Still Alive
I've posted exactly once since my son was born, and that was a brief bit about NaNoWriMo (which I've since utterly failed). I guess I've been too busy living life to spend much time talking about it.
Alpha is coming up on 10 months old. He's cruising around (standing upright with support and moving along and between supporting objects), and verbalizing quite a bit! He's pretty much got "mama" down now (particularly for use whenever he's unhappy about something), uses "dada" with some frequency too, and frequently asks for "mih" (milk) after he wakes up.
And he laughs so much, now! He likes being flipped upside down, lifted into the air, and being used as a weight for lifting ("baby curls" are his favorite - babies are nature's graduated-weight program!). He'll also start laughing if I just go "ha ha ha ha ha!" at him. He climbs around a bunch too, and occasionally gives us "kisses" (pressing his open mouth against our cheek). He's such a sweet boy, and I had no idea it'd be so much fun to be a parent this early in his life.
He also got to participate in one of the first same-sex marriages in the state, on Sunday - he was the ring bearer (or "ring bear", as I called him, dressed in his little bear-eared hoodie) for our friends Richard and Liam as they were finally able to marry after being together for nearly two decades. I'm incredibly happy for them, and proud to have been at their side for such a momentous occasion in both their own lives and in state history.
Lots of other minor things abound. Thanksgiving was stressful but fun. Sora and I finished Secret of Mana and I started up Assassin's Creed III, which is entertaining, but so far I like the ACII games better. We haven't had a lot of time for board gaming lately, but Cards Against Humanity has been a recent favorite. (I'm much better at it than I am at Apples to Apples; I guess it suits my sense of humor better. Which is to say I'm a horrible person.)
Oh! Books! I started reading the Wheel of Time, since the final book will be out next month. I'm about halfway through The Eye of the World; so far it's an excellent execution of a pretty standard-looking formula. (No spoilers, please - though I've already been spoiled for years on one of the bigger plot points in the entire series, sigh.) nightsinger is reading along with me; it's a lot of fun discussing things as they happen. She's been very good about not spoiling me so far too, despite this being at least her third read-through of the whole series...
We're also (re-)reading the Vorkosigan Saga to our son as bedtime stories. Much of it isn't really appropriate for children, but for now his language acquisition is still mostly focused on individual syllables and only the most common words. Earlier we read him The Hobbit, after finishing the Enchanted Forest Chronicles, which we started as a way to familiarize him with my voice while he was still in the womb. It's a lot of fun, especially since I'm putting some work into making characters' voices sound different without actually changing my voice much. (For example, I'm not actually using falsetto for any of the female characters or children, because I think it sounds bizarre, but I do soften my speech a bit and pitch it up just a little.)
Beyond that, I haven't been keeping track of books and reviewing them like I had in the past, but here's a partial list of my recent reads:
Alpha is coming up on 10 months old. He's cruising around (standing upright with support and moving along and between supporting objects), and verbalizing quite a bit! He's pretty much got "mama" down now (particularly for use whenever he's unhappy about something), uses "dada" with some frequency too, and frequently asks for "mih" (milk) after he wakes up.
And he laughs so much, now! He likes being flipped upside down, lifted into the air, and being used as a weight for lifting ("baby curls" are his favorite - babies are nature's graduated-weight program!). He'll also start laughing if I just go "ha ha ha ha ha!" at him. He climbs around a bunch too, and occasionally gives us "kisses" (pressing his open mouth against our cheek). He's such a sweet boy, and I had no idea it'd be so much fun to be a parent this early in his life.
He also got to participate in one of the first same-sex marriages in the state, on Sunday - he was the ring bearer (or "ring bear", as I called him, dressed in his little bear-eared hoodie) for our friends Richard and Liam as they were finally able to marry after being together for nearly two decades. I'm incredibly happy for them, and proud to have been at their side for such a momentous occasion in both their own lives and in state history.
Lots of other minor things abound. Thanksgiving was stressful but fun. Sora and I finished Secret of Mana and I started up Assassin's Creed III, which is entertaining, but so far I like the ACII games better. We haven't had a lot of time for board gaming lately, but Cards Against Humanity has been a recent favorite. (I'm much better at it than I am at Apples to Apples; I guess it suits my sense of humor better. Which is to say I'm a horrible person.)
Oh! Books! I started reading the Wheel of Time, since the final book will be out next month. I'm about halfway through The Eye of the World; so far it's an excellent execution of a pretty standard-looking formula. (No spoilers, please - though I've already been spoiled for years on one of the bigger plot points in the entire series, sigh.) nightsinger is reading along with me; it's a lot of fun discussing things as they happen. She's been very good about not spoiling me so far too, despite this being at least her third read-through of the whole series...
We're also (re-)reading the Vorkosigan Saga to our son as bedtime stories. Much of it isn't really appropriate for children, but for now his language acquisition is still mostly focused on individual syllables and only the most common words. Earlier we read him The Hobbit, after finishing the Enchanted Forest Chronicles, which we started as a way to familiarize him with my voice while he was still in the womb. It's a lot of fun, especially since I'm putting some work into making characters' voices sound different without actually changing my voice much. (For example, I'm not actually using falsetto for any of the female characters or children, because I think it sounds bizarre, but I do soften my speech a bit and pitch it up just a little.)
Beyond that, I haven't been keeping track of books and reviewing them like I had in the past, but here's a partial list of my recent reads:
- The Mongoliad, Book One by Neal Stephenson, Mark Teppo, et al. Fun historical fiction; some might find it dry, but the characters are really compelling so far.
- The Honor Harrington series, by David Weber. Fantastic military science fiction. A few unfortunate political straw men, as Weber makes his viewpoints pretty obvious, but he's gotten a lot more subtle in later books, and I'm pretty pleased with the overall diversity of his cast of characters.
- Redshirts by John Scalzi. I was worried at the beginning about where he was going with this Star Trek pastiche, but it's a great story and the payoff is a lot of fun.
- Captain Vorpatril's Alliance by Lois McMaster Bujold. Speaking of the Vorkosiverse, my friend gifted us an ARC of this one (Thanks, Sheree!), and I find it an excellent addition to the series. Comedy, action, romance, intrigue, and poor befuddled Ivan mixed up in the middle of it all - it's yet another great example of Bujold's storycrafting ability.
- The Chronicles of Master Li and Number Ten Ox by Barry Hughart. I was a little nervous to read a pastiche of Imperial Chinese culture by a Westerner (cultural appropriation being something I've become more aware of in recent years), but the classic stereotypes are lovingly used and have a lot of depth backing them up, and the stories themselves are fantastical tales of adventure, practically swashbuckling in their energy and yet epic in their scope.