Boy, I'd heard the twos would be bad, but I never imagined it would be this bad. Daniel is just impossible to reason with.

When we're picking up the house, it is very important to him that everything be put away neatly and in its right place. And if we put his things away for him he gets upset because he wants to put them away by himself.

And what a struggle eating is! Today at lunch he wouldn't eat his sandwich because he just wanted to eat his raw carrots and broccoli. Even after he finished his, he was asking me to give him more carrots off my plate.

And then there are the problems with his baby sister. Daniel is constantly wanting to hug her and kiss her and read to her. It's unbearable.

I just don't know how much of more of this difficult behavior I can take.

(Seriously, though: I'm amazed at what a sweet and cooperative little boy Daniel is. How we ended up with him I have no idea)

Hi all,

Just a quick long weekend in review!

I had a lot of intense data entry work Monday-Wednesday at work, so I took off an extra day on Thursday to give myself an extra long weekend. I spent Wednesday night and all day Thursday and Friday at my in-laws' house, hanging out with the visiting Arizona family. My nephews are so cute, but are soooo difficult to keep up with! They went swimming three times a day! On Thursday, a family who have been friends with Ric's family for many years came to visit while on their vacation. We spent the evening talking and watching the kids play in the pool.

The 4th was an interesting day. I went with Angie and nephew Jack to the park, and befriended a stray dog. Since he didn't run away from me, I picked him up and took him to my parents' house. He's staying in the back yard while I put up posters around the area and post online. In the evening, the fireworks being set off on the in-laws' street were incredible. I don't think I need to go see actual shows anymore, since they've got the real deal in the neighborhoods now.

Saturday I slept in and then went on a useless drive, trying to return an audio book in a slot that was too small for it, and going to a library that wasn't open. Then I went with Ric to Lowe's to buy supplies for our continued work on the bathroom. We stopped by my folks' place to get photos of the stray:

In the evening we went with my sister to see Hancock, but the lines were long, so we ended up choosing Wanted instead. Review to come soon!

Sunday we didn't go to church, but we listened to Johnny Cash reading Mark on CD while working in the bathroom. I worked on resurfacing some of the patchwork areas on the walls, and Ric got started with painting one wall. We went out to eat at the Elephant Bar, ran some errands at Walmart and Target, and came home to watch Arrested Development and The Soup. One more AD show to go, and we'll be done with the series again. Our next DVD viewing will be Frisky Dingo (Adult Swim).

Up this week: grocery shopping, advertising a found dog, maybe Speed Racer at the cheap theater, maybe American Graffiti on the Fox, and maybe some work on the condo if there's time.

I hope you all had a good holiday weekend. Mine was pretty sweet. I did a whole lot of relaxing. I also put together my desk and finished unpacking my room. I should probably take some pictures since I know you all are DYING to know what it looks like. Now I just need to get a super long LAN cable so I can get some internet on my desktop. Curtis and I bummed around the place a lot. I have a Gamecube now since they are only $30 at Gamestop and Phil and Janelle bought me Mario Kart Double Dash so we played a lot of that.

I also have to confess that Curtis has gotten me completely addicted to Sex and the City. Hey, don't knock it until you try it. It's been a couple weeks and I'm already about 6 episodes into season six. Yeah, that's right, six. Fight me.

It's always nice to wake up on a Monday morning to see an Eric post.

I saw this over at the AV Club.

I had some trouble with the first half of this list. As some people know, I was pop-culturally unaware during all of the 1980s and didn't start listening to secular music until ninth grade. This has left me with not only a big gap in my music collection, but a general disdain for all 80s music. The few albums I do have from that decade are from the back catalogs of bands I discovered much later (thus the over-representation of U2 and The Flaming Lips you're about to see).

It was a lot of fun to pick out my favorites from the 90s on and discovering which albums were released in the same year. Who knew that Beck's Mellow Gold (and three other simultaneous releases) came out the same year as Johnny Cash's American Recordings? As my wife pointed out, I never would have listened to Cash at the time, but that's not really the issue here.

Anyway, take a look at my albums and judge my musical knowledge (or lack thereof) accordingly.

1979: The Wall by Pink Floyd
1980: Boy by U2
1981: October by U2
1982: Concert in Central Park by Simon and Garfunkel
1983: War by U2
1984: The Unforgettable Fire by U2 (see what I mean about my lack of diversity in 80s music?)
1985: The Flaming Lips EP by The Flaming Lips (I'm not sure if EPs count, but otherwise I have nothing. That's right: I don't own a single full-length album from 1985)
1986: Graceland by Paul Simon
1987: The Joshua Tree by U2
1988: Telepathic Surgery by The Flaming Lips
1989: The Offspring by The Offspring
1990: In a Priest Driven Ambulance by The Flaming Lips
1991: Mental Jewelry by Live
1992: Automatic for the People by R.E.M.
1993: Debut by Björk
1994: Mellow Gold by Beck
1995: Clouds Taste Metallic by The Flaming Lips
1996: Endtroducing... by DJ Shadow
1997: OK Computer by Radiohead
1998: In the Aeroplane Over the Sea by Neutral Milk Hotel
1999: The Soft Bulletin by The Flaming Lips
2000: American III: Solitary Man by Johnny Cash
2001: Gorillaz by Gorillaz
2002: ( ) by Sigur Rós
2003: Elephant by The White Stripes
2004: Real Gone by Tom Waits
2005: Illinois by Sufjan Stevens
2006: Ships by Danielson
2007: In Rainbows by Radiohead
2008 (so far): Third by Portishead

It's too early to call 2008 yet, and I haven't even had a chance to buy most of the new releases I want, but with new music by Beck, Nick Cave, Sigur Rós, and Bonnie "Prince" Billy it's looking to be a good year for music.

My best year for music overall is 1994: 4 releases by Beck, The Beastie Boys' Ill Communication, Weezer's self-titled debut, and Johnny Cash's first American Recordings album made it hard to pick just one.