So do the terrible two's end on the day he turns 3 or is there any chance this will be over a day or dare I say possibly a month or two earlier?

We're about 48 hours away from checking ourselves into a mental health institution. I wonder if they have family suites? Oh by the way, if you've heard, read or seen that sometimes the terrible two's morph into the terrible three's just don't tell us as we prefer to exist in a semi delusional state about certain topics.

As of late Keenan is going through a very aggressive stage. He hits when he gets exited, kicks when he gets mad and slaps when he doesn't get his way. Any combination of the 3 is enough to make that little vein in Sean's temple throb visibly. On the odd occasion and for no apparent reason, Keenan bites. As a matter of fact I was on the phone with my dear friend Sharon the other night and out of nowhere Keenan just silently walked up and bit me, very hard, in the ass. That one definitely tops the charts in the "attention getting" category. I know so much of this stuff is done for attention and to see what kind of reaction he can get out of us. Naturally we oblige, we're not quite at the stage where we can handle every one of these situations like we're supposed to. We try but there's only so many times you can be slapped across the face between 4 and 6 am before you start feeling a tad bit angry. So you know, we have a plan with our daycare provider on how to deal with this when he's there and Sean and I are constantly trading off supervision duties. We go thru almost entire days on the weekend where we're trading back and forth based on our anger levels. It gets exhausting and by the time Monday rolls around we feel like we need another two days off to recover.

The good news is Keenan has made good ground on understanding how his actions affect others. He's getting better at reading facial expressions (especially sad and angry) and he knows exactly when and how to say sorry. Although he doesn't always choose to. Time outs are working better with him again and he has on occasion put himself in the time out spot at daycare. So there is a faint blip of light at the end of the tunnel. It's just this particular tunnel is exceptionally long and the road is very bumpy.

Laugh, love, floss and travel!

At one time those tag lines made me nuts.  Now I find them terribly endearing and I miss them almost as much as Ryugetsu chocolate cake.

Once upon a time when we were in Japan we couldn't get over how much cooler the vehicles were.  Astonishing selection by manufacturer, wicked color selection, wild designs, ridiculously small sizes, wacked-out names (just have to mention the "Retarder" here), everything comes in 4 wheel drive and just when you think you've seen it all it's next year and everything's different again.  After 3 years we were still seeing models we hadn't seen before.  Here in North America we basically get the shaft.  Everyone has their version of the Civic, Fit, Accord, Odyssey and Pilot.  Hang in there Element, you've not been cloned yet (and likely won't be 'cause you're a wee bit too gormy).  One of the coolest rides in Japan is the Nissan Cube and it looks like they're releasing it in an effort to chase down some of business Toyota is getting with the Scion xB (known as the bB in Japan).  Whatever the reason it's great to see this little scrumpet (looks like it's wearing a halter top from the back) breaking into the US market and shaking up the dull and boring sameness we're fed over here.

Nissan Cube: 2009 Nissan Cube Revealed