I'm guessing we get a special thread. But you're right, I need to stock up. I also intend to call my Trumpy parents for babysitting duty when that glorious day arrives so I can get absolutely blitzed.
My 3 year-old wants, or thinks he wants a fish tank. I had one off and on from 2-30, so of course I'm in. My wife wants to just get a beta tank, but fuck that.
My plan is to get him a 10 gallon. Thoughts/recs on getting it set up and what to put in it?
I'm hoping our #2's 2nd year of life isn't as difficult as his brother's was. 2 and 3 year-old's obviously have their issues, but 12-24 months with the first was a beating. Constantly sick, could barely go to restaurants or much of anything that required interacting with strangers most of the year, so many fits, would send himself into puking rages, especially when we would put him down at night.
The young one seems to have a more even temperament, but he just turned one, which is precisely when #1 became much more difficult.
They're around Houston for sure, although I typically saw them more out in the Katy Prairie area. I remember being very surprised when I first saw one flying over 1960.
I was replacing the fill valve in our master bathroom upstairs. Things were going fine and I was making some adjustments to get the height right when the shut off valve to that toilet failed. By the time I got down to shut off the water entirely, some water had dripped through a seam in the ceiling and the smoke detector attached beneath the toilet.
I've had the valve replaced, so the plumbing situation is resolved. My question is do I need to have that drywall torn out to prevent mold, or I can I watch it to see if there are any obvious issues?
Speaking of owls, I had a surprise addition to the neighborhood list the other day.
The 1 year-old woke up at 330 AM screaming bloody murder, and could only be calmed by going for a walk. The only upside to this sleep interruption was hearing a single scream of a barn owl overhead, not a bird I expected anywhere nearby.
Our oldest got it when he was 1 1/2 a couple years ago. No sores on his hands and feet, so it wasn't really on our radar as he developed a fever and almost completely stopped eating solid food for over a week. The pediatrician found a large sore on the roof of his mouth though.
It all came to a head with the first cold front of that fall. It killed our heater so our house was freezing, the baby's fever spiked to like 103 and we spent the night not sleeping in a hotel. We took him to the ER the following day since he wasnt improving. He had rhino and adenovirus, HFM and bilateral ear infections. Nothing really to be done but supportive care.
He recovered soon after that, but it was 2 weeks of misery. Good luck...
This also ignores the giant elephant in the room that no one discusses anymore because we're reasonably worried about our own country collapsing, but climate change is going to fuck all our shit up, especially since the entire world has apparently just raised their hands up in defeat.
Potential new 54,000 acre state park near Kickapoo Cavern SP sounds pretty cool.
https://www.ksat.com/news/texas/2025/10/06/texas-parks-wildlife-working-to-acquire-54000-acre-hill-country-ranch-for-new-state-park/