Please?

The funny thing about your children starting to talk and help out around the house is that suddenly they have preferences. I've been asking B to pick out pajamas each night - his favorite is the orange with the cars; second is the blue with the cars, followed closely by the green with dinosaurs. Lately he's also been picking out his clothes - he seems to favor his yellow long sleeve shirts, and only wants to wear his swim shorts. He loves his string cheese and applesauce. It is so weird to hear him ask for things. It's even weirder to have him go into the fridge and get what he wants, bring it to me, and say, "open it!" To which I always say, "please?" and he responds, "please?" I always think of the Far Side cartoon of the scientist with the special headphones that allow him to hear what dogs are saying...but it turns out all they're saying is,"Hey! Hey! Hey!" Turns out Bumpus has a lot more to say than just "hey"!

You are now going to hear me say something that is about as rare an experience as hearing me say, "I met this great guy last night!" - that is, that I'm actually doing all right for money right now. The event is shaping up great. Whereas last year was the year of looking at my checkbook and saying, "what happened to that $10,000?", this year is going to be the year of "what should I do with that extra $10,000?" I still owe a fortune on my line of credit so if it turns out there is indeed a surplus once all the dust settles, that's where it'll go. Could it be that after seventeen years of scraping and toiling I have finally hit my rhythm with this thing?

In other news, sleep continues to elude me. The last few days (especially due to the late nights) I have left Theo cooing and squawking in his crib at 5:30 and taken off to sleep on the couch like an errant husband. I'm not proud of it, but I have the monitor on and the extra couple of hours of sleep in the morning makes a huge difference. I won't be able to do this in the hotel during my event unfortunately, but at least it's partially solving my sleep issues at the moment.