Someone went MIA and all you got was this bulleted post

The sky is falling! Pigs are flying! The eggs, all in that one basket right there! Etc., etc. Because I haven’t posted in nearly a month, and yet all of a sudden, here I am. Just waltzing back into your life like I think I’m somethin’. And I’ve probably gone and birthed another 2 kids, moved to another state and bought some livestock or something else big and smelly in the meantime. Because that’s how I roll.

I haven’t done any of those things, actually. Honestly, I haven’t done much of anything at all, really. It just got to seeming like my Mac and I were attached at the hip, and so I just kind of put it down for awhile. I’ve been playing with my boys, enjoying the weather before it starts to get gross (aka WINTER), and going to bed early. Boring, huh?

In bullet form (because it’s 9pm and my bedtime is fast approaching), here are some updates:

•Oliver had his 9 month check up today (despite being 9.5 months; they could not get him in until now, even though I called to schedule this almost a month before he would turn 9 months), and is allll good, measuring in the 75th% for weight and head circumference, 50th for height. The only concern I needed to discuss with the doctor (who, despite his having a primary care manager, was not his primary care manager, which, 1: I scheduled this a month ahead of time!, and 2: why the rouse that such a thing as a primary care manager exists when he never gets to see her? Why, I ask you???) was that he seems to be weaning himself (no interest in nursing during the day for more than one to two 5 minute or less feedings), which is FINE OHMYGOD I WOULD LOVE TO HAVE MY BOOBIES BACK TO MYSELF, but you know, there’s that whole issue of how he does still need to be drinking some milk (aside from what he is getting during his nighttime feedings- one before bed and another around 2am). And it wouldn’t be a problem if he would accept other milk alternatives, like formula. Which, he will not. Not in a bottle, not in a sippy, not in a cup. Not in a box, or with a fox, no milk for this child, kthanx! So. As the doctor put it, however, he “doesn’t look like he’s ever gone hungry.” Indeed he does not.

•We will be signing the lease for our new place very soon. So soon in fact that we need to put in our 30 days’ notice here before the end of next week. I’m very excited, but also frightened: neither Jeff nor I have ever lived somewhere that was not either parental, dorm, or military-run, which has left us unexperienced when it comes to being responsible for making sure that important things, like paying the gas bill, get done. When you live in military housing, you are babied and sheltered and this is all arranged for you, and this has left me shaking in my flip flops (I wear flip flops throughout the year, if at all possible). I worry that I’ll forget about something important and just like that, we’ll be kicked to the curb, thrown out with the garbage. (Which, did you know that it costs money to have your garbage picked up every week? I didn’t. NOW do you see what I mean when I say ‘sheltered’?)

•I’m THISCLOSE to scrapping that DJ Lance costume I was so gung-ho about. I hadn’t wanted to put that much work into it- it’s an outfit he’ll wear once, IN THE DARK, right? But I have had no luck in finding 3T-sized orange pants and an orange shirt that could be temporarily refashioned into a Lance-like jumpsuit. I finally gave in and bought about a yard of bright orange polyester, and last night I hacked it up, thinking, how hard can it be to make a one-piece thing? SO VERY HARD, apparently. For me, anyway. For one thing, polyester is a puckery b*tch to sew. And for another, um? Sleeves? I think I sewed them shut. And I wasn’t using a pattern (refer back to ‘not wanting to put much work into it’). So. I think I’ll remind Ethan about that time he said he wanted to be a mail truck for Halloween. Even that has to be easier to create.

•I made these enchiladas a few weeks ago, and it’s like the Pioneer Woman done cooked ’em up, just fer me. They were my soul mates. I can’t even describe to you how delicious they were. I can only urge you to go, NOW, before you die AND IT’S TOO LATE, and make them for yourself.

•I’m about 3 years behind the times when it comes to what’s cool, and this past weekend I added another wagon to my list of wagons upon which I’ve belatedly jumped: 30 Day Shred with Jillian Michaels. I’d heard such horror stories (thank you, Modern Matriarch!) that I think I was thoroughly prepared for it. And so far, I’m really liking it. Of course, I’m still on Level 1. (I hear she literally rips your still-(barely)beating heart from your chest on Level 2.) (Which leaves me wondering what she could possibly have in store for Level 3?) (I’m assuming she goes after my family.) My favorite thing about it though is that Ethan insists on doing the workout with me, and that makes the whole thing much more bearable. From gems like, “Mommy, I don’t wanna burn anymore! This is tiring!” to “This makes me breathe hard. I better get a snack after this!” and “I LOVE BUTT KICKS!”; he even cheers me on when I start yelling at Jillian that I CAN’T jump my invisible rope anymore, YOU JUMP IT. Also? He fetches my water after.

•Speaking of late wagon jumping, Old Navy recently had a promo going (the very annoyingly named ‘BFF’ promo), that I missed, but then they extended an extra weekend for cardholders (they must have heard about my lateness and wagons and such). So with my gift card in hand and hours left to go till the promotion ended, I began filling up my cart. I had a couple hundred dollars’ worth of cooler-weather Oliver-sized clothes amassed (the promo was for 20% off your order, and I was determined to make it count). And wouldn’t you know it, the site failed to accept my promotional code. Given past experiences with Old Navy, I was reluctant to call their customer service line. They just loooove to tell me that there’s nothing they can do to help me out, it seems. But I finally gave in, and lucked out with a very polite rep. After trying to figure out what the problem was, and failing, she said the only thing we could do would be for me to read every single 13-digit merchandise number to her for everything I had in my cart, and she’d place the order for me. Mind you, I had a cart 12 MILES LONG. Or I would if that made sense. I am not kidding when I say I was on the phone with this woman during an entire episode of Heroes. At the end of the phone call, she goes, “It’s a good thing you called when you did; our site is about to go down for maintenance and you wouldn’t have been able to place your order. You woulda been outta luck then, girl!” Old Navy: your kid clothes are awesome! Your customer appreciation BITES. The best part is that I ordered this crap over a week ago, and it STILL has not arrived.

•I am wasting time here, here and here. I wouldn’t be wasting as much time on these sites, if it weren’t for my immature need to beat Jeff. He keeps coming back with a lower score, and so then I have to go play more and beat him (he beat my eyeballing low score (4.89), but he will never catch me on typing (71wpm, no mistakes)), and so then he has to get a new low score, and before you know it Ethan hasn’t had a bath in days and Oliver’s feeling neglected and we have dug ourselves into a competitive hole and HOW DID I GET HERE? WHERE IS MY SHOE? Ahem.

So yeah, I think I’m back to my blog now. I’d rather waste my time here than eyeballing the point at which these lines converge, anyway.