Hey Jakey,

You're such a little man now. No more formula for you! Whole cow's milk from here on out, Jake. Or "WCM" in La Leche-speak. Speaking of which. I never did mention before, but yes I DID give up trying to nurse. The dom and the reglan brought the milk back, but you were too far gone. That's okay, though. No hard feelings. I just hate hate hate that our ever-tenuous, semi-successful nursing relationship was brought to a premature halt by a mail-order snafu somewhere in Southeast Asia (*before* the tsunami, even!). I think we could've gone on like we were for quite awhile. I don't know if there's any connection, but between the time you and I called it quits back in the beginning of December and now, I think I've managed to gain about 80 pounds. Urgh.

Got back from Sacramento on Thursday. It rained like a mofo the whole trip, but we managed to visit the zoo during a break in the deluge. Daddy's mom and Mike met us up there, and they were surprisingly pleasant. Mike even suggested that we make a yearly thing out of going to the zoo. We all had lunch at a Mexican restaurant in Old Town Sacramento before heading over, and at the zoo gate, you promptly fell asleep. You woke up somewhere around the time we all were finished walking around looking at the tired, wet animals, so daddy's folks went home, and daddy and I zoomed around the zoo with you again. Here's a picture of you at the zoo:

We spent the night at a nasty-ass Motel 6. We wanted to stay at La Quinta Inn like we usually do when we go to Sac, but they were all full up. Motel 6 only had rooms left with one big bed, instead of two like we normally get. So we were all smushed into a double bed, and when we were getting ready to go in the morning (oh ick ick this is so gross...), I turned around to catch you running around the room with an empty condom packet in your mouth. And it wasn't even ours. Yuck yuck yuck. I wanted to wash your mouth out with Lysol. We won't ever stay there again, honey, I promise.

The next day was a bit sunnier and we went to "Fairy Tale Land" across the street from the zoo. There were barnyard animals to pet and lots of cute photo ops and things to climb on. Then we came home.

Daddy was getting on my nerves yesterday, so I drove up to Reno to do a bit of shopping. Big mistake.

The whole time we were in Sac, we were carting you around in your crappy little $20 umbrella stroller, and it was hell on our backs cuz we were hunched over the tiny thing, and it was hard to push. So I decided to do some research and get you a new lightweight stroller. The stroller reviews on amazon.com said things like "Well, of course you want a Maclaren stroller, but this one is the next best thing," or "This one's almost as good as the Maclaren stroller, but at half the price." The mommies in the chat room said "If you don't want to spring for the Maclaren, then this one will do..." So I'm standing there in Babies R Us, looking at the "cheap" stroller that everyone recommends, and I'm looking at the Maclaren. The Maclaren is $60 more expensive, coming in at a whopping $139 for the low-end version. I must've walked around BRU for about an hour trying to justify spending that kind of money for an umbrella stroller. Well, crappy mood + recent payday = a way-too-expensive stroller for my baby. Here it is:

I'm such a sucker for labels.

So is this a baby's-first-birthday thing that I've never heard of, or are our relatives just pissed that we haven't sent Christmas thank-you cards yet. Well, I did finally send cards last Thursday, so at least that weight is off my shoulders. Anyway, we got quite a few cards with one-dollar bills in them. Awww, shit, Jakey, are we supposed to send thank-you cards now for dollar bills?

Here's the letterstojake search string of the day: "tiny turkey". I of course had to run over to Yahoo and do a search of my own for "tiny turkey" and found myself to be #138 on the list of sites mentioning "tiny turkeys." Funny stuff.

Love ya lots, talk at ya later.