Random ramlings

My imp is perfecting his singing.  In the bathtub.  Without anyone in there with him.  He's four, so I've started letting him have some bathtub time unsupervised.  I can easily hear him, and check on him often.  A couple of days ago, I heard him singing his ABCs.  And then I heard him making up his own little song about the new bathtub, and how much he loves it.  It's a quiet morning this morning--he's at Grandma and Grandpa's house.  We'll bring him home this afternoon, when we come home after the visit. 

He has almost gone a full month without a wet pants accident.  Monday is the day he gets a new set of rails for his engines for that full month of dry pants.  I am waiting with crossed fingers that he makes it.

The pixie hasn't been eating well, lately.  She's been working on teething.  She's got a bottom molar coming in (I can feel the shape of the tooth) on one side, and a top molar on the other.  So, last night, I opened a can of pear halves.  I was kind of thinking that she'd eat a little, run off, then come back for a little more. 

Nope.  She ate the whole can of pears in one sitting.  Took about half an hour.  Then she wanted to go out and play.  Since it was nice enough, I put a hat on her (she gets "mean monkeys" in her ears--earaches--with little provocation), and we went out into the back yard. 

The kids have a swingset (not that they play on the swings), with a slide.  The slide is a much favored thing to play with for both kids.  I didn't think the pixie could get up to slide on her own, but I was wrong.  Despite the second step up sitting just below her hips when she stands on the bottom step, she managed to figure out how to get up the ladder without help.  It was really adorable watching her run around the slide, chanting, "Climb up, climb up, climb up...slide down!  Go 'round, climb up, climb up, climb up...slide down!"

The pup has spent all of the last two days outside.  Such a happy puppy.  She's started imitating Snoopy--jumping up on top of her house to watch the world go by, or to take a nap. 

The cats are absolutely bonkers.  Cricket, the black and white cat, stands about ten inches high at the shoulders, and about a half inch higher at the hips.  I'd say she's about fifteen inches from chest to rump.  Not a small cat.  But she thinks she is.  She keeps trying to do what she did when we first brought her home: curl up on my chest while I'm working on my computer.  I may have a large bust, but that cat is just too big to do that anymore. 

Shadow, the black cat, lives up to her name.  She'll disappear in the house for five or six hours, and you won't find her--she's found a dark, little, hidden spot to go to sleep so that she doesn't get bothered by child or milk-sister.  If she's sleeping on something black, you just don't see her until she opens her eyes.

This coming week is Spring Break.  Thank God.  Means that after I get last week's stuff graded, I've got two weeks until I have anything else. 

I need to email my department head, and mention that it might, maybe, be a good idea for those he's assigned to create the composition courses to, I don't know, maybe add an "Instructor's Resources" tab with worksheet answer keys.  Might be nice to be able to grade my students' work without having to do the worksheet myself, first. 

I've got that short story's first draft done...and now I'm not sure I won't use it as a flashback for the book I'm currently in the process of writing.  I'm thinking. 

Odysseus isn't sure that he likes the title of Lost Girls for the novel.  It's a working title, so if he comes up with something, I'm stealing it.  It's kind of a plot that's been done to death--a vampire chick saves another chick, then hires her as a daytime helper.  Then, they find out that the vampire that turned the vampire chick (a serial rapist/murderer) is now in their town. 

Both characters have been rejected by their families for their choices--Vampire Chick went to college against her white trash family's wishes, and succeeded; Helper Chick went into the bail bondsperson/private investigator business against the wishes of her wealthy, socially conscious family's wishes. 

That abandonment by their families is why I'd chosen the working title. 

Last, but not least, I am still working on The Last Pendragon.  The last couple of weeks has seen a major upswing in amount of busywork I had to grade--last week, in particular, had four worksheets and a discussion post.  Yes, I did eventually give up actually grading those worksheets, but that was only because it was taking so fucking long to get them done.  I'll see how much I can get done while my grading is reduced for Spring Break and the week after.  Wish me luck.