is this what it will be like?

the baron has been trying to muster up some enthusiasm for the people she and baby x meet at the park: other children, usually a little older than baby x, and parents.

it's no secret that the baron is happiest either alone or with her immediate family.  it's also no secret that small talk is not something that comes naturally or easily to her.  so giving good face at the park is a task that she'd rather not do... but as the weather improves, as it has in the last week, the baron finds herself faced with other parents a lot.  a whole lot.

if she were alone, or with someone other than baby x - who has recently refashioned himself as Mr. Staring McLookatme - the baron would keep to herself.  it's awkward, though, to ignore people when baby x is SO OBVIOUSLY STARING AT THEM and otherwise trying to draw as much attention to himself as possible.  tentative and painful conversation between the baron and the play ground parents usually follows.

this past week, the baron met a woman who's house caught fire christmas eve, and who wanted to enroll her child in a foreign language immersion program.  and a woman who suffered some kind of verbal aphasia that made it impossible BUT IMPOSSIBLE for her to remember the baron and baby x's names EVEN AS THE BARON SPOKE THEM.  and a woman who sat on a bench with her face covered by her hands, removing them only to yell 'no! no!' at her golden retriever while her husband and children played on the merry-go-round.

you, reader, must be wondering how the baron is able to navigate her life, given the fact that there are PEOPLE EVERYWHERE.  mirrored aviators, reader.  they're amazing.

dinner table conversation

the baron: baby x is so heavy.  my shoulders and back ache from carrying him around all day. 

the husband: i know.  why don't you get a massage?

the baron: that money could be better spent on jiffy pots and yard stuff.  maybe i'll just get some aspercreme and you can rub it on my shoulders some night you're feeling romantic.

the husband:  sure.  let me put my dentures in first.

the baron loves the husband because...

...he makes her laugh.

to wit, a text she received from him earlier today:

Goddamned crooked fingered troll

so much sewing to do

the baron, for being an unemployed stay-at-home parent, has a kind of big to-do list. it's mostly household-y stuff like vacuuming, laundry and the like, but there's other stuff on there too, stuff that might be labeled 'hobby' but which has come to feel like work.   it's the sewing, that damn sewing.

first, sometime late last fall, she thought she'd make her brother a quilt.  upon completion of the quilt's top, however, she decided that it didn't look sufficiently masculine enough for him, so she decided to start another, manlier, one for him, one consisting of triangles matched up into squares matched up into larger squares. midway through cutting the fabric for this quilt the baron remembered: dude, quilting with triangles is some hard business.

such a hard business, in fact, that the baron thought she'd take some time out from this second quilt to make a hat for baby x. 'a' hat turned into two hats, which then somehow - after the husband cleaned out his closet and displayed for the baron the pile of collared shirts he planned to donate to the thrift store - turned into four collared summer shirts for baby x (three of which are pictured below).

the baron has been working on these hats and shirts for the past couple of weeks while her quilts languish unseen in a cupboard. today she will finish the last of collared shirts and maybe, maybe get back to the quilts. maybe.

awesomeness abounds

Goodnight Moon?
Try Goodnight Dune.