5:00 AM Pedicures

So, over the weekend, Moodles ripped her toenail. It wasn't a bad rip, but it was scratching the crap out of me every time I picked her up. We normally clip her finger or toenails every weekend, and she's pretty good about staying still so I can do the deed, but the ripped toenail required several sessions of burr nibbling to get everything smoothed out. During these sessions, Moodles evidently figured out what was going on, and decided that SHE TOO, was a TOOL USING MAMMAL. Therefore, her latest form of entertainment is "Giving Mama a Pedicure." What's really cute is that when she gets into it, she murmurs reassurances and praise at me for not wiggling too much, just like I do when I trim HER nails.

I got some still photos of her process yesterday morning, but really wanted to get her murmuring on video... Unfortunately, last night when I was attempting to get video of her "process," she busted me with the camera and decided that kissing Mama was more important than clipping her toenails. (It was near bed time, and there is always a lot more snuggling at bed time, than any other time of day.) Even though I didn't manage to get a recording of what I wanted, the video is still ridiculously cute, so:

Monster Butt

Sorry. Long time no post, but I've been spinning of late, and showing you the skeins of string I've been generating didn't seem all that inspiring. These pants, on the other hand? They are worth showing off. How cute are they?!

Toddlers are not dogs...

So, Moodles and I went to the Childrens' Museum this morning. Her favorite thing in the WHOLE MUSEUM was apparently the stairs. We went up them about eleventy times and then rode the slide down... you'd think she did the stairs for the slide at the end, but she only seemed to tolerate the slide in order to get back to the stairs again. She felt the green steps were worth the price of admission, but Momma is still on the fence about that...

Eventually, I was able to get her to interract with something other than the stairs. There was a pretend garden plot with cloth stuffed-toy vegetables to "plant." Moodles found a chive with little string root hairs and waived it around a bit. She was warming up to some stuffed radishes when a little boy of about 2 came over and started rearranging the things that Moodles had been sorting. I waited for her to bite him or shriek with Moodle-Rage, but she did not. She waited for him to turn his head and then put the tickley end of her chive in his ear. He gave her a VERY dirty look, but didn't stop touching "her" things. She gave him an innocent look and waited for him to turn his head again. When he turned back to the radishes, she stuck the chive in his ear. He gave her more dirty looks. She blinked at him as though nothing had happened. I was laughing too hard to comment on anyone's behavior. The boy looked to me for adult intervention, and Moodles took the opportunity to insert the chive in his OTHER ear. Two more iterations of this without rescue from the evil Moodles and the little boy got disgusted with both of us and left.

"You can't treat little boys like doggies." I warned Moodles, as soon as I got the giggling under control.

"Doggie," agreed Moodles.

Then she took her chive wand for a trip up the stairs.

I suppose we should get more practice interracting with other children....

See the full gallery on Posterous

Where does the poo go?

So...

There's this printer that charges the students to print. I've never had to maintain it, and assumed that we were getting re-imbursed somehow for all the paper and toner we put into the thing. Apparently, we are not, and now it doesn't work with the new Windows 7 lab computers. So, I'd like to get rid of it... Only there's no name or phone number on it. No one here remembers how/why it got into the computer lab. So... where is the money going? Limbo with all the print jobs? I called the campus printing people and they INSIST that the printer isn't theirs.

...

This isn't my normal sort of mystery. I guess I'll be calling up all the people that worked in this job before I did and hoping they still feel charitable toward the University... or at least me...

Moodles wants a big girl glass...

See the full gallery on Posterous

And then there were two:

So, I went ahead and finished the pair of what I now think of as "Viking Clown Socks." I'm trying to decide if I should just ship them now that they're done, or wait and send them with a slightly more dignified pair... I'm leaning toward getting them out of the house immediately before they infect anything else...

Somehow this was so much less silly in my mind...

It's a good thing that the person who will eventually wear it has unquestionable dignity... I couldn't stop giggling for the last 5 rows of knitting...

See and download the full gallery on posterous