This just in: Pete Rose is going to announce in his autobiography, with excerpts to be published this week, that he bet on baseball games while he was manager of the Reds.

Other revelations expected in the next few weeks:

O. J. Simpson admits he is the "real killer."

Britney Spears admits that she had a boob job.

The National Enquirer admits that Elvis is, in fact, dead.

No pictures today, sorry. I'm sick (my sinuses are so stuffed, a taxidermist consulted with me on what to do to preserve Willy the Orca), and I'm just not in the mood to do all that photo manipulation stuff so that you can download a picture of His Cuteness in less than a day. I'm tired, and I'm going to go to bed early. Nyeh.

Suffice it to say, Alexander at a year and a half is one amazingly good looking child, even if I do say so myself.

We took him in for his regularly scheduled doctor visit. The doctor says he's still too thin, but not dangerously so, and otherwise he's growing quite nicely. He's doing well "developmentally", which I reckon means his mental is developing well.

His vocabulary is growing by leaps and bounds. This past week, he's been mimicking us with all kinds of words, esp. names of things. He's also started to say back to us things we've been teaching him for months. He'll poke us in the eye and say, "Eye!" He'll poke us in the nose and say, "Nose!" He'll ram his sticky hands into my mouth and say, "Teeth." What a guy.

After a set-back last week, when he and Paulette were sick and I was out of town, he's resumed sleeping through the night again. Alas, now that I've gotten whatever ailment they had, I'm not.

But I'm not bitter.

Alexander gets together a couple of times a week with friends his own age, as well as a babysitter who is great with him, and I'm glad to say that he plays well with others. Alexander, I mean, not the babysitter.

Paulette and I are still figuring out this parenting thing, but Alex has such a great disposition that it doesn't seem to be as hard as I know it can be. We are, to put it mildly, very fortunate that our little guy is so happy, healthy, smart, and pleasant to be around.

It's hard to believe that we're already a year and a half into this adventure. Oh, my.

Oh, and it's after eleven. Hard to believe I've managed to stay up so late, feeling as awful as I do. Here's to a better tomorrow!

"So, what are *you* doing up so late?" I typed.

"I am writing a really boring short story."

She continued: "I'm trying to get to 2750 words tonight to make it an even 500 words for today"

She doesn't like to use periods at the end of her sentences. At least, when we are instant messaging.

I tried to imagine how a boring short story would begin:

A Boring Short Story

by Author Withheld

It was the first paragraph, and very little was going on. The passive voice was used to kick off the first sentence, and then the obvious was stated in the follow-up.

The second paragraph, though shorter, was also bereft of action or punch.

She thinks I can extrapolate this into a full-length story. I'm not so sure....