And This is Goodbye

This blog has been so many things to me over the last 5+ years.

It has been a place to share our struggles, our triumphs, our challenges and our family’s silly stories. It has been a way to find and connect with people in the same place in their lives so that we could share our experiences and learn from each other. It has been a very important and valuable pillar of “my village” to help navigate this crazy roller coaster of parenting.

It has been fun. It has been frustrating. It has been informative and cathartic and inspiring.

It’s quite obvious that the last few months have been a slow decline to a different type of blogging and likely the beginning of a spiral that ends with not blogging at all. “Ending” the blog as been a decision I have put off many times, because there is a big part of me that loves to write, loves to read this type of writing from others and gets a lot of value out of the process of sharing and engaging with readers.

But in the end, I know in my heart that the right answer is that all good things have to come to an end, and now is the time for this good thing. It all boils down to three main reasons:

1. The stories I want to tell don’t really feel like MY stories to tell anymore. When trying to get pregnant and throughout my pregnancies, the stories I told were mine. All mine. In the infant stages for both boys they were still 99% mine, as they were about how parenting had changed ME and the things that I thought about and how I dealt with them. But now that Owen is getting older, the stories are less about me and more about him, and little by little it doesn’t feel right to be sharing things with such a wide audience that he might not want shared one day.

   In addition, as we enter the murky waters of deciphering if any of Owen’s behaviors are rooted in a more serious disorder (something I so wish I could write more about so I can work through my own thoughts and feelings and also get help from others who have gone through the same process), I am paralyzed by the fear of what those shrouded by the anonymity of the internet will say. And how someday, in some way, it could likely come back to Owen in his real life in a way I’m not comfortable with. As much as I wish I could go through this next phase of my parenting journey “learning out loud” and sharing my experiences, I don’t owe it to anyone to be the guinea pig or the spokeswoman for these issues, and I can clearly see how that could do harm to Owen down the road. And who knows what Emmett’s story will hold. Whereas I could take the criticism in the past of my own actions in the past, I’m not willing to put my children in the same position to read hurtful and inaccurate comments about themselves at some point in the future.

   Speaking of hurtful and inaccurate comments…

1. While I have always recognized that “putting myself out there” was opening myself up to criticism, I honestly hadn’t realized until recently just how crazy and ugly and obsessive and false that criticism could be. Sure, I watch E! news and see filthy stories about celebs displayed all over the media, but I never considered that someone would single me out as a focus for their rage. I’m just a person with a normal, busy life who posts pictures and some journal-y blog posts on the internet to connect with people. Though I know I’ve touched on some hot-button parenting issues and never expected everyone to agree with me all the time, I also certainly never expected to be on the receiving end of hate-filled rants, personal tirades and completely inaccurate claims about my marriage and my relationship with my children.

   Clearly I was too naive.

   I have been struggling with allowing these ridiculous comments to be part of my decision to stop blogging, because it kills me to let mean words from complete strangers “win”. But when it comes down to it, I’m writing this blog for me and my family. And when it doesn’t make me and my family feel good anymore? It’s not worth doing. And, frankly, those horrible claims and nasty words say far more about the writers than they do about me. I have a real life brimming with love, two amazing kids who I adore, a satisfying and growing career and a strong relationship with my best friend and parenting partner. It doesn’t get much better than that.I’m certain I got the better deal here, despite what you may read on the internet about me.

2. Time. Time is short, my friends. My kids are changing before my eyes. Our weeks are already impacted by the hours that Benjamin and I are at work, and as work ramps up for me with no signs up stopping, having one less thing that I feel like I need to do in front of the computer can make a huge difference. As much as I value this space; this isn’t real life. I’m anxious to spend more time writing snail mail and having drinks with friends and making phone calls to people I haven’t talked to in a while than sitting in front of a computer screen writing to nobody, really. Cliche but true.

So as Emmett turns 1 today it feels like a perfect time to say “Goodbye” to you, and “Hello” to our next chapter as a family of two walking, talking, climbing, squealing, hilarious boys who are busy creating stories of their own that aren’t mine to tell.

I’ll still write them letters as they grow, and maybe even continue to keep a journal of our happy, beach-filled summer days and silly stories. But it will be just for us.

Thank you to those who have read, commented, emailed, tweeted and otherwise supported me and our family throughout the last 5 1/2 years, both virtually and beyond. You have been a very important part of our lives.

Run, Kate, Run

I’ve always dreamed of one of those people who likes running. Who is good at running. Who says, Oh, I’m just going for a run offhandedly, like it’s no big thang.

The truth is, I’m not. And frankly, it’s not a high enough priority for me to actually take the time and energy needed to work on it….which is probably why I’m not the person I described in the first paragraph. Duh.

Despite running not being my jam, I exercise somewhat regularly (some weeks are better than others!), I’m strong and I’m proud of myself for fitting in what I do. A few months ago someone in my office invited my colleagues and I to join our company’s team at the JP Morgan Chase Corporate Challenge. It’s a 3.5 mile race in downtown Boston on a summer evening — a beautiful route from the public gardens to Fenway Park. Even though there was a negative, doubting voice in my head that said, “Bah! You’re not a runner”, I signed up.

And then I ran it.

My first race.

With 12,000 of my closest friends.

My goal was to finish with 10 minute miles or less (no speed demon here; but what I lack in speed I make up for in determination). By sticking with a younger, slightly speedier friend, I was able to run farther and faster than I ever had before!

#proud

I may never be a runner, or brag about my mileage or my speed, but I went out and did it. And it felt good.

She Says… Vacay 2014

Ahhh, home. It’s good to be home.

No matter how much fun we have while we’re away… it’s always good to be home.

We skedaddled for a little vacay last week! I went from full throttle work to full throttle “closing the computer and leaving the phone turned off”. Didn’t think once about blogging or checking Facebook or anything more than a cursory glance at my personal inbox. Barely even Instagrammed or Tweeted, which is kind of unlike me.

It was, in a word, freeing. And relaxing. And fun. (Ok, that was 3 words). Not that my vacation couldn’t have been all of those things WITH the computer/phone connection, of course. I’m not one of the “you have to get rid of your phone in order to enjoy life” types of people; there’s a time and a place for all types of social interaction. But it did remove an element of “oh, I have to just do this one thing” from my day, and it felt good.

The boys’ school is closed every year for the week of July 4th, so it has become our annual family vacation week. Since we’re still very much in the throes of scheduling our days around kids’ needs (naps, meals, snacks, bedtimes), I find it more comfortable to “vacation” somewhere that feels like home rather than an exotic locale where we’ll all be sleeping in the same hotel room or something equally as inconvenient.

And nothing feels more like home than… my sister’s home! As I’ve mentioned in the past, my 3 siblings and mom all live in the Delaware/Philly area, and my Dad still lives in Baltimore, where I grew up. I’m the only one who flew the coop to come up north, so all it takes for a real family reunion is for me to say, “We’re coming to visit!”. And that’s exactly what happened.

It was a COUSIN PARTY.

– 6 kids under the age of 7
– 5 days
– under 1 roof

To say that we need a vacation from our vacation is an understatement. But it was a blast!

The last time the bigger cousins saw Emmett, he was only 2 months old or so (for my little sister’s wedding last summer). This time they kept saying, “Can I hold him in my lap on the couch?” and I’d have to remind them that he’s in charge now. And he doesn’t sit for very long in anyone’s lap. He’s toddling and cruising everywhere… even despite all of the cousins picking him up, knocking him down and otherwise impeding his wobbly steps.

Our week was chock full of playtime, playtime and more playtime. We took 1 field trip to a nearby potato chip factory (fun!), and 1 day trip down to Baltimore to see one of my dearest friends, but other than that we stuck around my sister’s house and ate and played and ate and played and ate and played some more. It takes a lot of carseats to get a group of this many people out the door!

Biggest perk of vacationing there? THE POOL.

Benjamin took an underwater camera and captured some awesome footage of our little fishies. I’ll share that once it is edited.

Thanks to following his big cousins around, Owen learned how to hold his breath underwater and REALLY SWIM! We just started swim lessons before vacation and when we went back on Monday his teacher said we need to move him up a level or two because he can actually swim. What a difference a week makes! Perhaps he WILL be the next Michael Phelps.

This year marked the very 1st 4th of July when we let Owen stay awake for the firework festivities. I was nervous about how he would react to a bedtime several hours later than normal, and the loud noises and unpredictability of the fireworks themselves (as one gets after having a “spirited” child for nearly 4 years!), but as it turned out, he impressed me yet again.

He stayed awake, acted like an angel waiting for fireworks, was mesmerized by the display of lights (and shielded from the noise by Aunt Kim’s magical headphones — GENIUS) and went right to bed when we got home.

Thankfully my sister’s husband offered to stay home so Emmett could sleep right through the excitement. Hallelujah.

As if staying up for fireworks wasn’t enough for one day, we also went to a parade! Again, the headphones were key for the sensory sensitive.

It was also the first year I felt comfortable with handing my wild child a lit, burning stick.

Once again, it went fine. Better than fine. It was fantastic.

Pajamas + glow sticks + sparklers + fireworks = best night ever.

We capped off the almost week-long festivities with our annual crab feast to honor our Baltimore roots. If you’ve never had Baltimore crabs… you’re missing out.

Even Emmett thinks so.

We may have been pushing our luck on this one, but we closed out the crab feast with post-dinner swimming (when it’s usually bath time), s’mores and setting off fireworks of our own right in the back yard (aka another very late night). Once again, I was thankful to be able to put Emmett to sleep so he never knew what he was missing, and I could enjoy the fun without a squirmy baby in my arms.

 

It was a week of firsts, especially for Owen.

• First time swimming underwater and coming up for air in between
• First time staying up super late and partying with the big kids
• First time having s’mores (we found gluten free graham crackers!)
• First time seeing fireworks
• First time doing sparklers
• First time LIGHTING fireworks
• And many, many more memories

It was a very happy and full week. But nothing like a trip away to make you appreciate being home.

 

 

A Lot of This

Well that week certainly flew by. Last week I was in New York for work and missed my guys for three bedtimes. Sad face. Our weekend, however, was chock full of soaking up every sunbeam and blue sky day. And this week was an unending cycle of the stark juxtaposition of being glued to my computer during work hours (and a few and post-kid bedtime evenings), and playing/eating/laughing completely unplugged with my family in between.

It’s the way it should be. It’s the way I want it to be. It’s what I work so hard for.

 

Want to know what we did? Grilled dinner and ate corn on the cob and played on the swingset and went swimming at the town pond. Bathtime a little bit late and feet covered in dirt, but the kids were giggly and goofy right up until their heads hit the pillows. Benjamin and I clinked our glasses and smiled at each other over another happy day together. Pretty much every day.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

Work is nuts and our family is nuttier, and it’s a delicate balance to do both wholeheartedly without compromising. I find myself saying no to things and to people now, when I used to try to fit every gosh darn thing into every day. But when you get that balance right, even for a week? It’s glorious.

We capped off this week with a pizza dinner eaten out on the swing set. Since I didn’t have to cook it, it was done mere minutes after we got home from school, which meant early dinner and plenty of post-dinner playtime. Then Owen deemed it time for “everyone to take their clothes off!” and after a bit more naked playtime in the backyard (kids only), we tossed those cute little butts in the bath and wrangled them into clean pj’s. The best kind of summer night.

I have a feeling we’re going to be doing a lot more of this as the summer progresses.

And I couldn’t be happier about that.

She Says… The Double Bind

I don’t talk about my work much on the blog because it’s, you know, work. And it’s, you know, probably not terribly interesting to many of you. But as my time and focus has shifted toward my work recently, it has shifted away from the blog somewhat. The two are inextricably linked, as there are only so many hours in the day, and only so much brain space available for things beyond the daily rigamarole of raising children and keeping the house clean and maintaining friendships and enjoying time with my awesome husband (not necessarily in that order!).

Though having a family with two working parents has created some complicated logistics at times (ahem, understatement of the century), it has also allowed me to maintain a part of my persona that is extremely important to me, and gives me the opportunity to model for my boys that 1) women can achieve success in their careers in addition to being mothers, if they so choose, and 2) relationships can (and should) be balanced so that both partners get the chance to do what makes them thrive personally and professionally. Not to mention helping me appreciate the knowledge and experience that our village of teachers, babysitters, family and friends can share with my kids.

Right about this time last year, just before Emmett was born, I was promoted to a new role managing a team leading projects across North America at the management consulting firm where I work. Since then, and even more so since January, I’ve been working harder and longer and on more complicated initiatives than ever before.  As that ramps up, my blogging time and output has decreased, little by little. A few weeks ago I was invited to attend a training program for high potential women leaders. It was a fascinating program and it was exciting for me to be part of this group of inspiring women from various companies. One of the topics we discussed in the training is the “double bind” for women in the workplace. A double bind is essentially a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situation. In regards to women and leadership, this double bind is most often experienced in the following ways:

1. Emotions: Women are either too “soft” or emotional, or too “hard” (read: bitch), depending on the situation. Men acting the same way might be seen as “kind/empathetic” or “powerful/strong”, which do not have the same negative connotations.
2. Rewards: Women are often held to higher competency standards than men, but are rewarded or recognized less. So they can perform as well or better as a male counterpart, but are often not compensated or celebrated in the same way.
3. Likability: Women are seen as either competent, or well-liked, but not generally both. “Nice” women are too nice, “task-focused” women are not nice enough.

I have a lot of thoughts about how this manifests itself in the corporate world today, but I also began to think about the double bind in the context of blogging.

I see the parent blogging double bind in the following three ways (though I’m sure there are a million more):

1. Hard days: If you gloss over the challenging times or rough days in your writing, or omit them altogether, you get dinged for only showing a fake, perfect life. But if you write about them, you get dinged for not appreciating your kids, not recognizing that they are “just being kids” or resenting their very existence.
2. Fertility: If you wrote about struggling to get pregnant or to stay pregnant in the past, it seems you are not “allowed” to also write about pregnancy being hard or missing things about your pre-kids life, lest you awake the sleeping beast of bitter commenters. “There are millions of women who would die to be in your shoes and have a baby!”. Very true, but one comment, or even a whole blog post, does not mean that the author is not deeply grateful and thankful to their core that they have the babies who they worked so hard for. I am guessing this also applies to bloggers who did not struggle. No matter your road to getting pregnant and having babies, not every second of every day with your kids is a shiny happy sparkly rainbow moment. And that’s ok. On the flip side, if you write a glowy post about the joys of motherhood post-fertility, you’re STILL going to receive hate mail about not acknowledging that some people are still struggling and how hurtful your post was to THOSE people. Ya can’t win, no matter how your story unfolds or how you choose to tell it.
3. Privacy: If you share intimate details of your family on the internet, you will eventually question why you’re doing it and if it’s worth it and if you are putting your child(ren) in danger somehow or doing something they wouldn’t approve of if they knew about it. However, if none of us shared these stories and sometimes quite private admissions about parenthood and the rocky road to becoming parents, we’d all be sitting around feeling alone and scared and isolated because of what we are going through. Which, at least with most things parenting-related, isn’t the case. There are amazing people out there and the internet is a remarkably rich place to find support, connection and sometimes even real-life friendships. But of course those things often come at a cost of personal privacy.

There’s a strange, warped sense of knowing a blogger’s most intimate thoughts and yet, not ever knowing all of the things that they decide not to put on the page. It doesn’t mean they aren’t thinking them, it’s just that there isn’t enough room in the entire internet for every caveat that would be necessary to write before each post so that no one is offended.

I guess what it all boils down to is… you can’t please everyone all the time, so just be yourself. And that goes for women in the corporate world as well as in the world of blogging. And… fuck ’em. Because, really, why spend time worrying about what other people think? Someone is bound to be offended by almost everything you write, so just write.

Just write, if it makes you happy. And work, if it makes you happy. And raise your family however makes you happy. Don’t worry if other people are happy with you, just be happy with yourself.

Weekend Adventure: Part Deux

Our spontaneous Newport trip two weeks ago was so much fun that we couldn’t resist another friend’s impromptu invitation to join her family on the Cape last Saturday.

Emily is a friend I met in mom group when our babies were just 6 weeks old. These two have been playing together for nearly 4 years already!

The drive there was… slow. It took about 2.5 hours when we were expecting 1.5-2, thanks to a couple of accidents and general Cape traffic. I think I’ve figured out our happy car ride limit for the moment, and it’s just about 1.5 hours — that last hour wasn’t the highlight of the trip, that’s for sure!

But the second we arrived to a perfect, blue sky day, all was forgiven.

Even Emmett had a buddy to play with, and we noticed them noticing each other for the first time. We handed them some plastic measuring cups to bang around and they were happy as clams. Happy, easygoing Baby #2’s.

As a baby, Owen’s beach experiences have been hit or miss. He doesn’t like the feeling of sand, or the way it gets all over his body (I can relate). Even last summer the crash of the waves was too loud and the sun was too hot. He just wasn’t comfortable.

But this year? This year he couldn’t get enough. The water! The sand! The rocks! The crabs! The seashells! He was all over it.

Emmett, however, took to the beach like a fish to water. He got right down in the sand and squished it in his chubby fists and licked it off his fingers and splashed in the shallow water. He was in heaven.

The drive home was better than the drive there, as the kids fell asleep as soon as we closed the car doors (after a quick stop for ice cream, of course!). Post-beach naps are the best.

Despite how much fun we’ve had with our little weekend adventures, Benjamin and I are both shooting for less driving this weekend. Time to explore some of our local summertime faves.

Summahtime, my friends. Looks like this.

Mercury, It’s All Your Fault. Right?

I don’t generally put a lot of stock in astrology, or where the moon is in its orbit or whatever. Sure, I love a good horoscope as much as the next girl, and once even had my “stars read” or whatever you call it when you get a report about yourself based on the planetary alignment at the moment of your birth. It’s all very intriguing to me, but in a very theoretical way.

After perhaps one of the roughest parenting days I’ve had in a while on Monday, Benjamin sent me a link to this article about Mercury in retrograde making people “go haywire with miscommunications”. And jokingly noted, “Maybe this is the reason they are so crazy?”. Ha, I thought.

As I scrolled through my Instagram feed last night, I noticed 4 separate and unrelated posts where people mentioned their kids acting completely out of character and jokingly blaming it on Mercury’s retrograde. Ha, I thought.

Benjamin’s father is a pediatric dentist and has mentioned in the past that it may seem unlikely, but his office definitely gets packed with strange dental emergencies during certain planetary alignments (and I’ve read the same about emergency rooms when there is a full moon). Ha, I tend to think.

Well, maybe the joke’s on me.

Sunday (June 8) through today my kids have been acting uncharacteristically wild. Emotional. Delicate. Fussy. Defiant. Mercury has been in retrograde since June 7 and will be until July 1st. Coincidence? Perhaps.

But if there’s any truth to this, hold onto your hats, folks. It’s going to be a long three weeks.

Have you noticed your kids losing it more than usual in the last few days? Or any weird connections to behavior and the planets/moon?

 

On a  somewhat related note, Owen’s class did a unit on the solar system last month. He LOVED learning about the planets and brings up random planet facts in our conversations every day now. Everything that is a circle becomes a planet, and he knows the order, weather and relative size of all of the planets in the solar system. I’ll be the first to admit that space knowledge is not my personal forte, so I have learned a lot from him. Here he is singing about the planets about a month ago. Perhaps HE can teach me something about this Mercury retrograde situation!

The Best/Worst School Photo Ever

I don’t even know where to begin. This school photo is too ridiculous.

Contrary to how it looks, Emmett is not actually an 800 pound man walking with a cane.

I can’t stop giggling.

It’s so bad it’s fantastic.

 

2012:

2013:

Can’t… stop… laughing.

Poor Emmett.

I love these little faces so much.

She Says… 10 Months

BOOM! It has been a huge month for you, my little buddy.

The day you turned 10 months, the very tiny tip of your very first tooth poked through your gums. Bottom left. I know, it took FOREVER for you to get it. As I’ve said before, it certainly has not slowed you down in the eating department. And you took the teething pain like a champ! A handful of fussy days and sad nights, but all in all you continue your general “go with the flow” streak. As long as Daddy and I (or your favorite teacher at school) are there to give you a cuddle when you need it, you are good to go. A few days later the second one peeked through. You’re well on your way to having the cutest little pair of pearly whites punctuating your gummy grin.

And grin you do. All day long. Especially when your big brother is goofing off.

Which is all the time.

All of a sudden, your personality exploded right in front of our eyes. You move with purpose now. You have a bubbly, giggly sense of humor. You love to be hugged and kissed, and to hug and kiss right back. You squeeze my shoulder and gently pat my back when I carry you, and sometimes you’ll divebomb my face with your open mouth, gumming and sucking my cheek/chin like a big ol’ sloppy kiss. You are shockingly persistent when you want to grab or touch something and deceptively strong once it is in your grasp. You shout your words (perhaps to get a word in edgewise in our loud family?) and bob your head around to dance whenever music comes on. You make people smile wherever you go.

Owen’s favorite thing to do at the moment is squish or poke your delicious cheeks and say, “Mr. Cheeks! Mr. Face! I love you little Face! I wanna give you a smooch! SMOOCH!”. The other day you were crying in your crib when you woke up (which is rare), and I was busily making your bottle before I came in to get you. Owen danced nervously next to me, telling me to “Hurry, please”. He grabbed the bottle out of my hand as soon as it was ready and dashed into your room. His voice went up 2 octaves and he cooed, “I’m here, my baby. Here’s your bottle. You want this bottle? Here baby. I love you.”.

Gah! The love between you boys is so strong and palpable I could cut it with a knife. You are so lucky to have Owen by your side and he is so lucky to have a sweet, adoring brother like you.

Oh! Another huge development this month is WORDS. Well, you know, baby versions of words. But you are very clearly signing and attempting to say “All done!” (“Ah duh!” while twirling your hands in the air). In fact, I think we’ll count “all done” as your first “word”. You also pointedly say, “Daw!” when Schnitzel walks in the room, and “Baw!” for ball. I may have heard the beginnings of “bottle” (“bah buh”), while your chubby hand did the fist-squeezing sign language last night at bedtime. They aren’t decipherable to anyone but us at this point, but words are definitely on the horizon, my little linguist.

And finally, one of the most momentous milestones is just about here as well. Your first steps. You’ve been cruising for a month or so now, pulling your cute little body up on anything and everything you could reach. Lately you’ve been reaching for things farther and farther away, hanging on to your support with only a finger sometimes. Yesterday at school your teachers said you let go with that finger and took one wobbly step forward before plunking onto your butt and crying because you were so surprised that you were doing it by yourself. I can’t wait to see your skills myself. Doesn’t count ’til Mommy and Daddy see!

Your early walking skills seem to be following right in your brother’s footsteps (pun intended!). A few months ago I would not have guessed that would be the case. You both took such different paths (sitting and crawling at different times, very different body types, different personalities) to end up at the same spot. Remember that, little one. The road to success does not look the same for everyone, and you never know the route someone else is taking. Do not fall into the trap of comparing yourself to others, because you are YOU. And do not judge others against your own path, because they are THEM. Just celebrate the successes (yours and others’) and enjoy the ride. The end result isn’t the goal anyway; the “getting there” is.

I love you so much, Emmett-y. Mr. Delicious. Mr. Cheeks. You bring so much joy and happiness and silliness and comfort to our little family. I can’t wait to watch your personality grow and change as the months and years pass.

We adore you.

Love,
Mommy

She Says… Weekending

This weekend was like a breath of fresh air.

It was pure, summer fun.

Generally our weekends are booked up with playdates and playground trips and sometimes errands that need to be run. We have an activity for most morning and afternoon blocks, and spend the rest of our time hanging out in our pj’s, going for walks/scooter rides or swinging on the swingset at home as a family. But miraculously, when a college friend of mine asked if we could come down to his parents’ house in Newport, RI for a visit last Friday, we had a completely open day to do so.

When Owen was a baby, the thought of driving anywhere over 30 minutes made my stomach clench up — he was not very flexible with his schedule and car rides almost always ended in puking. But, thankfully, Emmett tends to go with the flow quite easily and doesn’t mind riding in the car at all (and even sleeps!) and Owen has grown to be much more tolerant of car rides and adventures, so we were able to easily drive down during Emmett’s morning nap.

We arrived to a beautiful home right on the cliff walk, a positively elegant spread of mimosas and quiche, and a small group of friends with no agenda other than enjoying the weather and the view. Aside from my friend and his husband (who have a 4 month old), no one had kids. Which meant we were automatically “those people” with the rowdy kids. No matter, though. Everyone seemed entertained by to tolerate Owen’s antics and a great time was had by all.

Owen relaxed just like a little big person, lounging in the hot tub and strolling the cliff walk.

NOT! He splashed and “swam” in the hot tub and hitched a ride on my friend’s shoulders and whined the rest of the way on the walk. But it was cute anyway.

When we got home, the long weekend continued just the way Memorial Day should. Warm sun, a cool breeze and lots of time playing. Just playing. Full of hours of “water slide” with Owen’s new best friend, the 8 year old boy who lives across the street.

I didn’t open up my computer once over the weekend. It was glorious.

(Which, consequently, is exactly the opposite of what has happened since I went back to work on Tuesday morning. I’ve been buried in work on my computer 24/7 except when spending mornings/evenings with the kids. It’s brutal. Hence the quiet blogspace.)

Is there any better mark of an awesome day than dirty baby feet?

I think not.