For about 2 weeks I had so much work to do, I had to bring it home every night and weekend. Combine that with Kevin tearing apart the kitchen last week, this translated into an awful lot of take-out for dinner and the house gradually transforming into a pigsty.

I’m happy to report that some of the hardest parts of the kitchen installation are behind us. I’m also happy to finally be coming up for air from work. Yesterday Kevin vacuumed the living room. Tonight I folded a basket of laundry. There are three more baskets somewhere around the house waiting to be folded, plus every room other than the aforementioned living room as well as all of our cars could use a thorough picking up and cleaning, but at least we’re no longer a health code violation.

It hasn’t completely been all work and no play. A week ago on Saturday the whole family strolled about a block to watch the annual parade hosted by our sleepy ‘burb. The pictures are on Kevin’s laptop, which is on its last legs, so wish us luck in getting the pictures off before it goes to computer heaven.

Then this weekend we watched High School Musical 2. It’s even better than High School Musical 1. Alex’s favorite song seems to be “Bet on It” as performed by Zac Efron. I loved all the dance routines, especially the one accompanying the ironically named “I Don’t Dance,” but among the songs I have a soft spot for “Everyday.” It makes me all weepy.

Everyday
of our lives,
wanna find you there, wanna hold on tight.
Gonna run
while we’re young
and keep the faith

Everyday
from right now,
gonna use our voices and scream out loud
Take my hand;
together we
will celebrate,

Everyday!
Live every day!
Love everyday!

Categories: work-life balance
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The baby girl caught a cold. Instead of going to the pumpkin patch with Alex, Ana, and Daddy this weekend, she had to stay home with boring ol’ Mommy to recuperate. We’ll take pictures of her with the pumpkins the big kids brought home soon.

Speaking of pictures, Kevin took some fabulous ones of Angie trying her first teething biscuit. She has pretty good aim when reaching for things that catch her eye, but they never seem to stay in her grip for long. I had to keep putting the biscuit back in her hand. Also, I’d forgotten how talented babies are at making a big mess out of any kind of food. I’m still not done cleaning the Exersaucer.

Categories: angie
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I haven’t written about our two older kids in a while. They’re both doing well in school. Alex received a writing award at school recently. In her speech, his teacher said she expects to see his name on novels some day. Ana has been getting a star everyday for good behavior. She spends a lot of time with a boy named Wayne, and everytime she mentions his name, Kevin’s left eye twitches a little.

Alex and Ana play well together most of the time, but every once in a while one of them gets possessive about some toys that they’re sharing, and Kevin or I have to intervene. Last night I asked each of them what they’d do if the person they were playing with was a friend at school. It did the trick. They both acknowledged that they would behave more nicely. I also acknowledged that it was getting late and that they were both probably grumpy from feeling tired, and they both willingly started getting ready for bed.

Tonight things were back to normal. Alex played Hangman with me, Kevin, and Ana while Angie watched. It was fun.

Categories: kids and parenting
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I didn’t update last week because I was bringing work home every night. Up until then I had been doing a good job of keeping work at work. The busy-ness is not over yet. In fact I’m taking a break from work right now. How pathetic is that? Hopefully I get things back under control this coming week.

Here’s what I wanted to write about Angie @ 23 weeks. One morning while still in bed she started babbling without even opening her eyes. Then she opened her eyes just a tiny bit, lifted both feet into the air, and grabbed them with her hands. The memory of that made me smile all day.

I took her to work one afternoon. She was very good natured through it all. My office is such a big place I was only able to visit half the people this go around, so I’ll have to take her back again soon. She also got babysat for the first time by my parents for about 3 hours. She drank from the bottle with no major drama and fell asleep in my mom’s lap.

Ok, now I’m all caught up. On to this week’s update.

She’s gotten even more precise at reaching for things. She almost got my water glass several times during dinner while sitting in my lap. Yikes.

At daycare she has lots of fans, both in the other kids as well as their parents. I’m her biggest fan, but even I’m a little blown away by all the attention. She seems to enjoy it a lot, so much that she won’t fall asleep unless she’s sitting in her carseat amidst all the hubbub. Only then will she slowly drift off.

At night she’s back to waking up only once most of the time. I gave her some rice cereal today for the first time since 3 weeks ago when I first gave it to her and noticed she started waking up 3 times a night. Hopefully I don’t end up regreting it tonight!

Categories: angie
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