Has it been a week already?

1. So, you know the crazy week I mentioned last week? I think I doomed myself, because the craziness really began last Thursday morning. It continued unabated until midnight this Wednesday. Remind me not to exaggerate next time by calling a couple of crazy days a "crazy week."

2. Unfortunately, the craziness continued on Monday with Sarah falling down the stairs and hitting her head on the ceramic tile at the bottom. I'll pass on that kind of excitement in the future, thankyouverymuch. Thank God, she is fine--a little bruised, but fine. My heartrate is almost back to normal, too. Mr. X was working from home, and the babysitter was here. She thought the gate at the top of the stairs was closed, but it had bounced instead of latching shut, and Sarah pulled it open and rolled (thank God she rolled) all the way down. She cried for about 15 seconds, and that was it. We grownups, meanwhile, freaked out. Mr. X kept trying to call me at work, where I had my ringer turned off. I had to sneak out of class multiple times to try to call him back, and when I finally got through, he had already talked to the doctor (Have I mentioned that I love our doctor? Only a million times? Ok, then.) and concluded she was all right. I still left work early to come home and wake her up from her nap. Even though Mr. X and the babysitter had already woken her up once.

3. About two hours after I got home on Monday, I was chasing Nicholas in the living room when I heard Sarah whimper in the babies' room next door. She had managed to collapse the wooden folding chair in there, and it was lying on the floor next to her.

4. So, I took the kids outside. The doctor called me back (I had called to ask if we needed to monitor Sarah while she slept that night. I love our doctor. One million and one.), and while I was talking to him, I saw Nicholas putting something in his mouth. It turned out to be the cap from the propane tank for our gas grill. I didn't even mention it to the doctor. I just picked Nick up, carried him back inside, washed his hands, and called poison control. Of course, it was fine. So, I owe my kids' guardian angels some big thank-yous for Monday. And it only took me four hours after they fell asleep to relax.

5. Tuesday was pretty calm. Then, on Wednesday, I got a ticket on the way to work. Argh! It was for not stopping when I turned right on red at a stoplight. I'm pretty sure I stopped. But, anyway, then I was running late for work. So, instead of parking at my assigned lot four blocks away from my building, I parked in the pay lot across the street. The wind was gusting so hard that it threw me off-balance while I was standing in line for the meter. I finally got to the front of the line, started to pay, and a gust of wind picked up the traffic ticket in my purse and blew it a block away. Seriously--a block away and into a parking garage in five seconds! At that point, I was late and I had to drag all my junk a block away to the parking garage and start looking under cars for my stupid ticket. I didn't find it. Since I couldn't go back home and crawl into bed, I figured I would entertain people at work with the story for the rest of the day.

6. Then, Wednesday night, Sarah, who is usually sound asleep by 8:00 (though she does wake up to nurse several times, of course), turned into All Night Party Girl and stayed up till midnight. And thus ended my crazy week.

7. And, by popular demand, here are a few baby pictures:

Nicholas thoughtfully arranges books on the floor:


Sarah does not much enjoy her first taste of applesauce:


And the best shot in my attempt at a nice picture of the two kids on Easter Sunday ends up looking reminiscent of the Wanted poster for a gang of Wild-West outlaws:

More quick takes are here.

Seven Quick Takes

1. I've been meaning to join in the 7 quick takes for ages. I've also been meaning to blog regularly for ages . . .

2. It's been a crazy week. Exhibit A: Took Sarah to the ENT for a follow-up appointment yesterday. To make a looong story short, she had a sore under her tongue (that we think was caused by her tongue rubbing against her bottom teeth while nursing) that grew a benign (thank God!!) mass. The mass was removed and biopsied on Good Friday. She handled the general anesthesia and hospital stay better than I did. It turned out to be just granulation tissue. But when I took her in for her follow-up yesterday, it seems to be returning. Argh! Any insights would be welcome! So far, we've seen our family doctor, two ENTs, a dentist (who ground the sharp edges of her bottom teeth so they're not quite so sharp). We've contacted La Leche League and a lactation consultant, who's also going to contact a naturopath.

3. Exhibit B: Arrived home from the doctor yesterday, and Mr. X and I got ready to go to work when we discovered that a clog in the waste pipe leading from the kitchen sink was causing the water to back up through the waste pipe vent. So dirty water was pouring through the family room ceiling below. Great.

4. Exhibit C: Woke up this morning to discover that Wonderdog had pooped on rugs in the living room, kitchen, and dining room and tracked it all over. The rugs are in the garage while we decide whether we'll take them to be cleaned or throw them away. On the up side, our wood floors are REALLY clean now.

5. We had a great weekend last weekend. We got lots done around the house, had a lot of fun with the kids, and got together with friends. We had dinner with a family who has a daughter exactly the same age as Nicholas. She's a very sweet little girl, and she loves her baby dolls. She was a bit concerned that Nicholas might try to take them. By the time we had been there five minutes, however, Nick walked past the doll highchair where the favored doll was sitting, gave the doll a look of mild interest, said "woof-woof," and continuted on his way. Sarah only discovered the baby dolls about five minutes before we left, and she reports that a nice baby doll head makes an excellent teether.

6. Five more weeks till summer! I can't wait to be home with the kids all summer long. It will be a good test to see if I would love being a stay-at-home-mom as much as I think. (This is not to say that I think in any way that it would be easy, but it just feels so much more important than anything else I could be doing right now.) Right now, we can't swing it financially for me to be at home all the time, but I think this summer will be a time for us to figure out a lot of things. We've realized that we really need to set goals for our family. For so long, we were really focused on having kids. Now that we have them, our perspectives on a lot of things have changed. I'm hoping the summer will be a time of discernment for us.

7. It's snowing!

More quick takes are here!

Non-update

Wow, I can't believe it's been almost three months since I've updated. Things are generally good. The kids are great. I'm really struggling with what I should be doing. I absolutely hate leaving the kids to go to work. Hate it. This morning, I left while Mr. X was still home. As I tried to make my lunch (Mr. X was in the bathroom), both kids grabbed my legs and cried. I just lost it. I want to be home with them so much. Right now, we can't make it work financially. But it's just so much harder than I thought it would be. I don't even work that many hours, and we do some tag-teaming, and I do some work at night when the kids are sleeping, but still. I feel like I'm running constantly to get half of what I'd like to do done. Anyway. I have a lot to think through, but nothing's going to change immediately.