Spring's Sproutings

This past weekend we all (Daddy, Mommy, Cousin Lee, and Rhianwen) traveled down to good ole SC for Greatmama's birthday party! On the way down, Rhianwen decided that hers was the only voice worth hearing for TWO hours straight. Finally she tired of her tirade and fell into a slumber. We had lots of fun, and the return to NC was much quieter on Rhianwen's part.

In SC for Greatmama's birthday.

Rhianwen has found her toes and tried a new food (butternut squash).

What is she doing on the counter, you may ask? One word: Daddy.

I think she likes it!

When cranky time comes, we just go out under the trees like a true Tolkien Elf.

What a Life

I just couldn't resist posting a new movie and pics.




Notice the bib: "More Like Mommy Everyday"


"Oo, too much rice cereal."


"A nice wet rag to wash it all down." Actually, more to clean her up but she loves it!


Just a swingin'

In one word: "Pfft"

Yes, Rhianwen is now saying "Pfft" after Uncle Skipper and Grandma Nanny Kim visited on Tuesday. Maybe this is the sound of the spiders finally vanishing for good...good ole Orkin man to the rescue. The spiders on the previous blog are male black widows! So they are not poisonsous, but as many people have commented, "Where there are males, there must be females!". We did find a dead female black widow in the garage. We had a whole jar of specimen for the Orkin man - a short list: male black widow, female black widow, some kind of huge hunter spider, and, lastly, a wolf spider was found at our front door. Anyone want to come visit?





Threats of spiders didn't hinder Uncle Christopher from coming. He felt that spending time with his sister and niece were much preferable to going to Italy, so he cancelled his trip to see us...well...ok, so Newark was snowed in, and we were a pit stop on the way to changing his trip from Italy to Arizona instead.




Of course, we had to have a small bomb go off this week. What new place is complete without something blowing up? In Pittsburgh it was a car battery in Wally's face, here it was...well...a charge on a small grenade??? Any guesses? (No, a cell phone did not set it off; it is there for sizing purposes only!)





Yes, unbeknownst to Rhianwen (who was blissfully taking a nap), the intrepid mommy and daddy were perched precariously on their deck chairs investigating the various boundaries of a nice sandwich (daddy) and a steaming bowl of lasagna (mommy) when daddy noticed a shiny object on deck. Shiny objects are irresistable to daddy, and hence he gingerly placed it in his hand for closer inspection. Mommy was not deterred from her task of ingesting her lasagna, but noticed daddy forcing some kind of pin out of the shiny object. Suddenly a big bang sounded and mommy whipped her head up in time to see a large short-lived flame emanate from daddy's hand. No longer was the shiny object so intriguing to daddy who was left with a charred hand and arm. This left the intrepid couple with the haunting question, "what other unknown land-mines, charges, or bombs might be lying around in the back yard?"

Rhianwen awoke unphased by the events of the day and proceeded to continue her mammoth efforts in figuring out how to twist her body as much as possible without rolling over.





"Pfft" she says with a smile and places her Spring card from Grandma Nanny Kim in her mouth, where all good reading material must go.

Life could not better be

We have a song we sing in the Tinsley house:

Life could not better be, better be, better be,
No, life could not better be,
Than when Rhianwen's here with me, ooo!

It goes to the tune that Danny Kaye sings in the opening credits of The Court Jester, one of the funniest movies ever..if you haven't seen it, either come to our house and watch it, or, if you are too far, rent it! Rhianwen loves the modified song along with the silly dance that ensues while it is sung.

The above picture is solely for the purpose of gratifying Grandma Nanny Kim who likes big pictures. As she said, "There's nothing in life like a naked baby." No, I guess not.

Another thing in the life of Rhianwen: she has decided that sitting is preferable to most any other position. Not only does she want to sit while playing and eating, but, today, it seemed that she wanted to sit for her bottle too. This presents a problem since the last part of the bottle requires a tipped back baby's head to get the milky into the mouth.

Oh the shark has pretty teeth dear...

This is a short one just to say that yesterday I was sitting reading a story to Rhianwen while she was chewing on my hand. All of a sudden I noticed that something sharp was boring into my palm. I looked down at Rhianwen, turned her around, and pulled down her lower lip (much to her annoyance). There protruding from her lower gum was the tip of a pearly white! No wonder why she didn't want to nap on Saturday and why her nose was running today! My little babe is growing up (sniff sniff).

Tooth Day

Other fun things: Rhianwen has discovered that faces are fun to grab.

Shelob's Children

Ok, I never considered myself to be an arachnaphobiac, but after the past couple of days maybe I am. There are large dark brown spiders appearing on the floor in our house. My child happens to spend the better part (or should I say dangerous part) of her day on the floor. I spent all of Friday trying to identify, crush, and poison these creatures...no they are not brown recluses...only a slight comfort to me. They creep me out. When my loving husband came home for lunch I asked his opinion about the problem. No big deal, smoosh them and move on he suggested. I had been doing that all morning. It wasn't working. I asked him doesn't anything ever creep you out? After much comtemplation, he said, "Well maybe a spitting cobra or a rabid dog." To me that would be terrfying, not just creepy. I could see I needed some feminine empathy. I called his mom. She is good at empathizing.






We left our house Friday night and safely retreated to Conway for the weekend after I sprayed the entire house and garage.


Uncle Christopher is more creeped out by these dolls than by the spiders!

When we get back, Wally can go in the house first; perhaps there will be evidence of death and destruction wrought by the terrifying hand of me via the poison spray. I don't think I will take a death toll.

Reflections on Life after Lab

Many people have asked me what I think of life now that I'm not in lab all the time. Now that I have gotten time to think on it, some things are different but some things are frighteningly similar! Here's a short list (by no means comprehensive):