One with the Puppet
A few days ago, Jacob showed us that the light in our bedroom (which is controlled by a remote control), also functions as a rheostat.
We’d never thought to try to do anything like hold the button down… he takes the remote, holds down the button, and there go the lights… dim…bright…
I am ashamed of my technological prowess. Shown up by my son whose current favorite word is “rrrrrr”.
For those of you that didn’t know, we haven’t cut Jacob’s hair other than a bang trim. Sadly, it was time. Our long-haired hippie needed to have some clean neck space for summer:
And it was hard to wash, what with it being really, really long when wet:
So, to Cool Cuts we went, all of us. And lo, the hair was shortened:
I’m not yet over the shock of his growing up a year just from the haircut.
Different doctor, different diagnosis on me: diverticulitis. Seems reasonable. I’m taking the meds and am on a mostly liquid diet for now.Jacob is getting his bangs cut today in preparation for the big cut tomorrow. Mr. Happyhair will turn into a stranger for a bit.
On the way to work, I casually mentioned “the DT song” to Laureen. Then a voice pops up from the backseat: “Dog Train?”
He’s scarysmart learning.
…the freezer in our garage goes out, spoiling a lot of frozen leftovers, packaged meat, and frozen ready-to-eat food awaiting Jessie in May…
It’s just keeps coming.
Tough times at the Jones house. Laureen’s arguably the strongest of the three of us. Jacob’s “only” cutting a molar right now, and he just got his ibuprofen after a mad screaming fit. Sigh.
Me? Oh, let’s see…. Doctor’s appointment. Blood draw. Throw up during blood draw. Tech has to do two sticks to find a vein. Go to hospital, chest x-ray for cough that isn’t any better. Get that done, go to work. Faint at work (at desk). Go home. Faint upstairs in bed. Time passes….
Watch end of Survivor with Laureen. Start coughing fit. Realize I fainted again, although this time without breathing. Apparently, Laureen says I resemble a red-faced chipmunk when I faint, complete with paw-spasms…
Can’t take cough medicine (“USING MORE THAN THE RECOMMENDED DOSAGE WILL CAUSE SERIOUS BREATHING PROBLEMS” Great. Just. Great.), so I’m sitting up here, praying to God for strength and peace because I’m feeling lousy and don’t know why.
Sigh.
Let’s see… last night, had dinner with Laureen and Jacob at Zuzu’s. Normally, I love Zuzu’s. But last night, it didn’t love me. Spent a good portion of time last night making trips to the bathroom. I won’t describe what happened there.
Yesterday: lost a device. Fell off my desk at work and couldn’t find it. Looked around forever. Cleaned up my office (which I needed to do anyway), still couldn’t find it. Sent out the panic email to the company, then looked in the box of vanilla wafers that was open beside my desk…
Sigh. Yup. Entropy shot.
Today: had trouble connecting a device to our servers… tried, tried, tried…. couldn’t connect. Call developer over. He looks, can’t find anything wrong. I look down and realize I’ve got the power cable plugged in instead of the connector cable….
Sigh.
Well, we have re-placed the carpet, so now all that’s left to do is repair the sewer line, rip up the wallpaper in the bathroom, replace the baseboards from all around… and pray to God that it doesn’t happen again for a while.
Congratulations to Eric and Analisa on the arrival of Benjamin.
Since Saturday marked 3 months until due date, we’ve decided to release our name choice for our new baby: Jessica Madeleine. She’ll probably wind up being called Jessie, but we’re going for something sort of classically elegant.
Gotta run make life happen.
Heh. If you don’t get the joke, that’s OK. It’s from the song “Flood” by Jars of Clay.
We had another small crisis when we woke up this morning. The downstairs toilet bowl was full of water and flooding the tiles. For the second time in three days, we spent a good portion of the day mopping up water and calling plumbers.
Turns out there’s a discharge line break under the house. Some material gets caught on it, water backs up, the bottom floor floods. Again.
Sigh.
I went last night to Wal-Mart and got Laureen a gift for Valentine’s day… 8 box fans.
Ah, some explanation is required, no?
At 5:18 p.m. yesterday, Laureen calls me. I’m checking out of Wal-Mart, and she says, “There’s water leaking everywhere.” I head home, and true enough, a lot of the first floor has water on it. Most of it’s on the tile in the hallway, main living area, and kitchen. Some of it got onto the carpet in the dining area and under the carpet on the first stair. So we call the insurance, we call Blackmon-Mooring Water Removal Services. They send a guy out at 8:30 p.m. to give us an estimate, which boiled down to: “I can have a crew come in here with dehumidifiers and fans. You can rent them for $1400 over four days. Or, you can go to wal-mart and buy some box fans.”
Guess what I did.
Fortunately, we’ll be OK, we think. We’ll have to replace the pad under the carpet in the dining room… about 2/5 of it is soaked beyond recognition. We have to fully replace the pad in the closet, which is where the water seemed to collect the most. Of course, the closet’s small.
We lost some boxes in the garage. We’re still assessing the damage from that. We’ll have to replace the floorboards in the affected areas. Some wood got wet.
Like I said. We’ll be OK. And because we have a home warranty, the cost of a new water heater will be $55.
So now it’s just keeping Jacob away from the carpet tacks. And trying to restore order from the chaos.
Happy Valentine’s Day, all of you good people.