I noticed today that my youngest son is growing taller fairly quickly. I was a bit saddened when my oldest lost his baby fat and grew so tall, but I was consoled by my little one still being chunky. Now, he’s at that halfway stage – getting taller and slimmer but still has slightly rounded face and feet, and I’m just a bit sadder this time because this is he’s my last one. Well..until I get grandkids. Heh.

I just got word that I've been promoted at work to the title of Principle Network Engineer.

Sweet! It's not an HR title, but it's an honorary title within our IT department. The cool part? All directors had to vote unanimously for it. Wow. There must be at least a dozen directors ranging the whole gambit from networking, servers, application development, operations, etc. It's a big deal to get them to agree on anything!

I'm supposed to get a nice framed letter from our CEO and CIO (once she's back from maternity leave) and I'll be written up in the company newsletter.

Thanks be to God! He gave me a good company to work for.

The wife threw me a very nice birthday party on Saturday. We had friends over with their kids. A warm cake (fresh from the oven), pecan pie, Blue Bell Homemade ice cream (the best!), and Popeye's fried chicken for the entree'. (Odd that I listed the deserts first, eh?) The party had a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy theme since I'm turning 42 this year. The punch was the Pan-galactic Gargleblaster. Heh. I had a Don't Panic T-shirt with lots of HGtG buttons on it. Towels were generously placed about the house along with the balloons.

All-in-all, I had a good time. My Mom drove up and spent Friday through Sunday, so that was an extra treat.

Now, I've just 6 days left 'til I really turn 42. Gooooo me!

"Miss B, do you still have J's warranty?" [B = my wife. J = my oldest son]
B: Without skipping a beat, "Yes."
Me: "Is it still valid? He's 7 now." [J is looking concerned.]
B: "Yes, it's good for 10 years."
Me: "Okay, get it out. I think we're going to need it."
J: "What's a warranty?"
Me: "It's when you can take someone back and return them. In this case, we'd return you to the hospital."

Looking worried, J runs off and I hear him talking to B.

The remodelers have left. The painters have left. Now, all that's left is to hang pictures and become inured to the paint smell.

After a nice trip up to the lake, we returned exhausted. But, that wasn't enough to stop us from going shopping for new paintings and throw pillows. Oddly, we're having more fun replacing our existing pictures in new rooms than anything else. They just seem to fit perfectly somewhere else.

So, this painting is helping us to redo our house. It might not be as much fun as another trip to Maui, but it's cheaper and lasting.

My wife is awesome. Tuesday night, after the contractors had left, she dismantled our master bedroom and cleaned each little knick-knack, placing it in another room. When I got home, I moved the furniture and vacuumed and dusted the bathroom and the entire bedroom, including the curtains. Wow. We filled up an entire Dyson canister with dust and dirt. And, then, last night after my wife spent the day replacing everything, we then slept in our own bed.

Awesome, I tell you. My wife's awesome. And, our master bedroom is absolutely clean.

It started out so simply - fix water damage in a 1 foot radius section of sheet rock in our master bath and similar sized patch in my oldest son's room.

Fast forward 6 days later and my son's room is complete with little disturbance, but the master bath has had a full colonoscopy - sheet rock repaired, **all** of the wallpaper in the entire bathroom primed, patched, textured, and painted along with the ceiling. This sounds nice considering our home owner's insurance is paying about half of the bill until you realize that I've been sleeping in the living room's futon for the past week while my bathroom and bedroom have a unholy turpentine smell coated with a fine layer of 'fairy dust' (as the Home Depot guy calls it.) When they textured the wallpaper, the plaster they used left a fine layer of white dust all over our bed, clothes, carpet, books, well...everything in our bath and bedroom. The room is unsleepable until we break it down, clean thoroughly, and reassemble everything in that room.

So, yes, I'm cranky dangit. I hate living out of a suitcase in my own house.

The wife and kids came on home Tuesday. Yay! We had one day to settle into some semblance of normality when the contractors arrived to fix the damaged sheetrock in the master bath and my oldest son's room. We had loose flashing on the roof that allowed rain to follow a beam down and cause water damage. So, now, our house stinks of primer, dust, and general nastiness.

But, eventually, we'll have a home again and things will be back to normal...just in time for school to start. Heh.

I dropped the wife and kids off at the airport yesterday for their two week vacation in Florida with the in-laws. I’m sad to see them go, but I’m mostly frustrated and a bit mad that I couldn’t go too. They’re going to the beach and Cape Canaveral!

I’ve been at my current job for under 5 years, so I get a sparse amount of PTO (paid time off) which is short for “we’ll combine your sick days with your vacation so that if you get the flu, you screw yourself out of any vacation with your family.??? I’m pretty sure I read that in the company manual somewhere…

Anyway, I’m keeping myself busy with tons of household projects, but man, it sure is quiet. I can even hear the doves nesting in my gutter. But, on the upshot, I finally have time to do all of those chores that I don’t want to do with kids around because that takes ten times as long. Heh.

Anyway, crap. I need a vacation.

My youngest son turned three yesterday and I’m still digesting that. Of course, I can vividly remember his birth, giving him his first bath, watching him like a hawk until they put the electromagnetic bracelet on him in the Maternity Ward, taking him home later…

But, I think, I like him the best now. His personality is really developing in the past month. It sprung to life right after he learned potty training. It’s amazing to watch him smile, tell stories, and enact facial expressions befitting a toddler filled with wonder and joy.

I actually thought that, after my seeing first kid going through this, I would be more passe’ about it, but I’m not. Both are wonderful kids and I love watching them grow.

So, to my youngest, Happy 3rd Birthday! To oldest, Happy (pending in a few weeks) 7th Birthday! These are the best times of my life. I hope you’re enjoying it too.