Boo is not a terribly barky dog, for which I am grateful. He will bark at dogs outside briefly, and he barks at the door when someone knocks or rings the doorbell. He continues to bark until we have opened the door and shown him there is no threat.

Now we actually like this feature about him, for the most part, because he actually has alerted us to a potential bad person. Some man was going around our neighborhood, opening unlocked cars and taking things that did not belong to him– and he tried the doors of houses too. He tried ours when we were in the living room, and the door was locked. This just after he’d tried our neighbor’s door and she was home too, so we were on high alarm. Her door was unlocked, though, our kids were playing outside together, it was 5:00 P.M. Both times he ran away, but Brian charged out there with an 8 iron; I imagine if he saw that he would decide he’d just leave our house alone.

We think it was somebody on drugs, cause there was nothing rational about his attempts. He did go back to the neighbor’s house at 6AM the next morning, and set off her back door alarm. At this point I got pissy, and asked the officers who responded to do a proper search of the neighborhood. There was a parts yard in a field behind the subdivision, which they also searched. They found the remains of a campfire, so who knows, perhaps it was a transient? They moved on, as no one came back to the fire, and the owners of the parts yard moved the yard, and increased security. Yeah for no more auto parts behind our subdivision!

Anyway, this is the story of other things.

It was the week before Easter, Alice was asleep. The doorbell rang, and the dog barked, which woke Alice. When I opened the door, it was some woman inviting me to an Easter thing at her church. As I said “No thank you,” I pointed to the NO SOLICITING sign on the door. “Oh, I’m not selling anything!” she said, smiling, heedless of the fact that my baby is crying, and the dog is still barking. At this point, I get angry, and I yell “Yes, you are, you are selling religion!” and slam the door. Emma was there, and looked at me in amazement. Later, she told Brian what I had said, he was amused.

I was tired, Alice was sick, not sleeping… some days are just bad for waking a baby! And I find, to most rational people, that a
“NO SOLICITING” sign says “Leave me the fuck alone!”

Craters of the Moon National Monument

More info:HERE

I find myself wanting to force feed her.Ya, I watch a lot of her these days…

I’m just going to ignore the fact that I haven’t posted for 6 months. I was depressed. I am not depressed anymore. I was pregnant.

This is us, the morning I went in for the C-section. A family of 3! Soon to be 4...

40 lbs lighter! Literally!

And then I wasn’t pregnant anymore! I had polyhydramnios and pre-eclampsia, so I was very glad to no longer be pregnant, and to have a healthy baby. Who is scrumptious!

Brian shot this photo, just after her first bath. She was 19.25 inches long, and 8'7".

Alice is the sweetest baby ever, I promise!  I get to enjoy almost every minute of her, since I’m now at home full time with her. I am still in school, so when Brian has her in the mornings, when I hit my classes. He is, predictably, a great daddy. Emma, as you might guess, LOVES her baby sister!

She calls her "my baby". She carries her everywhere. I did try and stop her...But now I am glad of the help. She even changes poopy diapers!

I am finally feeling better. I had to have a minor surgery to fix something awry, but more on that some other time. I know you want another Alice picture!

My beautiful girls! Do you like Alice's dark hair??? She got that from her daddy!

Depression sucks, even when it’s just situational. We are done with it. Things are looking up. No worries, it wasn’t anything to do with the baby, or marriage or anything.

Some skin to skin time. She is so cute! I love this picture...

I look like hell, but I was sick, and then the surgery wasn’t a ton of fun. I was puking. Happy, but puking.

Anyway, here I sit, 14 weeks later, finally feeling like myself. A little, anyway. My hair is falling out (post baby, normal), and I can’t exercise yet, although I expect to get the green light on Friday. Alice is precious and snuggly, very smart and trying to talk already. She loves to be held, loves her toys, loves her sister… She is a great baby.

She slept through the zoo...

I like butterflies!

She was an angel in Montana...

Brian always manages to take photos when I’m eating!

Last Sunday she snuggled happily into her grandpa's arms for a nap.

So this is what I’ve been up to, how about  you?

At Wicked! Best mothers day ever!

I love my life!

Well, it appears the reason I went private is not to be.

Jeff had sent me an email offering to let Brian adopt Emma. And then never returned my phone calls.  We are disappointed, but not in any way surprised. Same story, different day. He’s never done what was best for Emma before, why would he start now, really?

It would have been nice. But I no longer feel like curling myself around my family and keeping secrets, since that was it, you know?

Last week was spring break, for both Emma and myself, and it was lovely. An entire week of watching nothing but junk television and reading what I wanted to read, instead of textbooks.  Brian laughs at me, since my idea of junk TV is cooking shows and ones about animals. It’s back to A&P for me tonight. And finishing my taxes and registering for classes for Summer and Fall. As tired as I get with school I love it so much.

We started on Alice’s room, and got into one of our rare tiffs, because I moved the suitcases and the old car seat and stroller out of the closet and into the garage, which he had just organized. FORGET that we aren’t even parking in it right now, due to the chair rails drying, etc… I finally told him “I’m nesting, damnit!” and offered to take half of the suitcases and the old car seats to  Good Will. So now the baby stuff (I didn’t call it shit, here– my kid will come out cussing…) is in the closet, and I feel better. We picked pale lavender and antique silver as the colors, and I think it will look really nice once the second coat goes on, and the chair rail is put up. Yes, of course, I will take pictures.

There is still job stuff up in the air, and school stuff– I applied for surgical tech, but since I applied late I know I won’t get in this year. Which doesn’t break my heart, since I didn’t even KNOW about the program until a month ago, and it’s an intensive program, so it might have been hard with a brand new baby. Plan is to take medical billing classes next year, and apply for nursing program at BSU, since I’ll have done two full years at my little community college by this time next year. I can work in Medical Billing and do the nursing school stuff and see where we go from there.

In other news, I’m huge. Emma is smart, and the best thing ever, and we are good. Brian continues to be wonder-dad, and wonder-husband. We were play fighting about something yesterday in the garage and Emma says “Girls, Girls! You are both pretty! Can I go home now?” We love Megamind, you should see it…

I’ve taken to consulting the magic 8 ball my boss gave me when tax clients call, and thus far, it’s been fairly right. Some clients think I’m joking when I say I’ll consult the magic 8 ball…

Waiting for the summer…