From way back:

And somewhere in there we need to go to Nashville to hang with our musician buddy and talk to his wife about our work.

And come hang out with me and meet Rose, right??

msbelle, ugh on the insurance sitch.

We finally finished painting the guest room this weekend, which enabled us to unpack a bunch more boxes. The house is looking and feeling a little more like home. The last major puzzle piece will be deciding what to do with the bookshelves, which I suspect will mean buying some new ones, but we're holding off on that until we hear about the job M interviewed for in Germany. Which should be any day now...

Also, it's been cold enough the last couple of nights that we've started putting Rose in her footie pajamas to sleep in, and she's totally fucking adorable. Just thought you all should know.

Footie pajamas are the best. On babies, especially.

Went to TJ's, bought too much, per usual. (Too much for comfortable carrying.) But I did get the pumpkin ice cream, which the checker assured me is back to previous levels of awesome, unlike last year's, which was disappointing. So that's worth it.

Rose in her footie pajamas

I think we need photographic examples of this.

I have actually had a high enough dollar amount of medical expenditures this year (between chiropracting for my hips and my ridiculous dental saga) that I'm going to be able to take a deduction on my taxes.

This year, it's possible that my medical expenses will exceed my income. I flew by the maximum out of pocket in about June.

I still fail to understand health insurance--you'd think with the amount I use it, but no....

ER went minimally decently. And then I sent emails just before work saying I couldn't come in, and I think I may have mangled the English--I can't bear to look--and I noted they'd called me a bunch of times (lousy reception in the ER) so I didn;t even get a chance to feel empowered and shit. Since one guy wished me well who normally teases me, I'm sure they were gibberishy emails...

Ah, well. Why not? It's authentic.

Can I ask what the name is?

Moyston-Cumming. I started to ask V if it was for true that her mother really didn't mind, and my sister worked out the question way early and tried to get me to back out (for Community watchers, imagine me as Troy saying "Ffffffiiiiiiiiiight....:" in Comparative Religion...could not change question midstream) but V was pretty chill about it, despite everyone in the world asking. Yes, her mother does go by Dr. Moyston-Cumming. No, she doesn't "see" anything wrong with it--she's taking her husband's name and keeping hers both so mind your own business.

At which point? Topic duly changed.

Engine coolant sensor went haywire. Oh, and my catalytic converter's gone bad.

No car until Weds.

I think we need photographic examples of this.

I'm sure photographic evidence will turn up before long. My camera seems to be broken, actually (it's two years old! What the hell), but M has the better camera anyway, and is way more on the ball about taking pictures. Here's a recent favorite: [link] (on FB, sorry to non-FB folks!).

Belly laughs! Oh man, I miss that age sometimes.

Belly laughs! Oh man, I miss that age sometimes.

Aw, yeah, she giggles all the time now -- it's pretty much the best thing ever.

You know, in the first few weeks and even months, people would say things to me like "The time goes so quickly!" and "Enjoy every minute!" and "I loved that age!" and I would think Are you out of your mind? It was just such a grind, even with some baby smiles to sweeten the deal. But somewhere around three months, I started to realize that, yeah, there actually are a lot of things I'll miss about this age. She gets more fun every day.

When Jake was about ten months old, I kept thinking I wanted to have another baby right away. I didn't, really -- I just wanted the not-crawling infant who slept in my arms back for a day or two.