orichalcum

Mac just attempted to pull himself up by his shirt. Yep, that's right, he grabbed the top of the playpen with one hand and grabbed his shirt with the other hand and attempted to pull up with it. This didn't work so well, and he had a wonderful confused look on his face, which I interpreted as "but when Mom lifts me up that way, I go high!" He may understand Spanish, but the kid's still got a lot of physics to learn.

EDIT: And we just got an anguished squawk, which can best be translated as "Mommy, I sat on my elephant and his trunk went in a very uncomfortable place!" Somehow, I'm unsympathetic. Does this make me a bad person?

is a day where nothing goes wrong. Not a day where everything goes right and is all sunshiny and puppies and kittens frolicking in the streets, but just a day where at no point does my blood pressure go up and I get stressed and want to stick out my lower lip and whimper.

I need to remember to stop and breathe deeply every hour or so. It helps - although not being distracted by baby is difficult.

What has gone wrong so far today? Well, yesterday, our babysitter and I lowered the crib down to its lowest level, because Mac has taken to piling up blankets and standing on his tippy-toes so he can lean over the edge farther, and this seemed like a Bad Plan. I wasn't quite sure we had adjusted it correctly, so I meant to have A. check it out, as he's done it before. But Mac was asleep when A. came home, and didn't wake up until right before he had to leave for work this morning, so I figured it could wait.

During breakfast, I heard a loud thump from the nursery. Eowyn and I both bolted there - she in full alert mode - to discover that Mac had somehow flipped the mattress sideways and was wedged under the edge. I swooped him up, and he immediately stopped crying; the only apparent damage is two slight red marks on his forehead, and he was in a fine mood. Me, though, I haven't quite recovered from the adrenalin or the guilt.

Today, I have to order grocery shopping, arrange interviews for a new babysitter, grade exams, write a blurb for the course I'm teaching next winter at the School for Continuing Studies on "Classics and Popular Culture," and write at least 10 pages of the encyclopedia articles that are due next Tuesday, which are totally not inspiring to write. Plus, of course, take care of the baby and the puppy and feed myself.

In the happy thing category, yesterday I taught the Symposium, which I flatter myself that I teach (through group work) very well, and which I also love teaching because I discover something new every time. This time, I reflected on the idea that Aristophanes' creation myth of the split beings looking eternally for their soulmate (known to some from _Hedwig and the Angry Inch_) is the only creation story I know of which makes the fundamental distinction between humans one of sexual orientation, rather than gender. In most tales, the first split is between male and female. For Aristophanes/Plato, it is between males-seeking-male soulmates, males-seeking-female-soulmates (and vice versa), and females-seeking-female soulmates. It raises all sorts of interesting questions about how society would be structured differently if that was the first basis of differentiation. Of course, it also totally denies the previously discussed spectrum theory, unlike most ancient Greek philosophies of sexuality.

How to use a book. This is frakkin' hilarious, even in Norwegian! Safe for work, if odd.