Living with the femto

Kind of funny how Rini's alias comes into play for the month of November. With NaNoWriMo underway, both Caitlin and I have got in the habit of refering to our daughter as the 'FemtoWriMo.' Although she is a lot bigger than she was last year, I feel that she will graduate to the status of 'PicoWrimo' when she knows how to write her name. Until then, she will still be known as the 'FemtoWriMo.' I came up with the idea last year, and originally I wanted to go with NaNoRiniMo, but then I discovered that I was pronouncing it wrong. It wasn't NaNo-WREE-mo, but rather NaNo-WRY-Mo. Novel WRY-ting month. Oops. Hence I had a change of tactic, and went with FemtoWriMo, since Rini is so small. :) It stuck.

A couple of water related episodes today. First, we went swimming after we played some DDR at home. Good ol' Dance Dance Revolution is always a fun way to get your groove on, especially when you don't have to worry about failing the songs in front of everyone. I prefer when you can adjust the settings to your own liking. We also found that we can both do the dancing, and take care of Rini at the same time. One would think that you simply plug in two dance pads, and Rini entertains herself. Yeah, tried that, didn't work. What does work, is plugging in one, leaving the second one unplugged, and then you have her dance on the pad herself, or with whomever is not on the active pad. I also changed the settings so that the games are three songs instead of the five that I had it set at previously. That way we can get through the games quicker, and we can trade off more often. It works well, because I always like to challenge myself on the last song, and that comes up quicker now. Before, I would always try to figure out what song I would like to do and last until the fifth song. Now, it's a matter of warm up, crank up, and then challenge. Caitlin really likes the new setup too, because I'm able to distract Rini, but I'm also able to dance with her, and encourage her to try new songs. Another thing I changed was the fail setting. Before, if the dance bar bottoms out, then the song would immediately stop. Now, it will let you finish the entire song. The crash in the middle of the song is useful in the arcade when you're trying to get as many people through as you can. More people go through, more money generated. It's not personal, it's business. Besides, at the arcade, it's not very entertaining to watch people play poorly. Sometimes it's just sad.

How does that relate to water? We did go swimming later, but we were also drinking water as we played. Something that I do at work as well. The funny thing is at one point, I spilled my water on a worksheet that I had finished and was ready to collate with some other documents. I was a little mad at myself because I had done something so foolish, and I was thinking that I wasn't going to allow myself to have drinks at my desk anymore. Upon closer inspection of the worksheet, I realized that I would have had to redo it anyway. I had incorrectly entered a few things, and some numbers I had not entered at all! That was kind of odd how that worked out!

Fuss Bus Driver

Every time we head out shopping, especially to the local Safeway, Rini
is drawn to the balloons. She has one at home right now, but she
always likes to play with the other ones. Maybe because they still
have all their helium, or maybe because they're shiny. In any case,
that's the first thing she goes for, where ever she finds them.

Maybe I'll put that in my book. A character that loves balloons.

Ok, I'm going to have to go and stockpile some sleep. I was having
trouble keeping my eyes open today.

Indoor exercise

We didn't go to a park today, but Rini and I got quite a bit of
exercise by playing with exercise equipment that we have at home. We
don't have a Bowflex or anything quite like that, but we have the
swivel board, the balance board, and Rini's giant swivel board that we
picked up at IKEA. At one point, Rini was standing on the giant IKEA
board, and I was on the swivel board, and we were doing a sort of
dance. Rini can also stand on the balance board all my herself now!
She does still like to grab onto my legs every now and then. She is
such a cutie, and her balance is amazing. I'm not saying that we're
going to take her on a zip line tomorrow or get her to walk across
Niagara Falls on a tightrope, but I'm sure she's going to be trying
crazy things soon enough.

Sooner than I'm ready for too.

Weekend comin' at ya!

For some odd reason I'm finding it a little difficult to write. I think it might be due to the fact that we have ABBA playing in the background, while we usually don't have any music playing in our house when we're winding down for bed. That being said, we're not at home right now, we are chez Tolley. Grandma and Grandpa Tolley were going to be looking after Rini tomorrow when we went to High School Musical 3 and the original idea was that we were going to pick up the FemtoWriMo and then head out to the NaNo kick off party. I was actually hoping that mom Tolley was going to get on board with NaNoWriMo, and we even mentioned that you can work on a novel that you are already working on, but she still said no. Shame. In any case, we'll be coming back out to Beaumont after the soirée at the bibliothèque. We also have not been able to get a hold of Kloe, so we won't be taking her to the kick off party either.

I was reading a letter from Tristan today, and he'll be back in nine months. In the letter he mentioned that if any of the female sort conceive right about now, he'll be home in time for the delivery! Hey, for all we know, he'll get off the plane, and he'll deliver the baby! Are we pregnant? Uh... no. Not that I know of anyway. We are hoping that we'll be expanding our family soon, but children requires a team: Mother, Father and Heavenly Father. At least that's what I think. Others are of the opinion that if you fail, you're not trying hard enough!

I'll just leave it at that.

NRG

Rini just runs and runs these days. Good thing we take her out to parks most everyday! It's nice to have a schedule that allows me to do so. However, in a couple of weeks, when we go out to the park, it's going to be dark out. It's something you get used to, but that doesn't mean that I look forward to it.

I'm not really sure if that's why I've been a bit off today, but Caitlin noticed that my mood didn't lift after she fed me, and I wasn't overjoyed when Rini was climbing on the rope ladder by herself today. Normally I would be up there with my cell phone taking a video or a picture, but today, I just took a look up, watched her climb, smiled, and went back to the book that I got from the library.

Yes, we went back to the mall today, but only because Caitlin couldn't find the pattern that she bought on Tuesday. Upon inspection of the receipt, we found that it wasn't rung through, and she was charged twice for the batting she bought. Well, now we know what went wrong, and the interesting thing was that the ladies working at Fabricland knew too. When Caitlin went in to resolve the issue, the pattern was sitting behind the counter in anticipation of my wife's arrival. So Caitlin is going to cut out the pieces tonight, and start sewing tomorrow. I would think that she should be able to get the costume done for next Friday.

Funny thing is that I haven't given much thought as to what we are going to do for Hallowe'en. I was only thinking about the costumes. I wasn't thinking about the 'Trick or Treating' or if we were going to any parties. Maybe we'll go to the Millwoods Town Center thing. Then again, the Tolley's might have something in store as well. Have to talk to them about that soon!

Lack of TV

For the past few days, I've made a habit of going out to one of the parks close to our home. I mention this, because we went to a different park today. We went to the park at Millwoods Town Center, and we walked there. By we, I mean Caitlin, Rini, and myself. Caitlin has been working out at Millwoods Rec Center on a pretty regular basis, every other day. Today was the off day, and I figured that a good walk would do us all good. Why Millwoods town center? Caitlin needed some fabric for Rini's Hallowe'en costume. I'm hoping that she'll be able to get the costume together in the next ten days.

Rini is surprising me more and more each day. When we go to the park, I don't have to watch her that much. Although, I am quite paranoid when she climbs things that take her higher than two feet off the ground. She's quite adept at climbing ladders, or ladder-like things. The rope ladders she's a little shaky, but that, I'm very sure, will improve with time. She has quite a bit of upper body strength, and I say this because yesterday when she was climbing up a sort-of ladder, her feet completely slipped out from under her. I was at little worried, and I had my hands out to catch her, but she never graced my skin. She held onto the ladder on her own power, and continued climbing.

That little girl is going places, and I'm going to have to come to terms with that one day.

But not today.

Downward Facing Puppy

For some odd reason, when our hometeachers were over tonight, Rini got
into a very hyper mood. She was running around, and then going into
her "Downward Facing Puppy" move, in which she stands with her feet
shoulder width apart, then bends over until her head touches the
floor. She then balances on her head, or rather tries to, and then
falls over. Needless to say, this little girl dropped off like a
light when she finally went to bed.

We were also getting a little concerned at church today when we were
waiting to get set apart for our new callings. Rini was starting to
really fuss and carry on, probably because she wasn't used to sticking
around after church. For some odd reason, we had Dory with us, and
that provided sufficient distraction for her. Then she was walking
around, and she stopped at the south coat closest, pointed inside and
said, "Paka!" Wouldn't you know, someone had left a Makka-pakka doll
on top of the coat racks. I got it down, and told her that it wasn't
hers, and she could play with it now, but we would have to leave it
behind.

She was very understanding of that, and she had a ball with that
little guy. Especially once she figured out that it can sing. She's
still happy with the little Makka-pakka doll that she has at home, but
just for the fact that she was happy for those extra moments while we
were set apart made all the difference.

The funny thing is that the Bishop had never heard of "In the Night
Garden," and everytime we mentioned Makka-pakka, he thought we talking
about Michael Peca. That would be funny if the Oilers defenceman
(forward? I don't really know) sang the Makka-pakka song and did the
corresponding dance. Hee hee!

I'm just amazed that Rini was able to see that doll in the coat room
since the light was off!