Now A Family of *gulp* Six.

I took Roman to a birthday party at the bowling alley on Sunday and decided to stay (in the bar) and grade papers (with Bud Light). When I was finished and chatting with the other parents who stuck around, it struck me - they are all older than me. I consulted with Doug about this, thinking I was just feeling young, but he agreed - all Roman's friends have older siblings. We must be at the end (or beginning, I suppose) of a cycle. Sometimes I see it in teaching - I get a lot of siblings in a particular class, for example. But all the parents I run into I would estimate a good 4 years or so older than me. In thinking about the parents of Roman's friends, it's a weird reaction I have. They seem so natural at this kid-raising stuff. They know the ins and outs of the elementary school, of how to coordinate 16 kids at a birthday party, how to get both their kids to follow directions at the same time. It makes me parent-jealous at times, and I feel like I'm back in high scho...

Well, you can't tell in this photo, but he is! On Wednesday he took a couple steps between tv & push-toy, and Roman and I were both witness! Today he's been taking anywhere between 3-5 steps between objects in our house, and daycare reports he's been taking steps around there, too. This means many things, namely: Faster traveling, so we have to move Roman's toys faster. We need to buy him a good pair of shoes. He will begin to visit the Toddler room at daycare next week. So exciting! Isn't it amazing, too, that Wednesday was his due date? Developmentally he's a year old! Will try very hard to get a picture or better yet, video, this weekend.

Today is a day where I thank God that my life, albeit busy, is not BUSY. I am not moving across the country , nor planning a move to a big city . I did not just add another child to my family . I have not become unemployed from my dream job . Thank God. While I seem to be away most evenings lately, and up late doing work the rest of the evenings, and sometimes both combined - no big things here. Did I mention that God is good? * I hope the more personal blogs I linked to don't mind - I've been readers of them all for quite awhile now!

I've never been there, and hope I never will, but this week's been pretty close to what I imagine my personal hell would be... right down to the "tricked you!" weather. Throw another meeting my way this week and I will probably fall apart (all the way). Suffice it to say, it won't end until about Sunday night. Even though some things are good, it's just... busy. Tomorrow night is our first swim meet of the season. It's been a disaster this week. Lineup needed lots of little tweaks, then it wouldn't load in the computer today, and on top of that - 2 kids quit, out of the blue. Another teammate told me. Two more swimmers down with some sort of strep/cold thing. And our team? Well, let's say I'm not thinking I'll end up thrown into the water in celebration after the last meet. On top of that, just the little things of life - meetings, lots of emails, a couple cards to send out, school planning, grading papers, center time at Roman's kinde...

picture Fall 2007: but he's so darn cute! I spent the weekend scrapbooking, which is my favorite thing to do. Besides making new memories, of course. Got 32 pages done, as well as 4 weeks' worth of my Project 365. I scrapped pictures from 2007 and 2008, which was fun - whatever I felt like doing. A lot that I feel need to be in a book - those that bring about a lot of detailed memory or emotion - I didn't do, because I would have to concentrate on the journaling and you just can't do that with your bestest friends & your mom surrounding you, chatting. I did do one or two like that, though. Anyway, I was reflecting a lot about Roman through Charlie. I did a lot of photos of Charlie just so he can start to have a presence in the photo albums. And I was thinking that a lot of what Charlie is doing now is about where Roman was when he came home with us. For example, Charlie is just starting to grab our hands when we're sitting down, wanting us to finger-walk with h...

Poor Charlie! This time it's conjunctivitis, or bacterial pink-eye, whatever you'd like to call it. We call it "green boogers oozing from his eyes." Gross, really. Poor guy had symptoms of a cold and woke up this morning with his right eye all swollen and some discharge. I warned Doug he may get a call - sure enough, Charlie awoke from his morning nap with a fever (103 at the ped.) and eyes all crusty. Doug took him in to the dr. and was given a prescription eye drop which Charlie HATES. 3 drops each eye, 3x a day for 8 days. Charlie, btw, weighs 23.3 pounds now! On top of that, dr. said could probably turn into a sinus infection. If we see goo coming from ears or nose, we start amoxicillin. Awesome. Luckily, after 24 hours of eye drops he can go back to daycare, so Mama's at home caring for the baby tomorrow (and hopefully getting some papers graded!). The rest of us have to wash our hands religiously for the next 24 hours to make sure we don't contract it as...

Last week was a tough week, emotionally speaking. Not even me directly, but I took events really hard and personally. A woman at church lost her 23-year-old son Wednesday morning, and it turns out it was a drug overdose. Then, horribly, her second son committed suicide by overdose just 12 hours later. Two sons, 12 hours . I can't even fathom it. Not to mention the fact that drugs were involved with both, and who wants to face that as well? The funerals were today. The same day I heard of that, I received an email from our counselors at school - an eighth grade student's father died in a car crash on his way to work. The mom was visited by police at 8:30am that morning, and after calming down had to come get her only child out of school and tell her the news. Still thinking about that starts my tears flowing. A normal day, like every day. But not so normal. This has struck me so close to home that I am upset just thinking about what that mother has gone through. The two inciden...

Also: Doug. Downloading digital scrapbook kits that I can't wait to use. Having an afternoon to catch up on things. Knowing that I'll have a clean house tomorrow after the afternoon spent catching up on things.

Swim season has started, and I am so glad to be back. Missed out last year due to Charlie. We have 16 high-school helpers which just boggles my mind - they are all former members, most on the high school team, and they want to help. Some get community service, others are just doing it because "it's fun," they tell me. I am in love with the smell of chlorine again. Oh, how I've missed it. I took a picture of the pool Monday, all calm water and backstroke flags and lane markers... but it's still on the camera. So I'll have to wax poetic about it another day. I do, however, have portraits of Charlie that I have scanned in because I refuse to pay 12.50 a sheet to have my own copies. And it's too bad I won't pay it, because they are REALLY adorable this time around. Boys are doing great, we're all getting back into the swing of both parents being employed and both kids at their regular places of care. We've only had 2 weeks like this since January. ...