18 months. Ugh, toddlerhood.

Bella is now eighteen months old! Uhm, holy shit. When did she get this old? When did she start communicating? She sorts laundry. She bosses the dogs around (sit, down, NO, crate, out, etc). Even at her pixie stature, she can almost open doors. We're waiting for the weather to warm up to start potty training so we can go the Dr. Sears method of shirt/no diaper/letting her run around on tile/in the backyard. She loves to take off her pants and diapers now and stash them back in the dresser (ugh) so I bet she'll love it.

totally Daddy-centric right now - I LOVE it.

playing with the jaguar at San Diego Zoo.

meerkats + ankle twist and lift

R is back to waiting for his second ENT consult to fix his septum (sinus infection is back in roaring effect - trying a whole new round of drugs to keep it calm until surgery). His first ENT scheduled a consult, called to cancel, then when he was able to re-schedule it was six weeks+ out and that much longer to schedule a surgery. Uhm, no thanks. Went back for another referral and his next consult is April 4th. Depending on the severity and his schedule at the time, he could be getting it fixed by the 15th. In the mean time he gets to suffer with toting all of his bottles of drugs around, a swollen face, and the other general joys that go along with it.

As for our backyard, I think we're joining Angie's List tonight to start looking at another set of contractors. I've contacted 10+, had four schedule to do consults/estimates, and none show up. For those who are curious about the side project, this is what it looked like while we roto-tilled up the fox tails (I'm allergic).

Most of the holes are from our dogs trying to get to the gophers. The small retaining wall goes 3/4 of the way around and then stops - with no drains. It pours mud onto the walkway and into the drains during rain. Plus frankly it's a waste of space. We would like to push the fence out into the front yard eight feet further (when there original plans show it should have been put in) and take the hill out. It's a decent amount of space and if all goes as planned, it would give us more than enough space to put a good sized shed in and a space for a hot tub, eventually. The higher fence behind us and the fence on the hillside (as it continues all the way to the opposite house on the cul-de-sac) would give us great amounts of privacy.