Category Archives: Year of Bliss

Getting “Toddled”

It’s like getting addled, caused by spending too much time with a toddler. I have a new post up at milspouse.com/blog: “Adult Conversation.” The other day I was explaining to my wife Danielle on the phone that Sean (our 17-month-old) and I had discovered two new monsters in our presence. One was the Washcloth Monster,

The Last Weekend-Update

I want to say thank you to everyone who offered suggestions on how we could spend our last weekend of the Year of Bliss. I think we touched on each of the ideas, at least thematically. On Saturday, we spent our morning the way we pretty much always do—did—dammit. We got up with Sean and

The Last Weekend

The last weekend of the Year of Bliss totally snuck up on me. This morning, John told me via Twitter to enjoy this weekend because next week is “gonna hit like a ton of bricks,” and I had no idea what he was talking about. I thought he was referring to a project we’re working

Geekifying Housework

My newest post is up on the Milspouse blog. It’s about my effort to organize my household tasks. This will be an ongoing effort: With a bunch of index cards and a binder clip, you have all the good things you’d get from a notebook with the added ability to rearrange the cards, remove cards

The Afternoon Nap « Military Spouse Blog

My latest post is available at the Milspouse blog: The Afternoon Nap « Military Spouse Blog. We’ve made some schedule adjustments (slightly later morning nap, slightly later afternoon nap), and things seem to have stabilized, for now. Let’s just hope they stay that way.

The Burrowing Instinct – Military Spouse Blog

My newest post is up at the MSM blog: The Burrowing Instinct. Something about being on shore tour has made Danielle and me more anti-social than usual. We don’t go to church. I’m not a member of the spouses’ club. We don’t know most of our neighbors. To make matters worse, we live on an

Poking Babies

After spending what felt like an eternity holding our son down on the examination table at the Navy clinic’s lab while a nurse searched for a vein beneath the baby fat, I have a new found respect/pity for anyone responsible for sticking babies with needles. Sean had his one-year well-baby doctor’s visit, and his doc

Travelogging III: Holy Crap It’s 2009

Well. New Year’s Eve 2008 was quite a night! Let me tell you why: After a nice supper with my folks (mmmmm, hammmmm), we left for Lynne’s house in Ann Arbor. Sean was asleep and my parents were babysitting. We were hoping he would stay asleep at least until we got back. We wanted to

Travelogging II: Holy Crap It’s New Year’s Eve

I’ve officially reached that ever-so-elusive goal of vacation: relaxation. I define this feeling as the point at which you start thinking about going home while realizing, happily, that you still have several days of vacation left. You no longer feel the need to hurry up and enjoy yourself! Tonight we’re going to attend a low-key

Travelogging I: Into the Mouth of the Monster

Last Friday (the Friday before Christmas), we left Newport for Upstate New York. Even though we got an early start—seven o’clock: early for us—the first leg of our Journey to the Midwest took us right into the heart of the first serious winter storm of the year (it was two days before the season officially