Some changes?

James started walking about two months ago, but he's given it up all of a sudden. After all, why would you walk anywhere when you could run instead? Last night he was tearing around the living room as fast as he could go, enjoying his newfound speed far too much to care about the fact that he was bouncing off of furniture and walls (steering doesn't really matter to him) and faceplanting on the carpet. If either of us shouted at him "I'm gonna get you!" as he sped by, he'd roar with laughter and take off into the next room. <pit-pat-pit-pat-pit-pat-FLOP...laughter>

This is a hard development for J, who has recently become an invalid. She messed up her ankle again (neither of us know exactly what's making it swell and change colors) and she's been limited to sparing/painful use of it for the past few days. This is the fourth or fifth time she's injured this particular ankle, although it had been a few years since the last major flare-up. (One of the first times was playing racquetball with me on our first official "date" as a couple.)

Things that help J's ankle feel better:
Keeping it elevated in an ace bandage on the couch
Naptime
Dark chocolate
Visits from friends who talk pleasantly about subjects of general interest
Having a conscious spouse inside the house

Things that make J's ankle feel worse:
Chasing a 2'6" sprinter throughout the downstairs
Temper tantrums about being denied access to the iPad/phone/Celine Dion recordings
Endless ill-paying Christmas gigs
Single parenting
Dirty diapers

If any of you who read this happen to be pleasant friends with interesting things to talk about, I'm sure she'd appreciate a visit during naptime. (Generally 10 am-11:30 am and 2 pm-3:30 pm, or from the starting time until there is a loud noise, creak in the foundations, stiff breeze, or bad dream) Bring some dark chocolate.


I think that this blog is going to change trajectory.  When I started out two years ago I intended to use it as a vehicle for "serious" writing. That's worked out okay, but it turns out that I don't have nearly as many "serious" things to say about the world as I thought I did. I have lots of half-finished opinions, of course, but not very many sustained and thoroughly worked-out whole points of view. The half-finished opinions change all the time, and most of the sustained thinking really isn't my own...I've just parroted someone else. This isn't to say that I won't every do anything like the Romans project again, but I've decided that funny anecdotes about life with James and J are more enjoyable to write and probably more enjoyable to read. This had been brewing for awhile, and the events of last Friday in Connecticut reminded me again that for all of my highbrow reading and "deep" opinions about "important" things, I have very few explanations for why the world is the way it is, what to do about it, or even what to tell my wife and my son about it. This doesn't mean that I'm off the hook for being a responsible reader and thinker. It does mean that neatly typed three-point topical posts that pretend to wrap up an issue are "as straw to me."