I’m guessing that our vast readership of three is probably growing tired of the same old thing every time they check our site, but, since Aaron is working full time during the day and trying to get some painting done in the evenings, he doesn’t have a lot of time to update the site. Christian has willingly volunteered to allow the world wide web a small glimpse into the adventure that is our lives here in the Birchler home, but since he hasn’t yet learned the deeper rudiments of grammar and syntax, he regrets that he will be unable to do so. Hank could tell you a thing or two, but it would either be extremely uninteresting, or it would be much too interesting (you can translate that as “juicy" or, perhaps, “inflammatory") for public knowledge, so we don’t allow him anywhere near the computer. I don’t really have the time to update this site either, considering the fact that this paragraph alone has caused the pile of dishes in the kitchen sink to remain unwashed for however long it will be until I find another free minute (could be days—or weeks!), and the clean laundry to remain in the basket instead of being put away, and the dirty laundry to remain in the hamper instead of being washed. But it’s all your fault—you’re the ones that were getting tired of not seeing an update on the site.

So what’s going on at the Birchler household now? Well, I could sum it up in one word for you, but chaos is a rather vague word, embodying a great many things that may or may not be true of our home, and I’d hate for ugly rumors to get started circulating about the things that go on behind our doors (especially if those rumors are true), so I’ll be more specific.

As I said, Aaron has been trying to get some painting done in the evenings after work—to be more specific, he’d like to start getting paid to paint (since painting for free is nice, but the landlords, who are obviously not great connoisseurs of fine art, aren’t about to take a painting instead of a rent check at the beginning of the month). We’ve put up brochures around the Fargo area advertising his talent, and his willingness to get paid for that talent, so now we’re just waiting for the money to start rolling in. Or something like that.

I’m keeping a very rigid schedule of feeding the baby, changing the baby, feeding the baby, letting the baby sleep until he wakes up wanting to eat again, feeding the baby, changing the baby, fee—well, I hate to belabor the point. Someday, I hope to make room in the whirlwind schedule for such nonessentials as eating, showering, sleeping, breathing, and the like. Maybe when the baby heads off to college?

Christian is, from the sound of things, destined to be a great singer. Whether he can carry a tune or not is yet to be determined, but he certainly has the lungs for the job. It may be just his luck, too, that the whole apartment complex is aware of his talents, in case a talent scout happens to live nearby. Oh, that screaming may not sound like much to the average listener, but any person of experience can hear the timbre of a tenor in that cry—I’m almost sure of it.

Hankie is rediscovering his wings, I regret to say. I regret it because, as hard as it was to control that little feathered fiend before, it’s nearly impossible now that he can fly. Have you ever tried to chase a rebellious bird around the living room floor on your hands and knees, with a baby in one arm? It is not a picture that most people would wish to dwell on, unless they had a rather macabre sense of art. He’s learning some new phrases, such as “Ewwww" (he said this phrase yesterday after Aaron and I were trying to clean up a particularly messy diaper explosion—little did he know exactly how descriptive he was being!), and “I’m so TIRED!" I don’t know where in the world he picked that phrase up. Honest, I donzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz