Okay, so I guess Noah was tagged to provide 11 facts about himself for the entertainment of others. Unfortunately for Noah, he can't type (accurately), so he will have to accept the trivial facts that his father provides. I debated whether or not to actually do this favor for my (mostly) ungrateful son, but considering he was tagged by one of the two readers of this blog, I figured it's only courteous.

So here goes, 11 facts about Noah Jack Felt.

1. Last night, he slept through the whole night without wetting his diaper. Way to go Noah! Today, he is in big boy underwear. Credit here should go to Dani -- potty trainer extraordinaire.

2. Last summer, Noah was an aspiring botanist, requesting leaves from various plants and trees to add to his collection. This summer, he is an aspiring geologist, gathering interesting rocks for his rock jar.

3. Noah loves garage doors. He is always on the ready to point out various makes and models in passing. "Green garage door!," "Small garage door!" "TWO GARAGE DOORS!"

4. One of Noah's first sentences was "Check it out, holmes!"

5. Noah's favorite song is the ABCs. His favorite part is "L and O, P."

6. Noah's middle name, Jack, was his paternal grandfather's first name.

7. Every day at noon, Noah watches his favorite television show Caillou. Caillou is a four year old bald boy on PBS. Noah will do anything that Caillou approves of. We are constantly praying that Caillou never chooses to endorse a sugary breakfast cereal. He also watches Ellen.

8. Noah loves his Danimum. He enjoys stealing her cart in the grocery store and watching her give chase. Boy is she slow!

9. Noah is a mind reader. Often, when Dani is holding Madeline, Noah will proclaim (almost eerily!), "Sissie wants down!" If Daddy steals Noah's fish sticks, then, "Daddy doesn't want Noah's fish stick!"

10. Noah loves garbage trucks. He rushes to the window daily to catch site of the garbage man. He has told us, on more than one occasion, that he desires to be a garbage man when he grows up. Danimum and Daddy think this is fine, and they will support his dream, as long as he is a college educated garbage man.

11. Noah enjoys predicting car wrecks. Often, when passing intersections of busy streets, Noah will say, "We're gonna wreck!" We never do. Except for that time we did, but Noah missed the boat on that one, he was playing with a purple duck.

Okay, I have no one to tag. So the buck stops here. That's what you get for tagging someone without friends, Melanie. Think it through next time :)

Bluegrass baby will brighten anyone's day. If it needed brightening that is.

I realize we've been a bit behind on our updating of the blog. I sort of figured no one would notice. No one did. So we're in the clear. Here are some status updates on the fam:

Dani: Is busy crafting. She just made us some radical new place mats, and now she's giving us wall art composed of flower silhouettes made of lines of text from magazines. She's also quite busy potty training Noah, who in turn is quite busy resisting.

Luke: Is joining a new literary writer's group that includes past placers from the Boise Weekly Fiction 101 contest. These are his peeps.

Noah: Is experiencing an Oedipus complex. He is in love with Dani, and sees her image in everything. He even calls his daddy Dani-mum. It is Luke's belief that Noah is also, in true Oedipus form, concocting a brilliant plot to murder him in his sleep to have her all to himself. Also, he's being a stinker about potty training.

Madeline: Is learning a new word every day. Yesterday it was "milk." Also, she's identifying various parts of her body upon request. Madeline is probably the most interesting of the Faeb clan at the moment.

I promise a more substantial update very soon. We have some great pictures, and we had a fabulous weekend. There ARE things going on, but there are a lot of them, and our blogging time is sucked.

Noah has been sitting at the kitchen table for over an hour, mooing like a cow. He is steadfastly refusing to drink his milk, the prerequisite for getting down to play. A battle of the wills has begun.

For the last two weeks, I've been working on a short story titled Hardboiled, in order to enter the Prose for Papa contest run by the Ernest Hemingway festival in Sun Valley. Well, on Friday, one day before the submission deadline, I decided that the story was no good, and I, being insane and all, decided to write another one.

Goal: At least 2,000 words in 12 hours.
Secondary Goal: Sleep for 8 of them.

After 30 or so Child Distraction Missions by Dani on Saturday morning, and lots of apple juice and stress, I'm proud to report that the story was completed.

The finished story is called The Big Time, and is 2,125 words long. It isn't good enough to win, it's not even good enough to place, and the version I submitted was essentially a rough draft considering the time limit (Dani! Come upstairs and read this! We have approximately 13 minutes to proofread and make edits!), but even so, I'm proud.

If you'd like to read it, please ask.