Sorry, sorry.

Not counting my last micro-post, it's been way, way too long since I've updated this thing. I had always meant to do it at least three or four times a week, but of course real life happened and I reverted to my normal exhausted lazy self.

So much has happened in the last couple months that it's hard for me to even begin. Living with Crystal's sister Heather and our friend Nikki was cramped and stressful. Right after the eviction things seemed to go okay and I figured we'd probably make it without too much trouble. Then Crystal needed me to stay home more and I made less money than we'd hoped, so our move kept getting pushed back. Even after I started working full-time again, things continued to get worse, to the point where Heather and Nikki did everything they could to not be there when we were. At their own apartment! Apparently, my family is annoying. I can understand, though; I want to escape half the time, too, and it's my own wife and kids.

Part of the reason I was staying home so much was because of Crystal's new "affliction." I put that in quotes because I don't really how else you'd describe it. She has something called trigeminal neuralgia. Feel free to click the link, as Wikipedia can describe it much better than I can. The only thing you really need to know is that it's facial pain that has been described as "The Suicide Disease" because of the intense pain it causes. It was pretty bad for a while, and she even ended up in the hospital for a few days while they attempted to get her pain under control. She's taking medication now called Tegretol that seems to keep everything manageable. She's living pretty normally now, but she'll probably have to take Tegretol for the rest of her life.

So just when things were finally coming to a head at the small, crampy apartment, we finally found our own place. It's one town over from our old apartment, and about the same distance for me to travel to work. The landlord, John, is really nice, and for some reason let us rent even with our eviction. It was the second thing I asked him, right after "Do you take dogs?" We're living in a fourplex, on the top floor, and the other tenants seem pretty nice. It is kind of small, but I think we're just used to how much space we had in the old apartment. Rent is a lot cheaper by comparison, so I can't complain too much. The bathroom sink leaked pretty badly and the fridge didn't work, but John fixed the first and replaced the second, all on our first day there. Evelyn is in her own room, again, while Oliver's crib is in the master bedroom with us. He's spent the last two nights sleeping in it, which is more than he has in the entire ten months of his life. I'd call that progress.

Oliver's ten-month birthday was yesterday, and I'm disappointed to say he's not walking yet. I had made it my goal to get him walking by ten months, simply because it's hilarious to watch such a tiny dude wobble around. Even though he may not be fully mobile yet, he's getting there. I think his record is six steps on his own, before doing a faceplant and then his infamous "rhino charge" crawling to one of us. If we put a horn on his head, he really would look like a rhino. He charges about with his head down, as fast as he can go (which is incredibly fast) not looking at anything but the ground. Surprisingly, he hasn't yet hurt himself badly. I think he gets enough of an idea of what's in front of him before he begins to charge.

That's all the time I have right now, but I'll try to keep the blogging up now that my life has calmed down a lot.