Funny thing about parenting. I never truly think you ever get used to something because the child is always changing. Katie is now 20 months old now and learning something new every day. She is learning her colors and shapes and more and more words seem to come out of her mouth every single day.

One thing that I do seem to have to watch myself doing is trying to compare Katie to every other child out there. I think that's a trap a lot of parents fall into and then the guilt monster kicks in. "Am I spending enough time with her? Should we be working on "x" more with her? Why does that other child seem so much smarter than her?" Goes back to the glass is half empty mentality that most people have, I suppose. I tell ya though. Every day I am so thankful that my wife and I made the decision to do what we did and have my come off the road to spend time with her. Don't get me wrong. There are still a fair share of challenges that we face every day (and finances are a big part of it) but the overall "payment" we get in being able to be more involved with her life is priceless.

Speaking of finances. It's really funny how we've started adjusting. Again, I'm not saying that it's easy but you can really stop and look back and how much you really piss away money at stupid things when you're not paying attention. At the very least, this will keep us humble and thankful for everything we have (as it should be). In any event, I hope that we never take any moment we have with her for granted.

Side Note:

Just wanted to say that Katie is doing exceptionally well at her colors. We've been working on colors using both crayons (she has only tried eating the black one. Much to her surprise, it didn't taste as advertised) as well as color puzzles, which she does well at. Slowly but surely we're trying to introduce more and more letters and numbers but she's picking things up great.

Funny thing happened in the small town of Winston Salem. We felt 3 minor earthquakes the past two nights. Katie and I both slept through them. I don't think that many people know that we're somewhat near a fault line. Nothing major. Just wanted to be noted.

We went to the fair today. It's actually the 2nd time for Katie but the 1st time since she was tee tiny. It seemed I had as close of a grip on her this as the next. We were able to get a few digital shots before the camera went dead. She loved the pony ride and actually cried when we took her off the pony. Needless to say, there was lots of hand washing after visiting the animals.