jinxing oneself

I almost hesitate to post this for fear of jinxing it, but ... Isaac has really been a LOT better about the sleep thing lately. He still tends to go a lengthy stretch from late morning/early afternoon until evening without much sleep, and then get cranky; but he also now takes longer naps -- a 2-hour nap Monday and a 2-hour nap yesterday, and an almost-2-hour nap this morning. Also, he seems a bit easier to get to sleep, even on his back. I've been trying this trick where I put the heating pad in the crib for a few minutes before I put him down, so the crib is nice and toasty when I put him in it. It seems to work really well.

Last night he actually slept for two and a half hours in his crib! Two and a half hours that I got my bed to myself!! Don't get me wrong, I love sleeping with him in my bed, but it does make me a bit stiff (because even while asleep I'm being careful not to disturb him) and it limits the positions I can sleep in (e.g., can't sleep on my tummy). Plus I really want him to get used to sleeping in his crib by himself, for obvious reasons.

So anyway, I'm feeling cautiously optimistic about all that. Also, his pooping habits are changing, but the vast majority of y'all don't care about that, so I'll save it for my parents filter. ;)

This morning I was a bit worried that the June 2003 messageboard on parentsplace.com, which I have been greatly enjoying, was going to turn ugly when one member started posting about the Abortion messageboard and how she had gotten in trouble for posting on that board telling people not to have abortions because it's murder. *groan* But I posted back to her saying that I personally don't consider it murder and how wrong it is to force people to have unwanted babies, etc. ... and then, to my pleased surprise, she backed off. She basically said "okay, we disagree, let's drop it, and I should stop visiting that board because it just upsets me." I thought it was quite mature of her to handle it that way.

Anyway, more to say, but it's not baby-related, so I'll put it in a separate post.

Worldcon, Pratchett, etc.

I haven't posted much about Worldcon, mostly just because I've been busy. It was fun, aside from the baby-fussiness. We had some entertaining times, ate some good food, heard some good panels. We went to the top of the CN Tower, the tallest free-standing structure in the world. That was quite cool.

We also heard Terry Pratchett read from his upcoming novel, Monstrous Regiment, due out September 30th. Isaac was kind enough to sleep the whole time, so I actually got to hear the whole reading, and it was great. PTerry has a great style and put in some side comments that were just hilarious. He started off the hour by explaining that at a previous convention, he showed up with his laptop (to do the reading from) but without a power cord, and a helpful woman on the con staff lent him a power cord, which ended up frying his computer. Ouch! So now he always brings his own. He then went on to say that he was going to read bits from both MS Word and Word Perfect, "without a net." Hee!

He said at the beginning of the reading that he was going to read some from the sequel to The Wee Free Men, but he only ended up reading from one story, so I was confused on whether Monstrous Regiment is that sequel, or whether the sequel is another book that he didn't get to. From reading the description of Monstrous Regiment on Amazon, I don't *think* it's the sequel, but I could be wrong. I haven't read The Wee Free Men, yet, it's on order from Amazon UK.

Anyway, ( fairly mild plot spoilage for Monstrous Regiment )

And that's about all I remember of interest. But if you ever have a chance to hear PTerry read his stuff, go! :)

I also finally read Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere and am wondering why it took me so long to read this. Good stuff. It's interesting how similar, but different, Neil's and PTerry's styles are. Makes it easy to see why they decided to collaborate on Good Omens.