Must stick to commitments!

It's been almost 3 weeks since my last post. I will not succumb to the laziness that is my nature and stop writing here.  Must. Stay. Focused. Let's begin.

We've been keeping track of Jack's vocabulary.  We made a list of the words he knows.  Typically, when a kid is 2 years old, pediatricians like to make sure they know some stuff, to make sure that the kid's not dim and that we're not in need of an investigation by CPS.  Generally, I think they're supposed to know 50 words by 2 years old. I've got 45 on the list.  And that was just like, 15 minutes of trying to remember all the things he knows.  I'm sure we're beyond 50, but I'm not worried about it anymore.

And he's really starting to figure stuff out.  He can answer yes or no questions with pretty solid accuracy.  He can help us decipher his wants and needs.  He can point to his "pee-pee".  Yep, he's basically a genius.

Also, we're finally in the market for a house. Like, a not-for-rent, we're-going-into-debt-for-30-years, HOME.  It's pretty great.  We've looked at a handful so far, and there's one in particular that we're in love with.  It's not too big, but not so small that we'll be on top of each other like we are currently.  Hopefully we'll be putting an offer in on it in the next couple of weeks.  I'm stoked.

GIS for "stoked".  Hyperbole & a Half gets me.

Jack is 20 months, 2 weeks old, and will soon be in his own room. FREEEDOOOMMM! 

I'm not old, I'm 27!

So, today is my birthday. Fun.

I bought myself a Kindle Fire, which is pretty cool so far.  However, $280 (for the device and some accessories) seems a bit steep for a gizmo that does everything my phone does, minus make calls or take pictures. Thus, I'm having a bit of buyer's remorse, but that happens every time I spend money on anything that isn't food.

And full disclosure, $250 of that was in the form of Amazon gift cards from my parents between Christmas and my birthday. So really, I'm sad over only spending $30 of my own money on a pretty sweet new electronic thingy.

I also got to take Jack to see his ENT today.  SEVENTY minutes roundtrip, TWENTY minutes in the waiting room, TWO minutes for the doc to say, "looks good, call me if he has any troubles." Cool. Thanks. I made the appointment to follow up on some grody ear blood from 3 weeks ago (yeah, 3 weeks was the soonest they could get me in for blood coming out of a hole it's not supposed to come out of).  Doc said it was probably just the tube in that ear dislodging. Gross. Now we get to keep our fingers crossed that the kid can go ear infection-less for a while so he won't have to have tubes put in again.

Then Jack and I stopped at an epic playground for a little while.

And that was the highlight of my day.

Parenting Things That Make You Go, "Aaaghhh!"

In no particular order:

- Very sudden illnesses - fevers, vomiting, any sort of liquid coming out of a tiny body that usually stays inside the body.

He makes this sad face when he's feverish. I can't take it.

- Stepping on small toys in the dark

I'm not as hardcore as Chuck Norris.

- The ever-lingering smell of poop

Only it's not Grandpa's poop. It's the toddler's.

- "NO NO NO NO, MAMA!"

This is what he looks like when asked if he needs a new diaper.

- Giant car seats in small cars.

The bane of my traveling existence.

- Unsavory individuals wanting to come into physical contact with my child.

That's all I can think of tonight, but I know there's more. What can you add to the conversation?



Jack is 19 months, 3 weeks old, and a sudden fever brought this topic on this evening.

Ohh, the pharm (plugging another blog).

There's this other blog I follow, The Angry Pharmacist. If you can't figure it out by the title, this dude is a (retail) pharmacist. And an angry one. If you don't work in a pharmacy, you probably won't get a lot of what he's talking about, because it has much to do with insurance problems and specific medications, and other job-specific crap we deal with every day.

M'yes. You wouldn't understand. Peasant.

But just about everyone has worked retail of some kind or another. TAP's last entry had me rolling because I've been there, both in the pharmacy and in other retail jobs.

Click here to read about people barfing in a store.