With Teeth

I'm a bit behind on this, so just some updates.

Wolfie has started teething. This is not unnatural for a human of the four-and-a-half month variety, but if you dig up that odd calculation because he was a preemie, he's just barely three months, and that is early. His first few days of teething pain were pretty awful, just "I'M BEING MURDERED!" howling for hours at a time. But, in typical Wolfie fashion, the kid has evolved and his first tooth appears ready to poke out. Carly has been feeling around his gums and discovered a flap of gum-meat that can be pushed aside to find the tooth underneath. So here goes the teething process. We have already started creating and storing hipster baby food. Kid's first solid bite of food of his own? Butternut squash.

We are almost totally unpacked. For most adult moves, this is good--less than two months in and we're done with boxes. I think we have a handful of "decor" boxes to rearrange, and I don't know where they'll end up.

I am fat. I went to the doctor's yesterday because I have this bulging blob coming out of the inside of my lip. I'm not normally the one to run to the doctor for any old lump or sucking chest wound, but this one bothered me because it changed from being a hard little yellow-white lump, just the size of a grain of couscous, to a full-on egg sac about the size of a jelly bean. It is apparently a mucoucele, which happens sometimes. It's kind of like a bible bump for your mouth.


At the doctor's office I discovered that I weigh 10 pounds more than I did last spring, when I weighed more than I've ever weighed before. It's a natural outgrowth of the change in life circumstances--with the kid around, I can't just go out and walk around the city for 6 hours or hit the gym for extended periods unless I offload more of the parenting duties on my lovely wife. I have resigned to buying a couple of pairs of fat pants (waist 34" or 35"), and will start working out again once I figure out where that time is. In the meantime, I'm going to support Carly in going to hot yoga classes, as she's finally feeling physically able to do that kind of stuff after the C-section and everything.

Carly still doesn't want me to say that she's got a job, but she's got a job. I think on Tuesday she's going to sit down with one of the top people in the Department of Justice. I'm assuming he's just going to show her where her office is.

One more thing, and I'm sure in the realm of jinxes, this is the one that more experienced parents will probably smirk over, but my kid is a riot. He's just so damned happy all the time. Here's what happened while we were watching Man of Steel last weekend:

SALLIE WAS A 15-YEAR OLD GIRL FROM NEBRASKA [UPDATE TOO]

So, today, I received an email directly from the CEO of SLM Corporation, the parent company of Sallie Mae.

Dear Mr. Diroll-Black,

I apologize for the recent issues you had with your service at Sallie Mae.  Our goal is to provide excellent service to all of our customers all of the time.  Unfortunately, we did not live up to our standards this time.

I am told that we have corrected the issues on your account.  Please let me know if that is not the case.

I appreciate your patience as we dealt with your issues, and more importantly, I appreciate the ability to service your student loans.

Sincerely,

Jack Remondi

It's a nice gesture, considering the nonsense I've endured. That is, if things are actually resolved. At this point, although he has been told that the issues on my account have been corrected, I have no proof of that actually having happened. My online account info still says that my federal loans are about $1,634 in the hole and that everything is past due.

I'll give it a week or so before I call Kelly at the consumer advocate's office again. For now, patience.