mightbabyboig and family just had a little boy — which got me to thinking maybe a boy wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world after all (not that i’ve got much choice in the matter). fwiw, the main reason i’m posting is to taunt the lady sparkler, that i got to hold sammy before she did. thbhthbthbthtbhbthbt.

p.s. dear mightbabyboig — dude. update your blog.

if friday morning wasn’t enough of a wake up call for babyproofing, sparklet decided to up the ante on sunday and pull herself up on the toy box, the couch (to reach the cat) and one of our arm chairs (again, for the cat).

so, i spent the rest of the day at home depot.

shortly after the first burst of pseudo-crawling back in may, i spent a weekend tidying up the electrical cables and generally trying to make some more space for toys and movement.

with her doing pull-ups, however, we’ve had to start strapping down all the tippy furniture we have and trust me when i say, it’s all tippy.

a by-product of living in a smaller space is that everything we own is a normal height, but only about half as deep (and we all know that height + depth/2 = tippy).

to make matters worse, we have no overhead lights in our living room or either bed room, and have to rely on those tall “urn” floor lamps — which give us all the same tipsiness as the furniture, but with the added bonus of lots of shatter-upon-impact glass.

so, we’ve bought a metric ton of straps designed to prevent furniture from falling over during earthquakes (“quakehold!“) and have been using them to secure pretty much everything to the wall — three lamps, a desk, a television cabinet, the hall table, and the ever important toy box.

top that off an improvised latch (adjustable bungee cord fastened around the closet door handle) to keep sparklet out of the litter box, and we should be good to go …

… except she just knocked the bejeezus out of her head on the toy box, so i’m off to the store to buy a swimming pool noodle to pad the box’s front edge.

who says necessity is the mother of invention?

i always get nervous when i see people live for the first time.

invariably, they look like its either the first time they’ve ever picked up a guitar, or that they started playing about two weeks before their tour started and have pretty much mastered the three chords required to play their “best” song.

no worries for sarah harmer — she ripped the lid of the birchmere tonight, and looked ridiculously comfortable doing it.

there wasn’t a bad song from the bunch, with “careless”, “basement apartment“, and finale “lodestar” standing among the best live songs i’ve ever seen.

this live music thing seems like a good hobby to get into.

SET LIST: Late Bloomer · Around This Corner · One Match · Careless · Pendulums · Captive · The Thief · Marble in Your Eye · Coffee Stain · Dandelions in Bullet Holes · Silver Road · The Ring · Basement Apartment · New Loneliness · Escarpment Blues · Washington · The City · Came On Lion · Uniform Gray · Loadstar

baby sparklet seems to have primarily mistaken her new handlebar for a foot rest. i’ll chalk that up to a high level of creative innovation. maybe.

sparklet’s first hike. didn’t make it long (45 minutes) or far (definitely short of two miles) but it mostly worked. she hates wearing a hat, tho — that lasted all of about 30 seconds.

trail information:
Trailhead: 38.997516,-77.255065 (Google Maps); Length: 1.8 total miles; Elevation Gain: < 100 feet; Trail Type: Loop (Canal Trail, to Matildaville Trail, to Old Carriage Road); Skill Level: Easy.

it’s been quite a 24-hours for little miss sparklet. yesterday she started regularly sitting up by herself (she’s been doing it accidentally or with parental assistance for the last couple of weeks) and then this morning she pulled herself up onto her feet, in order to get into her toy box.

crazy. next she’ll be asking for keys to the car …