It's a no-no...

I'm copying miss feelslikefireand putting out the call for all addresses so I can do my Christmas cards! Even if you think I have your address, please give it to me again. So many of you are moving around all the time and I like to know what I've got in my little black book is current. Thanks, all! Comments are screened so only I can see them.

With our tongues in our cheeks and our eyes on the stars, GirlAMatic is proud to announce its fourth anniversary! This year's April foolish extravaganza will be as BIFF! BAM! SOCK-O! as any dyed-in-the-wool (or rather, spandex) comics fan could possibly wish for! March 31st through April 6th, GirlAMatic will see a DeCidedly Marvelous makeover, as all our characters gear up for a bit of genre-bending mischief.

Do join us!

Well, that's it. We are a' movin! Not sure yet where to, but we've got our eye one a couple of dandy houses. I'm so excited! Goodbye, stinky old house! Hello, fabulous new house! We put our old house on the market Wednesday so I'm in a frenzy of prepping. The realator, who is AMAZING, went though and said, "Get rid of this, and this ,and this, and this, and this. And this." Me: "but...that's our furnature......." We'll do what she says, though, she's the expert. ^^

All right, all you non-webcomic loving, regular-comic loving people (coughJO) out there! The news of the day is that there are now free downloadable comics on the Web-Comics Nation site! This allows you to peruse a complete comic in a two-page-spread, all at once with no load-time format, such as you would experience holding a book in your hands...except...on a monitor. You have to download the software, but it's also free and takes only a moment. There will me more stories available in the format as we webcomicers get entire chapters completed, but your should definitely start with Tara Tallan's Galaxion comic. Everything you need at the bottom of this page. Go have a look!!

Everybody run over to Girlamatic and check out my interview at Outspoken! Thanks, Lynn, you are a STAR. When you're done, visit my comic and poke fun at my old artwork!

Back in psyche class, I remember reading about cognitive development, and the way the brain sometimes temporarily "forgets" things we know how to do in order to focus its energy on learning something new. I'm seeing now that nowhere is that more clearly displayed than in babies. Since she was about a month old, Aedan has been developing her "speech." She has range. She has tone. She has volume. She has all the vowels and an impressive array of consonants already at her disposal. Her days were filled with babble sessions...lay her down to play and in no time one will be treated to a symphony of "aa-aa-BAAA-la-aah-goo-goo-nnn-mmAAAAA--oo-EEE!"

But this week, she's working on hand coordination. She's bringing her hands together, studying them carefully, shaking rattles and pulling on blankets and "restyling" doll hair from pigtails to rats' nests. And while she's figuring out all this hand-coordination stuff, speech is GONE. Someone took my expressive little girl and replaced her with a potbelly pig. Her new babble sessions sound like this: "Grunt grunt gruuuunt grunt GRUNT!" 

But that's all right. She's no less fascinating and no less fun. Her babbles will come back. And maybe when she begins learning to roll over, she'll forget how to cry.

Happy Valentines Day to the guy (or gal) that wrote "I <3 cock" and "WANG!" on the hood/roof of my car. Thanks, man. It gave Jo and me a laugh. Happy V-day! I love cock!!

Update: It was my husband's friend Mike. Andy told on him.

Oh, dear. So I just went to have a shower, and according to habit, set my daughter Aedan's bouncy chair in the bathroom so she could hang out while I bathed. 

ERIC and OTHER BABY-WASTE-PRODUCT-SENSITIVE SOULS should stop reading now!

As I carried her in, I noted that she smelled poopy and detoured for a diaper change. She was only wet, but her bum looked a bit pruney and I decided to give her some "airing out" time. As a precaution, I laid a folded towel on the bouncy seat to protect it from any incidental outputs from her nether-regions. About halfway through my shower she began cooing happily. I was of course thinking (foolishly) that she was just relaxing happily into the zen-state of bouncing (vibrating,really, as modern safety precautions forgo the outdated "bouncing" concept) while enjoying the warm steam and soothing sounds produced by the running water. Well, I supposed she was relaxing, and that was the problem. Of course when I get out I find her kicking away happily in the biggest, orangest, slimiest pile of baby poop capable of being produced from such a tiny being. It was probably half her body weight.
I was still wet, so I just picked my wee one up and stepped back in the shower. I soaped her up and cleaned her off, and myself since of course I got smeared with poop in the process. Once we were all clean, I got off and toweled Aedan off, then pulled the poopy towel off the bouncy seat and set her down in it while I toweled off myself. This took me about one minute, maybe forty seconds. Of course, when I picked her up again to diaper and dress her, she had peed all over the bouncy seat and herself. I did eventually get her clean, dry, and clothed, and she's angelically laying draped across my lap. But dang, am I a bad mum for letting all that happen, or a good mum because none of it phased me a bit? In any case, I declare myself officially a mum.

For my first post, I re-copped this from arcana_j. I had to post mine because it's hilarious. I swear I'm didn't cheat for this!

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the next 3 sentences on your blog along with these instructions.
5. Don't you dare dig for that "cool" or "intellectual" book in your closet! I know you were thinking about it! Just pick up whatever is closest.

"Try a naked lunch."

(From Be Prepared: A Practical Handbook for New Dads)