Sunday evening, laundry put away, a marketing plan as close to finished as possible, and the dog snoring happily next to me. Ahhhh, silence. Blissful.

Arden was in rare form tonight at dinner, screeching at the top of her lungs and grinning madly at anyone who would catch her eye. She ate a ton of food (I literally think it was close to a ton) and looked like one of those newly hatched birds when they brought out the ice cream - she just sat in her seat with her mouth wide open, flapping her arms up and down excitedly until one of us would put a spoonful of whipped cream or ice cream in her mouth. Seconds after she swallowed it, her mouth would open up again.

Lily was also fairly well behaved tonight and most of the day. She made it all day without accidents and was very pleased with herself. We went to Deep Run Park this afternoon and she must have gone down the “big kids” slide about 50 times. She is in a deep coma as I write this - no nap and lots of activity today, including what Mike called the “shortest bike ride in the history of bike rides”. Her bike has training wheels but it requires a lot of physical effort for her to move it even slightly, so she tires quickly.

She has taken to “preaching” to me - reiterating things I’ve said to her, with her finger in the air, almost as if she’s in the pulpit looking down at one of her sinners. Today when I was putting clothes away and cleaning out all the things she can’t wear anymore, she wanted me to let her throw the folded clothing around. I told her no, and she put her hand in the air and said firmly, “Mommy, you are not sharing nicely. SHARE with me!” I tried not to laugh. It was hilarious. The expression on her face must be what I look like to her.

Today at the park there was this hugely obese man sitting next to me. He had been trying to get his daughter to pay attention to him and come when he called her - she completely ignored him. At first I thought she might literally be deaf, but it turns out she just ignores her dad. He and I started chatting about potty training and other scintillating topics and he asked me if I liked McDonald’s. I told him I didn’t, but Lily loved it, so we went there frequently. We started comparing different play areas and one of the McDonald’s with a ball pit came up. He got pretty excited and told me that he got some email (probably a chain email) saying that a 4 year old boy had a welt on his rump after playing the ball pit. The next day, he was dead - supposedly there was a hypodermic needle in the ball pit with enough heroin or whatever left in it to cause him to overdose. OKAY. I guess I just get to the point where I could feel insane about everything - paranoia is easy these days, with all the kidnappings, disappearances, sexual predators, and internet myths floating around. And now I’m supposed to fear the ball pit?!?! What next! I need to check that story out on snopes.com.

I’m wireless now, so I can sit in bed and blog. No excuses not to write anymore!

My Uncle Sal sent out this picture, taken, I assume, on the first night of my parent’s visit to their old stomping grounds in Michigan. The family looks lovely, don’t they? I miss them all, but glad my parents are up there having fun without me.

Lily misses them a lot - she even asked me to call Grammy (this after she commanded me to make Grammy appear at our house for bathtime and I was unable to comply with her request). She wanted to tell Grammy something and apparently it couldn’t wait, so I just held out the cell phone when their voicemail picked up and she screamed her message into the phone. Should make for an interesting message! Ah well, they should feel loved. I’ve never seen her act like she did on Thursday night when we met them for dinner. She was unwilling to let them leave and kept screaming and crying for one more hug or kiss. It was actually quite sweet.

So Arden is the newest troublemaker in the family. I knew it wouldn’t be long before she came into her own. I found out from Judy on Friday that Arden didn’t have an afternoon nap. The reason? She normally naps with two other small children in one of the rooms. This particular day, however, she decided that she’d screech happily and wave frantically to the other kids in her room, “talking” non-stop to them and having a big ole party in her crib. She was so loud that she actually woke up some other kids in ANOTHER ROOM!!! Judy had to remove her and let her rest in the swing so the other kiddies could sleep. That’s my girl! But boy was she a crab around bedtime. Whoooo - she still very much needs her afternoon nap.

Speaking of Arden, she’s going to be one year old very shortly. I guess I’d better send out her birthday invites before Mike accuses me again of child favoritism. YES, YES, I know we still haven’t christened Arden! We will, we will!

Lily started her new school today. She was clingy at first but eventually distracted herself by comforting another child crying harder than herself and was playing with a puzzle when I left. She had no accidents today, which was amazing, and if she hadn’t dropped the back of her dress in the toilet, she would have been wearing all of her same clothes she started the day in! Amazing - but then again, she always does better for other people than her parental units.

I had a hard time leaving her. My schedule for the most part isn’t changing this week, but it felt different - I’m now one of “those people” (said with judgment in the tone) who’s daycare providers spend more time with their kids than they do. I second guess myself all of the time. She’s learning so much, and doing so well, that I try not to feel guilty about it more than I do. It’s just weird how working “part-time” made me feel almost okay about daycare. Suddenly now that it’s full-time I have massive amounts of guilt and doubt about the whole scenario. The school is very nice, the teachers are all very educated, the structure is great, and the place makes me want to hang out and play, but I still wonder if I should have given up this business idea back before it ever really started and stayed home with my children.

Then I look at my day today and think about the work I did - and I feel somewhat better about things. I had a great time with the girls tonight when we came home, we played in the driveway and bikes, and I held Arden close to me for a long time after picking her up. She is always so happy to see us and screeches with delight. At those moments I feel like I DO have it all (except clients who pay on time, but that’s another story).

In the meantime, I’m working with Lily on sharing with Arden and not crushing her to death every time she hugs her baby sister. My dad keeps trying to explain the concept of responsibility as the elder sibling. She looks at him like he has three heads, but you have to give him props for trying! Tonight Lily kept pulling a toy out of Arden’s hand in the bathtub, and Arden is now at the age where she will scream her displeasure. Pretty soon Arden will be as big as Lily, and Lily will be sorry . . . we are just waiting for Arden to begin socking the living daylights out of Lily when she steals her toys, blankets, changing table, and whatever else she can get her hands on. Watch out, Lily . . .

It’s officially over . . . the pool patrol locked up the doors tonight promptly at 7 and had the audacity to wish us “happy winter”. Ugh, I can’t even begin to think about winter!!! Even Lily seemed to sense that summer was over. Tomorrow she starts at her new school - all of her stuff is packed and appropriately labeled. I hope she adjusts well.

Tomorrow also marks the beginning of full time work - for the first time since August of 2002 when I went part-time with my last gainful employer. Time flies when you’re having fun. I am hopeful that my life, and my time with my kids, will be more enjoyable after having made the decision. I don’t think it can be any harder in terms of scheduling and that elusive stuff known as “quality time”.

Arden has finally adjusted to the pool - she floats in her boat happily for close to an hour each time we go. Lily spends her time throwing diving toys, waiting for them to hit bottom, and falling face-first into the water so she can “swim” to get the toys. Today she finally came out and said, “Mommy, I’m FREEZING!” The tone of her voice was hilarious. I could already see the teenager she will become in her eyes.

She also informed me today, as I cleaned out our files, that I needed to “share”. This, because I wasn’t letting her play with our closing statement for our mortgage. I guess I need to practice what I preach. She certainly called me on the carpet for not sharing. A few moments later she was making Arden cry by pulling whatever toy she happened to have out of her fat little fingers, so she doesn’t do a great job with the concept of sharing, either.

Arden continues to be very easy and fairly relaxed about things, except when you mess with her routine. Today we put her infant car seat in the attic and installed her new “big girl” car seats. She absolutely hates it - and cries the minute we put her in one. I don’t know what she doesn’t like, but she seems to be slightly afraid of the seat and slightly angry at it. Not much I can do about it. Her feet were hanging off the ends of the infant seat, and I was about to herniate a number of disks lugging her around in that thing!

We lovingly call her “big turkey”, partially because she looks huge compared to Lily, and partly because she’s pale, like turkey meat, and partially because we’re just insane when it comes to nicknames. Lily has now started referring to Arden the same way. For example, “Hi, big turkey!” and “No, big turkey, don’t touch that!” and “Goodnight, big turkey!” Poor Arden. I’m sure she will grow up responding to Big Turkey instead of Arden.

Potty training is going fairly well, except today Lily needed to poop and was in her room. We have a Potty Elmo doll that says lots of annoying phrases and comes with his own (tiny, I might add) potty. Lily apparently thought it was for her as well, and tried to poop on it. You can imagine the end of result. It wasn’t pretty. Still, gotta give the girl credit for creativity. We tried to explain that her potty is too big for Elmo, and his potty is WAY too small for her. We’ll see if that concept sinks in.

Yes, that’s what I heard from Lily today. She’s been doing very well with the potty training, but today after lunch, instead of pooping in her pants in her room (the norm right now), she ran into the bathroom, got naked, and then announced the sentence listed above. I am not sure what she meant by the “eyes” part but I can vouch for the bigness and the poochie-ness of her, um, production.

So we are finally getting somewhere. Yes! My stubborn child is now actually excited about the potty and most of the time, getting it right! It’s possible that in the very near future, I will only be buying diapers for ONE child, and not two! It’s possible that in the very near future, I can throw away her disgusting Diaper Genie, that smells like a toxic waste site every time I open it! My life’s aspirations are finally nearing completion!!!

I have to head upstairs now to put Arden’s crib down to the lowest setting. She is frightening close to being able to throw herself out of it and I’d prefer it if she didn’t. Just thought I’d leave a Arden and Lily update before anything else happens.

Happy Early Labor Day . . .