A Month of Sundays

It has been exactly a week since I posted... and I just realized that on October 29, I included a picture of Mal with his loose tooth and the caption: "This tooth needs to come out!" You'll be pleased to know that, a month and a half later, it is still hanging on by a thread in his face. His adult tooth is basically in, and it shoved the other tooth off to the side, but Mal won't loosen it, and he freaks out if we try to help him. I not-so-secretly hope that he bumps something with his mouth and it gets knocked out.

But no. His balance is great.

Right now, we have a freeze warning for overnight. Yesterday, it was 83 and broke the record for December 10 in Austin. It will be in the 80s again on Tuesday. It's difficult to dress under these circumstances. Also, we got a "dumb" thermostat when we got our "new" a/c in 2020, so we keep having to switch between cooling and heating. I'm sure the unit enjoys the challenge.

We've been having mostly near-home adventures lately. Mal is growing up so much, and is becoming more mature in so many ways. The other day, I'd left a chair pulled out and the dog jumped up on the table to try to steal some of Mal's LEGOs. When that happened, I apologized to Mal for not pushing the chair in. I said, "That was my fault; I know he'll do that if he can." Mal said, very seriously, "Mom, I want to be responsible so I'll say that it was my fault." I told him that was very noble, but in this specific case, it really WAS my fault. We've talked previously about him blaming folks for things like if he runs into something because he is looking at his computer while he's walking, and he'll say, "I KNEW you shouldn't have put that there!" So at least he's trying to figure it out.

We're working with a private trainer for several sessions over the next few weeks before Luke's intermediate dog training class starts. We've implemented several suggestions from the first session, and I feel like we're already seeing some progress.

We're also working with a real estate lawyer to get our lots re-platted differently so we can start working on our plan for the back lot. We had our first phone call with the architect, and it was a trip. We were kind of feeling iffy about it, but his most recent email was a lot more down-to-earth, and it seems like we can move forward with him.

Right at this moment, I am with Mal and his friend at Indigo Play. I don't think we've ever been on the weekend, and holy crap, is it loud. James is getting ready to go get his Covid booster. Mine was scheduled for last weekend, but the pharmacy didn't get the vaccine, so I rescheduled... and they canceled that. Next weekend, I'm going up to Temple to try there.

Oh, that just reminded me that Mal's 2nd dose is tomorrow. I need to start mentally psyching myself up now.