les feet ils sont a point de fall off

We are day 2/3 of baby & me on our own taking care of each other (babydaddy saw she was cutting a new tooth and has wisely jumped ship for the weekend to LA), and we are both getting a wee bit pissed off about the situation. I say she started it, and even if she thinks I started it she can't say anything to retaliate, because HA! she can't talk. Admittedly she can (and does) yell, but I have the ultimate trump card: if she gets too horrible, I can leave her outside for the nice homeless people who camp in the alleyway across the street from us to either take care of or barbecue up for their dinner as they see fit. I might do that. I haven't decided yet. I'll assess how hungry they look next time I look out the window.

Yesterday (seeing as how we just got back from extended travelling etc etc etc) I thought

I would be a Really Good Selfless Mummy and stay home doing fun baby things All Day Long: lying on my belly on the carpet singing inane songs and woggling toys at her in an effort to encourage to her crawl towards me (most of the time she just grins at me and flops around pointlessly, until she decides she **REALLY WANTS THE TOY** and then she gets this scary intense psycho killer expression on her face and commando-crawls at 50 mph until she has grabbed the plastic duck or the whale on wheels or the 1970's era mini-maraca or whatever it is I have been waving at her.) I also decided (since the weather was nice and we were at home) that we would ramp up the toilet training, so we spent most of the day diaper-free in the kitchen, bathroom, and back deck, which was very exciting (after which, I have to say that cleaning up pee puddles really doesn't take any longer than changing a nappy, and it's definitely got a smaller carbon footprint. I won't go so far as to claim it's environmentally friendly, since the house technically is an "environment," and an ammoniac pong doesn't quite say, oh, go on, come in and have a cuppa, but still.)

Today, however, we left the house! (blogworthy news, I know). After baby swim lesson at the YMCA (highlight: chewing on chlorine soaked blocks of styrofoam. Her, not me) we walked all the way to the Legion of Honor (that's like five miles, plus a bit if you get lost in the Presidio, which of course we did, but it wasn't totally our fault, because the trail we were intending to take was closed for renovation) to go see the Mourners exhibit - 15th century sculptures from the tomb of John the Fearless (Jean sans peur if you are being authentically Burgundian about it). The alabaster mourners were nice, but less than totally thrilling - I think I'd imagined them slightly larger than lifesize, somehow, like 8 or 9 feet tall, rather than 10" or so, and I was expecting to be able to walk in solitude among them in a spooky dim cathedral light rather than maneuvering the *&$! stroller around several dozen middleaged people with fanny packs drifting myopically around a modern little gallery space.

But! I _was_ thrilled by some of the other stuff at the LoH; I've only ever been to special exhibits there, and never bothered to actually go and look at the stuff that's in the regular collection, and thanks to the %^&#! stroller I had to go hunting for elevators, which took me through some of the regular collection, and there are some really really really really nice paintings. There's a lovely Raphael Madonna, and Monet Venetian Grand Canal (not usually my cup of tea but I make exceptions for the warm pinkypaleblueyyellowy architectural ones viz the views of Rouen cathedral), two Fantin La Tour still lifey things I quite liked, and a whole pile of portraits by Sir Henry Raeburn what I thought were way cool in a Singer Sargenty kind of way. In fact, I might go out on a limb, and say I like them BETTER than a lot of Singer Sargents!!!! omg. sacrilege. The only painting I've seen of his (that I knew about) previously is the famous one of the skating minister:

which is fantastically weird and wonderful and makes you think both Henry Raeburn and the Reverend Robert Walker must have had a sense of humour. I have ordered a Henry Raeburn book from the library, so I'll tell you for sure once it arrives whether he really is my new painting BFF. There's also some loverly medieval and Flemish Renaissance stuff what I will not bore you with because I spend way too much time drooling over anatomically odd Virgins and dour black-suited burghers in this blog as it is.

After the LoH we slogged home; a BOO to the evil bus driver lady who slammed the door on my face and a YAY to the nice bus passenger lady who opened it again and helped me carry the aforementioned *&$%?! stroller up the bus steps for me. And another YAY for the baby being asleep, the laundry being started, dinner being eaten, and a hot bath with my name written all over it.