Personal Log: TJ Dragonblade

True election-day story, as relayed by my fifth-grader:

He goes into school this morning, and the teacher says something about it being a Very Important Day today, and does anyone know why?

So my kid shoots his hand in the air and, when called on, says, "Because Halo 4 comes out today!!"

Ah, to be that carefree.

Currently the center of my life, and one of the reasons no one's seeing much of me 'round these parts at the moment:

( Cut for small images )

If I was less reserved of a personality, I'd totally have a billfold full of snapshots that I'd whip out Hughes-style to show anyone who'd stand still long enough to look. ^_^;; As it is, I'll probably drop random pics here every once in a great while and quietly carry on about my business.

Also: ( Proud big brother )

I want to thank everyone for the comments and congratulations and general well-wishes about the baby. I'd meant to answer them all individually, but given how long it's been I thought maybe this would be the more efficient route to take. ^_^; So, thanks, everyone!

It's amazing to think that he's almost two months old now. Time flies. The two months I spent at home felt more like a couple of weeks, and going back to the office this past week feels like I never left at all. Except that I miss being home for Octavian, and have all these semi-irrational worries about him doing all his growing up in the 40 hours I'm gone every week and I'll miss it all. ^_^; I don't remember fretting like this with AJ, but then again he was five months before I started working so maybe I'd had time to get past it.

It's funny how, now that we've got Octavian, AJ looks abruptly older, more grown-up. Like we'd overlooked how big he's getting until we suddenly have a new baby in the house to compare him to. Won't be all that long until he's a teenager, really. Which is a notion that's very difficult to wrap my head around.

Anyway. There've been so many things I'd wanted to el-jay about over the past several months; I may eventually get around to a bullet-pointed list summing them up, perhaps. Or not. There's no telling. Right now it's enough of an undertaking to keep up with the flist and monitor large fandom comms and gradually back-track missed fic. I need to update haku_ryuu, too, but probably ought to do that after I've finished that back-tracking in case of missed Goujun fic.

I had my first P/T conference today, and I'm happy to report that it went quite well. AJ's report card looks fabulous, and he loves school. Is actually very upset when required to stay home sick, or for holidays, or inservice days, or these quarterly P/T Conf half-days. Not that I ever got half-days in elementary school, but that's beside the point. He loves school and he loves his teacher, and she tells me he's one of her top students. That he's reading at or above a first-grade level already, omg. And he got a monthly star-reader award for September, with his name printed in the school newsletter and everything. So. Freaking. Proud. of my baby. ^__^

She also said he's doing well socially in the class, as far as polite and appropriate interaction, group participation, etc. Which I'm glad to hear, because that's been one of the things I'm more concerned about (seeing as how I was never very good at that side of things, but adept at the academics). I'm hopeful that kindergarten will help him learn to behave like a six-year-old, instead of this six-going-on-sixteen thing that we're seeing so much of.

Teacher also reports that he and another of her top students (a girl) have latched onto one another, and that the girl sometimes drops words like 'boyfriend' and 'girlfriend'.

AJ denies it, with much theatrical melodrama and kindergarten-y mortification.

*cough*

^_^

So yes. This school-thing is not going terribly badly, from this end of it.

As far as the other-than-human part of the subject-line, Nataku is...well, he's looking damned near female these days. We had a brief bout with little dotty-white something-or-other (ick, I suppose) awhile back. Kicked that, but then his fins began rotting away. I wasn't sure at first, as he's historically been a biter, but it wasn't long before it became pretty f*cking obvious that the damage wasn't self-inflicted (and yes, I'm a little angry that I couldn't tell the difference right away). It's been a long battle to halt the shrinkage, but I think I've got it stopped now. Knock on wood. I've been treating with some green gunk for the disease and some melaleuca-based stuff that's also designed to encourage re-growth, once the rot stopped. So far...I'm not seeing much in the way of recovery. But I'ma keep going. I might have to look into something stronger and more targeted/specific. He's not a Happy Betta, at the moment, and winter temperatures setting in don't help much either.

Goujun, on the other hand, is healthy and gorgeous and happy as can be. Knock on wood. Again. He was feisty all summer, and while he's chilled out a little as the weather has, he's not...mopey, like he seemed last winter. I've got better warming-conditions for the both of them, and hopefully I can keep them more comfortable through the cold this year. I've started feeding them bloodworms as a once-weekly treat, too, and yeah. They likes that. ^_^