Hold Me Closer, Tiny Dancer...

I have no idea what to do with this...

She's doing exactly what you think she is doing...

Plié...using Noni's end table as a Barre...

I got a girlie girl supreme...  Tutus and dresses and barrettes that cover her entire head like a crown are my life for the FIRST time in my whole life.  Thing 1 was not this way.  She patronized her grandmother with the fufu dresses, the gloves, the ruffle socks, the ribbons in the hair with every color in them coordinating with her exact ensemble...

But YOU had to do it... YOU had to ask her if she wanted it, if she wanted to wear the fufu... and usually she said no..It became one of those things where she would say, "But that's what I wear at grandma's, that's not for home."

Damn...

That doesn't mean, though, that this Tomboy doesn't have a few tricks up her sleeves... I have a way that we can have our cake and eat it too... Thing 2 likes frilly dresses and grabs them with gusto to get dressed in the morning...Like this...

Oy vey...how was I supposed to leave this today?  It's not easy, I tell ya.

I can't believe I actually found a cute little ruffly tutu legging combo thing in the clearance rack at Target for $6...  HAD to get that for my girlie girl... Thing 1... well, she's 8 1/2 going on 30... so she's fine with her Kindle books. 

My baby is not a baby, I have a toddler.  NO matter how we slice it, she's a big girl now...  She has her specificities with things, she's not much for words, but that doesn't mean she's not paying attention to everything you're doing at any given time.  Because SHE IS!  I have slowly started the move from silicone sippy cups to hard plastic sippy and with everything else so far she is making the change like a trooper...maybe I"M not the one ready for her to leave the crib behind, but I love the replacement crib I got her and she loves it, too.  There are some things that will need to go on in the not too distant future as far as making a large bedroom fit for two girls of such different ages... but not right this very second.  I'm enjoying this stage, drinking in the last drink before I quit cold turkey in the morning, so to speak.

Last baby, and we're done... No mas bebes... and it's sad.  It is, even the mister said it was sad...but then he gets all logical on me and rational about how there are so many firsts we have to look forward to and that's what she be focusing on...damn him... and his perfectly reasonable logic.

We are still toting a stroller everywhere, because I would rather push a stroller than pull a toddler.  She gets plenty of running around time in the backyard these days.  Especially with this bullshit, crazy ass weather... I'm already considering bathing suits for these two.

We'll be dusting off and pulling out the ol' potty trainer soon too...but I think we'll wait a little while longer before that trauma begins... Not gonna lie... I'll probably bawl my eyes out when I pull the last diaper out of the diaper box...  good thing those bad boys are so absorbent...

Flash Sideways...

For when it's not really a Flash Back and it's certainly NOT a Flash Forward, cause then I'd be psychic... and a lotto winner.


Some things have been creeping around in the backs of brain...the corners of my mind if you will...

I was looking back at a time when we were apartment dwellers...

When we had a psycho land lady...

Mostly due to the "Hi, I'm your house, and now that you are here, I'm going to break on you muhfuckers!!" type stuff that we've had go on this summer.

Nothing we couldn't handle... just a lot of swipe-swipe-monies-gone.  Fine...

When I think about what we paid on rent, and what we paid to "fix" the problem(s)...  wow... I'm still in the pink... we are still better off...and that's amazing to me.  Between Homeowner's insurance, mortgage, PMI all rolled up into one beautiful payment versus what we would be paying for that space in rent... we win...  so far... but still.  We WIN!!!  hehe...  I had some serious doubts, some total almost OH my GAWD meltdowns about what had we done?  What had we gotten ourselves into?  First it was MY fault... cause I did this...cause I was all alone...right? Not really.  I have a silent silent partner... who sometimes seems like such a silent partner, you'd think he was second cousin to Harvey The Rabbit... not so...

We made the decision to jump in when the jumping was good...and we'll still come out on top in the end...but the END is so far away... and in the END it won't be US that really truly benefits, it'll be our kids... Our house is their security.. because it's what we can do for them...and in all this "Oh my gawd what did we get ourselves into?"  I remembered the who-what-where-when-why it all came about...
and I got sad...

I got a little sad cause we were so happy in our simple lives... one kid... one (and then two) car payment(s)....  and then there was carrying groceries up flights of stairs because Choni thought it would be best to go that route with the kid...an upstairs apartment is less likely to get broken into...fine.  I see that...

If I could have kept ANY apartment, I would have wanted to keep our first.  It was lovely. It was quaint and adorable, and we had fab neighbors... except of course for that ONE neighbor... you know the one...the one neighbor you have that you know their kid's names, not from KNOWING them, but from HEARING the mom SCREAM them across the apartment complex to come home for dinner and of course you know she talks on the phone on her patio at the top of her lungs so everyone can hear about her detest for her ex... awesome, right? Right. 

I miss that apartment because it was the first place we lived as a couple, an engaged couple, a married couple, and an expectant couple...that apartment had so many of our firsts...  SO many...  and I have so little pictures of it...and I have so little tangible memory of it...  but every time we pass we tell Thing 1, that's were WE started and she recognizes it...and now SHE says it... "That's it!  That's our first place!"  I'm going on the technicality of Thing 1 being a zygote but still knowing that was her first home...fine... then her first actual baby outside the belly home was grandma and grandpa's... 

So I remember the fun and I have fond memories, but we had some hard times also.

Here's the thing, as far as our relationship goes, me n mister are pretty damned solid especially for today's world.  Also there's the whole "Relationships are work".  I'm not going to say that relationships are easy, or that if they're good they're easy.  They're still work.  Don't ever let anyone tell you different.  But it's like this:

Relationships are work.  They're the kind of work you do at a job that you LOVE.  You eat-sleep the job, you can't wait to get there, and you are a little sad when you leave in the afternoon but you are immediately perked back up when you realize that you get to sleep, wake up and do it all over again...  aaawwww....

Then there's the bad relationship...The Relation-shit.  Relationshits are work at a job you fucking hate and can't wait to get fired or have the balls to quit, but you want to get fired so you can collect unemployment and if you quit, then it's your fault you have no job...and everyone pretty much wants/needs a job right?  Right...so Relationshits are jobs where you are sending your resume out on your work email cause you just.don't.give.a.fuck.

...I would like to add I am DAMN proud of that analogy...between my sister and my mom and their dating woes, I have managed to work out this here analogy between relationships and relationshits and how you know which one you're in...  DAMN proud of myself... and guess which one I have???

hehehe...

Anyways, where was I?  Oh yeah, Flash Sideways...  In remembering our past places, places of and in our past, I thought about what it must have looked like on the outside... I thought about our "times" we were having and sometimes I thought, wow, we were having a hard time, or wow, we had a down period... well, here's the thing.  We WERE...but it wasn't US.  What was happening was happening to US as a unit, not between the two of us.  Any true unhappiness I have been apart of since I've been coupled was caused by outside forces... we were always teamed up and ready to go.  So we had bummed out periods, but us, WE were good, solid.  We were better than okay.  But still, not bright and shiney unicorns shitting rainbows kinds of times going on...and we got through it as a unit...then I think of those times and Thing 1...and she was growing and learning during those times...she was eating on her own, she was potty training, she was speaking, thinking, learning. 

Now, we have another that is speaking, thinking, learning...  Not REALLY speaking, it's that "twin talk" that only we understand...but we hear it.  It's there. 

I say Flash Sideways because we are remembering what was going on when Thing 1 did the things that Thing 2 does...  oh yeah, the apartment, apartment 2 or apartment 1?  Well, if Thing 1 was born, obviously 2...oh yeah, I hated that place, the downstairs neighbors, the light in our bedroom window at night while we were TRYING to sleep, the THIS and the THAT...and then I wonder, were we EVER happy there?  And then psycho's house... were we EVER happy there?  And the wife part, were you unhappy with ME there?  So I bring up that Mister was unhappy when we were there...and he says yeah kinda..and we talk and realize...it wasn't with eachother we had these feelings and it was all about the place and the situation not being awesome and how we DID have to try EXTRA hard to enjoy ourselves because it's NOT fun to rent someone else's house or an apartment...

Buyer's remorse?  Maybe... but it comes in flashes and spurts like PTSD.  (or so I imagine of course, I wouldn't really know, but it's my closest analogy)

Buying the house always trumps NOT having bought the house...  I think what's happening is that so much time has passed since apartment 1 and 2 that I can look back now with fonder memories, and that's why this is so new to me.  So new to think "wow, we had a good time, why did we buy a house?" but it's all relative...it's time... time passes and we sometimes forget the negative...at least I have been known to do that a time or two.  I don't always WANT to remember the bad, especially if I feel like it's not going to do me any good down the road.  I definitely believe in guarding yourself. that's a given in life, it's necessary to remember certain things from the past so you don't repeat.

But these flashes seem more like flash sideways to me...because when I remember these things in these places lately, Thing 2 is doing things that Thing 1 did in these past places...and I see the wee one crawl into her booster seat to eat, and I get a flash of the big one doing the same thing at the same place in a different place where we were the same family that loved eacthother the same...just in a different place...  See?  Sideways...  Right now, it doesn't feel like I have to go BACK to remember.  It feels like I just have to step to the side...

Like the eye trick, you cover one eye to see one side, and you switch eyes and you see another side.  Sometimes I feel like if I cover one eye, I see here and now...and if I switch, I see then and there...

See?  Sideways...

Ashes to Ashes, We All Fall Down...From Lack Of Sleep....

I felt inspired by a post I just read and I got all kinds of bursting thought bubbles above my highlighted head... I just HAD to do it...

A History In The Sleep Life of Us, Posthumously.

...because when I first read "What about you guys?" and such and was thinking, "I want to click 'comments' but why would I? We're so boring..."  and then I thought,"Well, the kids DON'T sleep the same routine they did 6 months ago..." and there the was the six months before that and the six months before THAT and the months before that and then there was just Thing 1 and WOW! 

It's actually changed quite a bit, now hasn't it?  Maybe it's not all that boring!  Harley's early days were difficult looking back.  It was definitely normal seeming to us at the time due to the fact we had NOT been parents before, so anything we deemed normal was just what was happening at the time.  8 years ago, Daddy's job was at night.  He'd come home and have Harley duty.  She hated the bassinet that she had.  And I hated that she hated it.  It was beautifully constructed, couldn't she see that and understand that with her barely 3 day old brain?? What was wrong with her?!?!  Later we found that it was NOT the bassinet but WAS in fact the A/C vent pointed DIRECTLY into the canopy creating a FUCKING WIND TUNNEL!  Of course she hated it!!  As a direct result, I believe, she then hated any air/wind on her face for years afterward.

From the wee early days she slept with daddy on his chest (protected from the a/c vent debacle that eluded us) and he stayed up with her and fed and changed and cooed and hugged.  He slept while I took the day shift.  I went back to work at the fairly typical six week stage.  We put her in her crib because she hated the bassinet so much and two days before I was due back at the office, I knew we had to do something.  Dammit all if that kid didn't sleep 8 hours that night!  And slept through the night thereafter.   She just wanted the crib, we thought... No, she just didn't want to sleep in a damned tornado.  She was amazing.  She went down at 9pm and woke at 6am.  Sometimes 5am.  When it was a 5am kind of day, Gpa was usually right there to get her and shooing me away...who was I to argue? I mean, it's his house right?  He can get up and get the baby if he wants!!  Until she was 18 months, it was sleep all night from 9-6.We moved twice and when she got to the second new place, she was uncertain about it.  Her new surroundings made her uneasy when it came to night time.

She started sleepwalking and we had to put one of those handle things on the inside of her door so she wouldn't do any harm to herself.  Then she was wanting to sleep with us.  There was some coaxing for six months.  Then at two years, she started a really cute routine... or WE started it and she ran with it.  From the time she was two to when we moved again 6 months later, we would turn the lights off in the living room...turn the sound down on the TV...  and we would sit with her on our couch and get cozy...then at 9 we would say "Ni-night Harley" and she would jump off the couch, give daddy a kiss and drag her binkie to bed, waving at us...she would shut her door to just a crack (we would shut it the rest of the way later) and that was it...she was sleeping.  There a handful of nights this didn't work, but it worked most of the time....

Then we moved again...she didn't like that place either...what worked in the new place was letting her fall asleep on the couch THEN moving her.  She stuck to her bedtime doing this, amazingly...but sometimes, just sometimes she would wake up and hang on her door and call for daddy to come get her...sometimes he did and brought her to bed with us and it was fingers and elbows in our eyes...but sometimes he would take her to the living room and hang a few minutes where she would fall back asleep and she would get carried back to bed.

When she was 4, we bought our house...and she hasn't had any problems since...a few nightmares, but nothing to write home about...

The wee one, she was different from the get go... she wanted to nurse every hour on the hour so the first two nights were HELLISH...  lack of sleep inspired a talk between me and daddy whether we were wanting to give nursing the big GO or use the formula and bottles we had for backup...  after no sleep in basically three days, I was ready to not go down the road of the sleepless unhappy mommy...  I put the bassinet in our room and I slept on our bed the first time in 3 nights...  I had premade water in bottles, premeasure formula in a container...all I had to do was dump, shake and serve.  I used one hand to feed while the other hand changed the diaper that she wet after every serving which was every two hours for the first 5 weeks...then she wanted more and longer time between feedings... I woke up with her for the six weeks and daddy would take the morning shift giving me a few hours of sleep in a row.  Aaaww, that daddy...

When I went back to work , Thing 2 was NOT on the same track as big sis... she was still every 3 hours at night.. sometimes...just sometimes.. a little longer...
Sometimes, she wanted to be held and not let down... and it was winter-ish time and we bundled her and swaddled her and she hated to be swaddled but she liked to be snuggled, if that makes sense... she doesn't like to be swaddled... but she likes snuggly blankies and soft comfy cushions... so we made a little snuggle cave in her bassinet and used the boppy and I'm sure there are people out there that would LOVE to hang us by our toes if they saw what we did...but then again, isn't it just super CRUNCHY of us to do what THE BABY WANTED?  she slept all night like that and when she out grew that snuggly cave and the bassinet and went into the crib, we went back to waking up at some time of the night.

somewhere around 8 months she stopped the midnight wake up.  She did, though, wake up earlier thought. She went down at 9 and woke up at 5:30am...  we almost had her to six :)  so it was close and then sometime around 10 months, we were on the schedule we are on now.  What we didn't know though, was that she doesn't like to be in the pack n' play.  At ALL... so going somewhere doesn't bode well with her.  Also, this poor kid has been teething every day since she was 6 months old which has caused plenty of sleeplessness for me n daddy... and frustration and confirmation as to why we CLOSED AND LOCKED the baby factory.  We are done, and we are enjoying this!!  She has nights where all of a sudden we hear a SHRIEK!!!!  Then nothing...and we fall asleep again and it's peaceful.  Thing 1 napped where she fell and Thing 2 naps twice a day for two hours each and that's what makes her tick.  I learned this weekend that if I go somewhere that's not my mom's or my MIL's, then I bring the pack and play.

Granted, the naps are forced, but she NEEDS them OH SO badly...  she usually cries a bit and falls asleep after 20 minutes...  once in awhile what she really needs is a time out, chill out time...  but the naps are KEY.

It's amazing how I went from, "Ugh, why would I of all people say anything?"
to all of that up there ^^

It's amazing what the brain's first reaction is to remember something one way, and then when you think about it and think really hard... all sorts of thinks get thought!  And thinking of all those thinks, I remember that little boppy cave that daddy made and that baby loved so much... it was a Godsend...  the man and his brain and how it works those things out so wonderfully... That man was meant to be a daddy... he really was!  As much as I almost get to the point where I miss a good excuse to watch The Simpsons Movie at 4am... sleep is good too... sleep and coffee... lots and lots of coffee...

"Dirty Mouth? Clean it UP!"...

...Oh Orbit Lady.... PLEASE come through my house!!!  ...And then I wake up... Cause yeah... that's NOT gonna happen. Not no way, not no how...

 

Guess what I did yesterday? Nothing.  I cleaned the kids room with them (by with them of course I mean giving Thing 2 things to keep her busy while I cleaned with Thing 1)...  I can't believe what we were able to clean. I can't believe what she let me get rid of.  Yes LET ME.  I know, I shouldn't let my kid have the say really.  But here's the part about them being far apart.  Thing 1 is at the age when she should be getting rid of baby toys...but we have the baby now...and she is old enough to play with all those toys.  One day, they will be gone, but we just signed a new lease on their life.  If those toys could talk I'd demand some thank yous...  just sayin...

 

Cleaning the kid's room has become somewhat of a "mommy" job.  Sometimes I sell myself on the idea that the chores are perfectly, evenly split up, but they're not.  They're just not.  It's never going to be perfectly even and perfect.  Putting the kid's laundry away is a mommy job.  But I like it.  I like it because I am the one that buys them their replacement clothes...so if I buy the clothes, I should fold them and put them away so I know what's hole-y.  What's shredded, ripped, stained, too small and ready to go.  I like my "mommy" jobs.  I try to do other things, but the only time I have to do things is the weekends, which this weekend was one where daddy worked...  I played with the kiddos yesterday and cleaned and played...we watched movies, had a little friend over, sent the little friend home, and played... Mary slept, I worked on a crochet project (what's with all these breeders lately? I loved it!) and I went to bed a little later than usual cause I wanted to hug and kiss my Choni-baloney before I went to bed.  And then, he did the dishes... He worked, came home at 9:30 after stopping at the store after work, put the food away and did the dishes...  Yeah, that's what I married...  and that's why I strive to be a better person everyday...and that's why last night I went to bed totally depressed.  I am going to have start a personal journal....

 

I need somewhere where I can completely release the crazy inadequacies I feel as the spouse... some of it's pure bullshit.  Some of it is pretty valid... Some of it is just for us.. some of it... like when I have had people tell me that from their end, they don't think Choni does enough... 

 

Yep... people have told me that.  I know what they mean is based on what they see, but you have to be in our house day to day to realize that it's really the other way around...  I play with the kids when I have them... because I am constantly in a state of flux.  I want to clean the house, I want to see them see me clean the house so they can say "wow, what a clean house we have."  But I have some negative semi-repressed memories about having a clean house, which is also probably a serious part of me being "Clean or play?  PLAY!"  Because we did things as a family, but I can't remember a time my mom really PLAYED with  me.  I don't hold it against her or anything, she worked like a fuckin DOG to keep our house up and my dad did, too...  food on the table and a clean house and a few memories here and there of Disneyland, Knott's, picnics, birthday parties.  Lots of snuggly nights at home...  right before bed and after dinner...  very warm and snuggly... but I also remember several times when my OCD dad decided to WASH THE SCREENS instead of go to the park with us, so we made our own fun. 

 

I know people will call bullshit on the fact that I say "well the baby is UP MY ASS"  because it IS difficult to keep your mind ON TASK when a midget is pulling your pants down whilst climbing your leg... so we do what we can, but still... I feel like I should be doing a better job.  Like my house should be immaculate like so many other people's houses are (or maybe they're not and I PRESUME they are)... I guess everyone juggles differently and this is how we juggle... We prioritized, and cleanliness of house has taken a bit of a back burner...sure, I Swiffer... that shit's RAD... but when I dusted my house as a chore when I was a kid, it was a rag and Pledge to the WHOLE shebang and that was all that was acceptable.  My mom could tell when I tickled the house with a feather duster and what did I do the next day?  Re-DID all the dusting I didn't do the day before.... 

 

I guess the point is, I don't  have a clean house... my poor hubby does 95% percent more housework than I do and I play with the kids...  and one day this will change... so I'm going to do my best to enjoy this while it lasts...because one day...the kids won't want a thing to do with me and I'll be cleaning out of necessity to keep my time occupied.  And that's why my house is disheveled and my nails are barely kempt and I sneak in project-ing when the baby naps...oh and I am at my pre baby weight and sustaining because it's too goddamned hot to go outside and walk and my post work work-outs are on hold until Thing 2 gets old enough to NOT get into shit... I'm waiting for Fall basically... or OUR Fall, which starts in late November... I should call this time "Baby Flux"...maybe naming it will help me get out of my head about it...  but see, now that I've said that and put it out there, I feel better already!  Blah...word vomit...and now I am purged!!!  ...and this is what happens when I have too much time to think things...  because this is all bullshit...and I know that...  first world problems eh?  TOTALLY!!!  And this is why I would be a horrible psych patient...  I would do a round of word vomit...and I would be cured...teeheehee...  And one day, I will be looking at a 5 year old Thing 2 and be thinking, "Remember when I didn't have time for things?"...  I remember doing that with Thing 1.  I think she was about 3 when I could just 100% get going on things and she wouldn't be ALL OVER ME...and as much as I sat there enjoying it, I was sad that I wasn't being called for, needed, "bugged"...  It's bittersweet, that moment when you're doing something that you couldn't easily do with a small one around, and then the moment you can... it's ALMOST not as enjoyable it once was.  Because that free time comes at a price...the price of kids growing up...  Circle of life n shit...  kids grow up, we get our "free time" back for what it's worth and we wonder where it all went...  And it's all so incredibly NORMAL...  and now I can move on to the next thing on my list of things to dwell on...what's for dinner??

Twelve Minutes 'Til The Bell Rings...

Some of my best ideas come out of me at the last minutes of the day... let's see if this is a testament to as much, shall we?

Probably not, probably going to be gobble-di-gook...but hey...what is to be expected from someone in my predicament?

I have been locked in a Bio Hazard called "Home" for about 5 days...and man is it good to be out. 

I came back to work to a mole hill, but it's gone now.  All gone...bye bye...

I sit and I wonder just how much "better" Choni feels now that he is on day 5 of Flu Watch 2013...

He hasn't been sick like this in about 5 years I would say.  He used to get the Flu shots every year and he would get deathly ill right after.  Call it what you want, it's the truth...He was that 1%.  Trust and believe I kindly requested he STOP getting the damned things and just let himself get sick like a normal person.  Well, he didn't sick after that...and life was good.  Thing 1 must have the immune system of Bubble Boy because she just can't seem to shake the sick.  She has gotten sick every year since she started school which the statistcs say is normal and American as Apple Pie...Thanks though... But no thanks just the same...

The worst thing in the whole world is when your kids get sick.  You can put bandaids on a scraped knee and a pricked finger, you can pull out frikkin splinters, you can even put salves on burns, but you just can't get them better from the flu... It sucks and it's belittling as a parent.  I took her to the Pediatrician and he said she was teetering between viral and bacterial infection...so wait and see...  $30 bucks to get "wait and see"... Oh great...so we did... I got a presription just in case the worst hit over the weekend, but after being sick ALL week...her whole vacation from school down the tubes...she was better.  It's a miracle!! Not so fast ya'll.... Then HE gets it....

I stayed home from work on Wednesday, went in for two hours on Thursday and went in from 8 to 2 on Friday all so I wouldn't drown in a mountain of paperwork and phone calls today...and I'm glad I was able too...Thanks Ma :)  I didn't really see him Thursday, Friday or Saturday... except for a trip to the Urgent Care Saturday morning and then the CVS for medication of awesome sorts...  Sunday afternoon, much to my surprise, he emerged :)  Shaved, showered, and less death-like hue to the skin!!  Yay!!! 

I have done more laundry and dishes and meal preparation than I probably have in a year...  We haven't had a whole weekend to ourselves in a long time and it's been even longer since I have had such domestic duties thrust upon me... Weird to sit there and have to wonder how many pairs of jeans and how many towels you can fit in your own washer...because that's how long it's been since you've done serious laundry...  Funny to sit there and wonder what setting to wash the dishes on again cause it's been so long since you've had to do more than just load the thing up with dishes...  Funny....

But not really all that funny... There was a time I knew all these things.  A very different space and time when we both had jobs and Harley was the only Thing and we dropped her off for the night at Gma and Gpa's... It's "funny" how different your life gets...and not even because you "wanted" it to... but because it HAD to be different.  It was forced to be different...and pretty soon you wonder... How did I do this before??  And the answer is simple... You didn't...  I didn't have to clean a house and juggle a baby... I didn't have to figure that part out myself....  A crash course wasn't necessarily what I had in mind but I am now glad that I had it, and I'm glad it's over.  I'm glad I got reminded I'm the Mom I'm the Wife I'm part of the equation...I'm not just here to keep the lights on and keep the water running...  I'm sorry that everyone was sick... but now I'm thinking it all happened for a reason... We all got something out of it...  If you want a silver lining of course...maybe I want one, because maybe I NEED one... Maybe I NEED one after seeing my poor girl lethargic on the couch for a week, after seeing the piles of paperwork on my desk, after seeing how much Choni does and how much he could use a break no matter what form it came in.... 

And now it's all over and I can go back to the most annoying thing being that Amazon just shipped my camera and I won't have it until next week...  damn Amazon...

Walking, Talking & Sippy Cups...OH MY!!!

Our baby is just over a year old...  Technically a toddler, but still the baby...She is already leaving her days of extreme Baby-dom in the dust cloud of life...  She wears real shoes, walks all over to get from place to place and she is soon to be bottless (that's Daddy, Daddy's not ready...he's so cute...).  She talks (in the way that a parrot mimics) but still...  There's "Dis" for "This and mama, dada, baba and when she really wants what you've got it's "Mumumummmmm..." which means "Hey I want that gimme it..." 

Still though, raging with teething and the physical side effects.  Hates having her diaper changed still, something that came with her 6month mark and never left.  Sometimes we can give her a sippy cup or a bottle when we are changing her and she will forget that she thinks she's going to get cut in half...  Seriously, her little brain is thinking, "I KNEW IT!  TODAY'S THE DAY!  IT'S REALLY HAPPENING! I KNEW THIS DAY WOULD COME!" 

Kids man, the amaze me truly...she knows that there is a process to the day and she gets it...she rolls really well...and we get the diaper out and she sees it and she's fine, she sees the wipes and the powder and she's fine.  we get her down on her back to change her and that's it...the defining moment of her day where she is so absolutely sure that we're about to pull out the ban saw and make our move for baby sushi...I know it sounds horrible, but you should HEAR this child scream at the changing table...We have tried changing her in different spots of the house even, nope.  She hates it with the fire of 1,000 suns...

Enjoyable still is the growing dynamic between the two Littles...  They're so good together, and Thing 1 still thinks that because it is her sister she can do what she wants with her.  Some of these things are very helpful; Pulling her from the crib when she wakes up from a nap, bringing her to the living room in the morning when they both wake up, playing so me n Dad can do some sort of thing that doesn't require kid help...  It's pretty awesome... And of course, when we forget something and half Thing 2 undressed and realize "oh yeah, need something" she is there to spring to action and save the day!  Unhelpful is the smaller one...  Harley will decided that tonight is the night that she will sit on the couch and read a book in perfect silence with her family around...And along comes Maryyyyyy ... remember that song??  Cause that's what I sing to myself and sometimes aloud when I see Marysu zero in on the book Harley's reading and BOOM she's on her like white on rice!  And then Harley realizes her mistake and goes in her room to read. 

Now is the time of explaining "She's a baby, she doesn't know what she's doing"  and then we even go further to explain "But one day she WILL know what she's doing and you'll have every right to bitch about and then she will get punished...just not now.."

I think I gave Harley something to look forward to :)  I have also said this to the child enough times now that she gets it and she even says "I know I know, she doesn't know what she's doing... I just wish that she did..."  and I retort, "Yes, I wish she did too...but that's our job.  To teach her." 

Harley is going to be a great teacher for her little sister.  That is, if she remembers that she has a list in her room of all the things she wants to teach Mary once Mary is old enough.  I think of how old Harley was when she was doing some of these things and I think, if Mary is THAT old then Harley will be THIS old and then she won't want to do these things with her sister by that time... But then again, if it's just the two of them in the house and no friends peering in, I think I'll be pleasantly surprised at taking a peek in on their room one day and see a 12 year old Harley and a 6 year old Marysu playing Little People together :)  I think...maybe...  yeah...

Until that day comes though, we are soaking in all the walking, talking, clapping, laughing, giggling, smart ass things that the 1 year old does cause she won't be 1 forever... 

I Should Have Listened to My Dad and Become A Lawyer....

...or a mediator.. that would have been good too...

My Pop was a smart cookie...and I knew that even as a kid.  I knew that if I wanted him to see my way on something, I was going to have to step up my game.  And I did a pretty damn good job of it, too!  I could easily argue my way into a new Barbie, some matchbox cars or a couple of Archie comics from the impulse aisle of the Lucky's ...

Just when I started to think maybe I wasn't that good at it, I met my fabulous hubby.  He became witness to these moments of my arguing my way out of a paperbag (some people can't do that) and was once again self aware of my power of Justification.  The Ends Justify The Means...  probably would be the name of a semi-auto biography about my life :) 

Today I am justifying why I need a new lens for my Nikon, of which there are many.  But just now I was checking out a blog I love!!  The chick takes awesome pics with her iPhone...bare with me here...  I don't have one of THOSE and I don't have the $$ to buy a new one cash outside of the available upgrade for my cell plan that comes up NEXT year...  So I'm thinking, since we are due a good sum on our taxes, I would like to get a 55-300mm lens for my Nikon.

I didn't realize it until I read the blog as to WHY... 

I open my followed blogs and the first thing I see is an adorable and obviously instagrammed pic of a cute 18 mo old girl in her messy room.  Obviously Blogger Chick was standing above her child. Said child is happy and not screaming.

  Immediately my mind goes here:  Hey, that's a really cute picture and how come I don't have more pictures like that because i don't have an iPhone would it matter if I did have one I don't think it would because everytime I have my phone out Marysu wants to grab it and eat it and then I let her because I'm a sucker and then she gnaws it and then I have to take it and then she gets mad and then I have to dissuade her intentions away from my phone and then I don't get the cute picture I wanted so why don't I just pull out the Nikon because if you pull out the Nikon stupid ass then the baby will want that too and you won't get the good picture you wanted you will get a series of much too close up pictures because she will be on your ass like a fat kid on a cupcake and you shouldn't say stuff like that because your husband used to be a fat kid but thats okay because everyone of your boyfriends in middle school was a fat kid and hey didn't one of them give you a necklace for your birthday where the hell is that did it survive any of the moves why didn't you check and make sure that it made it okay it probably got lost with one of the tubs that had your matchbox cars in and now you have a spare room full of cars because your former fat kid husband makes an effort to put a new matchbox car in your stocking at xmas every year...

... I go from why don't I have a Nikon lens that I can zoom and take snaps from across the room to "There are way too many matchbox cars in my spare room"...

I'd like to avoid these head space convos... and I need to take snaps from across the room so I can Ninja-Photo my kids...

Therefore: I need a new lens...

CLEARLY, I chose the wrong profession...

...and speaking of photos.. think I should integrate more photos in this thing? Is it too boring without something to look at? 

365 days ago....

...I went from this...

To this....

and now there's...



It's funny to me....I chuckle about it on a daily basis...how much of that day is a blur and how much of it is like I was watching it on TV and how much of it I remember like it was yesterday...or five minutes ago...

I am constantly learning and soaking in information in this classroom called "Life 101" and I have learned a lot.  I learned that setting yourself up for disappointment is dumb... It really is.  I mean, try for what you want and all...but when all you hear from some people is how things didn't go their way...maybe you're shooting a little too high honey... Knock it off...  I don't shoot at all, so I'm always pleasantly surprised with the outcomes of certain situations and that's what works for me :)  I am a very organized person, I won't lie...  But when I realized that I wasn't going to have the same experience as I did with Thing 1, did I freak the hell out?  No...did I start yelling at people and freaking on them, preventing them from doing the best job possible? No...  I rolled...  that's what I do...that's why I married my fantastic husband... because he rolls with it too...  Now I can happily say that I had the best experience possible because I went in with no expectations... because really, it's all in His hands anyways, right?  Or the Universe's hands if that's your thing.

I had that baby in just over an hour.  I experienced the water breaking...  I experienced one full hour of back to back contractions that gave absolutely NO breaks in between...  constant pain...  two pushes and BOOM!!  And it's BIZARRE to me that once that baby's out it's done... pain gone.  Next on the agenda...

We had a GREAT nurse staff, my doctor made it just in time to catch her and she was, as always, awesome to have in the room...  I am a big believer in doctors, especially when I'm being told I'm "High Risk"...  But I think I like them anyways... Let me rephrase that.  I like MY doctor.  I love her so much that even if I had a regular pregnancy I probably would have had the girls in the hospital anyways cause my relationship with my OB was so RAD!  And we grew up in the same freaking town! 

So that was what happened exactly 365 days ago to the minute...  She was born at 4:10pm and we've LOVED her every minute of every day ever since :)

The Girls

Come On In! The Water's Fine!!!!

As the caretaker of the pool of my life...I am happy to say the pH level is perfectly balanced...

There is a black hole that is created in the universe around a certain time of year every year... something about the timing of birthday after birthday in the summer, school starting, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and the K.O being Christmas and New Year's one whole week away from each other...  Just writing that exhausts me...

PLUS:  We have had the added bonus of a fourth wheel to complete our caravan of crazy so it may mozy down the road of the rest of our lives...  Marysuwho a.k.a The Terrible Teether.  Our kids are 99% awesome.  Harley's 1% is her eating habits.  She eats like a bird... I have a hard time shoving nutrition down her throat without her gagging it up.  Marysu...  teething.  She didn't sleep all night from an early age like her big sis...because she started teething earlier and actually produced teeth insanely early!  Teeth didn't even occur to us but about a million other ailments did... Harley teethed, I guess...  I mean she HAS teeth, so obviously they came in right?  Nobody really took notice.. They just showed up one day.  This one, it affects her eating habits and she gets the horrifically watery diarrhea... and sleeplessness...  very little sleeping...lots of tossing and turning and discomfort.  But now that she went through the big long stretch and has 8 teeth it's a once in a while type of thing and she has one night... not NIGHTS... no plurals...

And now that you've been disgusted by mom life... :)

I move on to the rest... the rest is good.  I am extremely happy to be boring right now.  We've done the exciting thing... I got a new planner at the first of the year realizing, " Holy Crap! It's New Year's Day and I have nothing new to write all of the ... nothing?  Nothing????  Really?!?!  No new stuff?!"  I was appalled... I looked in January of my 2012 planner.  If I hadn't known better I would have sworn I just got bored and scribbled on every single day, but that was not the case.  There were more days with "stuff" on them than not.

How does that happen?  It's a blur, truly, so don't ask me.. I'm the worst source... But Choners, he remembers it like it was yesterday... He does that... reason #153 why I loves him so's muches...

I'm NOT about to sit here and "catch up" with what has gone on since October... I doubt very many read this that don't know me... I'm not about to bore anyone to death.  I already have all those other bodies I buried to worry bout, no sense adding to my conscience... heh...

We are planning the big 1st birthday... the ever saddening truth revealing itself that it is more than likely the LAST 1st birthday.  So we're doing it up the way we want and it's gonna be a badass good ole family time...  I can't wait.  I am dying to see the family.  It's been far too long! 

I went to Target on my lunch, again... cause I needed an excuse to get out of the office and check out the $2.50 rugs they have...and everyone needs a rug covered in shamrocks...just sayin.

So my awesome other half and I have this awesome game of awesomeness...  Dream Casting... Take a movie, usually a cult classic type of film...and recast it with the "If you could get ANYONE now to play those roles who would it be"  I think I am going to start a new series of blogs called "Dream Cast: blahblahblah"  I think after I finish this half-assed attempt to play catch up and make myself feel better, I will start it...

That being said... Yeah there's really nothing else going on with this end.  Now that we are coming up on the one year mark, I am having some self realizations that I had when Harley was a year old.  There are changes that occur when you add children to your life.  I guess it's the amount of things that you realize you don't do or do differently and HOW much that bothers you is the real question.  With us, we realize there are things we do differently, but it's the business of birthing childrens...  We accept it so easily and it's not that we MISS these things... it's just different now...and then there's the REST of our lives to get it back. 

Like painting.  I love painting.  It's not some passion, like, I'm NOT the Laird Hamilton of painting.  I'm not winning pro-ams and I certainly don't get depressed when I can't paint and boo hoo... I am biding my time because I see the light at the end of the tunnel.  I just can't paint right now.  And not that I "CAN'T" either, I could, but I choose not too because I would rather avoid the possible frustration that I could be met with trying the double duty of toddler and paint...I will though.  I painted when Harley was little.  Nap times are MAGICAL! And same as sleeping time.  Kids go to sleep earlier than us because we need some alone time to discuss the day and have our moment.  Even when our moment is met over a load of laundry on a neatly made bed.  Often, that is when Daddy hits the exer-bike and I take a shower.  One day, I won't want to take a shower.  I will want to paint.  But right now, like, right right now... I want to sit on the couch and watch my girls play with their Christmas Little People... 

Those moments last only so long.  One day, I'm going to sit and listen to them bitch about how "she's got her SHIT ON MY BED!!!  YOU'RE A SLOB" and I'm not completely deluded into thinking that they're going to be angels to each other all the time like they are now.  So I want to soak it all in now...  have nice, long, crisp memories to hold onto... That way, I can have a nice doped look on my face when they try to get me on one of their sides and have to snap their fingers to get me to come to...at which time I will say, "Uhm, yeah... it's not my problem, fix it yourselves without pain or blood and we'll talk about it when your dad comes home..."  heh...

If You Are Going To Be An Asshole At 4:30am You Need To Be Really Cute Doing It...

...So says the demon who came in the window and stole my baby Marysu...

Yeah, that's what was going on in our house... That's fine.  She can have a night or two here and there.  And that's really what it's been.  A night or two here and there.  But come on folks, what do you remember?  Do you remember the nights you got sleep or the nights you didn't?

Just ask Choners... He remembers EVERYTHING.  With exception, he remembers more sleepless nights than not.  But I chock it up to, he's a Dad...

Hey, it's what helps ME sleep at night... bah-dum-ch...

I just remember laying in bed, hearing whining...then the whining stopped.  and the long procession of "Ptththhhththhtht..." began...and apparently, more whining...and then Dad got up... the whining stopped... he laid down... it started again...  He surrendered at Appomatox and the Yanks were cheering... or I shall say... blowing raspberries at the defeated.

Then I get a picture of the Winner...alseep in her high chair... So, really... Winner? or Loser?  I think Daddy lost the battle, but won the war...  muahahahahahaha...

It's little things like this that make being a parent awesome...

Really...

Oh and manipulation...  I don't usually like manipulation.. I think it's sneaky...  I like things straight forward.  But Harley is a brain ninja sometimes... so I have to play dirty.

I needed her to get her work done early so we can go see Nina on Friday while she is town!!  YAYAYAYAYAYAYAY!!!  The usual niceties weren't working... wah-wah-waaahhh...  I wanted the visit to be a surprise... but behold.. My child doesn't really give you the opportunity for surprise.  Something always comes along that causes you to blow the surprise right out of the water.  I have come to accept this for the most part.  So, I finally told her,"Ok here's the deal smarty pants.  You need to do two days worth of your homework packet tonight so that we can go see Nina cause she's in town..." 

The packet is done.

The End.

Kids are awesome dammit...  no matter what anybody says...

There I go, NOT speaking English again...

After repeating myself for the hundredth time to the four hundredth customer, I decided I must not be speaking English...
Amazing, I MUST be a genius...  And I didn't even KNOW IT!
Because why else would so many people ask me so many times if they called the right company?
You'd be surprised how many people don't call the right company...
They meant to call SEARS collections or the phone company in their part of rural Alabama (which is nowhere near me, notice the incredibly small percentage of times you see me type "ya'll")...

If I had a toddler attempting to speak in my house I would get it.
My baby doesn't talk... She doesn't even walk.. yet.  And I stress the "yet".

Marysu is 8 months and some odd days... lets say 8 and a half months and call it a day.  Fine? Fine.  Great, grand, wonderful.

And we're about to close the baby factory.  So all these cute little holy-shit-oh-dear-God things she is doing lately, we are freaking out over.  And Harley is freaking out, too.  Which is cool and all, but I thought I was going to find a finger on the ground when Harley came into the bathroom whilst I was occupying it and said,"Mom you gotta come see this!" 

No finger, it was merely the baby... playing with toys that Harley had set out on the coffee table.  But she was standing on her own, not leaning.  Wow.  That WAS a big'un.  Then last night she did it again, and me n daddy were freaking out.  Then she did the cutest thing ever, she danced.  We were watching Dark Shadows.  You know, good wholesome family viewing.
There is a montage and the song made Marysu dance.  She was standing in front of the coffee table, but was looking alongside it, not across from it.  The TV had her attention, but more so the song that was playing.  Her attention was better paid to the mound of Cheerios on the table.  Her left arm was keeping her balance, her body was faced to the side of the table and her right hand was grabbing Cheerios.  Basically, she was merely using the table as a crutch.  And bouncing.  She was bouncing to the music...  I couldn't believe it.  It was the most adorable thing ever.  And not one damned camera in sight!  What the hell is that about? 

There are so many cameras in my house I couldn't believe there wasn't one to capture this!  And when kids realize you think they are doing something awesome and are scrambling for a picture... they stop.  It's the universal law of children vs. photography of any kind.  So, I got ahold of my phone, and boom... no more dancing.  As if someone hit a button and her brain and body stopped.  Dammit.  Oh well.

Tomorrow we have Saturday "off".  No plans, no trips, no nothing.  I was stunned when I got the news from Choni that we would NOT be doing anything spectacular... Uhm... Okay...  Well, it's cooler.. so what better way to spend a cool day in a small house than to bake cookies!  I went and spent a whole day online checking out recipes for cut out cookies.  What else would you suggest I do with a box of 100 cookie cutters? 

Last year, well, the year before I SHOULD say, we made these cookies and homemade frosting and did the whole shebang.  It was fun AND delicious and Harley has been asking since to do it again.  Well, I had gestational diabetes last holiday season.  I don't recommend that basically... so because my husband is not a dick, he decided against any baking and promised we will doubly make it up this year.

And we already ARE!  Yay!  He got the few missing ingredients, because my cupboards are bake-tastic and tonight I make the dough and fridge it for baking tomorrow.  Then I will set out my little bowls and do different colored frostings so we can make the dinos green and fire trucks red and so on...

It's going to be a blast and I am sure we won't spend ALL day doing it, so I'm trying to figure out what else we can do other than clean.  But the obvious Go To here is clean. 

My house is not clean. It's not clean to my standards anyways.  It's no one's fault but our own.  And by ours I mean MINE.  Last year I was pretty much depressed during the last part of my pregnancy.  Getting the GD during the holidays really messed with me.  My days were so incredibly boring with the eating the same old thing day in and day out, telling time by what I ate and when and taking my blood sugar.  I realize people do this all the time, but I was pregnant and FULL of hormones... WAAAAYYY too many hormones...  My F.I.L was dying...  I wondered if would be able to see Marysu.. I wanted him to so badly.. and he did.  That's an answered prayed... check...  Choni was still trying to get piddly jobs... and he was dealing with his dad and with me and worrying about me and the unborn.  Harley was doing her first year in 1st grade, her first year with REAL homework and REAL schoolyard play and what-not.  I stopped caring about the house... Choni tried so hard to keep up with everything.  Things are okay, but I used to keep the house up better when I cared.  So now, baby is out, we are getting a new routine going now that we are not rushing to the inlaws every weekend to spend time while we have it.  It's more like, we go to keep Gma company.  And soon she won't necessarily require that anymore...  like tomorrow.  She is SO busy with things she is doing we are skipping our weekend trip.

That is really good news.  That means she is coping really well...  Which is great... I am so happy for her.  I am happy for me too, cause now I clean my house...  a step at a time. I am not climbing Everest in a day.  We need to clean the inside and outside of our windows, I need to clean out the tracks of the sliding windows and doors... I need to mop and sweep and vacuum, but into the cracks of things.  I can't tell you the last time the "cracks" were done.  It's been awhile.  I used to get in the bathrooms and scrub the floors on my hands and knees... Haven't done that in a while...

I wonder how I did all this the "last time"... you know, with Harley.
Well, I didn't.
I lived with my in-laws and everything was, "Oh no, you sit there, I'll do it..."
"Oh no, I'll change the baby, you finish up whatever you were doing..."
and so on.
It was awesome... and I didn't have to do any of my own housework until Harley was a year old and we moved.  Then I started cleaning again.  But Harley at 1 year is NOT the same as any Harley before. 

I figured it would happen this way, so I haven't been letting it get to me too badly.  I used to clean the house on the days that Harley went to Gma and Gpa's house and spent the night.  But she doesn't do that anymore, I'm not sure how that's going to work, but we'll figure it out.  Now I need to do what most people do...figure out how to clean the house with both kids in the house :)  Yay!  Ahem, Sarcasm...

But as with all things, we'll figure it out.  We always do...and I know that.  Which is another reason why I try not to let things bother me like they do.  Because we always figure it out.  And now that I have said that twice too many, I will look forward to the day when I can set the kids down to do what will keep them busy long enough to clean something... it's coming soon I can feel it. 

I already put the baby gate up in their room and locked Harley and Marysu in there to play.  It worked pretty well until Marysu realized I wasn't in there with them anymore.  That was not happy making for her.  I went in there and cleaned and it worked pretty well that way.  SO now I know I can tackle their room with them in there.  Battle: WON!! 

It seems like we are days from Mary's 1st bday.  It's her fault.  She's growing up too damned fast...  Dammit...  She eats foods...  she has 6 teeth... she stands... she tries to walk...  she baby-babble-talks...  I almost want to tell her to "get up and get it yourself"...  She wore an actual outfit for the first time yesterday because it was cold for the first time yesterday...  she looked so grown up **sad face** 

Now that I have gone on way too long...  I leave you with this...  Marysu's dance song...

The Difference between Adventurist and Masochist...

Interesting start to the week...  Not going to work.

Why do you ask?  Was there a holiday you missed?

No... unless getting zero sleep on account of a teething baby is considered a holiday... Maybe in Sweden... Those fuckers are weird... Or is it the Swiss?  Maybe it's the Swiss...

Miss Marysu decided that sleep is overrated when you're whole head hurts from teething...  I can't really disagree with her.  I would rather it be Friday or Saturday night and agree... Not Sunday...  I have a lot of sick days ahead of me.  I totally used one and I couldn't have been better for it than I am now.  It was a great idea.

I must say, every time we have started to discuss and have state-of-the-union type converstations about things, the man and I start to have these odd instances occur that just about cut into stone the decision we are trying to make. 

Do we get a new car?  I don't know, lets think about it... Meanwhile the old car dies... so yes, we do! 

Do we buy a house?  Well, the market crashed sending home prices into a downward spiral of depression era proportions and laying off the man so we made less and qualified for a low income loan...  Okay then...  if you insist!

...And the beat goes on...

The lastest?  Family size... We are thinking we are a family of four and that is IT...  We have been talking about us and our two girls long before there were two girls...and now they are here and I couldn't imagine life without them.  We feel like we are starting the rest of our lives...not like we've been  sitting around with our thumbs up our asses or anything, but there have been things that seemed like they would be more complete with ALL members of our family present, and we are now "there" and it's awesome!  I couldn't be more thrilled...So we made the appointment last week for the consult for the "Big V"... an affordable procedure that will hurt like hell for a few days be a simple out patient day of extra strength Tylenol and Advil.

So what happened??  Oh, well, apparently the little Baby Sandman skipped my house on Sunday... But I trapped the fucker and made him do his job last night and I am here at work, breaking and worry free due to plenty of sleep.

At the first appointment yesterday when our GP asked Antonio if he was sure... wow, I've NEVER heard my honey answer a question so quickly and assertively.  I was proud of him :)  And it was YES.  Not just YES, but HELL YES... 

I am not a gambler by any means and it does NOT comfort me when people say "Maybe the NEXT one won't 'this' or 'that'..."  Maybe unicorns will appear and pigs will fly...  and the marshmallow rain that Harley prays for will finally come...  I am not rolling the dice on the fact that the next kid WON'T keep us up with bad teething.  It's not every night, but when it happens, it's bad.

Come on people... don't shove rainbows up my ass.  My little sister asks me all the time, "Are babies hard?"  And I am honest and truthful...  "FUCK yes they are!"  The funniest thing?  Marysu IS a great baby...she's fantastic... On a pie chart it would be 95% awesome and 5% crazy due to teething and that 5% has taken place in the past month...  that's some jacked statistics if you do the math.  No baby is 100% stress free... You show me one and I'll tell you those assholes are talking about a doll... or a dog... it could be a dog.

Harley was sickeningly fantastic.  She WAS a perfect baby... only 99.1% because of the day she got her 9 month shot and she had a fever and cried screamed for three hours straight.  The house was echoing so badly I went outside and the neighbor asked what was wrong... SHOTS...  I got the, "Oh, yeah those days..." eye roll from the older lady who went back in her house, glad that she didn't have to deal with that anymore... whore.

And that was all the crazy baby business we had with Harley...  literally.

I couldn't deal with harder than this.  I am not wonder woman.... and I didn't marry superman.  He THINKS he's Batman, but that's a whole different thing altogether.  Again I quote "The definition of insanity is attempting the same thing over and over again expecting a different result..."  I am not going to insanely have another kid just so I can prove to myself that "It's not that bad..."  I am having more fun that not, but I am still not happy about the "not" part and can't wait for Marysu to get over the teeth hump.  I am sad about the gums being gone.

That gummy smile made my day so many times, but it's evolution people.  It happens, they get older and we are to embrace it.  I don't want more so I can see those gummy smiles again.  That's what pictures are for.  And I am making damn sure I have plenty of pictures so I can have a good long look and be done.

It may seem that I am trying to convince myself of something...I am trying to convince myself not to choke to death the next person that looks at my like I told them my dog died and not "We're done, Mary's the last of the babes...".  Plus, it was hard on me and Antonio.  I've never seen him worry so much about so many things all at once and I just don't want to go through that again...  It's time for phase 3, "The rest of our lives"...  I can't wait...and first we start with family road trips a plenty!  It's a really exciting time for us...  I do realize, that there is a possibility that the "V" won't work...  I have a new baby cousin because of such...  but still... I know it will work for us.  Because Antonio has never dreamt of 3 kids... That's my story and I'm sticking to it.  We have done this twice now, we're good.

Let the adventure commence! 

Engage...