We’re moving soon, which means soon this blog will be foul with the stench of “oh, look at our new house!” posts.

Speaking of stench, tonight was Joe’s last bath in the big old iron tub in our soon-to-be old house. Sort of a reverse bathtism, washing away the first home to prepare for the new one.

I’ll be minimally sentimental about everything else here, but me and Joe and that bathtub have some history. One of my main jobs is keeping this boy clean, and by my estimate that means about 2,000 baths in the old tub. Two thousand flushes of the day’s dirt. It’s where we checked in most nights for a final inspection of a kid who can’t talk, looking for nails that need trimming, scraped knees, ticks (found two, so far), rashes, signs of fattening up, piercings, tattoos or whatever else.

It is, or was, part of our routine, which we both enjoyed. I can tell you how many steps from his bedroom to the tub, how many plastic cups of water a seven year old needs to properly rinse his hair (no need to Google, it’s six), and how to best dry a kid off while he kicks and laughs.

New house, new routine coming soon. But first a few photos of this historic final scrub. Cue the music …

If you’ve made it this far and still can’t get enough Joe in the bath, then go outside. Get a hobby or something. Then check out our bath posts from 2014, 2013, and 2009.

I’m not going to talk about the elephant in the room.

Pete the Cat evidently frequents the LaPrade Library in Chesterfield. Sources say he reads a wide swath of authors. Sidney Sheldon, Tony Robbins, Omar Khayyam, Jill Johnston – pretty standard stuff. J.D. Salinger, too, which is a little concerning. No overdue books noted, but in ’09 he was fined for “significant damage” to a work by George Rodrigue.

But you aren’t here to study Pete the Cat’s literary habits – this isn’t petethecat.com, it’s joetremblay.com. So let’s see some Joe. And let’s try not to talk about the elephant in the room.

Joe first saw Pete outside, where he was skateboarding.

Off to a bad start, Pete. Joe said, “Oh, I get it. ‘Edgy.’ Yawn.”

Now we’re getting somewhere! Story time with Joe’s new friend Ms. Finch, daughter of one of his school-faves (also a Ms. Finch).

Our big boy likes story time.

Quick photo op at the end. We wanted to skip it, but didn’t want to disappoint such a big fan. You’re welcome Pete. A distracted Joe told Pete, “Hole … hole … holy cow your books are great!”

OK, I’m just going to say it, because we’re all thinking it. That’s creepy. The library did a super job, the guy in cover-band Pete was terrific, we’re very thankful for the event and all three of us had a great time. Still creepy.

A few more photos in a Flickr album.

Who doesn’t crave the water in the heat of a Virginia summer? From this weekend at the Colonial Heights Swim & Yacht Club – and yes, that is the actual name.

Mr. J. VanderClute Tremblay, at the yacht club.

I’m sure Rihanna’s a nice person, but at some point her Norwegian-written “Only Girl (in the World)” was licensed by Gemmy Industries in good-ole Texas, then rerecorded and sent to Yangzhou, China. A toy manufacturer there took this worse version of a bad song and jammed it into the belly of a million red and pink dancing sock monkeys, which were then unleashed on the West on Valentines Day. This is Bond-villain level nastiness.

Somehow two of these horrific automatons found their way to Colonial Heights, Virginia, where a wonderful and well-meaning woman named Terry at Grandtiques gave – GAVE – them to our boy Joe.

This was a while back, maybe two years. And since then we’d bust them out every few months and push the little button on their hand, and the monkeys would play the chorus of Only Girl and do a little shuffle step. Then we’d quickly remember how annoying this is and put them away.

Today, like usual, we showed Joe how to push the little button. But today, he really got it. Boy did he ever. For two hours it was non-stop.

Want you to make me feel like I’m the only girl in the world
Like I’m the only one that you’ll ever love
Like I’m the only one who knows your heart
Only girl in the world…