1. Cute Picture 2. Cute Anecdote 3. Existential Angst

Here's Thumper on the patio enjoying two gifts from his grandparents. I think this is my favorite, though the others are cute, too. The look on his face says to me, "The camera, again? I'm trying to read here..." Which is funny, because there's nothing he likes better than hamming for the camera. Except maybe for trying to find out what a camera tastes like. The other funny thing is that you wouldn't know it from the picture, but this is moments after I set him up for a fall that bloodied his nose. I opened the sliding glass door to the patio, but I didn't point out to him the track in which the door slides, so he tripped over it and landed flat on his face. He's made huge advances in bipedal locomotion over the past couple of days, but he still doesn't really pay attention to what's in front of his feet. Much like a curling stone, he needs a sweeper.

So, yes, his first bloody nose. It's not his first injury, nor his first from which he recovered quickly. Mrs. Rodius remarked that it's kind of scary. He could give himself a concussion (and the rate at which he's whacking his noggin on various pieces of furniture these days, it's not out of the question), and we'd say, "Eh, he's fine."

There you go. Cute picture. Cute anecdote. I've been having trouble blogging lately because I'm starting to feel like all I really have to contribute is is tales about the development of our little man, and I'm wondering if that's enough. It's really not feeling quite as earth-shakingly consequential as it did in the first few months. In fact, it's starting to feel quite mundane. Not the doing, so much, but the talking about the doing. We're not the first people on earth to have a baby, and there's probably not much new to say about the experience. And apparently, without tales of Thumper, I haven't much to say.

And there's Twitter. I kind of wish I hadn't gotten on the Twitter, because if I was obsessive about checking blogs and checking email for comments, I'm doubly obsessive about refreshing the Twitter. And with the easy out of 140 characters, I get really lazy when it comes to putting together a longer post for the blog. Besides, Twitter is a lousy addiction: it's always over capacity, and it frequently eats posts, particularly the really good ones.

And of course, there's the whole social retard thing. In retrospect, I'm surprised that it took me over a year, but inevitably, I managed to piss off my cool new internet friends. I apologized, and sincerely. And I think it was accepted. But I can't stop thinking about it. Then I decided to just close the door entirely so that I wouldn't embarrass myself that way again. Which leaves me in a self-imposed isolation. Again. 36 years of doing it the same way, you'd think the lesson would sink in.

So I think about dumping the whole project. Which would be just like me: buy a domain name, get a makeover, then flush the whole thing down the toilet. But I think the last year has taught me that blogging is sort of cyclical; I get burnt out, then get refreshed, then get burnt out again. I best hang on to it. Some day I might have something to say again.