Happy 2nd birthday, Naomi!
She might not always think so, but finding out today that
she’s going to be a big sister was her best birthday present this year.
Liz may have timed her appointments with Uncle Adam to make
sure that her pregnancy test results came back today, but since she’s quickly
getting into the barfy stage, I’m not sure she was thinking about that at all
when she had her first appointment on Friday.
Her off-and-on morning sickness is also the main reason why Mom and I
spent a few hours at their apartment from the time I finished school until
after Naomi’s party ended so that we could help her out with the work – and
keeping up with the gang of toddlers that included Ethan, Ehlana, the kids they
played with at KidZone, and a few friends they all knew from church.
I’ve definitely jumped ahead in the daily recap, so let’s
back up; and I’ll get to the party story in a minute.
We were all awake early this morning to see Dad before he
left for Crystal Springs, and then Mom had four cuddle
buddies, including Mandy, for the hour or so of nap time we made time for after
Dad left. The rest of the morning at
home was fairly quiet, though Ethan and Ehlana were fired up about Naomi’s birthday;
and kept Mom and I entertained during breakfast by chatting about everything
they’d be doing today.
The fact that it’s winter instead of spring might have had
something to do with why we didn’t end up with a play afternoon at school today
after Liz and Naomi stopped by to let Mr. Seager know that he was going to be a
Daddy again; but maybe that’s just something that applies to first babies. Whatever the reason, though that did become
the top news story at school, classes continued as normal; and even Mr.
Seager’s class only had the bonus entertainment of having Naomi give her Daddy
flowers along with the baby news before getting back to work again.
Helping out with Naomi’s birthday party replaced our usual
play night, and Rowen just ended up hanging out at the store instead of going
out to play without me. Since my main
job was keeping up with Naomi and her friends while Mom, Liz, and Philip took
care of the work end of the party. Quite
a few of the grown-ups in Naomi’s family stopped by to see her, or stay for
dinner; including her grandparents, Uncle Nick, and Aunt Deborah.
I’d suggest that feeding toddlers – especially the cake and
ice cream – is scary, but it really wasn’t any worse than watching a gang of
tween boys demolish every morsel of food in sight when they get together; and
the toddlers aren’t trying to impress anyone while they’re making a mess and
having fun. Ethan and Ehlana had to play
along, and reminded me that there were some advantages to being a toddler when
it was just Mom and me. I rarely had to
pretend that I couldn’t feed myself without the mess, and since my brother and
sister are both neat freaks already; they don’t really like having to make even
the minimal mess they need to do for show in public.
Of course, they also have their own iPads, so I don’t feel
too sorry for them!
Getting back to the party story, I led most of the
pre-dinner games; we survived dinner; and needed to do a lot of kid and room
cleaning after the cake and ice cream before having Naomi open her gifts. While finding out that she’ll be a big sister
by sometime in mid-September would eventually rate as her best present, the
iPad mini from her parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles was her favorite
today. I’m sure of that because the
first thing Ehlana did after getting home tonight was test out a little Face
Time with her friend – with a little cosmetic help from Mom and Liz. I’ll take a wild guess that they’ll be doing
a lot of that; including some chats after they’re in bed for the night.
Liz and Philip will probably get razzed about having a
toddler with an iPad as much as Mom and Dad did, but even if Naomi was a
‘normal’ toddler, there are lots of games available to help teach even young
kids; and this really isn’t any more radical than putting computers in primary
and kindergarten classrooms was ten years ago – it’s just where technology and
education is going into the future.
Mom and I were able to take Ethan and Ehlana home by shortly
after eight. We were the last ‘friends’
to leave, and as I mentioned already; after getting home, Ehlana needed to play
with Naomi and their iPads for a while before bedtime. I had homework to get done, along with the
rest of my usual nightly computing and studies, but helped Mom do bath time
with Ethan and Ehlana first before going up to my room; getting changed and
into bed with Mandy; and started on my work.
With a little time-phasing help, I was able to get
everything done fairly quickly – at least in real-time terms. I experimented a bit with that; adjusting how
‘fast’ I sped up so that I could measure and compare the power used. There is a lot written in the archives about
the exponential function that relates to mass for all Transmutations, but the
same applies to other factors too; and there isn’t nearly as much information
about how Magi power use changes depending on things like how fast or slow, and
length of time spent in time-phase. That
isn’t something I’ll have the answer for in one evening of study, but I’ll
write something up for it once I do get some answers.
That’s all I have to report for my day, but while I’ve been
thinking about the Seagers a lot tonight, I should mention that their big news
today will also have an impact on our future plans because they’re going to
need to move to a bigger place to have room for two kids. Ethan, Ehlana, and I know what’s supposed to
happen, and we’ll keep that little secret for a while longer, but I can assure
you that starting out twenty-thirteen with a new pregnancy and birthday parties
is just the beginning of the excitement this year for Naomi and her parents.
I’ve had enough excitement for today, and am ready to get
some sleep, so...
...until next time, this is Magi Master Cassie Proctor;
logging out!
