Yay!!!

My friend Melissa found out today that their adoption case is out of PGN!! I am so excited that Sophia is finally coming home!!

The Evidence

Here is the evidence of our walking William (and his ability to talk in paragraphs in his own secret language).

Weaned and Walking Will

William is now weaned. He has gone to bed that last two nights without a bottle The first night he cried for a few minutes and when Greg went in to reassure him, it turned out that he had somehow fallen over and was stuck sideways against the side of his crib. Once Greg got him righted and settled down, off to dreamworld he went. Last night he whined when I left the room without giving him a bottle. The whining lasted a whole 10 seconds.

William is also officially a toddler now, toddling around on two legs. He is still quite unsteady. Yesterday he kept practicing and would walk about 2 feet. All day today he has been very slowly and very carefully making it nearly from one end of the room to the other. In the words of Greg, "It looks like Mommy is going to really have her hands full now."

Yesterday I did some cleaning, like washing some curtains and vacuuming behind things that never get vacuumed behind. I also decided it was time to go through some of the massive amounts of clothing that we have for the kids. Marcus is fitting very perfectly into his 18 months size clothes. So nicely that I am afraid that another half pound or half inch and he will not longer fit. We have a TON of 2T clothes so I dove into the two boxes and pulled out all the winter stuff. Then I was on a mission of moving some of the clothes that Marcus is nearly grown out of into William's side of the closet and took all the 12 month summer stuff that is on William's side of the closet into storage. This of course means that we will have a bizarre heat wave and despite the snow that is currently falling, next week it will be 85 degrees and I'll have to get the summer clothes out of storage.

Hey there.

Hey there. It is me, your friendly neighborhood blogger. Lots of changes around here in the past few days.

I have been wanting a little table and chairs for the kids. I even asked Santa but apparently I wasn't good this past year. Forget Santa. Jerk. I took matters into my own hands. I found a table on craigslist for a mere $10 and it is in near perfect condition and a great size. There is room for the kids to grow into it but it is not too big for either kid now. Greg wanted to know where I was planning on putting it and just what was I going to do with it. Well, it was going in the kitchen and I figured it would be a great place for art projects. We haven't tried art projects on the table yet but we have decided that it is a great place for snacks.

I added a little strap to help William from falling out of the chair and to help me to keep him from leaving the chair in the middle of the snack requiring me to chase after him before he rubs his messy hands on the furniture. While the kids were eating the snack pictured above (cheese and crackers) I was able to get the dishwasher loaded. This is normally not something I am able to do during the day because I would end up with two kids in the dishwasher. Marcus was finished with snack first and he helped clean up. Then I turned around to find that he was helping to clean up his brother as well. Marcus was wiping off William's hands with a wipe and then he very gently wiped off his face too. So incredibly cute. Then when they were done I had to vacuum because not only does the little table not catch as many crumbs as the dining room table and William's highchair, but also William would then be eating all the crumbs off the floor for the remainder of the day. So, the new table doesn't create total perfection in our household but I am used to excessive vacuuming. Our dog is prone to shedding and with two kids, well, our vacuum hasn't actually been put away for months now. It lives in the living room, ready to operate at a moments notice. Today, while the kids were eating their snack, I got out that vacuum and vacuumed the family room that opens into the kitchen, something that is completely impossible when there are two kids hanging around.

This little table also proved to me that my kids are Dave Matthews fans. See, they are under the table and dreaming.

Don't worry if that makes no sense to you. It just means that you aren't a Dave Matthews fan.


Onto the individuals of this household, from oldest to youngest.

Greg - He has been back to work for a few weeks now. I ask him everyday what he did at work and everyday he says he has done the exact same thing as the day before. The only thing different is what he has for lunch. Mondays he has rotisserie chicken. Tuesdays and Thursdays are chicken finger days. Wednesdays and Fridays are up in the air from week to week. After work Greg comes home and dinner is served shortly after. Then we all play together as a family. After the kids are in bed, Greg can generally be found down in the game room practicing his Wii skills.

Me - I'm adjusting well to this whole staying at home with two crazy kids thing. I try to make the most out of my free time (the time the kids are asleep) but most days I am just lazy and hang out on the couch watching whatever it was that I had set our DVR to record recently. I started reading Happiest Toddler on the Block yesterday. I haven't gotten to the part of the book where it actually talks about how to raise a happy toddler. So far though, the anthropologist in me is finding great fascination with the author's comparison of toddlers to chimps, Neanderthals, and cave men. It is an interesting point of view, showing how kids Marcus's age basically have the skills that the Neanderthals had 2 million years ago. This keeps me well entertained using my advanced brain power to imagine a hundred Marcus's hanging out in their own village and planning a hunt and gathering food and designating a particular corner of the cave for taking care of their "business".

Peyote (the pooch) - She is hiding most of the time. I feel bad for her but she is apparently perfectly content spending about 23 hours a day hanging out in the bedroom on her pillow. She is not nearly as apprehensive about William as she used to be either. She tries to pretend that she doesn't really like him but if that were the case, would she really allow all the hugs and kisses he gives her?


Marcus - He is as wild and crazy as ever. He really is such a good kid though. Sure, he is a typical Neanderthal who is prone to angry outbursts, frustrated by his limited communications skills, and under the impression that the world revolves around him. He is my little helper though. He cleans and gets drinks out for snack and puts drinks away and gets out diapers and wipes when it is changing time. There has been a bit of a behavioral issue involving Marcus. It probably could have kept going on unchecked if it weren't for the fact that some day I would like for Marcus and William to share a room. For quite some time I figured if we just ignored the behavior, it would go away. Instead, it has gotten worse. It is a sleep thing, a sleep avoidance thing really. It started months ago. We would put him down for nap or night and he would hang out in his crib and talk. He sometimes would talk for several hours. There were times he would talk from noon until 2, at which point he would finally go to sleep and I knew if I let him sleep past 3 then there would be no way to get him to go to sleep at night. Then he would wake up really irritable and still very tired. There were times we put him to bed around 7:30 and it was after 9 and he was still talking. I made it a point after he figured out how to go to sleep on his own not to go back into his room after he was put down to sleep. (Of course if he was sick or crying or something was obviously wrong, I would go in. But he was just in there, happily gabbing and keeping himself awake.) So this all seems like not a huge ordeal but things have escalated. It escalated into him yelling really really loud for hours on end. This is not the kind of yelling where something is the least bit long. We talk about the difference of inside and outside voices a lot with Marcus and he was just using his outside voice. There were also times when he would start banging on the walls around his crib too. He obviously wanted attention and I don't really get it because he knew that he wasn't going to get it since we NEVER go in there. But, he has been trying his hardest. We tell him "no" when he uses outside voices during the day but he also knew that he could use outside voices as much as he wanted when he was in his crib because no one was going to come in and tell him to stop. If there was a chance of Marcus and William sharing a room at some point, it was not going to work out if Marcus was using an outside voice for two hours at the beginning of sleep time. Yesterday I started the mission of getting Marcus to sleep at the beginning of sleep time instead of keeping oneself up. I thought about it for a bit and decided to try some Super Nanny tactics. When I put him down for his nap yesterday I stayed in his room and sat there quietly reading a book. I wasn't quite sure what I was going to do if he started with the outside voices. Thankfully me just being there was enough to get the message of being still and quiet was what was supposed to happen at nap time. He did sit up once and I just laid him back down and told him that he needed to lay down during nap time. Within 10 minutes he was asleep. Last night at bedtime it was a repeat performance. Fifteen minutes of hanging out in his room and he was snoring. Today at nap time I was in there for about 2 minutes and he was asleep. Slowly I am going to make my way towards the door and keep my fingers crossed that once I step out of the room and close the door, the outside voices don't start up again.

William - He has been practicing walking a lot today. He will only take 2-3 steps at a time but he is starting to see that if it is only a foot to go, it makes more sense to walk there than to crawl. He gets really excited when he does it, but taking unassisted steps is still a rare thing. William has now gone down for a nap without a bottle of anything three times now. He has not put up one bit of fuss. Tonight he will be going to bed without a bottle. I have a feeling that he is going to not be too happy about it. He still looks and reaches for his bottle at night. I am very excited about how the bonding is going. It is so hard to explain it to people who haven't adopted before. When William came to live with us we had no clue what his likes and dislikes and normal behavior was. So with everything that he did, we had no idea if that was just his personality or if that behavior was because he was confused and didn't know who we were or why he was living here. When he first came home every diaper change was a fight to keep him from rolling off the changing table. We thought he just didn't like diaper changes. Now he just hangs out and waits for a dry diaper. I used to be afraid to pick him up because sometimes he would scream and the last thing I wanted to do was upset him. I thought maybe he just didn't like transitions and being taken away from what he was doing. Now when I pick him up he goes along with the ride. When he first came home he spent all of his time playing with toys and very little of his time caring what I was up to. I just thought he was an independent little guy. These past few days he has spent a lot of time just sitting in my lap cuddling and feeling quite secure in his environment. I have been trying to think all day how to really explain this growing attachment. It is a two way street. William attaches to us and we have to attach to him too. We have always loved him of course but for awhile, at least for me, it has been more of a brotherly love. We love him because he is family, kinda like how you might love a sibling. I was protective of him and cared for him and took care of him, but there was also some space between us like he had his world and I had mine. Over the past few weeks as our attachment has grown I finally feel like he is truly my son in my heart, not just on paper. I love him for everything he is. And so I leave you with this question. What do you get when you point a fan in the face of a really cute little boy? Pure elation of course!

Where have I been?

I've been here of course. Just so much to do and so little time. As I mentioned before, we now have DVR which means that my life of having no interest in TV really at all has transformed into me needing to watch all kinds of shows that I never knew I needed to see before. On top of all that, we are now the proud owners of a Nintendo Wii! Greg and I talked about getting one after Christmas since we really didn't spend much money on each other at all. Then Greg won his fantasy football league which gave us just enough money to make the purchase. I had forgotten all about wanting a Wii after I was so distracted from watching so much TV that I had recorded on our DVR. Then Greg got a package in the mail, opened it up in front of me, and we became the owners of a Wii. In conclusion, I have been playing with the kids and when the kids are sleeping I am either watching TV or playing Wii. This means that nothing else around here that needs to get done is getting done like cleaning and laundry and starting our taxes and showering and blogging.

So, on to the kids.

Marcus is learning a bunch of new words and making up words that maybe possibly very slightly sound like the words that they are meant to be. He is so proud of all the big boy things that he can do. When he gets done eating he lets me know that it is time to clean up by telling me um-ah, which apparently is clean up in Marcus language. When it is time to change William's diaper, Marcus gets the diaper out for me as well as a wipe then closes the doors of the changing table. Marcus has also been making lots of progress with using the potty. All the progress is on his own since we haven't been doing much of anything to push the idea. Most mornings when he gets up he tells me that he needs to use the potty and off he goes to the potty and does his business. Sometimes during the day if he feels that that he isn't the center of attention he will tell me that he needs to use the potty and then I have to hurry and switch my attention to him, take him to the potty, and he sits there and doesn't do anything. Yesterday he kept saying something to me and getting upset that I had no idea what he was talking about. Finally I figured it out. He was saying some word of his that very remotely might resemble the word diaper. He went #2 and needed a new diaper. Later in the day he went #2 again and told me once again that he needed a new diaper. Then he ran to the changing table, got out his own diaper and a wipe for me to use. Now I just have to teach him how to use the Diaper Champ and change his own diaper! Marcus has also be checking out the elasticity of his face, as in, "If I bounce my face off this thing, will it return to its normal form?" So far the answer has been yes. He tried bouncing his face off of a guitar amp (resulting in a bruise on the bridge of his noise and some redness above his upper lip) and bouncing it off of Greg's knee (resulting in a bloody lower lip).

Not too much changing in the world of William. Thursday will be his last day of getting a bottle although he seems blissfully unaware of this. We have slowly been watering down his nighttime bottle. Usually I give him a bottle of water before his nap but today I am going to give him nothing. Hopefully that goes over reasonably well. Come Friday night I am going to attempt to not give him a bottle. Wish us luck! William went to the doctor yesterday for his well-baby appointment. I almost cried because he was very traumatized by being examined. On top of that, he had to get four shots. He is now 21 lbs 6 oz (up a lb and 2 oz from last visit). He is still in the 50th percentile for head and height and 25th percentile for weight. He is showing more of an interest in books for purposes other than to eat them. He has two words. He says "thank you," (no really he does) and "momma" although the momma thing doesn't necessarily mean me but is more of a broken record thing he does all day long and gets annoying. He isn't making any progress in learning to walk, sometimes taking a step or two but showing little interest in advancing the skill. Pretty much he isnt changing all that much right now, just being cute and loved.

For whatever reason...

For some reason when I try to edit my post below to put in the missing picture, I click on edit and all I get is a picture of some little girl that I do not know. I don't get a chance to see what I posted and edit it. So, sorry about the missing picture. Here it is:

William trying to touch my dad's head:

Pictures from Prior Post

I couldn't get pictures to post last entry so here they are. Yes, I am still around. I just don't seem to have much free time for some odd reason... So, posting regularly just isn't happening.

William trying to touch my dad's head:


Playing with Pap-pap:


William crawling under the pooch:


My awesome crockpot, made by Hamilton Beach.


Swinging at the park:



William wearing the sweater Amy knit:


If you click here you can see the pillow that Jen knitted for William, that I still haven't taken a picture of.

Marcus somehow managed to get 5 new teeth over a 48 hour period. The last of first group of molars came in and all four of his incisors have broken through the gums. That is really about it.

Chaos

I am a control freak. It is nothing to be ashamed of. I am proud of it really. I am proud of who I am and part of that person is a control freak. I have manged to control my control freakness over the years so it is no longer a fault. Back in high school I thought I could control everything. I tried. I failed. That didn't make me a happy person. Then into college I gave up trying to control things and instead decided to seek out chaos. Turns out that that didn't make me a happy person either. Now I find myself in my adult years (if in age if not in maturity) and I have found balance. I neatly place just about everything into one of three categories: those things that I can control, those things that I could control but choose not to, and those things that I cannot control. Although I slip up every once in awhile, I am quite content focusing on those things I can control and leaving those that I cannot alone. Now I only find chaos in my life when I have realized that I have totally neglected to control those things that I choose to control. And this is why I couldn't get to sleep last night. I looked around at my house and realized it was just out of control. There were dishes everywhere, balls of dog fur in every corner, dust that was inviting me to write my name in it, and just the general piles of stuff that was piled in places it didn't belong. It scares me really. I know that if I don't get all this under control soon, it will consume me and I will not even be able to deal with it. So today, I didn't really deal with it. I gave the pooch a bath and I did some laundry. Then I sat back and was glad to see that Greg started digging us out. Now I feel like it is all manageable again. Perhaps tomorrow I will find a way to contain the chaos.

Even my blogging has become chaotic. I feel so behind in blogging it is like, why bother catching up? Yet, I will try. Here goes nothing. Which it may be nothing much to even look at besides words since the site the hosts our pictures is telling me it is having a massage... whatever that means.

1. So January 6 was my birthday, and Greg's birthday too. My parents came over, brought lasagna (and presents!) and we all hung out. William was quite curious about my dad and spent a while trying to touch his head and then getting nervous about it and backing off. Then he got distracted from that activity when he realized that he could crawl back and forth under the pooch.

2. Monday of this week was a totally bad parenting day. I didn't even want to think about parenting. So instead, I thought about my wonderful crockpot I got for Christmas. This thing is the best. I have used it three times this week! My past crockpot was quite a fine device and made some really yummy meals. It just wasn't anything fancy. My new crockpot has all kinds of lovely features. Now I can tell it what temp and for how long to cook my food and it gets to work. When the time is up, it automatically turns to the keep warm mode. It also has this temperature probe to use when cooking large hunks of meat, like the roast I made the other day. I just inserted the probe through the little hole in the lid, told my crockpot I wanted my meat cooled to 145 degrees and it did the rest. Once my meat reached the perfect temperature, on to keep warm mode it went. When we were ready to eat... yummy!

3. We had some really unseasonably warm weather this week. That meant that I got all brave and decided to leave the house with two kids, and the dog! I wasn't overly brave. We all just walked down to the neighborhood park, a five minute walk. Marcus played around on the playground equipment and then we hit up the swings. William didn't stop smiling the entire time he was on the swings.

4. My mom came to visit during the day on Tuesday. We are going to try to make it a regular thing. It was nice to have the extra hands around and I feel I did a pretty good job of letting her know when I could use a hand and not just expecting her to know what to do when. We had a good time playing with the kids in the morning and taking a little walk and then while they napped the two of us hung out and watched a movie.

5. Speaking of sitting around in front of the TV, let me just mention the greatest thing ever. I have never been a big TV watcher and really wasn't all that upset when we decided to cut back to super basic cable a couple years ago to give us some extra pocket money to put towards adoption. I think I am a changed person. We decided to suck it up and had FIOS installed in our house on Thursday, and along with it we now have something like 250 channels and a DVR. I told Greg that it is a good thing I didn't have DVR 6 years ago or else I never would have left the house and bothered to meet him. Today when I should have been cleaning, instead I sat around and programmed the DVR to record several shows that I never even knew that I couldn't possibly miss. I also watched a couple episodes of Adoption Story which was great and I bawled my eyes through each show.

6. I have been a bad friend. Some of my awesome friends have handmade some gifts for William and I have pretty much neglected to write about them. I did briefly mention the sweater that Amanda knitted because it showed up in a picture in my entry from Christmas time. Amy also knitted a fabulous sweater. I have quite the adorable picture of William wearing it earlier this week but I can't post pictures at this time. Jen also made the most adorable pillow for William. I don't even have a photo of that because it is in William's room and the only time I think to photograph it is when he is sleeping. You can see a picture of it here where Jen wrote about it.

7. I have been weaning William off his last two bottles. He is now down to just one bottle. I started about a week or two ago with the bottle that he gets before his nap. Usually it was 8 oz of milk. Greg and I started watering it down so for a few days it was 6 oz of milk mixed with 2 oz of water. Then it was half milk and half water. Then 2 oz of milk and 2 oz of water. Starting yesterday it was just water. Not really sure when we will stop giving him a bottle of anything because he is still waiting there for me to hand him something but at least it is just water now which shouldn't bind to his teeth while he sleeps. Tonight we gave him his bottle before bed and it was reduced to 6 oz of milk and 2 oz of water. He didn't complain. He drinks a ton of milk during the day so I am certain that he is ready to give up his nighttime nip.

I guess that is all for now. I suppose the pictures will have to come another time. I'm off to watch some more TV!!

Fast Firsts

I have a ton of blogging to catch up on but I am dead tired. So here it is, straight up.

William took his first unassisted steps today!! He has a long way to go until walking is something that happens without lots of coaxing and encouragement. The few steps he took (four unassisted steps total on three occasions)were the most tentative steps I have ever seen someone take. He thought, he waited, he pondered, and then his foot moved forward a few inches. The end. I don't anticipate we will have much chance to practice this skill either. Each time I put my hands out and said, "Come on! You can do it!!" before he gets a chance to let the words sink in, Marcus is running at me trying to tackle me to show me that he could do it too.

William is also picking up on sign language incredibly fast. He learned the sign for more over a few days. Once he got that, I showed him the sign for "all done" twice before he started using that sign, and using it correctly. Today I showed him how to sign for "help", mainly because the continuous "eh!eh!eh!" was getting to me. I showed him once and then immediately he started making eye contact with me when he needed/wanted something and doing the sign for "help".

Marcus has been being my big helper these days. He helps me get meals and snack on the table. When we get William out of bed after nap he takes William's shoes over to the changing table for me and puts William's bottle (which will be a thing of the past here soon) and puts it in the sink. He does lots of other things too but I said this post would be short and I am really tired so you will just have to pretend I told you what the other things were.

Night.

Surviver

All is going well in our quaint little household... now. On Wednesday William was being incredibly cranky which made me incredibly cranky. On Thursday morning when I got him out of bed I figured out what his crankiness was all about. He was sick. He wasn't just sick at that moment. We are talking sickness at some prior point and he never made a sound about it and had spent all points after rolling around in his sick. What a way to start the day. Marcus was already awake and when he I and went to get William out of bed I just stood there thinking, "I don't even know what to do with you."

The paralysis was only temporary. Marcus looked on as I stripped down William, gave him a bath, and then got to work on doing some laundry. William didn't seem all that interested in eating (which is perfectly normal for him) and a little more sluggish than usual, but I thought he was fine.

Amanda and Eleni came over to hang out. Eleni was a barrel of fun sitting in her carrier sleeping and then sleeping some more. Apparently Marcus knows the word "baby" because he kept pointing at Eleni and saying it over and over again. We all had some lunch (even Eleni participated in that activity) and then I got the boys off for a nap. I can't tell you how nice it was to just hang out with Amanda, sipping at some tea, and chatting about whatever ridiculous subject was on our minds.

It was the calm before the storm. William woke up even sicker. He spent the entire evening just looking so very sad either sitting in my lap or sitting in Greg's lap. He had a low grade fever as well. The evening came to a close with another emergency crib sheet change and about an hour of me rocking him and slowly getting him finally to go to sleep in his crib.

Yesterday I thought he was feeling better but then things went downhill. He didn't get sick anymore but he didn't really move much either. In no way am I happy that he was ill, but in a way it was nice. He is always on the move and not one to just hang out in my lap so that was a nice change. Plus all day long I am usually trying to keep peace between the boys. Instead, Marcus was running around having a great time and he didn't have anyone to fight with or fight over toys with.

William is back to his old self today. I am trying to catch up on things I haven't been able to do with a baby in my lap (like laundry and blogging). Oh, and I have also been hanging out with my two cutie pies.

Marcus is apparently busy having another language explosion. He is pretty good at repeating most words these days although doesn't always know what he is saying. Other than that we are just getting geared up for the Steelers game tonight and looking forward to celebrating my birthday and Greg's birthday tomorrow. (Please, don't send us well wishes, only large sums of money.)

And I leave you with the many looks of William. One of the great perks of being a mom is that you get to take pictures like this of your kids and save them for later to show all their friends. This first one is actually a rather standard hairstyle of William's.


And this is the alternate hairstyle that occurs after his bath. I call this his crazy Einstein look.

Obligatory New Year Post

I guess it is that time when I am supposed to type out all those things that happened over the past year or how much the beginning of 2008 is different from the beginning of 2007. Really, if you want to know, just read my old blog entries.

Or, I'll play nice and talk about all the things above.

So last year at this time Greg was just going back to work after being on parental leave. This year, Greg is just going back to work after being on parental leave. (See, no point in recapping because nothing has changed!) Marcus was a mere 9 months old. He was still perfecting his scooting skillz and hadn't learned to even pull up yet. We were still up at least once a night with him and at this point, I can't remember the last time we had to get up with him in the middle of the night. It has been months. Scooting is a thing of the past as well. Now Marcus is all about running, climbing, tackling, jumping, spinning, and otherwise moving himself at an incredibly rapid pace. At this time last year we had just told our families that we were going to adopt again and didn't even have a clue that William was already living in this world. Now, of course, he is home, over a year old, and smiling like crazy. (Or driving me crazy, at least today.)

As far as I go, I am sure I changed a lot but most of that is internal change. I am a much more confident parent. At least I am confident that I can take care of one child. I am still working on my confidence in taking care of two kids. I am still on this never ending search for what exactly it is I want to do with my life (particularly after my kids are less dependent on me).

I guess that is all I can think of. See, that is why I didn't feel like doing a year in a review. There just really wasn't anything all that inspiring that everyone doesn't already know about.

Onto more present events. Greg went back to work on Monday, December 31. I was very much not looking forward to being home alone with two kids. There came a point during the morning when I actually thought, This is awesome! The kids and I were having so much fun. Then lunch came. I knew that would be the trouble spot and it was. I was trying to make lunch while two kids were very cranky and hungry and tired. Marcus and William both ended up in tears but lunch was made, served, and both kids got a story and were off in dream land.

Every New Years Eve for the past few years we have gone out for Japanese with our friends Jody and Geoff. The times are changing though. Jody and Geoff are expecting their first child in a few months and Jody just couldn't stomach Japanese food. So this year, we went for Italian. It was great to catch up with them and Marcus and William were generally very patient during dinner. Our waiter was a bit spacey although not horrible. He thought he was horrible though and offered us some gum at the end of the meal to make up for the service. That was weird.

Jody and Geoff came over to our place for a bit after dinner. The kids headed to bed and we played some Cranium and then some Taboo. Our company left around 10 and Greg and I bummed around for about another hour. We didn't even bother to stay up to ring in the New Year. Wow, we are so old.

Greg is back at work this morning, something that proved challenging. (It snowed last night, the roads weren't plowed, then the car wouldn't start so he had to jump it and then go to get another battery for the car. Then before he could get the new battery he had to come back home because he managed to leave the house without his wallet.) I am stuck here with two kids. It is funny because on Monday I felt like it was this new challenge and opportunity. Today it feels like it I am stuck. Things are going quite as smoothly as they did on Monday either. I'd write about it but frankly, I just want to forget and get on with my day. The kids are napping and I am regrouping and this afternoon will be fabulous.

Oh, and Happy New Year!