Random ramblings

So, the kids each got to spend a night at Grandma and Grandpa's, last week.  The pixie got Monday, and the imp got Tuesday.  And then Thursday, we wound up going up to visit my mother. 

The imp has been a happy boy for the past several days--he's been booted out the back door to play outside every day that it wasn't raining or soppy wet for the past week.  He's been incredibly well behaved, too, during the time he's been so very happy.  It just reinforces the fact that boys need time to run and play.  He's requested (and will get) a snowsuit and boots to play outside in, as winter comes in (and come it shall--we have snow in the forecast for early Tuesday morning.  No, it probably won't stick.)

The pixie is too prone to earaches, and it's been way too windy for her to go out. So, she's watched a lot of cartoons, played a lot with the little stove her grandma found at a flea market (one of the ones that are sixty dollars new, that Grandma found for ten), and her pots and pans and teapot.  She plays with her babies and her Barbies (three of which are Disney princesses), and gets me to come sit in her room while she plays.  When that happens, I usually end up with a teddy bear in my lap that she wants me to rock before she puts it to bed.

But I can tell: she wants to play outside, too.   Sometimes, I wish we had a garage we could use for them to play in.  It's not exactly the same, but it would give them space to run, which they don't have inside.

The cats are being normal cats.  As in, Shadow finds the nearest heating vent and spends the day sleeping on it (usually right under the dishwasher, right next to the dog's food and water), and to hell with the dog.  Cricket apparently thinks the carpeted floor is too cold for her toes and has been spending a lot of time leaping from the kids' desks to the couch, then leaping a solid ten feet from the end of the couch to nearly the middle of the kitchen. 

The dog has loved having her boy outside with her.  They play through the fence of her pen, since the backyard fence won't hold her safely, and he's slowly losing his fear of her as she plays with him without being able to jump up on him and knock his scrawny butt over.  Because the dog?  Is half the boy's weight. 

My students are doing incredibly well.  They've finished the lecture parts of the last paper early, so they have the rest of the time scheduled for the paper to actually write it.  I usually give them the freedom on free write days to email me to check in, and work on their papers in other places.  Which made yesterday tolerable, since I went to work sick, and didn't have lecture to give, or group work to supervise. 

It also gave me some extra time to write.

Which I did.  Resurgent is up to about a sixth of its projected length.  I'm working quickly because the story is coming quickly, and it's more fun to write than to lay around and do nothing.  I suspect I'll get a lot done on it this weekend--Odysseus is off work, and I'm downright sick.