Z is taking his first wobbling steps! Usually just two or three, before he drops down to crawl again, but we got a record 8 this afternoon. We suspect he's ok walking if he has no particular destination in mind, but once he has someplace he wants to go, crawling is MUCH faster.

I figure by the end of the week we won't be able to keep up with him, and next month we can sign him up for a marathon with slvr_starre. Then: lindy hop lessons! ;)

If there was one place I thought I might be safe from Michael Jackson music, surely it was a swing dance. But no. Tonight I swing danced to "Billie Jean." I feel dirty. :P

Happy birthday to my wonderful, sweet, funny, brilliant, delightful husband. I love you!

I have permission from my historical linguistics professor to do my final paper on science fiction vocabulary. I'd appreciate it if you'd take the time to complete my survey. It's both simpler and a bit harder than the last one--there are fewer questions, but they're probably harder to answer. There are no "right" and "wrong" answers; I'm looking for your common semantic knowledge about certain terms. If you don't know a term, that's still data. :)

Click Here to Take Survey

As always, feel free to re-post this to your personal blogs, other communities, Facebook, etc.

It was almost exactly three years ago that I attended my first Hot Jam dance in Buckhead and saw my first jam circle. This wasn't the kind of jam circle I talked about recently, a birthday or celebration circle. No, this was the other kind, with the fast music and amazing-awesome dancers. And I saw a couple named Bobby and Kate swing into the circle. The danced like this. And they danced like this. And my jaw dropped, and my eyes lit up, and I exclaimed, "I want to dance with him!"

As it turns out, Bobby White and Kate Hedin are internationally acclaimed, award-winning dance instructors. They used to live in Atlanta, but moved to DC the year I started dancing. They still show up from time to time to teach a class, and tonight's Hot Jam drew the lucky number. Bobby showed up to teach a class on creative dance technique, and stayed for the open dancing afterwards.

The class was great; we did a lot of experimentation with styling and creativity. The dance afterward was *fantastic*. Bobby's a big name in the lindy hop world, and I'm sure tonight's crowded dance floor was at least in part due to his presence. I danced with a lot of my favorite partners, and round about the middle of the evening, I screwed up my courage and asked Bobby to dance. And you know? I did pretty well. Actually, I think I did really well. I was creative, I was stylish, I followed everything he led. It felt good. It felt great. And I think he had a good time, too.

I think I'll always feel like I still have a long way to go before my dancing is as good as I want it to be. But tonight felt like a milestone. I asked Bobby White to dance. And I didn't suck. Life is good.

I had this wonderful idea: I want to get a kiddie pool to set up on the deck, so I can let Z splash around in there, and not have to worry about sunblock, since it's under the roof. I had the deck reinforced to support that much weight when it was remodeled, without thinking of the other clever idea I'd need:

How would I drain the pool??

Just got back from fireworks in Decatur Square. The weather was unusually pleasant for Atlanta in July--this past week, it's cooled off from insanely hot to merely very hot, and tonight was almost cool.

There's something very nostalgic about going to see fireworks on the 4th of July. Many things have changed about the world--and about me!--since I was a little girl, but this isn't one of them. We still congregate with hundreds of people in some public outdoor venue to watch the lights in the sky. Someday Z will be old enough not to be scared by the noise, and we'll take him along. And someday he'll take his kids.

Happy Independence Day!

Z is 31 inches long and weighs 21 lbs, 128 oz. I am sure he's heavier, though. As one of the moms at our sign language class said, that's not the wiggle-weight.

He checks out healthy and fit. He has a little bit of eczema on his legs, which we've been treating with hydrocortisone, and ptosis of the right eyelid--which just means his eyelid droops a little bit. We took him to a pediatric ophthalmologist (and boy, is that a mouthful), who said it's nothing to be concerned about as long as it doesn't obscure his vision. It doesn't so far, and we have a follow-up appointment in six months.

The pediatrician who did his 15-month checkup was slightly concerned that he wasn't walking yet, and, ironically, is concerned about his language development. Apparently, he's supposed to be following simple commands (come here, bring mommy the ball), and indicating when he wants something. Honestly, sometimes he does come when I call him, but if he doesn't, how could I tell if that's because he didn't understand me or because he had something better to do? But the doctor said if he's not doing some of this, walking, and using about 6-8 words, by 18 months, we should consider having him "evaluated."

I'm not terribly worried about it myself. He took a long time to work his way up to crawling; he'll sort out walking when he's ready. And he's got the one word, mama and dada seem to be happening, and occasionally we get "chee" for cheese, and "app" for apple. I didn't dare tell her I'd been speaking French to him, for fear I'd get that hoary old chestnut of a speech about how raising children bilingually is detrimental to speech development. :P

Z wishes you all a safe and happy Fourth of July! (Actually, he said "ss sshhh ag a ba guk!" but I'm sure that's what it means.)

Happy birthday to the lovely eponasr! I hope you're having fun!

( Hooves )

( Cutting out the mask )

Does it seem ironic to be making a bull out of leather?

Our cutting-edge post-modernist sculptor makes his debut.

( First, the cucumbers. )

It certainly speaks to the innermost psyche, doesn't it? I think it represents the Jungian archetype of man's fear of Jungian archetypes.

Yes, I like to hold babies now. This is Eli Allan Williamson, 1 month old:

zudaru gives Z a lesson in practical electronics:

We had dinner tonight with a friend I used to work with. She and her husband have just had a baby. I had forgotten how tiny newborns are! So teeny! Yes, I held the baby. I even got him to quiet down and stop fussing by applying some of Dr. Karp's 5 Ss, thus earning gratified and impressed looks from the hostess. Yeah, that's me, expert baby soother. Heh.

When I started taking private lindy lessons, I decided I'd better set a more specific goal than "get better at dancing." So one of my dance goals this year was to be confident enough to dance in a jam circle.

There are two kinds of jam circles. The kind I aspired to is the easier one--everyone circles up on the floor around someone celebrating a birthday, or someone visiting the dance from out of town, or someone celebrating something special, and while the DJ plays one or two songs, the lucky person gets to dance with all comers, trading partners as they swap themselves into the dance. You don't have to be a spectacular dancer to dance in this kind of circle, but you have to be good enough that dancing with you is going to be a nice experience for the celebrant, and you have to be confident enough to step in in the first place.

Last week, I did that. It was for a guy going away to seminary school in California. I sidled into the circle, watched my chance, and held out my hand. He grabbed it, and away we went, until the next follow sidled in for her turn.

And tonight at Hot Jam, I did it again, for a guy who was visiting from--I never did get where he was from, but his name was Meade, and he was a great dancer. I'm not a *great* dancer--but good enough that I think I gave him a good couple of measures.

(The other kind of jam circle is the kind where the music is dauntingly fast, and you get out there to show off how utterly cool and amazing you are. I'm not there yet.)