Our last rescue dog to be spayed has apparently gone into heat before we could get the procedure done. Though everyone else is neutered and spayed, one of our male dogs decided it would be prudent to mount this poor female and take her for a ride. The only problem? Not to be too graphic, but he got himself stuck up inside her.

As I was at work, E tried everything to get him unstuck, from hosing them down (a cool off period?) to trying to manually pry the poor guy’s manparts out of her. In between screams and cries by the male dog, E called the vet’s office and they recommended she just let them calm down and come unstuck naturally.

That seems to have worked, as you can see by the male licking his “wounds”.

L decided three weeks ago he had had enough of this sitting stuff, and decided to stand up. Luckily, I had my camera handy.

Since the evening standup, he’s also become quite a fan of walking while pushing his truck thing across the floor. He “parks” it against the baby gate or the coffee table, and stands there slamming it into the furniture over and over again.

A little update on the updates to our 1960s ranch house. When we first moved in, we ripped up the nasty teal green carpet and found water damage and nasty linoleum. After replacing a section of subfloor, we decided to paint the linoleum to at least seal the nastiness until we could put proper flooring down. We picked up a few gallons from Sears, and they tinted it Smurf blue.

After promising ourselves for months on end we’d put the floor down “really soon”, and then getting married, going through pregnancy, and having L, we got off our butts and took care of it. E’s sister and her husband J were gracious enough to lend a big hand.

The obvious quick choice was laminate, for cost and ease of installation.

Installing the laminate with two people made all the difference in the world. With J and I alternating tasks between cutting and positioning, we got the whole room done in half a day, with a break for sandwiches halfway through.

I can’t say emphatically enough that I was so glad we a) spent the $20-$30 and bought a good laminate installation kit (tapping block, metal L tap pull, and spacers) and b) asked at Lowe’s for the correct blade for the mitre saw that’s used to cut laminate. It made the job 900% more mistake-free.

We were sad to see the Smurf blue floor go, but are very pleased with the finished product. If we could do it again, we would have bought the thickest underlayment we could afford, to eliminate some of the classic laminate tap tapping noise you hear while walking across the floor.

The next steps to finish this room are to replace the trim and baseboards with something more flat, give the walls some paint, and install a few can lights.

The huge storm a month ago left us with David Lynch-style power problems. Turning on the microwave made the lights dim. Running the air conditioning at the same time as the dryer caused a worse brownout. Those two coupled with the dishwasher caused damn near candlelight dimness in the house.

I finally called the power company and reported flickering lights. I accompanied the repairman to the back of the house, where he immediately noticed that the neighbor’s ridiculously overhanging tree had severed our neutral power wire. He hacked off some branches and hooked us back up.

In the process, I noticed that our fence was split in the corner, on the same neighbor’s side of the house. Since our dogs have the free run of the yard, this needed to be immediately corrected. E walked around to the neighbor’s side of the fence. This weirdo has had enormous street light poles on his side of the fence for as long as we’ve lived here. Though they were disgusting to look at, c’est la vie. When we looked at the poles from his side of the fence, they were not only freestanding and not screwed into the ground, they were secured with wire to our fence posts. The weight of the poles over time had finally yanked our fence apart.

We were fuming, and fought with this guy to have this stuff immediately corrected. I screwed a two by four to the side of the fence that was split and secured it quite well. In the meantime, the guy took down the street light posts, and despite our insistence that he use our lawn guy for the tree trimming, decided to trim the thing himself.

Everything has been corrected and our power has been restored, but I’ve never seen anything more terrifying than our neighbor standing on the very top of an extension ladder dangling between thick power lines trying to cut tree branches with a Sawzall.

L now fancies himself a man of leisure, and sits around in his diaper working on his truly formidable moustache.

Initially we told him he looks a bit like Dick Dastardly, of Dastardly and Muttley fame. Failing to procure any TNT or flying machines to fit into character, he grew discouraged and decided instead to heighten his aspirations to even bigger whiskers.

He’s settled on a full blown Wizard of Oz moustache, aligning his countenance with something a little more his size and build. He crawls around the floor with his little adornment, purposely overpronouncing the word "MOO-stash".

I try to laugh about it and not egg him on, instead telling him that getting a job would take away some of that extra free time he seems to have so much of.

I’ve talked for ages about how I’m going paperless, to the point it might as well be a New Year’s Resolution. But after month after month of scenes like the one above, I’m fed up enough to fulfill my own wish.

In the past, there were a few stumbling blocks in my way, that have all been recently resolved.

First, more and more companies are archiving statements online in .pdf format, and allowing completely paperless billing solutions. This will cut down drastically on the amount of papers that actually need scanning, and reduce my endless procrastination on what before seemed a hopelessly unattainable goal.

Second, I bit the bullet and acknowledged that our HP All-in-One printer/fax/scanner/copier is actually good enough to do the job, if I don’t put overbearing time constraints on this project.

Third, I broke down and invested in a redundant storage solution. After tossing a number of ideas around and reading reviews, I went with the D-Link DNS-321 NAS, and two 500G hard drives in a RAID 1 array.

Lastly, I was informed that our city dump has an absolutely enormous shred-it-yourself shredder to get rid of all the resultant unneeded paper.

I’ve still got some dread about wading through years of paperwork and sheet-feeding endless bills and receipts, but possibly eliminating the need for a file cabinet is truly exciting. The key is going to be whether or not I can scan papers and dispose of them faster than they are coming in the house.

Bob Barker the beagle is being evicted from Casa de Malshag, and he’s taking his girlfriend Cuppycakes with him. Though they haven’t worn out their welcome, six dogs and two cats are more than two parents and an eight month old can handle.

Both found on the side of the road, we took them on, “but we’re finding them homes right away”. Between nuptials, childbirth, and house renovations those homes were never found.

Sadly, the beginnings of a home hunt for the pups coincides with the declining health of the two cats, Church and Fatty. The frequent urination and overwhelming weight loss have us wondering how much longer these two eighteen year olds have.

They will all be missed, and Casa de Malshag will be a little less rambunctious.

L forgot his password. However will he read all your Tweets?

Little did we know our 8 month old would develop only two modes: sleeping, and 11,000 RPM. My evenings after work are spent watching L throw himself all over the couch cushions, emitting high pitched squeals, cackles and giggles. He gets into everything, speedcrawling from one naughty destination to the next. Nothing at all is safe.

Last night we deposited him over by our second couch, and faster than E could tell me to pass the corn, he was at her plate grabbing the end of her cooked steak with both hands.

On attempts at banishment to either his ExerSaucer or his Jumperoo, he’s learned to immediately kick his legs in opposite and random directions to avoid any possibility of being deposited into the seat.

When all else fails, he starts violently shaking his head, “no”.

I had a small epiphany last night while watching him fixate on his pirate ship, turning the steering wheel to eject the plank that all enemy pirates walk at the end of their lives.

Naughty dogs who chew couches and such, should have their activity level increased to stimulate them and wear them out, so they don’t chew couches and such. They need to be walked, run, or played with.

Naughty babies whose minds are constantly churning with new and inventive ways to unwittingly create minor disasters, need their daddy-after-work activity time increased to keep them interacting and stimulated. This satisfies the futzing cells in their brain, and reduces the naughty activity.

Yes, I did actually just compare our son to a dog, and yes, I bet my wife knew this before he was even born. This is probably why she plays with him day in and day out, to exercise his mind and reduce the likelihood of him creating a worldwide crime syndicate consisting of everyone in his crib from Freddy the blanket-bottomed frog to Ralphy the pacifier-headed monkey.

The Munchkin is now too big and manly to ride around the store in his car seat, he wants to ride up front. He also won’t leave his shoes alone, apparently properly Velcroed shoes are for wussies.

L’s milestones come in the most fascinating way. There is no gradual progress, no attempts and failures, just a sudden accomplishment. One day he’s sitting, the next day he’s suddenly standing up and walking down the length of the couch, holding onto the cushions.

His latest discovery is that he can eat those super-dissolving baby Cheerios by himself, off the tray of his high chair. A lot more made it to his mouth than made it to the floor, which in my book is great success.

He cut his first two teeth last week. He was quite ornery about a month ago while they were coming in, and had the accompanying diarrhea and slight fever that the doctors won’t admit accompanies teething. We tried a few different remedies to ease the pain a bit, Orajel seemed to work the best, if only temporarily. He settled down over the last few weeks, and at one point when E felt his gums, two bottom teeth had poked through.

A few weeks ago he started doing the thing where he slaps his hands up and down (mainly on the high chair when he wants food). His developing personality is fun to watch, he’s extremely vocal and chirps and squeals while he’s hauling ass around the room (undoubtedly over to something he shouldn’t be touching).

Though he only just turned seven months, it feels like he’s been in our lives for a lifetime. I couldn’t picture him not being around.