Ah yes. Yes, we know. There have been a paucity of blog postings of late. We have excuses, good and varied and even true excuses, but who likes excuses? Certainly not me nor anyone I know. To solve this situation, I have decided that there’s no point in me feeling guilty that I’ve missed posting for so long. I can’t possibly go back and recreate what happened- Mike still hasn’t used his mad computer skills to break the time/space continuum despite the fact that I’ve repeatedly asked him to do so (computer hacking skills indeed!)…….and then mostly because I doubt I can remember what happened. Instead we’re going to do what therapists and spiritual advisers say you’re supposed to do- live in the now, and only look forward. Also, it helps to avoid walking into walls.
Welcome to our NOW! So what’s going on you might ask? Well, we’ve been involved in a long and protracted battle against cardboard boxes filled with our crap. We want them gone, they like our new digs and refuse to budge- even a little- unless we or some kind person helping us empties them, cuts them apart and stacks them neatly in our garage. It’s not an agreement I would have negotiated, but it seems this is how it’s been since the dawn of time, or more likely, the invention of cardboard boxes. Have no fear, we are winning this battle, and our house is starting to look like people live here. Which we like, because we are the people who live here. Funny how that works.
Yes, it’s true. After about five years of living in DC, we are moving back to the Midwest! We hear from reliable sources that it’s a good place to grow up and raise kids. 🙂 We have a house under contract and the closing date is set for the end of March. Our goal is to move to Minneapolis in May (fingers crossed).
celebrated it for two whole days!!
have fruit so they’re healthy and they look like a cupcake so kids will want to eat them. Done and done! Jackson was not only fortunate enough to celebrate with his daycare buddies, but Grandma and Grandpa Graven came too. Apparently it was fun muffin mayhem for all to see.
On Saturday, we went to the beautiful 
All in all it was a wonderful, extended birthday celebration and if I’ve understood this whole time passing/Earth spinning/person growing correctly, I hear he’s going to have another one next year on the exact same day.
Well, it’s happened. We snuck away and had a good time WITHOUT the baby!!!
And finally, most awesome of all was the bi-plane ride we 
took to see the whole island. Incredible.
We have now come to realize that Action Jackson is a more appropriate name for the boy than we had first realized.
did not look good, he had that glazed-eyes-fever look. Starting Tuesday night, he had a consistently high fever of 103. I called the nurse line to ask what to do – especially since we were supposed to fly to the Bay Area for a wedding on Thursday afternoon. She said to give him ibuprofen and bring him in the next morning to check him out. At the doctor’s visit, after a lot of digging wax out of his ears, we found out that he had a double ear-infection. He was prescribed antibiotics, we were told that taking him on an airplane would be cruel to him and any other hearing person who might be around and that he had to stay home from daycare on Thursday and Friday.
We now have a copious amount of data indicating that five days at home with mom and dad is NOT GOOD in AJ’s mind. No matter how many activities Mike and I plan, we simply cannot compete with a room full of 12 babies, 4 day care providers and a constant stream of activity and toys. During our “stay-cation” we read lots and lots of books, we went to the zoo twice, we went to the park six times, we tried on all sorts of hats and head-wear, we went to the grocery store numerous times, we went on errands, we went to Target, our babysitter came on Sunday for five hours and the two of them went back to the park for more fun, and finally on Sunday night we went to the drumming circle where we listened to drums and I danced with AJ for about half an hour. This was simply not enough.
Last night, the boy woke up at 3:30 am SCREAMING. This happens on occasion and usually remedies itself. 
sound and then crawled over to his toys and proceeded to read some books to himself while chatting in a chipper and nonchalant way. Of course. After all this is what we always do at 4:45 in the morning.
He finally fell back asleep around 5:15 when I carried him – SCREAMING – back to bed. He slept until 6:30 when he woke up SCREAMING and Mike decided that he might as well get up and bring the boy to daycare and end all of our suffering. You can see the look of sweet anticipation on his face as they drove to daycare this morning. We can only hope that a fun filled day with his daycare homies will satisfy his needs for excitement and our need for a SCREAMING free night of sleep.