Remember me?

I know - it's been years since I've posted.  There's been a lot going on - nothing of major, life altering import, but it's been busy and hectic around here, and it's hard to find time to check in and blog.  Even now, I'm typing with Julianna bouncing face down across my lap.  That's her go-to position, when nursing won't work to settle her, I just pop her across my lap and start to bounce.  Works like a charm - it doesn't always put her to sleep, but it does always make her quiet and calm.  I think she goes into a little trance... but either way, it's a quick, easy solution to the fussies....

Both Sam and Jessica are sound asleep on the couch, and Marc is at the gym.  Flashback... because he used to go to the gym all the time, and my kids always passed out on the couch.   With the new house, we've been able to set up a work out area downstairs, and more often than not, that's where he's working out these days, and Jessie generally goes to bed and falls asleep there.  Sam is still a "pass out on the couch" kind of guy.

My girls aren't getting along these days - and by my girls, I mean, Lilli, Sarah and Jessica.  We're not sure why - if it's the beginnings of puberty with the older girls, Jessie acting out more and more because she's feeling left out and ignored with a cute baby sister taking attention away, or if it's just pent up stepfamily stuff that's been festering for years.  Stepfamily issues are always hard - it's not a comfortable fit, mostly.  I mean, there's no way to deny that there are challenges and issues that we struggle with - even though we've had it much easier than most families.  The girls are so great, and it seemed as though for the longest time, it was almost seamless.  We worked so hard to make it easy for everyone, to have it be one big happy family - so having trouble now seems... just odd.  I would have expected this earlier on - but we hit our nine year anniversary earlier this year.  I don't know - I'm confused and frustrated and trying hard to figure out how to MAKE them get along like they used to.  

Speaking of nine years... Marc and I decided to renew our wedding vows next year.  It'll be ten years in February, and we'd like to have a Jewish wedding now that I've converted.  And the pressure has already started, my mother wants to have that "Say Yes to the Dress" moment with me, and I'm still not sure that I even want to get a wedding dress.  After ten years and three children, putting on a white dress seems silly - but I'd guess that you can expect MANY more posts on that topic.  But I'm delighted at the thought of celebrating my marriage to Marc - delighted that after nine years, I'm just as much in love with him as I was when we first got together.   He's truly the best man in the world, brilliant, unbelievably kind and patient and loving - I don't know how I got so lucky, but think it's definitely worth a celebration :-)

We took Sam to his kindergarten orientation this morning - and he's still pretty adamant that he's NOT going to be going.  But I could see that he was, at least a little bit, intrigued by the classrooms and the other kids on the tour.  I have a good feeling about it - it was a difficult decision to keep him home this year, and I know that pretty much everyone thought that we were making a mistake by not forcing preschool on him - but I really think that the extra year of maturation will make a big difference.

I've got a conference set up to discuss my angel girl's report card - she's consistently scoring either high average or straight up above average on standardized tests, but isn't consistently performing in class.  I think it's a combination of her assuming that she knows how to do it and not actually paying attention to the directions (because she does that all the time with me at home) and a lot of daydreaming.  Either way, it's frustrating, because I know that she knows perfectly well how to do the work (and the test results back me up), but she's not consistent about it. 

Julianna is definitely crawling ALL OVER THE PLACE.  Unfortunately, she's not super stable on the crawling and earlier tonight, misjudged her arm placement and fell face down onto a duplo pig and has a big bruise on her little cheek.  She pulled herself up to a standing position earlier, Jessie and I were sitting on the couch together and Julie crawled over and suddenly was standing up in front of me.  I was shocked, and so was she - because once she realized it (and saw the look on  my face - I was really surprised, and a little taken aback, I had barely adjusted to the fact that she was crawling), she immediately plopped back down on her butt and started to cry.  It's so fast!