Get 'er done!

Air... must breathe...

I have locked myself up in our interrogation room-- our Batcave, our computer room, whatever you want to call it-- every day for the past 2 weeks that Danny has been home. I haven't checked facebook or email or answered the phone; I haven't written in my diary or scrapbooked or even cooked (I did however play my facebook Scrabble games with Katie Green). I would come out of this windowless, air-circulation-less closet to eat, feed the baby, bathe, feed the baby, sleep, feed the baby, and then start over again. My first deadline was two weeks ago. My revised Emergency Deadline was this past Friday. And today is literally my Now-or-Never deadline. And I'm excited to say, I think I might make this one- it's only 40 pages and the pages are taking more than 10 minutes each to upload. It may take seven hours... but if it doesn't print today, it won't make it on time. Now. Or never. And what a waste of my time "never" would have been.

I did come out of the cave to sing at church on Sunday. It had been forever since I last sang in an ensemble. I used to think singing in groups was such a brainless activity but it is not! My first rehearsal was an eye-opener- I forgot how to enunciate properly, I forgot to blend, I forgot how to read the rests, and I didn't have the lung capacity to hold a word for two measures! And I called a half note a quarter note!!! The shame! Everyone said it sounded great afterwards, but I don't trust anyone but Amy. The kind of sister that would look at your day-old child and tell you his hands look creepy is the kind of sister you can trust when you're not sure you were on pitch. I'm sure I sounded better than I smelled. I was wearing urine, spit-up, and way too much Chanel No. 5. I was practically choking on it. I'm a mom!

I've graduated to a new level of mom-hood today. I took Dominic to his first camp. For the next week he will be going everyday from 8-5 to gymnastics camp. He's lately taken to doing headstands by balancing himself on his head until he falls over. I'd prefer he not break his neck so I'm hoping they'll teach him to do it safely there. And also I'm hoping, though perhaps naively, that he'll stop flipping off my couch, hanging from the towel bars (we're running out of plaster), and body-slamming Noemie. It's not like Noemie can't take it... Noemie is in Sunday School with the three-year-olds because the two-year-olds aren't as interesting, apparently. She can frequently be found at the bottom of the boys' dogpiles with a big ol' smile on her face, throwing punches with the rest of them. She wont go anywhere without a purse and sunglasses but she's certainly not dainty.

Noemie, who experienced the greatest new-baby stress of all of us is finally finding her niche. She will occaisionally crawl into the baby carrier and pretend to be a baby, but more often than not she's playing the mama role-- wiping "Pooh poop" with baby wipes or pretending to breastfeed Buzz Lightyear. But she loves Toby and is always putting him in headlocks to give him kisses. Sweet and terrifying at the same time.

Work has been going well for Danny. The days pass quickly for him and he never knows what he's going to get. He was recently called out to attend to an elderly man who was scared half to death when a drawbridge started to lift while he was trying to cross. He was at the bottom of the bridge and the bridge rose perhaps 20 degrees before the young girl at the controls was alerted and the bridge was stopped. The man easily walked off the bridge and waited for police to arrive so that the incident could be properly documented. That evening Danny called me over to watch the evening news where that same man reported his near-death experience dangling from the top of the bridge by his cane. Danny's already-low estimation of channel 7 news sunk to a new depth.

Cristovan continues to be absolutely perfect. He loves to smile. I love to see him smile. It's a good match all around. Just today he started to suck his thumb. It was cute for about 3 seconds. I can't afford braces so we're going to get over that habit before the day is over, aren't we Toby? I love that child!

Gio leaves today on his "Vagrants & Vagabonds, Outlaws & Thieves" musical tour/hitchhiking-dumpster-diving adventure (or "hitchjacking" as my mother says.) Everything with Gio is an adventure.

Apparently Dominic's sound bites are a popular feature-- this may be my favorite yet but, I warn you, it's kinda gross.

(Dominic on the potty:)

"El poopoo mío esta sticky y yo le dije, 'Dale! Ve al hueco!' y tenía que empujar duro, duro, duro, duro (he's counting on his fingers...) duro, duro, duro... y bajó!"

Garcias. Thank goodness I didn't develop

their trademark feature. It's not like they hear any better...