My Daughter Is Now a Monkey

Last night I got to experience another moment of simultaneous joy and terror at watching my daughter figure out how to do something new.  I noticed this past weekend that, while trying to grab something out of her reach at the back of the couch, she swung one of her feet up toward the cushion like she was about to climb on up and get it herself.  While I was pretty impressed at the time, and thought to myself, "Hey, I bet she'll be climbing soon!"  I was completely not prepared for "soon" to equal "four days later."  Sigh.

She didn't make it up onto the couch, but last night she did manage to climb up onto the coffee table.  Repeatedly.  And then stand up and try walking around on it.  The first few times she got up there, I kept an eye on her, and when it looked like she wanted down, I put her back on the floor, only to watch her turn around climb back up.  Eventually, she was sitting on it, ooching around backward and pushed herself off of it, and I was not quick enough to catch her before she made it to the ground.  Thankfully the coffee table is not high up and she fell in an area clear of anything to hit her head on.  She was completely unhurt in all but her pride.  There was some crying, and I held her and rocked her for a bit.  And when I put her down again, she climbed right back up on the table.  Sigh.

After I put her to bed I had my husband help me move the coffee table out of the room.

I know that this will only be a temporary safety measure, and hopefully we won't have to have a big honking coffee table in our bedroom, attacking our unwary shins at night, for too long.  But hopefully, for the time being, this will keep her out of any extra trouble.  Being a parent is so awesome.  No, really.

Wally naps in the aftermath of playtime.

So before the whole coffee table fiasco last night, I finally got to watch Toy Story 3.  I never got a chance to see it when it was in theaters.  I think one of the only things I really truly miss about life pre-baby is going to movies.  I used to do that a lot.  But, I am confident that in a few more years I can resume that habit--and with a buddy in tow!  I loved the movie, of course.  It really was an excellent movie, and I think it would have stood well on its own had the other two movies not come before it.  I can admit I cried my eyes out at the end.  So sad, and then, so happy!  The character Bonnie actually made me think of Baby Girl quite a bit, and what I think/hope she will be like in a few more years.  It got me really excited for those times to come.  (See, parenting really is cool.)  Also, it made me feel bad for every toy I have ever given away or stuffed in an attic.  I may or may not have given each of Baby Girl's toys a hug and a kiss as I put them away last night...

I am making decent progress in my novel-writing adventure.  I currently stand at 9,744 words (out of 50,000).  The NaNoWriMo rules state that the goal is a 50,000 word novel, which they say breaks down to 175 pages.  So when setting my goals, I divided 175/30 to get that I would need to write six pages a day, and I did manage to make six pages on Monday.  And then I did some math, and realized that however I have MS Word set up on my computer, six pages is a lot more (about twice as much, actually) than what I need to be doing to make the word count goal.  So, it's day four and I am already a little bit ahead, and just starting to find my momentum, which is awesome.  I did struggle a bit on Monday to get those six pages in though, so I have decided to adjust my goal to four pages a day.  It's still more than the minimum I need to do, but it's not so much that I feel overwhelmed trying to hit my goal.  My only real problem right now is that NaNoWriMo's website is being glitchy and I have been having trouble keeping my word count up to date on their site.  And really, that's no biggie, as long as they get the validation tool fixed before the end of the month!

Remember the other day when I mentioned that I was worried my story might not end up being long enough?  Well, I no longer really have that worry--as I thought, introducing other people into the action has started eating up pages--but I stumbled across this article in io9 that just made me smile.  It seemed timely (well, yeah, I mean, he was talking about NaNoWriMo), and relevant to my particular worries.  It even helped me lay my fears just a bit more to rest. 

It actually turns out to be a very good thing that I am already a bit ahead, as I am going to be giving up a big chunk of my writing time today to head out to Dallas for a book signing by Brandon Sanderson!  My completely wonderful awesome excellent mother-in-law is even going to watch Baby Girl so we can meet up with a friend and get to relax with a nice kid-free evening.  I am looking forward to it very much.  I will try to have a write-up for you tomorrow about the event.

In the mean time, kids and kiddos, have a groovy day.