So, I think I sort of forgot about my little blog here for a while. Here’s a recap on the major stuff that’s been happening around these parts:

Lucy and sleeping

Well… I guess it’s sort of better? I mean, she still wakes up at night and comes into my room and wakes me up, but she just asks me to tuck her back into bed or take her to the bathroom, she understands that she can’t get in my bed until morning. We have one of those day/night clocks in her room that’s blue at night and turns yellow in the morning when it’s ok for her to wake up, and she gets that. “I stay my own bed until my clock be yellow!” That’s right, baby. I mean, it’s lip service, and she doesn’t actually stay in her own bed until her clock turns yellow, but maybe after enough repetition, she’ll get it.

So, I guess we’ll call it progress.

Potty-training

I don’t know if I’ve really written much about potty training this time around. It was so awful with Catie, and I was dreading doing it again with Lucy. And, I think we’re basically… done? I mean, the other night, I heard her little feet scurry to the bathroom and her tiny voice call out, “there’s no toilet paper here!” And I realized that she hasn’t had an accident in weeks, and I think she’s pretty much got it nailed.

So, ok, fine. I know I always think of Lucy as my difficult child, especially when compared to my super-cautious Catie, so I guess we’ll file “relatively easy to potty train” as a win in her column. Although I think most of the credit goes to daycare for this one.

Visitation with Dave

Everything seems to be fine. There’s some adjustment, sure – Catie in particular is testing his boundaries, but I think that’s normal given the circumstances. But the back-and-forth has been pretty smooth for the most part, and getting those extra few nights of sleep is the BEST.

Catie and school stuff

Catie is still really resistant about reading and spelling, and I ended up talking with the head of the English department at one of our nearby high schools, who said she has “teacher cadets” (students training to become teachers) who help struggling students. And it counts toward their volunteer hours that they need to log for college, so it’s free. I’m so incredibly grateful for the help, I’m starting to feel like this might be a really good way to reach Catie. She’s always eager to please “older kids” – particularly teenage girls (like our baby-sitter) – and I think this might be the best route for us. Fingers crossed.

And when she gives me attitude about homework, threatening to take away her video game time is usually a pretty swift way to correct that.

Girlfriend loves her gadgets.

My job

Work is good. My boss warned me a few months back about a huge project that’s going to be launching in early March, and he made a comment about, “don’t expect to have a social life in the second half of February.” And he’s right, it’s been really busy, but it’s been a GOOD busy. A lot of times with my work, I feel like I’m kind of a one-person shop. But right now I’m feeling like I’m an essential part of a team effort, and it’s been both stressful and really good for me, if that makes sense.

Chris and me

All is well. Since Dave has been around, we’ve been able to have a few nights here and there that are just us, which has been lovely. I’m a big fan of “date nights.”

We also do our fair share of slothing around in our sweats watching shows that are completely inappropriate for children on Netflix when the kids are with Dave. That’s pretty fun, too. (Finally just started watching House of Cards, for example. Oh, and the Dracula thing with Jonathan Rhys-Meyers – that was free on demand, not Netflix, but still. NOT appropriate for kids, yeesh.)

So, yeah. Life’s pretty good here for the most part.