TGIF

Seriously! Good news is that I have some more work, data analysis, my favorite! It will be extensive and require me to sit at my desk with TORI in one hand. But it will yield a paper. I have done my preliminary data preparation to get it in the form I like to work it in and that is acceptable to the programs I use, instead of the funky output that the local software guys decided was appropriate. They apparently never consulted a scientist. So I played IT specialist this afternoon messing with outputs.

I got preliminary word to go ahead with my collaboration with a prof from a regional university. He is going to collect data on my advice, send the data to me to analyze, then he and I will decide if we can publish it at least. All of this without a contract or exchange of funds. Scratching each other’s backs I suppose… but I have seen pictures of him, he looks like the type with a VERY hairy back. Eww.

Let’s see… new Leif antics. We have harvested our first tomatoes of the year. Yum. I picked about five as Leif whined and whined “bite” to me. I tried to convince him they were not strawberries or rappies (raspberries). He didn’t care. So the other night as we went out on our walk, I munched on a Skinny Cow ice cream sandwich and Leif ate a tomato as we walked. Strange child wants nothing to do with ice cream – I think the cold freaks him out. He ate the entire Roma tomato and every few steps told us how good it was. I was very careful in my response to him… he is so picky I am fearful of turning him off any foods.

We went to a BBQ last night and survived. Leif is such high energy I still worry about him freaking out or his toddler antics irritating people. And being that we knew relatively few of the BBQ attendees, I was nervous about this. He did well. A little obnoxious with hauling lawn animal ornaments all up onto the porch and announcing their names and sounds. He wasn’t interested in eating a whole lot, until the watermelon (gag) came out. I never buy watermelon because I don’t like it, I find the flavor very strong (says the girl who loves blue cheese, yes, I know… weird). Leif was particularly thrilled though with watermelon, even going so far as to steal our friends rind and nibble off hers.

Here is the one, slightly more horrifying move of the night. Leif needed his watermelon on a paper plate. He took his paper plate and uninvited, made himself at home in between two people we just met, on a narrow two person seat. Plopped himself down right between them. Then proceeded to drop the watermelon on the woman’s white pants. Horrified. Me. I didn’t know what to do, offer to pay for dry cleaning? (Which is what we did when he flung a ketchup covered plate at Red Robin onto a girls lap at the neighboring table, again horrifying.) She did say, no it was fine, it would wash. Still ugh.

This weekend we have loads of errands, Farmer’s Market, Target, TRU, Costco, grocery store and Home Depot. We also have a toddler birthday party on Sunday morning. K&V are having C’s 2nd party a week early since they head out on vacation the following weekend. At least here, four other kids will be in the same age group and so Leif’s antics shouldn’t stand out quite so much. I am a little worried about Leif when C opens her presents. Lately he is particularly enamored with presents. This stems from the Ernie Potty book where Ernie gets a present (guess what is in the big box?). On that page in particular Leif gets a twinkle in his eye and tells me he will howp open it. The other day when his birthday goodies arrived wrapped in green paper I thought he was going to do cartwheels he was so excited. Our gift in particular I am nervous about C opening. Leif has found it a few times in my (apparently) really stupid hiding places. Each time he finds them (yes, he got one too) he brings it out and excitedly tells us “I do this!” We take it away amidst much screaming. This time AB put them in the top of our closet where Leif stares longingly. Not hidden, but not accessible either. We probably should have just forgone all this agony and just let him have his when it arrived.

This morning I dropped Leif at daycare, he ran in, put his lunch away and then sprinted to the art corner where he immediately grabbed the play-doh tray and set to work. I had to beg him for a kiss bye bye. He kissed and then told me, “I like this!” and pointed to the Play-Doh. Yes, dear boy, I liked that too when I was little. Another thing added to the Target list.