Whoa, 6 months is half a year!‏

You know what they say, time flies when you're having fun! I can't believe Lorelai is 6 months old today. That's half a year (ya like my math skillz?)! I can honestly say I've loved every minute of it (ok, maybe not every minute, but every hour, on average:)). She truly is an awesome baby. Very happy and very easy. I'd also like to think that after having done this newborn thing twice before, I'm more laid back and experienced, which makes things go more smoothly. Or maybe it's just that I've got much more realistic expectations than I did the first time around. Or I'm giving my parenting skills too much credit, and all I did was give birth to a perfect baby. Wait, in that case, I'm not giving myself (or Adam) enough credit! :)

Knock on wood, she's also an amazing sleeper. Knock on wood. A lot. I'm hesitant to talk about how well she's sleeping for fear that I'll jinx it, but she's been sleeping through the night since about 8 weeks old. And not just the textbook definition of 6 hours. I'm talking down at 9pm until I wake her up at 7am. These days we're talking 7:30pm(ish) to 7am(ish), and sometimes later on the weekends when we don't have to get up early. This morning she was still sound asleep at 9am, so I had to wake her up! I was so worried that my luck was up after having two good sleepers already, so I can't believe I was blessed a third time. Knock on wood.

I admit, I do nurse her to sleep (I know, I know, go ahead and cringe because "they" say you're not supposed to), but it works for us, and I treasure that time with her every evening. And I don't think she necessarily needs it to go to sleep since she falls asleep on her own for naps. But we'll see what kind of monster I've created whenever she weans.

So what else is missy poo up to? She’s been rolling from back to tummy since she was 4 months old, although she doesn’t like to roll from her tummy to her back. In the last week, she's been sitting on her own. Her favorite babble right now is dadadadadada, and she also says "heeeeyyyy". No teeth yet, but I keep thinking any time now. She's been wanting her paci a lot more these days, and I think she may be biting on it as much as she's sucking on it because of teething. She was also a thumb-sucker for a little while, but not as much anymore. Maybe because it hurts to bite your own thumb.

She loves her brothers, her Sophie, being around people, and taking baths. She hates being alone (unless it’s bedtime or nap time). She'll cry if we walk out of her sight, but is happy as a clam when the boys are all up in her grill. Which they are. A lot. It's a totally mutual love.

And last, but not least, she had her first taste of solid foods this morning! We chose to start with avocado and she loved it! She's been exclusively breastfed up until now (with pumped bottles of milk at daycare), and she's definitely been showing an interest in our food. although I can’t say I was in any rush. I'm hesitant to do anything that could mess with the good sleep we've been having, but it's time.  I’m also going to make up a batch of sweet potatoes and squash this weekend that we can try later in the week.

Here she is, our beautiful 6 month old!

Winter is nature's way of saying, "Up yours"‏

A poignant quote by Robert Byrne, as seen on a facebook friend’s status today.

And I think Logan totally agrees. He's so over the cold weather that had an argument with me this morning about wanting to wear flip flops and no coat. My explanation of "it's WINTER. Winter means COLD!" just doesn't cut it for him. Sorry kiddo, just because you don't wear a coat or put on flip flops, doesn't make it magically warm. Here's how this morning went as I was trying to get us out the door (imagine Logan using his most whiny "it's the end of the world" voice):

Logan: I want to wear my flip flops!
Me: No honey, it's too cold out.
Logan: No it's not, I want to!
Me: Sweetie, when it's cold enough out to freeze water into ice, it's too cold for flip flops.
Logan: But I waaaaaaaannnnnnnnnnnaaaaaaaaaaa wear them!!!
Me: Dude. If you wear flip flops, your toes will turn black and fall off. Now get on your coat, we have to go.
Logan: Why do I have to wear my coat EVERY DAY?! I don't waaaannnnaaaa wear my coat!
Me: I'm not sure what to tell you, honey. It's January. In a few more months it won't be winter and then you won't have to wear your coat anymore. Until then, you have to.
Logan: But it's the END of January (like he was arguing that means it's not winter anymore??).
Me: Sorry Lo, even the end of January is winter coat weather. And all of February. And March. But it'll probably be nice enough to ride bikes or scooters this weekend!

By that time, the coat was on and he was buckled and I thought I had sufficiently explained the whole "it's cold outside" thing and re-directed his attention. Until we drove past the neighborhood pool. I couldn't help but laugh when he said "Mommy, can we go to the pool?". Sigh.

Well, at least we're not in the negative temps, under feet of snow! But I'm definitely looking forward to milder 50+ degree weather this weekend! Spring can't get here soon enough! It's sad but true—my family is just not cut out for cold weather.


Not a picture from today, but this is what Logan looked like this morning when he was arguing with me. Classic Logan.



Dinner fail

You know that absorbant pad that goes under the meat in the package? Kinda like a meat diaper? Well someone who shall remain nameless accidentally put it in the crock pot with our beef and it cooked in there all day. GROSS. What's even grosser? We totally ate the meat (after I removed the pad, of course).

In our defense, it was completely intact and didn't look melted at all. And according to the all-knowing Google (and the USDA): "The absorbent pad is clearly not intended to be cooked; however, if this happens and the packaging materials remain unaltered (that is, do not melt or come apart), the cooked meat will not pose an imminent health hazard. If the packaging materials have melted or changed shape in some other way, do not use the product."

No imminent health hazard? What a ringing endorsement--consider me sold! The bargain hunter in me just didn't have the heart to throw the entire dinner away, especially since it smelled SO good. We'll just chalk it up to a lesson learned, and cross our fingers we don't get sick!

Here's the really easy, super yummy recipe, in case you're wondering:

Pepperoncini Beef  

Prep Time: 10 Minutes
Cook Time: 8 Hours 
Servings: 12

Ingredients:
1 (3 pound) beef chuck roast
4 cloves garlic, sliced
1 (16 ounce) jar pepperoncini

Directions:
1. Make small cuts in roast, and insert garlic slices in cuts. Place roast in the slow cooker, and pour the entire contents of the jar of pepperoncini, including liquid, over meat.
2. Cover, and cook on Low for 6 to 8 hours.
3. Serve on hoagie rolls with provolone or mozzarella cheese (put under the broiler for a few minutes to melt the cheese and toast the bun).

I actually substitute mild banana pepper rings instead of the pepperoncini because the boys won't eat anything spicy. Makes great leftovers!

Zumba

Woohoo/yikes, it's Zumba time again! I'm so excited to get back to my weekly Zumba class, but I'm kind of dreading it because I'm SO out of shape. No lie, I was more in shape at 30 weeks pregnant, the last time I took the class, than I am now. Like I said, YIKES...

But it's cool, I'll just huff and puff my way through it and hope I don't trip over myself out of exhaustion. It's only an hour. I think I can, I think I can!

I really am looking forward to working out again. I've missed my butt. I hope to get it back, along with all the rest of my muscles which have mysteriously disappeared in the last 6 months.

Ooh na na, what's my name?

(If you've got Rihanna’s What’s My Name stuck in your head now, you're welcome.)

Like most normal parents, we’ve got so many cutesy nicknames for Lorelai that I keep thinking she may never know her real name!  It’s funny though, none of the nicknames we use are any variation of her real name because we decided right off the bat that she will never go by any shortened version of Lorelai.  We call her missy poo, sweetie girl, pookie boo, baby girl, guuuuuurrrrrrllllll (thanks to this hilarious YouTube video), stinky butt and boo bear, just to name a few.  Even the boys do it, which is so cute!  Aidan will get this high-pitched voice going and say something to her like “awwww, missy poo! You’re such a cutie girl, I love you!” Makes my heart melt. 

But yeah, I guess we should start calling her by her real name more often to avoid an awkward identity crisis when she gets older!

Missy poo

pookie boo

Oh poop!

My apologies in advance for poop talk, but I've got a baby and two boys. It's inevitable, right? What I didn't think was inevitable was all of the clogged potties we'd have to deal with. How is it possible for a 4-year-old to clog the potty more than a grown man?? Seriously, dude has been clogging the potty like a champ since he was like 2 1/2! So last night, Logan does it again for the bazillioth time. I was in the middle of dinner so I didn't get to it right away. Plus, I like to leave these things to Adam, who wasn’t home yet (you're welcome honey). Turns out, Aidan either didn't remember or didn't care that it was clogged, so he dumped on Logan's dump. Just awesome. I didn't even realize this until Adam gets home and that's the first thing they tell him. Like they're proud of their grossness. Wow, the things I have to look forward to, right? Adam took care of it like a pro and only got a little bit of poop water on his pants. GAG.

I also never thought I'd have to deal with baby poop up the back and all the way down to the toes. I'm not exaggerating when I say that it was literally down to her toes, pooling in the bottom of her footed sleeper. I got Lorelai out of the exersaucer the other day because I saw poop up her back. Not a new thing because no diaper is a match for her massive blowouts, but what I didn't realize—until I saw the look of dread on Adam's face—was that it had blown out the bottom too, and my arm was soaked in poo. I should probably buy stock in oxiclean, as much as we use it!

That's the scoop on poop at our house! Because I’m sure you were just dying to know…

My little men

The other evening as I was driving the kids home, I was SO tired. I told the boys that I felt like I was going to fall asleep.  Here’s how the conversation went:

Aidan: It’s ok Mommy, if you fall asleep, we can just carry you inside and put you in bed.  We’ll take off your coat and your shoes and your earrings so you can sleep.

Logan: And we’ll carry Lorelai in.  Both of us have to carry her together so we can be really careful, but it’s ok, we’re strong.

OMG I love those boys! They take such good care of me and Lorelai!  How did I get so lucky?!

Slipping and sliding and scootering

Pretty sure I just made up a word there, didn’t I?

Anyway, the boys got out this weekend to ride the scooters they got for Christmas, since the sun was shining and it was actually nice enough to go outside without feeling like a body part is going to freeze off!  However, the sun just doesn’t shine in our front yard at all in the winter, so five days after our really lame “snowstorm” which ended up being mostly ice, our front yard/driveway was still a solid sheet of ice. It certainly made the scootering more interesting when there was an ice skating component involved (a new winter Olympics sport, perhaps?)! In order to get to the street safely, we had to walk on little tufts of grass sticking up through the ice. Good times.

It was funny because Adam decided to grab our rake (???) to try to break up the ice on the driveway. Our neighbor heard the noise and I imagine after he got done secretly laughing at us, he came out to offer some of his ice melt. Yeah, we definitely need to get some of that for next time. I’m happy to report that our driveway is no longer a safety hazard (although I guess this means scooter-skate training for the winter Olympics is out of the question now).

Lorelai’s birth story—Part 3

While I was waiting for the epidural, Dr. Heath came in, and I realized it was the same doctor who delivered my nephew Shaun five years ago, and we were in the very same room (I was there as Jillian gave birth to him)!  What a coincidence! Even though he wasn’t my doctor, I immediately felt good about things because Jillian had spoken so highly of him.  We talked about my situation with shoulder dystocia and ways to prevent it.  I discussed with him the idea of laboring down, where instead of pushing right when I get to 10cm, I would wait and let my body do the work of moving the baby down.  The theory is that this allows time for the baby’s shoulders to rotate into proper position (Logan had a fairly rapid descent, so that may have been one reason he got stuck).  He was totally on board with the idea and suggested a dense epidural so I could get some rest and not be overcome with the urge to push right away.  Sounded like heaven to me! I got my epidural at 1:30am and it was the best thing ever.  I even caught a few minutes of sleep (thank you, Tylenol PM!), and so did Adam.

A little bit before 3am, the Nurse Nancy came in to check me. I was 8cm and my water broke as she was checking me.  30 minutes later, she noticed that Lorelai was having some concerning heart decelerations so she woke the doctor up and they came to check me. In that short time, I had gone from 8 to 10cm, so Dr. Heath told me he was very sorry he couldn’t follow my birth plan, but I was going to have to push right away because Lorelai wasn’t tolerating the contractions (cue freak out number 1). He said he didn’t want to have to talk c-sections right away, but if I didn’t get her out ASAP, it was a strong possibility (cue freak out number 2).  They wanted to attach an internal monitor to her scalp so they could more accurately monitor her heart rate, but they couldn’t get it to read.  Of course I got scared that they couldn’t pick up her heartbeat (you guessed it, freakout number 3).  After several tries to attach it, they finally gave up and just readjusted the external monitors.  I pushed for a few contractions and seriously couldn’t feel a thing. Nada. Zip. Nothing. You’d think that would be a good thing, but I was very much freaking out that I wouldn’t be able to push her out fast enough if it came down to it, so I had him turn down my epidural (so sad, it was nice while it lasted).  Very fortunately, the pushing I did got her into a better position, so the decels weren’t happening anymore.  Dr. Heath agreed to let me continue to labor down. He went back to sleep.  I didn’t.

At about 5:25am, I called the nurse in because my epidural had pretty much totally worn off on my left side, and I was in a good bit of pain by then.  I wanted to go ahead and start pushing because I couldn’t take it anymore and I felt the urge.  The nurse told me my natural contractions were so consistent and close together that they looked like pitocin contractions. She didn’t want to stress the baby too much, so she had me push during every other contraction.  She called the doctor (woke him up again) at 5:50am and he checked my progress. He thought it looked like I still had a ways to go to bring her down, so he left to go back to sleep.  Seriously not 5 minutes later, I had a couple of really strong contractions and couldn’t help but push, so the nurse had to call the doctor back in ASAP—Lorelai was on her way out!  He brought in with him an extra team of doctors in case of shoulder dystocia.  Although I didn’t love the extra audience, it reassured me to know they were so prepared in case anything went wrong.

Over the next few minutes, so much happened in such a blur. A complete range of emotions overwhelmed me.  A couple of pushes after the doctor got there, at 6:03am, Lorelai was out! Not stuck! Such relief! Adam cried and told me she was beautiful! The doctor said “whoa, she’s huge”! I saw in the mirror that she was a girl! Elation! Only to be followed by immediate panic when we realized there was A LOT of meconium—she had pooped during labor.  Cue freak out number 4.  A few seconds later, we realize she had a true knot in her cord. Yep, freak out number 5.  Extra peds staff was paged and she was suctioned immediately while Adam hurriedly cut the cord.  She was whisked away to the warmer and I wasn’t able to hold her right away. Panic. Was she ok?  I heard her cry and the doctor reassured me that she was fine, and they were just doing a really thorough suction so make sure she didn’t aspirate any meconium.  Her apgars were 9&9! She had a ridiculous amount of gorgeous dark hair—no wonder they couldn’t get a good attachment to her scalp with the internal monitor! Then they got her on the scale, and holy crap, I just birthed a 9lb 1oz baby! 

As Dr. Heath was finishing up with me and examining the umbilical cord, he showed me the knot—it was very tight—and told me that we got lucky because that’s one of the causes of fetal demise in utero. Way to freak an already overly emotional mom out, dude!  Especially since I hadn’t yet got to hold my precious baby.  Anyway, we don’t really know when the knot happened, but I guess the theory is that as she descended, it got tighter, which is what caused or contributed to the heart decels they were picking up on in labor.  This stressed Lorelai out, which caused her to poop.  It’s just so ironic that the major concerns we had going into the hospital didn’t happen, but a whole mess of other things did.  All things considered, we were indeed very lucky that she was so perfect.  And she has been nothing short of perfect, ever since!

They finally gave her to me to hold, and it was heaven.  I finally had my little girl.  And because it was right during a shift change, Adam and I got lots of quality time with her before they had to take her to the nursery and move me to my postpartum room.  She nursed like a champ and we made excited phone calls to family and friends.  Another coincidence—my new nurse on duty was Takenya, the same nurse who had delivered Logan.  She was wonderful, so it was nice seeing her again (bummer she wasn’t the one to deliver Lorelai).  Plus, she got them to bring me breakfast, since I was starving!

So there you finally have it, Lorelai’s birth story.  I get so nostalgic thinking about my labor experiences—I so wish I had written everything down like this with the boys.  Each was such an amazing experience, filled with anticipation, excitement, fear, exhaustion, pain, and an overwhelming sense of joy and accomplishment.   What a true miracle it is to grow and give birth to another human being.

Lorelai Eve
July 29, 2010 at 6:03am
9lb 1oz and 21.5 inches



Those are some seriously proud big brothers!





And a very proud Daddy!

 














(Read Part 1 here, Part 2 here)

Lorelai’s birth story—Part 2

Mom got to our house around 10pm.  So You Think You Can Dance was over (and I was probably still thinking how pissed I was that Alex Freakin’ Wong wasn’t still in it to win it!) so I gave my mom the rundown on our morning routine and Aidan’s bus info (and in between contractions, I was crazy enough to clean my shower for my mom because I forgot to do it earlier!!) and headed to bed.  Thinking I was in for a long night of trying to sleep through random contractions, I took 2 Tylenol PM and laid down in bed with my Mom while she watched the news.  Adam was downstairs playing his computer game.  I was getting so annoyed by the TV that at 11:15pm I had to tell her to turn it off. She went to bed, and less than 15 minutes later, I noticed my contractions were all of a sudden less than 3 minutes apart!!  My fifth contraction like that was unfreakingbelievably painful and would.not.stop, so I screamed for Adam.  I called the doctor on call and explained that my contractions hadn’t been close together for the typical hour they tell you to wait, but they were crazy painful.  As he talked to me through a few contractions, he was very nice and said that I could come in if I wanted, and they could always send me home if I wasn’t far enough along. As soon as I explained to him that I was already 4cm and it takes 20-25 minutes to get to the hospital, he said “umm, yeah, you should come right away!”

We woke mom up and she frantically helped us get our bags together and everything in the car. As we were getting ready to leave, I realized I needed to eat!!  I grabbed my leftover pad thai that I was saving for lunch the next day and I scarfed it down in between contractions in the car.  I will always have a fondness for Shiki Sushi and shrimp pad thai from now on :).

We got to the hospital at 12:30am, and my contractions were almost non-stop.  It seemed like it took 500 years to get us checked in and wait for a transport up to L&D, but I guess it was really only about 10 minutes.  I just remember talking to the patient registration lady with my eyes closed telling her that I needed to get up there ASAP because I was scared to death I was going to miss my chance for the epidural!  I did remember to ask for a room with a tub like I had with Logan, but no dice L.  By the time I got up to my room and the very sweet Nurse Nancy checked me, I was 5cm.  I could have SWORN I was further along than that because it seriously felt like she was about to fall out.  I presented them with my birth plan but told them to go ahead and ignore the part where it said I wanted to labor as long as possible without the epi.  I’d had enough and needed it NOW! (Yes, I’m a total wimp when it comes to pain.)  That was the longest 45 minutes ever!  I was literally frozen in pain, hunched over the side of the bed.  I couldn’t even sit on the birth ball the nurse brought in for me, which felt so good when I was in labor with Logan.  Poor Adam probably felt so helpless, but he did everything right—got me water, rubbed my back, told me I was doing great.  I love him so much for being such a cheerleader for me.

To be continued…

(Here's Part 1 and Part 3)

Lorelai’s birth story—Part 1

She’s almost 6 months old, but better late than never, right?  It’s long because I want to remember and write down as many details as possible, so I’ll do it in parts.


A little background first.  I had an elective induction with Logan on the day after my due date.  He was a pretty big boy (8lb11oz, which no one predicted) and had mild shoulder dystocia (his shoulder got stuck briefly).  He was fine and there were no complications, but this is apparently one of the most scary obstetrical complications that can happen during delivery.  My doctor actually said that if Logan had been any bigger, we probably would have been in trouble.  This was noted in my file, so when I got pregnant with Lorelai, we had to pay very close attention to how big she was.  I got an estimated fetal weight ultrasound at 37 weeks, which said she was already 8lb7oz, meaning they were predicting a 10lb 40-weeker! OMG! (Yes, I was in serious denial and didn’t think she would be bigger than Logan.) I was SO worried they’d force me into having a c-section due to her size, so this was a huge stressor for me.


Anyway, on the morning of July 28 at my 39-week appointment, I found out I was already 4cm dilated and 75% effaced, so the wonderful Dr. Fetko agreed strip my membranes to get things going naturally (after another doc in the practice refused the week before, even though I was plenty dilated already—apparently all the males in the practice are against it).  My OB practice shares on call duties every other night with another practice (just so happens to be the OB my sister uses), so Dr. Fetko made me promise not to tell them she stripped me if I went into labor that night—I guess it’s not good OB etiquette to send someone into labor without being available to deliver them yourself? Whatever, she was my hero for doing that so I’d promise her the moon if I had to! We also scheduled an induction for August 2nd, just in case.  (Oh, it’s also worth noting that based on external palpations of my belly, my doctor predicted about an 8lb baby, so not too huge.)


Adam had taken the morning off so he could go to my appointment with me.  He was there for moral support as we discussed with the doctor ways to avoid shoulder dystocia and came up with a good birth plan.  Luckily, my doctor at that point was pretty confident that I would have a successful vaginal delivery. She was on call that next day, so told me she’d probably see me at the hospital to deliver, fingers crossed! Needless to say, I was a happy girl when I left the appointment. 


Adam and I went out to lunch at Shiki Sushi (YUM, shrimp pad thai!), where I started having random contractions.  That afternoon as he and I were working from home, I got out my handy dandy contraction timer on my iphone. They were becoming increasingly painful, but not regular and closer together.  I bounced endlessly on my exercise ball while I sat at my computer and worked.  I was getting excited, but trying not to get my hopes up.


By the time we got the boys home from school, I was having to pause during contractions and several times I had to ask the boys to hang on a minute before I could do something or talk to them, although they were still anywhere from 5, 7, 10, 15 minutes apart randomly at that point. Luckily I wasn’t screaming in pain, so I didn’t scare them.  We ate dinner and I decided to go out for a walk while I called my mom to update her.  The plan was for her to come over and stay with the boys when she got the call that I was in labor, but I knew what I was going through could stall or last like that for a long time, so we were trying to decide whether she should spend the night or not.   But just to be on the safe side, we decided that she would come over after the boys had gone to bed—no harm done if it didn’t happen, but it would be easier on her than waking up in the middle of the night and scrambling to get to our house.  Thank goodness for that foresight!!!


To be continued...

(here's part 2 and part 3)

My little shark

A couple of weeks before Christmas, I noticed that Aidan had two permanent teeth coming in behind his baby teeth.  He actually said to me, “Mommy, I’m like a shark with two rows of teeth!” He thought it was cool, but I was weirded out! At first, only one was even the slightest bit loose so I was totally worried he’d have to get his baby teeth pulled.  Luckily, they both came out easily with only a slight assist from Adam. I, however, couldn’t be anywhere near his loose tooth because that type of thing totally creeps me out!

Anyway, Aidan had his first visit from the tooth fairy on December 30, and you’d have thought he’d pulled out a gold tooth from the $5 that was left under the pillow!  Yeah, that’s what happens when the tooth fairy is caught with only a $5 and a $20 on hand (although, we explained to Aidan that the tooth fairy pays more for the first tooth because it’s such a big deal—gotta keep those expectations in check for future teeth or we’ll go broke).  His second visit from the tooth fairy was this past Saturday night.  This time, she left a much more reasonable $1 after learning her lesson the first time.

Name that blog

I have had the HARDEST time naming this blog! So I did what any sane mom does—ask my 4-year-old and 6-year-old.  I explained to them that I was creating something called a blog on the computer so I could write down things that happen with our family, so I needed a name that described our family.  So Logan suggested poop. Nice.  Aidan’s suggestion was ham. HUH???  He explained that ham was meat, like that made all the sense in the world. Still didn’t get it, so being ever so helpful, Logan chimed in saying that we have meat in us (??).  Mmmmmkaaay, back to the drawing board! 

I kept trying to come up with a creative blog name that involved our last name, and actually did come up with a (very lame) one, but then decided that maybe I should just go with first names on the blog to maintain a certain level of anonymity.  Not that I expect anyone but family to read this, but I’d rather avoid any crazy internet stalkers…you know, just in case.  (I may have watched a few too many Lifetime TV movies in my day, but paranoia becomes me, I think.)

As I was laying in bed this morning, I was thinking how many things we need to do today to get ready for the week, but all I wanted to do was be lazy instead.  Story of my life.  Anyway, that’s the story behind the blog name.  You’re welcome for not naming it poopyham.blogspot.com (which is available, I checked).

Jumping on the bandwagon

So clearly everyone and their brother’s cousin’s uncle has a blog, so I figured why not?  All the cool kids are doing it, and I’m nothing if not a follower ☺  (Seriously, I hope my kids are better leaders/innovators than I’m ever destined to be!).  I’m also totally a procrastinator.  I’ve been thinking about starting a blog since I was on maternity leave with Lorelai…but it’s almost 6 months (!!) later and I’m just now getting my butt in gear. Better late than never?  Yay for New Year’s resolutions!  Anyway, I figured it would be a good way to keep family in the loop and help me remember all of the super/wonderful/crazy/interesting things we do (wait, we’re really boring homebodies…but the kids are REALLY cute/wonderful/crazy/awesome, which makes up for any boring-ness, I hope!).  So ta-da…my BLOG!  Even if the only person who reads this is my mom (wait, bad example…my Mom and technology are so not BFFs! She’d be all like “blog, what?”), that’s cool. I can always pretend like I have a bunch of readers. ☺