Capt. Mondo's World o' Mondo-ness

Writing Weekend
I spent much of this beautiful late Spring weekend hunkered down in my basement office working on my new CSS book. I managed to get the chapter on Cascading done, and all but the last two new CSS3 properties covered in the chapter dealing with user interface elements. All good work which I am proud of, and don't doubt will look good when it is published.

I woke up Saturday feeling really stressed about it all. But Erika was a real trooper and handled things well on the kid end of things while I worked away in the basement. My stress lessened considerably when I saw how much work I had managed to get done after the first full day -- damn I'm good. ;-)

Still, as deadline looms closer and closer, I expect to be using what little free time I have towards finishing off the new book.

I love this sort of work. Maybe I should re-think things regarding resuming a career in technical writing? Hmmm.

Vanessa's Weekend
Speaking of weekends... this was arguably a great weekend for Vanessa. She spent much of the weekend with Merlot, a local girl who is perhaps a couple of years older than her. Merlot had a sleepover, and both of them spent a lot of their time together during the weekend tearing around in the back lane.

Last night I read her a couple of Grimm Brothers stories (her latest favorite night-time read for several nights running now). When I had finished reading the second story, I noticed that she had fallen fast asleep. Very cute.

Annie Can't Wait to "Grow Up"
One other thing that has become obvious now that Annie is becoming more mobile -- she can't wait to be bigger and do the things her big sister Vanessa can do.

A memorable moment captures this: Vanessa and Merlot excitedly run out the backdoor to do something together outside. Annie charges across the dining room floor after them, crawling as fast as she can, making equally excited-sounding “ba!” noises. She gets to the backdoor and the kids are no longer in sight, but she keep charging on out the door, and I grab her just as she is thinking about how to get down the steps.

She always watches with great interest anything that her older sister Vanessa does. Woe betide Vanessa if she is playing with anything on the floor, because you can count on Annie charging over to see if she can somehow "join in". This is amusing for us parents to see, though I can see the day when Vanessa comes and says to us “Annie won’t go away” or “Annie’s playing with my stuff” -- it's bound to happen. ;-)