THIS LATEST UPDATE BROUGHT TO YOU LIVE FROM THE BIRCHLER BUNKER. KARI BIRCHLER REPORTING:

The cat is still alive (although he’s had some very narrow misses involving his dirty kitty feet, my freshly-cleaned kitchen counters, my short temper, and a meat cleaver, but we’ll leave those stories buried for now). Aaron won’t let me heap deserved retribution upon his little kitty neck, so for now, I just have varicose veins in my throat from yelling at him, and a perpetually empty squirt bottle that is intended to be used as retribution, but is instead used by a certain toddler to dampen the carpets, his socks, his sister, his mouth, and various other usually-not-intended-to-be-moistened items, so that it is never around when needed. Hankie, however, has not fallen under Aaron’s “Don’t Kill the Cat" edict, so he cheerfully works at severing kitty toes whenever the kitty leaps atop his cage in a blaze of bravery. Or stupidity. Whichever.

Abby, in her usual conquer-the-world fashion, has stood up on her own two feet and toddled off. We are not surprised that she has done this before she even turned a year old, but I, personally, was hoping for a chance to fully recover from her older brother’s launch into mobility before she followed in his footsteps (quite literally). But whatever. And for those of you who think that a year and a half is plenty of time to recover from your progeny grasping the finer points of bipedalism, I say, “Go have your own baby."

And, somewhere along the way, while I was still stuck on the fact that my son learned to walk, the kid got taller. Tall enough to reach Forbidden Items that were once safely stashed atop the counter. Forbidden Items being knives and hot pans and mommy’s package of Double Stuf Oreos that she absolutely, without exception, does not share. Ever. World without end, Amen. And, if that were not disaster enough, Christian has also discovered that chairs make wonderful height-extenders, for those times when Mommy thinks she will out-smart her two-year-old and stash her double-cream-filled chocolate sandwiches up, up, up, on top of the microwave. Or the refrigerator. Ah, to have those good ol’ days back, when Mommy could eat her yummy, chocolaty-goodness-cookies while shoveling spoonfuls of pureed peas in her infant son’s mouth hole, and he wouldn’t know the difference. Sigh.

In other news, Christian, my chair-climbing giant, is learning how to go potty in the potty now. Since potty training was Daddy’s idea, Mommy has decided that the only way for the credit to be properly attributed to him is if he sits on the (uncomfortably narrow) edge of the bathtub for forty minutes while his Toddler son sits on the potty seat and pulls imaginary planes, trains, and automobiles (not to mention LionsTigersandBearsOhMy) out of the toilet but cannot, oh no not ever, make water come out of his ding-a-ling. Until five minutes after he has gotten off the potty and is sitting on Mommy’s upholstery, dangerously undiapered. But we have made progress, now, I think, thanks to the BIG TRACTOR STICKERS that we bribed him with. He was so very excited to get a BIG TRACTOR STICKER for going all day pottying in the potty and not on Mommy’s upholstery, that he ran, not walked, to the bathroom and promptly made water come out of his ding-a-ling. Yea, verily, gave us proper advanced notification before doing so. Thank you, BIG TRACTOR STICKERS. (And thank you, God, that stickers did the trick, so I would not have to resort to using my precious Double Stuf Oreos as an incentive.) We have now gone two days without having to clean up Toddler pee. If only we could say the same for the dog. But that’s another story, for another cleaver day.

Kari Birchler, signing off. Quickly. Because Christian is giving me Proper Advanced Notification again.