Festival.



We started off with a music performance by Tullamore, a Celtic band from Kansas City. We've managed to see at least one of their shows every year that they've been at RenFest.


We spectated a while at the elephant and camel rides, since El Burrito is on a bit of an elephant kick.

He saw the elephant eat a whole watermelon!



We saw an awesome water feature for sale; only $7900.00, but someone put a lot of work into it.


Elephant sitting in one corner.
Very large dragon in the other corner. Didn't get a pic of the smaller dragon.


And a wicked-cool lion fish in the fourth corner.


El Burrito got to run around in the petting zoo area. He wasn't interested in much petting, but he liked the running around part. It was fenced, and not much poop to worry about, luckily. Mostly sheep, a goat, 2 pigs, and a pair of llamas. It's a hoot to hear El B. try to say "mama llama."


Then we watched the bird display, presented by the World Bird Sanctuary in St. Louis.


This is a Harris hawk, native to the southwest.




A lovely juvenile female peregrine falcon, so new to the sanctuary that she didn't have a name yet and didn't get to swoop over the audience.


A barn owl, who did get to do some flying, but I wasn't fast enough to get pictures of it.



The bataleur eagle, native to sub-Saharan Africa.


The hooded vulture, also from Africa.


He also got to do some flying maneuvers.


And last, but not least, Twig the screech owl. I somehow didn't prep any pics of the raven for the blog. Can't remember his name, but he would take the donations and stick them in the donation box. Talented.

There was a stage show before the birds, and El Burrito still remembers the dragon. I forgot to take a picture of that, though.

And El Burrito fell asleep while we made our last privy stop before heading out.

Tuesday Again (again)

Today's library stats: 27 items out, 9 on hold. We returned 4 DVDs and 5 books, and came home with 2 DVDs, 2 CDs, and a handful of books. (If we move out of the county when we get a house, I will seriously miss this library. And may claim to live with my in-laws just to keep my library fix, if they don't have some sort of arrangement for out-of-county people.)

Returned:

• 3 Doctor Who DVDs (series 2 and 3) that I didn't get to watch (El Burrito and DH seem to control the TV lately)
• a Caillou DVD that El Burrito didn't care for, which is odd since he likes the PBS show. He wasn't crazy about the mechanimated cat and turtle/frog (?)
• The Diamond of Darkhold - 4th and last in the Books of Ember series. I'm waiting for the movie; we'll see how many "changes" are made
• Peg Bracken's Window over the Kitchen Sink - a memoir, more interesting because she grew up in Missouri
  
• Mayhem in Miniature - a "cozy" mystery; the sleuth in question does miniature dollhouses as a hobby
• 2 tractor books that El Burrito picked out

And we spent $2.50 at the book sale.

We tried the library without a stroller again today, since the stroller was in DH's car and he was at lunch somewhere. Luckily we found a good parking space, and it didn't go too badly. Well, except for a certain Someone making two laughing escape attempts while I was trying to shove our books into the tote bag and juggle my purse at the same time.

Ren'sahnse Bestibuhll

A.K.A. the Kansas City Renaissance Festival, which is where El Burrito spent his Saturday.

Pictures coming later. I think he had a good time, although he didn't really care for riding in his stroller so much. He did love the petting zoo, mostly because it was a fenced area where he could run around a bit (we didn't pay for pellets to feed the critters, because I didn't want him to get mugged by a pushy sheep and freak out). He saw a dragon, elephant, camels, sheep, two llamas, lots of raptors, and a poodle trimmed to look like a dragon.

Next year, we'll watch the jousting.

This boy of mine

Whatever else I say about El Burrito, he's a polite kid. We've been working on "please" and "thank you" since he was born (being a good example, you know) and he's started saying both without being prompted.

Lunchtime yesterday:

"Thank you, mommy"
"Thank you for what?"
"Thank you for putting the chicken in [the toaster oven]." (Roughly paraphrased, I know I got a word or two wrong, but I was a little astounded at the time.)

Later, I got thanked for helping pick up his crayons, and for rolling out his play rug - although he was the one who rolled it out on the floor, I just stood there.

Yes, he irritates me sometimes, and I'm working on that (on me being irritated, specifically). The not-taking-a-nap thing on Monday really griped me no end. But he's polite, darn it, and darned cute when he's being polite.

Now, if he'd just not grow up quite so fast. Honestly, it makes me sad. Every time I think we've got things figured out, he grows up, hits another milestone, and I'm back to Square 1 (or 2). Starting the baby food, switching to "real" food, crawling, walking, you name it. Now we're thinking of potty-training, plus he's talking more and better than ever. Which means I've gotta watch what I say more than ever (not just the swearing, but other stuff too).

I'm here with him, alone, all day every day, and I still feel like I'm missing out on his growing up. Like I'm not paying attention to him or something, even though it's not like I ignore him. I read to him, talk to him, color with him, you name it. It just feels like I don't remember any of it. Maybe it's just my crappy memory, because I swear sometimes, if I don't write it down or take a picture, it might not have happened. I don't seem to have those vivid memories people talk about. I can't remember what El Burrito's first word was, or when he took his first steps. I remember very little of his birth. Sure, the drugs may be involved there, but I tend to sort of block out really stressful things. The weekend I found out my horse had died is mostly a blank; ditto for the first really bad boyfriend-breakup week.