Lately... (with a whole lot of rambling)

I feel as if I should have a label at the top of the page that reads, "This blog is nearly abandoned."  Like a warning label or something.  I blame Facebook.  It's so much easier to post a pile of pictures there or use the camera on my iPod to quickly throw up a picture with a funny little one-liner, like the one I did of Ninja recently sitting in the high chair, complaining that the baby gets food when he sits there, while Ninja only gets his picture taken.  Yeah...

Part of it is simply the act of Motherhood.  I'm old and tired and have a very young and active small person to keep alive.  I can't even blame the move anymore.  The house is mostly put together, although there are still pictures hanging out in my hallway upstairs, rather than hanging on walls.  And the baby is almost ready to be moved into a proper nursery.  Truthfully, the baby is ready; it's the room that we're waiting on.  Steven finally has it properly textured and painted, and he even replaced all the outlets and switches.  Fresh and clean.  We're just in the process of putting up some of the things on the walls.  I expect poor Alex will finally get moved in over the weekend.  I say poor Alex because the last time he had a proper nursery, he was 6 months old.  He'll be a year old in 2 weeks.

Wow.  We've lived here 5 months now.  We finally got around to trading in our Texas driver's licenses for Oklahoma ones this week.  While this really needed to be done for a lot of reasons, I'd been dragging my heels as long as possible.  But with a presidential election coming up, and my preference for one buffoon politician over another, I had to finally move on this in order to be able to vote.  But it was a sad day, especially as I didn't even get to keep my Texas license.  And it actually had my one and only good picture ever placed on a driver's license!  (I still cringe when I think of the horrible profile picture on my license when I was 16.  It was taken right before a drill team practice in the Texas summer heat, so I wasn't looking pretty.  I got my license, drove all by myself to practice, then locked my keys in my car.  My mom was not happy when she came and bailed me out of that pickle.) 

Alex is teething again.  Fun times.  (Can you sense my sarcasm?)  One tooth finally busted through, so I'm expecting 3 others to follow soon.  I hope.  Please, God, please.  I have probably the most good-natured baby on the planet, but teething makes him something like the Hulk.  "Don't make me get teeth.  You won't like me when I'm teething."  And with that, I just revealed my age, as I grew up watching Bill Bixby play the Hulk on TV.  This just points back at my previous statement of being old and tired.  (Seriously, God has a strange sense of humor to give a woman who can't get pregnant a baby when she's nearly 40.  No wonder Sarah laughed when God said she'd have a baby!  I have to wonder how tired she was as she ran around after little Isaac!)

Ninja is calming down.  A lot.  All the songs I've made up about him are no longer true, as they're about how naughty he is and how he steals food.  Ever since we started supplementing the renal diet he eats along with Doogie, who is the reason they eat that way, with what we call "treat food" (it's Wellness wet food), he stopped trolling for food.  More or less.  He's still hopeful, but he doesn't lie in wait anymore for the moment you get up and leave your plate (stupidly) unattended.  Now he hangs out under the high chair and hopes for something good.  Alex likes to help him out.  He's discovered that if he drops Cheerios, Ninja sometimes smacks them around the room.  It's great entertainment for the two of them, but it means finding food in strange places for me. 

Doogie is just Doogie.  Sweet, quiet, sleeps a lot these days.  I made a deal with him.  He's okay with the baby living here, but he wants said baby to leave him alone.  So, I promised that I would never make him be touched by Alex.  We use Ninja for all cat-petting practice.  I figure Doogie is old, sick, and he's been through hell and back in the past year-and-a-half with all the change we've brought into his life.  He's earned the privilege of being left alone. 

Speaking of the cats and the baby, we're having a kitty-themed birthday party for Alex.  Everything will be black and white, in honor of Ninja and Doogie.  Alex so adores his cats.  Just wish the feeling was mutual. 

And with that, I'll leave you with a random photo of my child enjoying bubbles (right before I mopped the floors, because there's no other way I'd ever blow soapy bubbles in my house):