So much has happened with the girls over the past few days, I don’t know where to begin and I will probably forget to mention something, but I’ll give it a shot.

Lily got in trouble last week for not “wearing her listening ears” and chatting through the entire naptime. She actually managed to keep some of the other kids (who still take naps - what an amazing thing) awake talking about everything under the sun. I believe this happened on “HAT DAY”. She has a watermelon hat and loves it so much she slept in it that night. I’m sure she was a bit warm, but whatever makes her happy. Arden got in trouble for screeching and playing with the other kids in her room during naptime as well - apparently neither of my girls are much for sleeping during the day. Judi now has to separate Arden from the others at nap time because she has such a jolly ole time clucking and screeching and tossing toys from her crib into the floor. She thinks she’s hilarious.

We had a nice weekend - Gramp was here with his friend Sybil, and the girls behaved for the most part and actually let Gramp hold them and read to them. Saturday afternoon we went to Matt’s 7th birthday party and both girls enjoyed the Moonbounce thing that Christine had rented. Arden liked it almost more than Lily - even when she did face plants. Matt and Hayden were good cousins and bounced her without getting too close to her or crushing her head. Lily laughed and bounced her brains out. On Sunday she asked me if we could go to Matt’s birthday party again - I had difficulty explaining the concept of birthdays coming once per year.

Work might be leveling off a little bit now that I’ve been working full time for nearly a month. I think I might be catching up and becoming more proactive. Either that, or something major has fallen through the cracks and I just can’t remember what it is. Mike worked last night and I finished painting the laundry room. Sara got me on a serious organizational kick and I can’t seem to get enough of cleaning and storing and buying all sorts of baskets and organizational trinkets. It is a phase, I’m sure, and will pass, but in the meantime the house looks good.

Don’t know if I reported this earlier but Lily is up to 24 pounds, which is still tiny but a huge breakthrough to us. We felt like she was hovering between 22-23 pounds for years, and getting to the 24 pound mark was very exciting for us. Arden weighs close to 17 pounds now and has a very healthy appetite to go along with her single tooth (no sight of tooth #2 yet).

Mike took me to Bookbinder’s on Friday night for our anniversary. It was delicious and wonderful, mostly because we didn’t have the kids with us. We had a long chat about everything and nothing, savored our food, and wound our way slowly back to home. The girls stayed with Aunt Loie and were very well-behaved. We stopped by Jennifer and Troy’s house to drop off some baby stuff. It was the first time Mike had seen Sophia - he couldn’t believe how tiny she was. You just have to see it to believe it - pictures don’t do her justice. She looks really good and is starting to fill out, as well as depriving her parents of sleep whenever possible. That’s my girl!

Yesterday was “hat day” at preschool, so Lily wore her watermelon hat (complete with stem). Apparently she liked it so much she wouldn’t even take it off at naptime. She wore it all through dinner (and did I mention it was close to 90 degress yesterday?).

I went to check on her around 8.30 last night and she had gotten the hat off her chair and was lying in bed with it on. At 1 AM, she woke up screaming and crying - for the hat. Mike finally gave in around 1.30 and let her wear it to bed. This morning when she came for her usual cuddle, she was STILL wearing the damn thing. Knowing my luck, she’ll hate hats by winter-time - when she needs them. There’s nothing like seeing Lily in her jammies with a winter hat on. It’s pretty funny. We could have done without the 1 AM hat wake up call, but at least we all have a sense of humor about this.

Jennifer is home with Sophia and seems to be doing well. I got some pictures forwarded to me today from her mother-in-law and they all looked very happy. I can’t imagine how good it must feel to be able to hold your baby as long as you want and not have to deal with the hospital sounds and smells. However, I’ll bet she’s missing those built-in diaper changers right about now! Ah well, she knows my phone number in case she and Troy really need a break from the stinkier end of Sophia.

I took my car to Carmax this morning to see what it would sell for. Yikes - like a knife through my heart. $4700??? I realize it has a lot of miles on it, but my car is in good shape! I don’t think I’ll be selling it to Carmax unless I get entirely desperate. Kelly is going to be nice and let me have hers even though we don’t have the cash yet - she’ll just hold on to a check and cash it when I tell her to pull the trigger. My car is hovering just below 100K miles and I’d like to keep it that way.

It finally happened, just shy of Arden’s first birthday - our little hatchling has ONE tooth! Amazing! Most babies her age have an average of 8 teeth. Well, now Arden can chip her way out of her nest or something - she’s got one about 1/4 of the way out and another one about to burst through the gumline. Both are on the lower gum. No sign of the upper teeth yet, but considering the time it took for her to get one, we’re just so proud of her. Way to go, Denny! You finally have a tooth!

Lily had a great day at school and “allowed” Mike to pick her up since I was dropping off the Subaru for its cleaning session with a detailer. Jennifer is now officially on maternity leave, and I will be missing her mightily every day until she returns, probably in January. E-gads, that sounds like a long way away.

I ran into someone I used to work with at CCA today (insert barf sound here). Made me realize what a bunch of Nascar-lovin’, wife-beater-t-shirt wearin’, cigarette-smokin’, male chauvinist pigs I used to work with. Nothing’s changed around there except all the good people have left and the dregs of humanity are still hanging on by their dirty, yellow fingernails. The best thing my boss there ever did to me was tell me I was laid off a month before my wedding and a month after buying our first house. I hated his guts at that moment, but I would never had thought something like that could turn my life in such a great direction. Seeing this old co-worker couldn’t have come at a better time. It really made me realize how fortunate and happy I am now, even on days like this, when I think I’m not going to make it without Jennifer. I’m 42 kabillion times happier than working at that crap hole. Did I mention my ex-boss had a penchant for kiddie porn? Yes, Mr. Born-Again Christian, let’s have a Corporate Chaplain and all pray before everything, including a trip to the bathroom, loved his virtualvirgins.com site or whatever crap he was into. Thank god I no longer have to worry about walking into his office and being greeted by the site of naked girls on his computer . . . even working with lawyers is much less painful than that!

Lily’s quote of the day today? She wandered into the bathroom with Mike, then announced, “Daddy, I want you to squeeze my butt so poochies will come out and I can have a gummy bear.” She is a complete nut.

Sometimes I look back at the early months with Arden and remember how Mike was basically Lily’s and I was Arden’s. The roles have completely reversed now, with Arden having eyes only for her daddy, and Lily wanting nothing but mommy most of the time. Tonight, Arden was cracking up watching her daddy through the bars in the crib, and Lily wanted me to get into her bed for cuddling (we normally do this on the chair). Just the image of me in Lily’s tiny little bed should be funny enough for most of you, but you should have seen her “cuddling” tonight by sticking her fingers in my eyes and screeching, “I SEE YOU, MOMMY” when she pulled my eyelids back. She also blew numerous loud raspberries in my face, examined my nose for “boogers” and placed pink blankie over my head and then attacked my face. How sweet.

Earlier, she had me climb into her bed roll she uses at school. She kissed me goodnight, told me not to get out of my bedroll, closed the bedroom door, and came back in a couple of seconds later. She gave me a big kiss on the lips, asked me how my nap was, and told me to go make a pee pee on the potty. Apparently I’m a little too ritualistic in my bedtime and naptime routines because she’s got me down like a pro.

We took Arden and Lily to the park today with Christine and Hayden (apparently Matt is now way too cool for the park, being almost 7 and all). Lily and Hayden had a great time playing and Arden did a lot of swinging, and let Christine hold her for a good half hour. She just chilled out with legs crossed and watched all of the kids around her with her usual puffed-cheek, mellow demeanor. She is very, very sweet - and as long as you feed her, good-tempered. If you don’t feed her often enough or give her a bottle, buyer beware - she will let you know exactly how she feels about it!

Mike finally gave in and decided that buying Kelly’s car wasn’t such a bad idea. My current ride (aka the French Fry Mobile) has nearly 100K miles on it and has had better days. We just did a lot of work to it and it’s driving much better, but it’s showing age. Kelly went out and got herself some fancy Lexus and I’m buying her Volvo XC70 - the closest I will hopefully ever come to a mini-van. I’m still having a lot of issues about working full-time, even though life seems “easier” since I started my new schedule. However, working all of those hours pays off in the sense of material items. It doesn’t make up for missing my girls. I’ve spent a lot of time lately thinking about what I might do if Jennifer decides not to come back to work (even though she swears up and down she will). It’s always good to be prepared for anything.

There is the usual 42 pounds of laundry waiting upstairs so I’m heading that way now. Hopefully I’ll have some pictures to post soon. I still refuse to break down and become one with this century - I have no digital camera as of yet.

Yes, we finally did it. We took Lily’s moldering, toxic, abused and disgusting Diaper Genie out of her room. It’s in the trash can as I write this, waiting to be picked up by whatever unfortunate garbage man has our house on his roster. I’d say she’s 90% potty trained - we just have to get rid of the remaining diaper she wears at night.

And I must thank all of you for letting me discuss in agonizing minutiae the process of potty training. It has consumed me and I hope that I will return to a more normal state, where I am not constantly asking firmly, “Do you need to go to the potty? Do you need to make a pee pee? Let’s go to the potty. Let me check your pants.”

I just thank god that Arden, at least now, is a lot more mellow and flexible than Lily is. My little obsessive-compulsive-nearly-3-years-going-on-15 child has some interesting desires these days. She has to open every door herself, close every door herself, flush every potty, take everything from anywhere herself (do you know how difficult this can be when she wants to wash her hands, and the countertop is 2 feet above her head, and she won’t let me pick her up????), etc etc ad nauseum. Last night we had to run into mom’s house so she could, yes, USE THE POTTY, and I left Arden in the car. I just wanted to run her in, put her on the potty, and run back out (it was late, Arden was angry, I was over it). Nope - she threw a complete fit because mom didn’t let her ring the doorbell and open the door. This resulted in hysterics that I eventually gave into and dragged her, pants around her ankles, back to the front door where the neighbors watched this white trash spectacle, helped her ring the doorbell, closed the door, waited for her to open it, and then dragged her back to the potty. Meanwhile, Arden sat, contentedly playing with her toes, while the drama played out around her.

She paid me back on the way home, screaming the entire way up 288 and 64. But I didn’t mind - it kept Lily from falling asleep in the back seat.

I’m heading up to prepare for the day at work. The project from hell continues. Although Jennifer rightly tells me that occasionally I sigh in front of clients (ooops!), I rarely lose it in front of them. I’ve lost it twice this week, not directly with the client (it isn’t their fault the project is from hell), but with other companies I’m working with. I think I actually said to one of them, after asking me a question for what had to be the 20th time, “You’ve got to be kidding me - you’re asking me this AGAIN?” Yesterday someone else from this group called me and I could barely respond for fear I was going to just start yelling. Breathe, Cristina… BREATHE. I just keep thinking about my old yoga instructor telling me to “Feel the effects of (insert yoga position here). Breathe.” Yesterday I felt like screaming, “FEEL THE EFFECTS OF MY WRATH!!! Is anyone out there listening, taking notes, paying attention??? HELLO!” Thankfully today I am in a more peaceful and zen-like place.

Oh yes, I forgot the most important thing. Jennifer and Troy’s baby girl may be home as soon as next week. So, while I’ll be losing my partner and sanity-rock for the next few months, I’ll be gaining a niece and they will be getting the most amazing experience of their lives. Puts all this other crap in perspective, doesn’t it?