Nine Inch Nails

33 Weeks

"You bite them. Sounds gross but it works. They're thin."

"Wait until he's asleep. Sneak in and do it."

"Yeah. Good luck with that..."

Once a year, our office resembles the backstage of a live 72-hour, 100-man chainsaw juggling act. Lots of men and women with emergency missions. If we aren't present, some one's gonna get hurt. We are the folks behind a three-day Commencement and Reunion celebration for Bard College. It's a lot of fun and a great reminder of all it takes to make a good mind. I just happen to be one of the masses of soldiers assigned to keeping the saws in the air and in comparison to many, my tasks were easy this year. However, because of the show, I didn't get to see Ren much this week except when he first woke in the morning. Now... Ren—the everything that is Ren—has grow exponentially. I know, I know... I'm continuously shocked at how fast he grows, but the milestones were flooding in so quickly, I started to get concerned that we haven't saved enough for his own college education in these past seven months. At this rate, he will start applying to his first choices before the new year.

Ren is now officially cracking jokes. Crawling. (Well, doing what Greg calls, "reaching for the phone after he's been shot." I was told it's also named the "army crawl.") Ren has three teeth showing. Thanks to his fantastic nanny, all he wants to do is sit on your lap and go, "DOOOWWWNNNN" and "UUUUPPPP" by leaning back to the point of a headstand and then pulling up to jump enthusiastically on your lap. If anyone else is in the room while he does this, he makes sure they are watching and claps approvingly. Ren can turn on and off the light switch to the ceiling fan and he knows the shell game. We are booking him for Vegas next week. I hope he isn't troubled by the mittens taped around his wrists. I can't keep him still long enough to trim his nails and he's going to accidentally pierce the dog with the next tug of ear.