Where Have You Been?

Not here, obviously. But I'm not sure anyone reads this anyway, so I may not be missed. But it's been crazy here lately (on top of our usual helping of chaos). Updates:

* X-Man is growing, for one thing. I notice clothes not fittng him, which is sort of novel around here. He definitely looks taller. He's more capable every day (and sometimes whinier as well). He's really grooving on his dancing--he's started tapping around the house, tap, tap, tapping out his steps just like Billy Elliot. It's darling. And about the most fun thing with him right now is reading. No, he's not so precocious that he's reading on his own yet. But in the fall we started reading chapter books to him (roughly Middle Readers, I think) and he's taken to it like a fish to water. At the end of a chapter he'll exclaim "I wonder what's going to happen next?" He's been known to beg for "just a few pages" before going to school. And he's a huge Roald Dahl fan. I was a fanatical reader as a child, so it's really exciting to get to share this with him.

* Miss Z is the roller derby queen. She's hell on wheels (or actually, on Stride Rites). We found her the other evening sitting on top of dh's huge desk, making calls on his cell phone, at the same time banging on the keyboard with a spoon(obviously we have some child safety issues--like forgetting to close the gate to the office). The next morning she fell off a chair, bled copiously from the mouth, and got over it in about 30 seconds. We followed that up with a trip to the dentist (no apparent harm done yet--and she didn't bite him!). She's the cutest, wildest thing going.

* And tell me--how do I select the tiles/countertops/color schemes for four bathrooms when I've never even done a remodel? The new house is coming along and it's exciting and fun working on it. But also kind of scary. The Mr. and I had our first major conflict about style yesterday. I brought home a sample of what I'd like for the kitchen countertops--honed granite--and he promptly sided with the very shiny, polished granite we currently have. As synched up as we are in many areas of this project, it's clear there's not a perfect mind-meld going.

That's plenty for now. I'm leting oodles of things fall through the cracks (I normally do that anyway, but it's excessive even by my standards). I'll try not to let this turn into one of them.