T-MINUS TWO DAYS...

...and then Beast gets to experience the wonderful world of kindergarten.

YEA AND VERILY, 'TIS A QUANDARY

My bride, Her Most Royal And Sublime Awesomeness, has a birthday coming up early next month. It's the Birthday That Shall Not Be Named, to be specific, and so we shall refer to it henceforth and ever after as her 28th.

Yours truly does not have a John Mayer-sized budget for a weekend blowout - and that's not milady's style anyway.

What's a guy to do?

#300

It better be good, right? Something memorable, yes? Okay, here goes:

My son just wiped something moist and strange-smelling on my face, and I really don't want to know what it is.

(5 minutes later)

Okay, just chocolate milk. All is well.

THE NOODLE MOVES ON UP

Congratulations, my little love.

NEW BED FOR BEAST

We were hoping to transition the little guy from his crib straight to a big-boy bed, just like we did with Noodle - but later this year, when we could better afford a new mattress. Alas, the crib rail gave way today and there's no way we're dealing with the idiots at Delta Crib any more. The suck, they are. Nice solid wooden crib...crappy plastic parts holding it together. We had complained to them earlier that one of their crib rail guides had fallen apart on us, they first said they could only send us a replacement for ten bucks or some ridiculous amount of money for a six-inch piece of plastic. Then, when we mentioned the magic words "Consumer Product Safety Commission", they got a part right out to us.

It was the wrong part.

We grumbled and locked the crib rail in the highest possible position until such time as we could afford the new mattress, and that worked fine until this morning. Off I go to Kingston to find a new toddler bed. Let's see, there's a crappy plastic Dora bed, a crappy plastic Cars bed, and waaaay in the back a plain white old-school tubular steel bed for 15 bucks cheaper than anything else.

Done. The assembly was fairly sane, and Beast is loving his new bed, plus there's a lot more floor space in his room. So fark, so good. He may decide wander off into the kitchen for a beer at 1 in the morning, but we'll handle that contingency as it comes.

In the meantime, I've hidden the opener. It's someplace where I won't be able to find it when I could really use a beer. (IT'S UNDERNEATH YOUR OLD GLASSES, MORON. There. That should do nicely.)

STILL WEAK FROM THE CUTENESS

Noodle was out sick Monday, so we had a tea party. It was every bit as adorable as it sounds.

And she's four-and-a-half now, which means don't you be coming in here with that "four" stuff any more. Nuh-uh.

(Watch this space for pic)