Again...

Owen came down with strep again. Second time in as many months. Going to consult with a specialist, see if tonsillectomy is needed.

Had Larry over for board games Wednesday night. The garage was cold but the games were fun. One game each of Pandemic and Lord of the Rings. Pandemic, on easy, was a breeze. Lord of the Rings, we made it to Shelob's Lair before Sauron consumed us.

Abby has been sleeping a bit better, waking up only three times a night, instead of every hour or two. Hopefully the trend continues.

Later today Carrie and I are headed to El Paso for Alex's dad's funeral. His pops passed away Saturday after a month or so of home hospice. Sad times, but glad we can be there for him.

Of Tooth and Flame

Abigail cut her first tooth. Also, she's five months old. Crazy. Could be that teething is why she's been waking up about every hour or so through the night. But that tooth is out, and from what I remember once it breaks through the discomfort is over. Sleep issues continue. Speaking of, sitting up with Abby late on Saturday night, I decided to put on the second of the new Hobbit movie. I figured some hobbit and wizards and swords and orcs would be nice. About 15 minutes in I turned it off and bought a digital copy of the Rankin/Bass animated Hobbit. I love it. And it's less than 90 minutes long.

Last Thursday Alex, Ben, and Tony came over for Fire Night, the annual burning of the xmas tree. I had put it off since early in the month and I'm glad we finally got around to it. Was a lovely relaxing evening spent having beers and bourbon and bullshitting on the patio.

The weekend was primarily composed of cleaning out the garage, which seems to be a semi-annual event. We cleared out boxes of stuff to the storage unit, Goodwill, and the dump. Just in time to start up Wednesday garage gaming again!

Last night I made chicken bacon fried rice. It was amazing and delicious, both for dinner and lunch today. Full marks to Carrie for having the idea in the first place.

Sleeplessness

Abigail, since getting sick (at least, it seems to correlate) has been waking up a lot more through the night. Carrie reports that she's been waking up about every hour or two for a week or so. You might be asking why I'm relying on her reporting to know this. This is because my wife is self-sacrificing and a bit too worried about how much sleep I'm getting. Of late I've been actively trying to usurp this behavior. This generally manifests as me taking Abigail out of the bedroom and letting her sleep in my lap while I watch tv. Last Thursday and Friday I sat with her from 10pm -1:30am and 10pm-2am, respectively, finishing off the 5th season of Downton Abbey. Saturday night the twins went over to Mom's for a sleepover, and while that cut out us having to run through the bedtime routine for them, Abigail decided she would fight going to sleep. We eventually let her cry herself to sleep after trying for about 2 hours. She still woke up often, but with the twins out of the house we got to sleep much later Sunday morning.  Last night I went to bed early and got up around 4am and let Abby sleep on my lap till about 6am while I caught up on Last Week, Tonight. I'm really hoping this regression is just her still getting over her cold and not a more permanent behavior change.

Reader

I finished The Martian. Not great. It's a real easy read, but it felt like the main character was Science. The logs of the astronaut read like bad LiveJournals, and the third-person scenes back on Earth may have been worse. As riddled with clichés as the Martian surface is with craters. After that I read Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer. Reviews of the book seem split, but veering toward the positive. I'll add mine to that side too. I enjoyed its Lovecraftian bent, with layer upon layer of spreading infection. Also, pretty short. Now I'm on to Silver Screen Fiend by Patton Oswalt. So far, immensely engaging and fun to read.

I watched Chef. I thought it was ok. It's gotten good reviews, and I'd heard a lot of hype, but it didn't hit that high of a mark for me. Too rosy, maybe.

There's a new sickness assailing the house. Owen had a fever and coudg/sinus issues most of the weekend and stayed home two days from daycare this week. Then all three kids went in for vaccinations. Last night Abigail got feverish and it's carried over into today. Might be a side effect of the shots, but she's also got a cough. Add to that both Carrie and myself are feeling (sleep-deprivation notwithstanding) a bit lousy and I think maybe whatever Owen had is finally spreading.

MarsJournal

Just finished reading Designers & Dragons: The '90s. I dug it. The '90s was when I really came into gaming, so this volume had a lot more direct interest than the last two. I wasn't sure what to read next, but knew I wanted to read something else before starting the '00s. Ben recommended The Martian. I read through 30 pages or so and the writing is not to my liking. To this point it's reading like a bad blog. And having read some of my old LiveJournals lately that's sticking in my craw more than I would have expected. Maybe I'll give it a little bit more. It's not a particularly long book anyway.

Phantom Phatness

Quick trip to Carlsbad this weekend for Ross and Julie's birthday. Ross has been digging on Dungeon World a whole bunch lately, so I picked him up a copy of Class Warfare. Apparently he's got a group of about 8 of his swim team playing in a game. Good on him.

Yesterday was Super Star Wars Sunday. Our annual 'We don't watch the Super Bowl' thing. I doubt Carrie would be too against going to a SB party but I'm glad she's down with doing this too. We watched Phantom Menace. Haven't seen that one in a long time. Wow. Bad, bad, bad. Also, we picked up rolled tacos, chile con queso, and guacamole from El Sombrero Express and we junk food-ed ourselves miserable. However, the kids were all asleep by 7, so Carrie and I had a lot of time to relax and let the food settle out.

Today is Carrie's first day back at work after maternity leave, and Abigail's first day of daycare. No one is particularly excited. Hopefully everything will go smoothly.