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So it’s another tick-over on the ole odometer of life… Hello, 28.

I was telling Tim this morning that it’s only a matter of time before Auggie looks at me sadly and asks, ‘Are you going to die soon?’

Apparently, this is how I helped my mother through her 30th birthday. She also got a speeding ticket in the park — where I insisted we go to celebrate her special day. What a jerk that cop was. What a jerk child I was.

Now for my favorite part of my birthday, the reading of the “If November 20 is your birthday” part of the horoscope: “You are emotional, loyal and can be romantic to the degree of being passionate (oh, my!). You know plenty about food and its preparation (..?); you most certainly could succeed in the catering business. During December, your intuitive intellect will be honed to razor-sharpness. Follow hunches in money and love.” Ohhhh-kay. Thanks, Sydney Omarr.

My wonderful husband even made pancakes for me this morning, although my wonderful son decided that he wanted to come into our bed at 5:45. He fell asleep, draped across my stomach and I was so tired I didn’t even care.

Another inexplicable part of the birthday horoscope is the list of celebrities that share your birthday (just in case you didn’t feel bad enough, let’s point out all the people who are way richer than you and also born on the same day). Today, Alistair Cooke is 94, Richard Dawson is 70, Dick Smothers is 63, Veronica Hamel is 59, Joe Walsh is 55, Bo Derek is 46 and Ming-Na is 35.

At least I’m still younger than them.

And I’ve seen Bo Derek in person. No way that she is 46, my friends.

I’m just sayin’ is all…

I’ve officially lost 15 pounds now, which is a nice birthday present to myself. Even after the apple pie my mom made this past weekend.

Had a great visit with the Parents As Teachers lady today. Auggie passed his first test!

Alas, it is late again, and tomorrow is my birthday. I’m going to bed, my friends, as an early birthday present to myself.

Good night.

Ay, yi, yi! Last night was one of the worst nights we’ve had with Auggie in a long, long time. He woke up, like, every two hours, with a few sessions of every twenty minutes. Plus, there was the obligatory middle of the night scrounging session for the baby teething stuff, which always ends up in some random location. Somehow, Tim always seems to find it, God love him.

In other random news:

Auggie has his first pet! Well, other than his four dogs… He is the proud owner of “Fishie” the red betta fish. Tim and I diligently set up his 2.5 gallon aquarium (complete with filter and lighted hood — nice!), read up on the best way to condition the water, planted real plants in the water and researched how to introduce the new fish to his/her new digs.

And we didn’t even have the dang fish yet.

Who knew there was so much to having a pet fish?

I’m already a little concerned about Fishie. He seemed to be swimming a little sideways earlier when I went in to check on him — I mean, Auggie.

I’ll keep you posted. Oh, and pictures soon!

Update on Tim (because I know how much you love him): He’s OK! He’s a little sore, but it’s nothing the ibuprofen (fortified with codeine) can’t handle. He’s only a little swollen too, but still eating the soft foods. He’s even getting sick of sweet stuff. Bizarre.

Anyway, Auggie and I got out of his hair today and went down to my mom’s, where she was cooking a delicious feast in celebration of my birthday (and the other, like, five birthdays in her family this month). Chicken and dumplings, mashed potatoes, homemade cornmeal rolls, caramel apple pie, ohhhhhhh yeah… It was so good.

Thanks, Mom.

Anyway, just watching a little Saturday Night Live tonight, where Brittany Murphy is just all wrong. She looks like a lemur in clown makeup! I just keep wishing that Godzilla would crash onto the set and devour her whole…

I wonder if I would spend less money if I posted everything I bought on this blog each day. Wait. That didn’t come out right. You know what I mean, right?

It’s not like I spent that much money today. Just $13 at Petsmart, $69 at Whole Foods, $8 at Aveda, $5 at the Bread Co., $20 at the coffee house and then $35 at Petsmart again (don’t ask). Shoot. That is a lot! Like, $115 a lot! Oh, and I got gas too! I just suck!

Who knew I was spending so much money, willy-nilly? I guess I just focus on all the money that I didn’t spend, like $50 on an aquarium for Auggie (sans fish), $25 on a book that I thought my brother would like, $40 on neato holiday towels at Restoration Hardware, $29 on these cool wooden blocks in a wagon and $49 on a fabulous wooden desk at Pottery Barn Kids… The list goes on and on.

I should just stay away from the mall. And stores of any kind. Good thing I don’t go to garage sales.

This all just proves my theory that I spend an average of $150 every day, no matter what I do. It’s sick and I feel all kinds of Catholic guilt about it. So there.

I had a another sick thought today that I thought I would share. As I was driving to one of our many consumer destinations today, I actually thought, ‘Oh, I wish I could phone in a blog entry on my cell right now.’ Isn’t that wrong? I need a life.

On a more positive note, I did something today that I haven’t done in a very, very long time. I read a magazine — uninterrupted — for over an hour. You see, Auggie fell asleep on the way to Whole Foods and I actually remembered to bring along something to read for once, so I just sat there in the parking lot while he slept. It was freakin’ wonderful. Eventually, I had to wake him up so I could use the ladies room (ahem — too much water), but he’d had a good, long nap by then. Maybe he should nap in his car seat every day…

Tim is having his wisdom teeth removed tomorrow, so send some non-puffy-cheek thoughts his way, will ya? We’re paying extra so he can partake of the nitrous oxide, since our stingy dental plan only covers a local anesthetic. Whee… Me too?

I know it sounds dumb, but I get all panicky and emotional when I have to be the one in control. It reminds me of the time when my dad had a melanoma removed during my first Christmas break at college. I had to go back to the doctor’s office after the surgery to get the post-op instructions, and I was like, ‘Whoa, I’m the kid here. I think you need to talk to his mommy.’

I’m hoping that it won’t be that big of a deal, but I just keep remembering my own ordeal with getting my wisdom teeth removed when I was 15. They were all impacted, so I had to be completely put under (which was a nightmare in itself since the dumb nurse couldn’t find the vein in my arm). Plus, I was a complete 15-year-old wimp and had the pain tolerance of, of… What’s something with a really low tolerance for pain..? Never mind. Let’s just say that I cried when I saw that there were only 2 Vicodins left.

Tim should have a much easier time of it, since his wisdom teeth are all out there for the world to see. I would think that his jaw would be pretty sore, though, because they’re probably going to have to open his mouth really wide to get at them.

I don’t know. I’m the kid here. I think you need to talk to his mommy.

Fifteen-month checkup went off without a hitch. Here are the stats:

Height: 31.5 inches

Weight: 24 lbs, 4 oz.

Head circumference: 48.5 cm

Number of mean old shots in his sweet chubby thighs: 2

Extra ounces added to weight by wet cloth diaper: at least 4

Number of random questions asked by pediatrician: 2 or 3

I really like our pediatrician, don’t get me wrong. But when you think of the typical pediatrician — wacky tie and “Hey! Hey!” attitude — that is the opposite of our doctor. Petite, rather solemn, cold hands. Yep, that’s her.

But I think she took some kind of bedside manner workshop or something, because she was all trying to make small-talk and stuff. This is very unusual for her, trust me. Questions like, ‘Does Auggie have any grandparents in town?’ and ‘So, are you getting a Christmas tree?’ don’t seem to have any deeper health implications to me, so I’m completely stumped.

Random.

So we had a good time again today. It seemed like we were running from 8 a.m. on. Once we got home and he was down for the count, I thought I’d try to get a little of that nap-action myself. About that time, the dogs decided that they were ready to play, so it took about 10 minutes of face-licks to calm them down. Once they were settled, Coco snoring away, and me finally able to close my eyes, Auggie was up and ready to go again. Of course.

I was disappointed, because I was all comfortable, even laying on my stomach. Now, all of you ladies out there who are stomach-sleepers, I would highly recommend not having a child. Beyond the many months you have no option but to sleep on your side during pregnancy, the fun doesn’t stop once your tummy is (relatively-speaking) flat again.

You see, when you’re nursing, there is no way you want to have anything touching those bad boys, let alone resting the weight of your entire body on them. So finally, 25 months later, I’m willing and able to sleep on my stomach again.

And it just doesn’t feel right anymore.

Auggie added another word to his repertoire today. I don’t remember what he was doing, but he started shaking his head slowly and said, ‘No-no-no.” My God, but he’s adorable!

We had a really good day today, I think. It went by so quickly, it’s hard to remember exactly what we did. I remember a grassy, open area with lots of quacking… The park! Oh, yes, the park.

Unfortunately, it didn’t even cross my mind that there might be ducks at the park, so we were ill-prepared for duckage. That was OK, though, because, frankly, I just don’t think that Auggie is ready for duck-feeding. I mean, it took him five minutes of staring at the ducks from 40 paces before he even cracked a smile. He just looked like, ‘What. Is. That. Mom??’

There were two other little boys there pelting the defenseless mallards with stale bread anyway, so that was entertainment enough for Auggie. We eventually bypassed the ducks entirely and headed for the playground equipment.

This is where I began to wonder what pod-person had replaced my baby. He only went down the slide, like, 3 times. Normally, this baby wants nothing but to go down the slide, turn around, try to climb up the slide so he can go down immediately, falls down, tries again, tries yet again, then finally realizes that he probably will do better by walking back up the stairs, repeat ad nauseum.

We had fun, though. Walking back to the car, we passed the ducks again. This time, the boys were gone, so the ducks were eyeing us hungrily. I totally thought that Auggie was going to be able to walk right up to one and give it a pat. But it flew away, shocking the daylights out of Auggie. He looked at me like, ‘Well. I certainly didn’t expect that to happen.’

Because I would like to be asleep by midnight tonight, I am going to blatantly steal a post idea from the venerable Mrs. Kennedy.

Words that Auggie says:

1) Dada – the classic

2) Mama – took him a while to get it down, but now his favorite

3) Baby – all-purpose word for everything from the dogs to toys to whatever

4) Boo – too cute

5) Me-me – designates that whatever you are holding should be remitted to him post haste

6) Puppy – only vocalized once or twice, and always referencing some other dog than his own

7) Ba – I swear that he said this when I held up a stuffed sheep last week. Swear it!

8) Bye-bye – occasionally accompanied by a wave, but more often the wave is delayed until you are out the door, in the car and down the block. Just be happy you got the bye-bye, OK, buddy?

9) Mo’-mo’ – often accompanied by the sign for “more.” Yes, he is a genius.

There seems to be a disyllabic pattern here. I’m thinking that this is genetic, because I do the same thing with familiar proper nouns. Case in point: the rapidly-healing, wowwing-em-at-the-vet’s Jake. I must call him Jaker, Jake Dog, Jakey or something disyllabic or it just doesn’t sound right. Unless he’s in trouble. Then it’s more like, ‘JAKE! Leave Coco alone! That’s not even the right end!’

Good to know the boy got something from me…

Just a quick update on Jake — he is back to his jaunty old self today, although a little more punctured than usual. If you missed the story, scroll down to Friday’s entry.

Actually, his wounds are healing up quite well. A little too well, as we are supposed to keep them open so any infection can weep out, but they keep scabbing over. Yeah, yuck, I know. We go to the vet tomorrow for another look, but he’s doing great.

As for the coyote that bit him, it looks like there’s not much that we can do, other than keep a close watch on our dogs. Animal control won’t pick up wild animals, and the Dept. of Conservation simply has a policy of “coexistence.” Normally, I’m all for live and let live, my friends, but what about my little boy (and I’m talking about Auggie here)?

Oh, he should be okay, because Jake is about as big as a coyote will eat. Plus, coyotes are supposedly scared of humans.

Uh-huh. Excuse me while I scoff in your general direction.

Anyway, the whole situation is really involved and boring, so I won’t go on and on about brush piles and habitat and nuisance animals and noisemakes and blah, blah, blah. Suffice to say that if I even see this thing again, I know a grandpa with a deer rifle who can get the job done.

Ooh, I feel like Tony Soprano or something!

The most bizarre thing happened tonight.

Our sweet little dog Jake was bitten by some kinda wild dog. We had to rush him to an emergency veterinary clinic, where they cleaned out four really big puncture wounds — two on each side of his little chest. Basically, it looks like this thing tried to pick him up from above.

I suppose that we’re lucky that the dog or coyote or whatever didn’t run off with the little guy. Poor Jake!

This is really bizarre, because we live less than half a mile away from a five-lane beltway! But we’ve seen the coyote before, in broad daylight no less. Plus, we’ve found scary bunny heads in our backyard too.

We’re going to call Animal Control tomorrow to see if there’s anything they can do. Other than just being concerned about our too-brave little herd of dachshunds, I’m worried about Auggie too. I mean, this is a big dog. You should see the size of the holes in little Jake! (Sorry, I should stop calling him that. It makes him sound like a character in a Louisa May Alcott novel.)

The vet was really nice to Jake (Won’t. Say. Little.). They shaved the hair around the wounds, cleaned them out really well and gave him shots of antibiotic and pain medication. They didn’t even charge us the $65 emergency fee that they said they would. Nice.

Of course, all this happened after we got home from an impromptu trip to the mall and Auggie was pretty much ready for bed. Plus, we’d been working all afternoon, raking leaves and organizing closets and such. Why, oh why, did I have to look for chinos tonight? I didn’t even find a pair that I liked! Oh, sure, Beth, you’ve lost 15 pounds, so now you deserve some new chinos. Oh yeah…

It’s all my fault that little Jake is hurt. If we had just stayed home, he might not have been outside when that evil coyote was.

I suck.