That’s how many words we’re up to: “dada,” “mama,” “baba,” “nana,” “boo” and “bubble.”

Three months between blog posts. This is unacceptable. I am going to do better this year.

In any event, I’m not sure how many people out there still read this blog and only this blog (and don’t follow me on Twitter or Facebook), but my wife and I are expecting our second child sometime in summer (we aren’t sure of the exact date yet). So, that’s big news. Hopefully, I’ll be talking about that more in the near future.

We have also moved. There was nothing really wrong with our old house, but we are trying to downsize our expenses and because I work from home now, where I call home is only tethered to access to high-speed internet, not commute time. We have moved to the town of Sachse, Texas, which is in the far northeast corner of Dallas County.

This is, officially, the smallest town I’ve ever lived in (the welcome sign claims 9,751, the 2000 census number, which is probably a bit more than that now), but it still has all the perks of being in a major metropolitan area. This nets me all the benefits of being close to Barnes & Noble AND Tractor Supply Co.

As for the house itself, "quirky" would be a relatively-positive way to describe it. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a nice enough house. It’s a little on the older side, but it’s been well taken care of. But there are just some oddities that leave me scratching my head. Like the smoke detector that won’t stop chirping for a battery that it can’t detect, or the doors that don’t close, allowing the cat to wake the baby whenever she so desires, or the dryer that just never seems to stop, or the leaking spigot on the front of the house. But all that pales in comparison to the electrics of the house, however, which seems to have been wired up by a 108-year-old German émigré named Ulbrecht who had neither a solid grasp on the English language nor the National Electric Code, and so apparently installed the wiring of the house to standards that predate the Beer Hall Putsch. All of the outlets were installed upside-down, light switches are frequently in odd or reverse positions, and then there’s the matter of outlets installed perilously close to windows, fixtures, and so on. The guy who installed our FiOS says he’s never seen a wiring job so crazy.

In any event, we still like the house. The rent is cheaper, the deposits were less, it has gas heat instead of electric and it comes with its own appliances, so we’re not having to rent anymore (which means, so long, crappy appliance rental company). All for about the same sized space we had before, which will save us thousands of dollars this year.

Of course, new house means moving again. This is the ninth time I’ve moved since graduating high school 11½ years ago, which makes me feel like a gypsy, and we really want to stay here for a while (God willing, of course). Once again, we must endure the arduous game of determining which Monty-Hall-esque "Mystery Box" contains something that’s very important, like our silverware, ethernet cables or toilet paper. Of course, unpacking with the "infant child" expansion pack (in addition to the previously-acquired "pregnant wife" expansion pack) has added a "fun" new element to this game that really decreases this game’s replay factor.

So, in short, we’re really, really, really hoping that we are here to stay in Sachse, maybe contributing four more tick marks to this our new little town for the 2010 Census.