Via bkwrrm_tx, Project Runway is finally coming back!

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Last week, Jeff and I caught a PBS program that was nothing but Gershwin. If you get a chance, watch this. Rhapsody in Blue is the last piece, and it is remarkable to witness.

Also, if you're a Tom Petty fan and can catch his episode of Soundstage, I highly recommend it.

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Hey look! Mrs. PiggleWiggle's house!

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I don't like most April Fools' stuff, but I am fond of the goofy fake news stories. Not all of them, of course. The clever ones that took more than a moment's thought.

This is my current favorite:

Shocking Split Rocks Comics World: Alan Moore Abandoned by His Beard

It's more than just the headline...the article is great.

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Damn but time passes quickly. I'm writing on Wednesday and all of a sudden, it's Friday.

Also? It was a month today that we brought the baby home. She'll be four months old next Friday.

Sometimes, quickly becomes warp speed.

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Charlie gained enough weight and is thus no longer a patient of the home-visiting nurses (I can't remember the name of the place, only the name of the place that rents us her feeding pump). Yay!

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I was nine when I started puberty (that's when the boobs started growing in, and probably the hips. The period gave me a break for a couple more years), so I wanted to get Sammy a good book to give her a solid foundation. Luckily, the boob fairy hasn't come to our house recently (if I'd ever had a chance to want boobs, I might not dislike mine the majority of the time), but better informed than weirded out.

We've talked about puberty and sex and periods and so on for ages, but it's always good to have a book to page through. And it may give her the language to ask some questions she wasn't sure how to form.

I remember taking out loads of puberty books from the library, both girl and boy versions, 'cause I wanted to know what was happening to them, too.

The one I found to start her off is It's Perfectly Normal which is perfectly marvelous. It's accessible without talking down, there are people of all shapes, sizes, colors, ages and ableness throughout the book and I think it's going to spark some interesting conversations. But even if it doesn't, she has the info now, and can either ask me to find her more or go looking on her own.

There were a few books I was thinking of getting, and the final reason I picked this one was the reviews on Amazon. The good reviews were wonderful.

The bad reviews? Were kinda scary. I have a feeling some people were sent there to make them, as a few of them mention the same things, such as "one of the only sections without cartoons is the one on abortion" and "the book was given away by Planned Parenthood (the largest abortion provider)". They also equated knowing about something to doing it, but that's pretty common.

My favorite thing about the book? Besides the section about sexual abuse ('cause we needed to have that conversation, but I didn't quite know where to start without scaring her to death. She knows that nobody's allowed to touch her without her consent, but this gives me a better jumping-off point) is the fact that they stress, in more than one place, that a person always has the right to say no, even if they're right in the middle of something. That alone is worth the price of the book.

And, in closing, I feel the need to yell "Nudity is not the same as pornography, you twits!".

Thank you.

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I came up with a song for Charlie.

"Leap, leap, leap like a lemur
Leap, leap, up and down
Leap, leap, leap like a lemur
Leap all over the town"

With appropriate jumping where necessary. But, as with all things, I got kind of bored...so there are variations. We currently have "Marm like a marmoset", "Goo like a Charlie", "Photosynthesise like an Oak Tree"(that one's challenging) and "Gaboon like a viper". Yes, snakes still do creep me out, but Gabooooooon is a great word.

Sure, my brain may be turning to mush, but I'm havin' a good time while it happens.

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Gotta go, baby's awake.