This punchline is priceless, and exactly why I love Scott Adams.

This was just a night we were hanging out with the Choates (Melisa’s Sister & family) and we decided to eat out at a local BBQ place. Luckily they weren’t very busy & the people that were there were easily entertained!

What a busy weekend!!!

Saturday was Bradey’s birthday!!! (He’s now officially 1 Year old!)

We worked a lot the 2 weeks prior to get the yard cleaned up and the house picked up. We now have a 4 foot high by 8 foot wide pile of leaves & debris sitting next to a 5 foot tall pile of branches behind our shed (& a pile of logs that were there when we moved in). But the backyard is a better place to play! We’ve still got a lot of work to go  (lots more raking up twigs/etc, and getting the grass to grow), but we’re slowly getting things together.

We had about 15 friends & family come by to celebrate Bradey’s birthday & we had a blast!

Sunday we slept in (a little) and had a liesurly breakfast before playing with the boys & taking them to the park to eat lunch & play around in the new wagon. Taven was excited to go down by the creek and see the fishies and tiny froggies (& spiders & bugs & rocks & water & moss & sticks & etc……..) Sunday was one of the best days we’ve had as a family in a very long time. Things just sort of worked. Both boys even took naps that afternoon too!!! It was great!

Then Monday came along…

I suppose it wasn’t really bad until dinner time when Taven was telling us that his ear hurt & was asking for his “cold Elmo” (we have a little kid’s ice pack with Elmo on it). We both knew right away that he probably had an ear infection (which is actually his first ear infection! At 2.75 yrs old, I think we’ve been blessed so far). Anyhow, we decided to go to our friend’s house (the McSorley’s) and borrow their otoscope to peer into Taven’s ear canal to see if there were any obvious signs of an infection. It was definitely more red than it should be, but it was certainly not a “raging infection”. At least not yet.

We drugged him up on ibuprofen and anti-allergy stuff to help with the pain and maybe help with the source of the fluids, then went to Central Market to get some Tea Tree Oil. This stuff seems to be a cure-all for a lot of things, but we’re also doing our homework & there seem to be a lot of warnings about using too stong of a mixture. We’re going to try a VERY diluted solution in Taven’s ears tomorrow & see how things go. The idea is that tea tree oil is an antibiotic, so it would kill off the baddies causing him the ear aches. We’ll see. I’m all for a lack of drugs when possible.

And of course the night wouldn’t be complete without a screaming Bradey. He’s got some nasty allergy-like stuff going on & is having dificulty breathing through his nose. This also means he can’t suck on his paci very well, so it made for a fun car-ride to & from Central Market. I think he’s finally down for the night though. (Yeah!)

So, what “home remedies” or “natural alternatives” have you come across or were you forced into as a child?

I don’t post very often, but I’m going to try & get on here more often.

Toe jam you say…yes. Taven now has been looking for toe jam in all our toes. We did get a video of it so that will soon follow. Anyhow, he is really funny. And then this morning I found Bradey with a very long screw FROM HIS CRIB!!!! The crib is a little “pieced together” and needs to be replaced with the new crib that we have sitting in our mudroom. Thank God he did not eat the screw or worse!

Now our washer is broken. The repair man comes today. We have been doing laundry in the Laundromat. It is really great. You can wash and dry 9 loads of laundry or more in 2 hours! What a deal. Except for the inconvenience of going out of your home and the little small loads. Still the time has let me be still enough to think and reflect. This is a good thing!

- Melisa

I know… I’m an attention whore. (Maybe whore is too harsh a word…)

Anyhow, I had a great night hanging out with friends and playing games. A little Wii Frisbee Golf & Skiing, and some XBox360 Halo 3. And, of course, some Khet. Sadly, I let Joe beat me after I had him cowarding in a corner… Bah!

Anyhow, That was my present from Melisa… The planning, the food & the freedom to hang with the guys.

I loved it!

I also got a cake & short b-day song @ work today. That was more awkward that fun though. I don’t like the place or most of the people and yet I had to “make nice” with them in an enclosed area while they pretended to care about me and make jokes about 30 being the start of the downward slope of “the hill”.

Anyhow, I’m 30 & I don’t feel any different than I did 3 years ago. Except, of course, I now have 2 kids, an older house, a job I like less, and a wife I love more (you know… When you love some one more & more every day, it’s always going to be greater tomorrow than it is today). So I guess Age doesn’t really have anything to do with how I feel. It’s just a number.

Ooh! Speaking of numbers! Today (well, last night) at 5:31:30PM we passed the time 1234567890 (seconds since the Unix Epoch)! To those of you who “speak *nix” that makes some since. To the rest of you, just know it’s a means of keeping time starting from 12:00:00AM Jan 1st 1970 by counting the number of seconds that have passed since then.

So, Happy 1234567890 Day!

Otherwise, have a good night & enjoy your Valentine’s day.