I'm Not Dead Yet!

You may have noticed that my last post to this blog was a few weeks before GG was born.  It turns out that managing a toddler is infinitely more exhausting when one parent is almost entirely occupied with taking care of an infant.  By the time I can sit down for long enough stretches of time to write a blog entry, I'm either too worn out work up the energy, or too in need of some down time to spend it blogging.  So, here I sit with over five relatively eventful months of not blogging and no idea where exactly to start.  I believe a bullet list is in order...

• GG's delivery went off relatively hitch-free, and much faster than Asher's.  She had a little trouble transitioning (which seemed fairly major at the time, but turned out not to be) and we had to deal with a high bilirubin count like with Asher (which we were better prepared for this time around).  I did a delivery journal again, which I may get around to posting at some point in the future.
• Summer came and went for the older kids without too much fanfare.  It seemed to have been spent primarily in front of the TV and computer monitor.  Actually, that's not true - their electronics time was restricted this summer, it just seems like that's all I ever heard about them doing.  Not that I have much room to talk: the apples didn't fall too far from that tree.
• We survived the annual Late Summer Birthday Blitz for another year.  It's really not all that bad now that Jamie doesn't want to have parties, just a few friends over to spend the night, and I've convinced Denine not to burn herself out planning an intricate party for Ren, who is pretty easy to please.  The biggest challenge was spending a few hours opening all of the Zoobles and Squinkies that Ren got for her birthday.  Packaging manufacturers must be on Satan's payroll.
• In relation to the above, Jamie is officially a teenager now, complete with Facebook and an iPod.  And a YouTube account.  Which has opened his mind to the wonders of Ryan Higa.  Whose videos, I believe, he must have seen every one of by now.  Twice.  At least.  Seriously, somebody please, make the bad man stop...  *sobs*
• Jamie's first report card of the year came in a couple weeks ago, and it was not good news: two Cs, which is below the acceptable grade threshold of a B for regular classes (we let him get away with a C in AP math, since it is expected to be a harder class).  The frustrating thing is that the Cs were in reading and english, two classes that are generally a breeze for him.  I believe the problem stems from his opinion that the homework in said classes is stupid.  Judging from his grades since then, however, my argument of "yes, it's stupid, but if you don't want me to make your life miserable, do it anyway" seems to have convinced him.  In the meantime, he is grounded from using any electronics until his next report card comes in with better grades.  So, I guess I did get my wish for Ryan Higa to stop...
• Ren's first grading period of the year ended last week (the elementaries switch to four grading periods this year, but the secondary schools stayed with six periods), so fingers crossed for a better performance from her.
• In some weird, brilliant, synergistic confluence of happenstance, I have almost simultaneously discovered Wil Wheaton's Table Top and the wealth of indie game companies on Kickstarter.  These two things have caused A) a renewed interest in games I can play with my family that don't suck (I'm looking at you, Monopoly) and B) a distinct addiction to Kickstarter.  I'm like every housewife I've friended on Facebook with Pinterest: I just can't freaking stop finding awesome things on Kickstarter!  (On a side note:  thank the Maker that Denine has deliberately stayed away from Pinterest.)  There's about a half-dozen games I've backed that have funded and I'm really itching to play - now I just have to wait for the fulfilments to start trickling in.  Of course, there are Kickstarter campaigns for new games that I'm keeping an eye on all the time, and or the first time we've made a family Christmas list, and it is entirely composed of table top games.  So, hopefully, in a few months we should be up to your eyeballs in quality gaming goodness.  In the meantime, I'm looking for stuff to pick up retail for either Jamie and I or the whole family (excepting the babies) to play - so far we've gotten Pandemic for everyone, and the Mage Knight Board Game for Jamie and I - and I've found a gaming group that meets on Saturdays in Katy that I plan to check out at the earliest opportunity. 
• We've had our first official family pet fatality (I say it is officially the first because we've lost fish before, but I don't really count that).  Corbin, one of the kids' gerbils, was discovered lifeless in their tank when Jamie went to feed them yesterday afternoon.  Denine said the body looked like it had been mauled - I haven't check myself, the deceased having already been removed to his coffin (box) and placed in the morgue (utility room) before I arrived home - so we're not sure if he lost a fight with the other gerbil, or if he died of natural causes and Colton was simply trying to wake him up.  I've heard a wide range of life expectancies for gerbils, and to be honest they are/were kind of neglected, so I'm not terribly shocked.  It's safe to say that this particularly experiment in responsibility has not been a roaring success, and there will be no more small pets in the house for a while.  Hopefully I can get out of this without having to have a full-blown gerbil funeral.  We'll see.

Well, there you have it.  With the major holidays coming up, hopefully I'll have the impetus to update regularly moving forward and I can get back into the habit of doing so.  That, or everyone will hear from me in roughly another six months.