so much, so much.

i have not written for a long time.  i have been fearful of putting thoughts to pen (sic type), because i am so all over this world on thoughts and feelings and heart and soul.

i have lost a friend; a very important person in my life is gone.  and i have sucked it up and said good-bye.  although how can you actually say good-bye to someone who lives in your heart and in your soul?!?

i have a life that right now is centered around big things like Christmas and trees and decorating!  how could they not be when a four-year-old and one-year-old run the show?

i have a family that i miss like crazy, especially after being blessed with six straight days of part of them.

i have friends that i am thankful for.

 i have more than most people in this world.  and i am blessed.  and i am thankful.  each and every day of this life.

when i get sad, i pick my head up.  when i wonder, i stare up to God.  there is only so much that i can understand.  and i know that; and i appreciate that.  and i go on, every day.  on and on.  and on.

not even sure.

i have no idea what to write about tonight.  for starters, i feel like i can no longer commit to the every night blogging, because i do not have any kind of a regular night.  tonight, it took me over an hour to put just my four-year-old to bed, let alone two children.  my husband would help, but unfortunately for me, bedtimes seem to be reserved for mommy.  and the hour-plus i spent putting M to bed didn't even have a positive result, as we had to move into my room for her to actually go to sleep.
thankfully, the baby takes a few sips off a bottle, coos twice at the moon mobile and falls asleep with a smile on her face- the only time all day i can have a guaranteed smile!


at least everyone is in bed and fast asleep before American Horror Story starts (in T minus fifteen minutes!)  I have my popcorn, a glass of wine, and a husband who is ready to have his hand squeezed off if it ever gets scary enough!  i love our new wednesday night rituals!


good night, all.  see you soon, although maybe not tomorrow... we shall see!

perpetual denial.

i have no idea why my brain refuses to acknowledge that i need sleep.  or that i am no longer in my teens, or even twenties, and i can no longer go night after night after night on little rest.  last night, i thought it was a great idea to START a movie at about midnight.  yes, midnight!  yikes!  i am so tired today that i could faint.  and quite possibly will in about twenty minutes when i curl up in my bed and finally close my eyes!


i am not exactly sure why i haven't posted in the last couple nights.  i feel like i have just completely forgotten to even get on the computer.  probably because i am so tired at night, or because i am heading to bed at 2:00 a.m.  who knows...  

Baby B

I feel like i rarely write about my sweet baby B.  but recently i have had so much to say about her (both super happy and also super true.)  She is such a little lady.  She loves to wear jewelry and put her purse (or usually several purses) on her arm, holding it out as she walks- sophia, from golden girls, style.  She has the tiniest feet i have ever seen in my life.  She's almost 13 months old and is still wearing size 2 to 3.  i am pretty sure that's what 6-month-olds wear.  but she walks around like she owns the place, any place, no matter where we are.  maybe instead of having the short-man's napoleon complex, she has the tall-girls-small-foot complex.  actually, i don't really think she has any complex, since she is the most kick-ass girl i have yet to meet (and that includes a lot of girls i knew in mosh pits!)  this girl, (again, at 13 months old) knows exactly what she wants, when she wants it, how she wants it, and where she wants it.  if any part of it is out of place, we all know it- even the neighbors, as she is the loudest human on the planet.
i adore every second with her.  i love that she is so girly at such an early age.  i love every single time she wants to snuggle, which is very few and far between, but it means she really, truly wants to be there.  i love that she cuddles with her stuffed animals, a lot.  and then throws them across the room, or hits them really hard on their head.
she is so super sweet, and then turns on a dime into a crazed baby who could probably take on the army.  she is snugglicious and then ready to bash someone's head in.  


i never know how to talk about her, because i absolutely adore her, and very much admire her.  she drives me crazy and turns my heart in circles all at once.  she is amazing, and truly an angel (except when she's fallen, and then we all need to watch out!)  she is one tough cookie, which makes me so proud.  i know i will never need to worry about her, because she will always be able to take care of herself (and all others that she cares about.)  she is strong, and smart, and beautiful- oh so absolutely beautiful.  


i am blessed beyond words to have my two girls.  my two angels, who are as different as night and day, and as wonderful as sugar and spice.  i thank God for all of my blessings every day, and the first two always begin with B and M!

Tuesday.

Prior to today, a normal Tuesday used to find my girls and me in bed until at least 9:00a.m.  Even if any of us were up earlier, we'd all climb into my bed, turn PBS on and sip our drinks (respectively milk, bottle, and coffee!)  This would keep us comfortable and happy for enough time for mommy to wake up and face the day.  This was our old Tuesday morning ritual. 


Something with the time change, or our schedule changes, or the bedroom changes, or the who-the-heck-knows-what-changes changed our Tuesday morning today.  And i loved our tuesday morning.  Today, actual Tuesday, began horribly at 1:00 a.m., when M came bursting into my room screaming bloody murder.  After i have no idea how long, i was finally able to calm her down enough for her to tell me, "I don't know," repeatedly to the question, "What's wrong?"  She couldn't tell me why she was hysterical- and i mean hysterical to the point of nearly hyperventilating.  It lasted a long time.  A long, long time.  I felt horrible for her, but i was so frustrated that she was being so loud (the baby is still sleeping through the night, and i don't need anything to make that change!), and so tired all at once.  I finally got her back to sleep with a slight whimper at about 2:30 in the morning.  I crawled back into my bed for what felt like a few minutes, when the baby began screaming.  It had actually been four hours, but it felt much more like four minutes.  She woke up around 6:30 a.m. for good.  For good, and not for snuggling in bed watching cartoons-up, Nooooo- she was up and wanted to be in the living room playing.  i am not sure how long it's been since i've been up and standing in the kitchen drinking coffee that i made myself at 7:00 a.m., but today was certainly a first in a long, long time.


and now it's 9:00 p.m. and i feel like it's midnight.  i would love to say that i'm about to crawl into bed and say good-bye to this day, but i still have lunches to make and clothes to lay out and probably laundry to do (since i seem to be recycling the same few outfits for work.)  But soon enough i will enclose myself in the cocoon of comforters and fall fast asleep, hoping and praying that it lasts until morning. 

blank...

I'm drawing a blank, which is so frustrating, because i know i had a topic to write about.  and i know it was something of substance.  but what was it?!?  we just watched a movie, but it was not about that.  we ate dinner before that... no... OH... i got it!


we rearranged M's room back to her old way.  i have to admit, as i was laying there reading her good-night books, staring at the old familiar sights of that angle of the bed, i understood what she meant, and i agreed.  the room feels so much better with the bed in its now/old position.  it just felt right.  and she was so happy!  and she still has a decent play area, so i am not that concerned about that anymore.  i guess i need to remember that my daughter is only four.  she is not ready for instant change like an adult (at least this adult) is...


And speaking of age, my JUST-TURNED-one-year-old is pretty much addicted to chocolate.  she had a kit-kat after dinner with her sister.  then, she dropped it and the dog ate it, so i got her a reese's peanut butter cup.  she ate that down to licking her fingers.  she then pointed up to the candy bowl.  i ignored, and pretended i didn't see her.  she then proceeded to throw her body down on the ground, screaming, and pointing at the candy bowl.  honestly, there was no mistaking what she wanted, and she had to know i was faking not understanding, but i already have my hands full with her, adding any more chocolate would just be pure gluttony for trouble!!!  i m guessing i'll need to hide all candy from this point forward!  ahhh, this child is making me act like such a mother!


glad my blank mind brought forth some thoughts.  time for bed.  time for another day to come and bring us a whole lot more adventures!

that wasn't so bad...

I just uploaded hundreds of pictures from the last month- you know, the month full of birthdays, Halloween, parties, etc.! I finally sent them out to my family and posted them on Facebook. It didn't take nearly as long as I'd been dreading. It really wasn't that bad.

Now I just need to print the best ones out to mail to my grandmother, the only one in the family not "connected"!

While it wasn't that bad, I am exhausted from doing it, and I'm going to bed!

oh my!

chocolate and beer and scary movies, oh my!


tonight, we celebrated our adult halloween ritual.  we ate LOTS of candy (i feel sick), drank beer, and watched a scary movie (although, really, it was just more of a melodrama... at that!)


we had fun.  we took advantage of the time change, and i'm praying that tomorrow morning, the kids do the same!  we shall see!


good night all, tomorrow i will "see" you an hour earlier!!!!!

sleep well, world.

I just woke up completely discombobulated. I was in M's room, and I thought it was morning- a work morning, no less. And I thought tht I had fallen back to sleep in her room, with no alarm set. I had. Slight panic attack before realizing it was 10:00 at night, rather than in the morning.

I came straight in to bed after that. My mind can only take so much exhaustion before it cracks. I need to stop that before it can ever begin!

Good night; sleep well!

my day...

i drove far, far away to learn a lot of what i already know.  and sign language- something i have never known, so the day was worth it all!  i came home to a beautiful smiling portrait of two girls who were so excited to see their mama!  with a mama equally delighted to see them!


i spoke to my family members after too many days of missing calls, and spoke to my oldest, dearest friend for the first time in WAY too many nights... 


today was a great day!


and now- popcorn and last night's AMERICAN HORROR STORY!!!!!  oooooh!  so excited!!!!!!!

just another day.

we did not move M's room back to the old way.  we did, however, move her angry birds poster to right above her bed, and this seemed to make her happy.  until, of course, right after i switched off the light.  i thought we;d get through without tears, because she just said, in an almost bored voice, "i can't sleep here with the bed like this."  i told her we'd figure it out tomorrow.  then she cried, but briefly.  she fell right to sleep.  we'll see what tomorrow brings. 


speaking of tomorrow, i am attending my first preschool teacher's workshop.  it's about 80 miles away.  i have to be at school at 6:45 a.m. (yes, that's right A.M. tomorrow morning) to meet up with the other teachers to drive.  i am going to bed.  now.  for real.

back to it.

The problem with not writing for several days in a row is that when i sit down to write about one thing, i think of seven thousand things that have happened that i want to relay.  i'll do this in a simplified manner, so as not to have you sitting her for the next three hours reading about the monotony (if possible) of our lives!


Halloween was last night; my two bumble bees that began wearing costumes a week ago today, for an entire week straight, turned into one bumble bee and one princess last night.  M decided that she wanted to be a princess after six days of being a bee.  i told her that if she could put together a costume on her own from her dress up clothes, she could be whatever she wanted.  She amazed me with her creation!  She may end up being the fashion designer of the family!  the baby had such a ball watching all the big kids doing their trick-or-treating that she protested the stroller AND my arms and decided to walk (toddle?!) up to each and every house on the route.  This resulted in my missing out on M's trick-or-treating, but luckily she was with all her best friends (about seven other four-year-olds) and their parents, so i had no worries!  it was a sweet night for my girls, and fun was had by all.


the biggest topic, of course, is something i alluded to almost a week ago in To Come.  The baby walking is a given, except that now that she is walking, she doesn't want to ride or be carried or do anything else.  She even pushed the cart around the entire store the other day (extending a typically hour long shopping trip into an almost two hour long trip.)  My potentially worst parenting decision ever... i rearranged M's room around the other day.  I changed the bed and a few pieces of furniture so that she has a huge play area now.  She loved it the entire day that i made the change.  She played in her play area, she laid in her bed and read books.  She told me how much she loved it.  Yet, when it came time to go to sleep, she got hysterical.  She cried that she couldn't sleep in the room with the bed where it was.  She cried that the shadows were wrong, that the posters were different.  it broke my heart into a million pieces.  i told her that she could make it through one night and that we could move the room around the next day.  well, an hour later, still sobbing, i just brought her into my room with me.  she has pretty much been sleeping there ever since.  she has slept one whole night in her own room, but that was after a huge halloween party and falling asleep on the couch, only to be carried to bed at 11:00p.m.  no wonder she slept the whole night!
the rest of the nights, she has fallen asleep in her room (after crying at the bed's location), then, she appears in my bed sometime before morning.  it continues to break my heart.  tomorrow afternoon, i plan to move the bed back, and pray that i haven't ruined her sleep schedule forever.


and finally, happy 11/1/11, readers (and happy 11th birthday, C!!!)!  i hope your autumns are off to a great start and that you had a happy and safe halloween!  i'm going to be back on my writing regimen!  


until tomorrow, farewell!