Informational update...

Well, another rambling post about lessons I've learned - about Owen, about myself and about the world in general.
1. I've become far too interested in my son's bowel movements. It's becoming a bit of an obsession with us as to if he's pooped or not. Every diaper change becomes something of a news bulletin to the entire household. Half of you are reading this thinking I'm a nutjob, the other half are nodding in understanding (and also think I'm a nutjob.)
2. The end is in sight as far as the backyard goes. We just have to buy a few more pots for one area and then we're done. Those slate chips were a bugger. We've had to up the watering schedule for the backyard because they have increased the total amount of heat captured in the soil. Only took us two dead plants to figure that one out. Pictures to follow.
3. We had a beer tasting here on Saturday for our Supper Club. Was quite good, if I do say so myself. We started with Lager (Moosehead), Pilsner (Pilsner Urquell), India Pale Ale (Sac Brewing), Brown Ale (Smithwick's, an excellent brew), Belgian Ale (Chimay), Porter (Smith's Taddy Porter, which everyone hated) and Stout (Guinness, which won the voting!) I also had a Beer Quiz, and the winner (Barry) won a bottle of Welsh Ale. I know, it broke my heart to give it away, but them's the breaks.
4. We hired a new nanny last week, and so far she's working out great. She's a pre-med student, lives around the corner, and her references had her walking on water. Owen seems to like her, and although she's a bit quieter than our previous nanny, so do we.
5. We called on another nanny's references and one of them actually panned her! I was amazed - you'd think you'd check with your references before you gave them out to prospective employers. Silliness. We liked that lady a lot, but the amount of drama in her life made my friend Al look like a nun!
6. Speaking of Al - she's one of the three weddings we have this year. Next week we're off to Long Beach for the wedding of Mad Scientist and Mike Weasel (from the Dave Barry blog) on the Queen Mary, then the Saturday after that we're in Buffalo for my buddy Sean's wedding. Al's is in September. Time to see if the suit still fits...
7. We're also going to go see Dave Barry on his current book tour with Ridley Pearson for their sequel to "Peter and the Starcatchers" - which is a prequel to the "Peter Pan" storyline. Everyone confused? Good. My job here is done. The signing is in Menlo Park, just south of San Fran. I'll be the one with the Leetie-head-on-a-stick.
8. There's nothing like having guests over to incent you to clean house. Our place was spotless (well, as spotless as you get when you have a 7-month old) and so far, it's stayed that way. Owen did us proud by spitting up 4 different times that evening - once right on LuAnne's pants!
9. Looking forward to vacation in August. The heat here has wilted what was left of my motivation, and although where we're going might be just as hot, it'll still be vacation. Doing a ton of travelling this year to family - next year they may have to come to us...
10. We've had Owen in the hot-tub twice now - and he's been briefly dunked both times (by accident, of course) - each time he comes up, blinks the water out of his eyes, thinks about it for about 20 seconds and then decides to cry. It's not a big cry, more of an annoyed wail, and we can distract him out of it pretty quickly - but the thought period that he has between the dunking and the actual crying is pretty funny. You can almost see him trying to decide if what just happened is worth crying about...

That's it for now - more Owen-y goodness to come shortly.