Ugh, I totally never caught up on last week. I wanted to blog about Xander's first trip to the zoo on saturday, but now that's been two weeks ago. Eh, I'll tell you all a little about it anyway. It really wasn't much special, but I wanted to be sure we took him to do something fun and centered around him before Ethan gets here. So we took a break from working on the baby's room, and cleaning and laundry and all that jazz and we went. Xander had a blast, but the heat was horrible and storms started rolling in so we had to leave after about 2 hours and we never did manage to find the monkeys. That made me a little sad case it was one of the main reasons I took him, but he loved the lions so all in all it was a good trip! We got back to the car just in time for him to catch a good nap on the way home and the storm started seconds after we got in the car. We'll have to go back another day and find those monkeys, maybe in the fall we'll take the boys back. I can't believe Xander didn't ever get to go to the zoo until after he was a year old, it's something we had been taking about since he was just a few weeks old. Time just gets away from us sometimes. And speaking of time, there are about a dozen things I want to blog about right now, but it's dinner time so I have to run!

I'm so bad at this.

It's been forever since I bothered to post. I'm telling ya, it seemed like a great idea at the time to start a blog but this is just so hard to keep up with. What's worse is that Ethan isn't even here yet and I'm already not being able to find the time to keep up.

So anyway, last weekend (6/6) we went to go try to meet Rob Dydrek. He was signing autographs at the Lynhaven mall, and then he went to Costal Edge skate shop in VA Beach. We had some yardsales to hit before we went to meet him (I got a bassinet for $10, definately the highlight of my day, lol) and when we got to the mall we decided the line was way too long so we'd just head to the skate shope early. He wasn't set to arrive there until 3pm, we arrived in town around 12:30, and the line wasn't too bad. Unfortunately parking was impossible and by the time we spent 30 minutes looking for a spot (we ended up parked 4 blocks away) the line was much longer. Long story short, we spent 5 1/2 hours waiting in the heat, security sucked and there were alot of line jumpers, so we never made it to the front of the line to get our autographs, which was sad cause Ed was really dissapointed and I felt bad but I just couldn't take the heat, or hold my pee, anymore. He did get close enough to get a couple of pictures tho.

I'm Your Biggest Fan!

So I haven't blogged in awhile. Nobody is reading me anyway, so it really isn't a big deal, but I was really trying to make this a daily thing. Turns out maybe summer wasn't the best time to start a blog, I've just been too busy! We went home for the weekend and then things have been so crazy since we got back I've barely been near the computer at all. Today I logged in to find that the Spongebob Squarepants Ceiling Fan I bought for Xander has arrived at Wal-mart! YAY! Ed is picking it up now, along with the stuff he needs from Lowes to get working on Ethan's room. I need to order Xander's bed soon too, he's getting the Spongebob room in a box. I just realized today that I'm 32 1/2 weeks preggo, holy crap where did the time go?? I've never been more than 37 weeks, so I'm suddenly very nervous that I keep putting off all the things that MUST be done before Ethan gets here because, hey, we have a pool and it's frickin' hot out. I really need to put my foot down and insist that stuff gets done, but it's just so hard!

On another note, I just found out that pro skater Rob Dyrdek is coming to town this weekend. He'll be at the Lynhaven mall on saturday, and what kind of wife would I be if I didn't let Ed go? A smart wife, but not a very popular one I'm afraid. Ah well, maybe I can use this as motivation/bribery to get some stuff done around here this week, lol. I honestly would love to go meet the guy, but I'd also love to see my nursery finished.

Why?

So for the last few days I've been wondering why I bothered to make this blog. It's not that I don't want to do it, obviously I do or I wouldn't bother. Nobody is holding a gun to my head saying "blog or I'll shoot". It's just that over the weekend I was reading some other blogs and I realized a few things, about bogging, about myself, and about the kind of people that read blogs.

I don't read any one blog regularly. I do search through now and then and look for "mommy blogs" because that's the type of thing I'm interested in. I always find myself amazed at how eloquently most mommy bloggers are even when they are talking about something like a poopy diaper. I don't think I'm ever going to be that good with words. I'm honestly a little intimidated by the thought of trying to blog in a world already filled with so many wonderful writers.

Let's just take a second to look at me. Who am I? I'm a mommy, let's just start there, because no matter what else I am, no matter if being a mommy has anything relevant to offer my current situation, it's always there. I'm not just any mommy either. I'm a stay at home mommy. Best, or maybe worst of all, I'm one of those obnoxious mommies who has forgotten how to have an adult conversation without talking about things like spit-up, poopies, boo-boos, sleep and how much I miss it, and pacifiers. I have mostly stopped talking to people who don't have, or at least want, kids. I just embarrass myself.

Who else am I? Well, I'm a Navy wife. This means that I sometimes go weeks, even months without seeing my husband. It means that sometimes, I go weeks or months without having a real conversation with another adult. It means that I have had to give up all my family and friends being close by, move to a strange state, make new friends, figure things out and be left all alone to do it. Just when I've found myself having new friends, knowing where the right exit for my Wal-mart is, and decided that I like sleeping on the sofa or in the middle of the bed, everything changes again. My husband comes home. We get orders to move again.

Being a navy wife and a mom has faced me with even more challenges. It's one thing to deal with being a Navy wife. It's another thing to be in a town you don't know, 8 hours away from family and friends, and find yourself alone with an 8 day old baby because the boat refused you're husband's baby leave at the last minute. It's almost impossible to explain to a 4 month old who loves his daddy more than anything why daddy hasn't been seen in over 2 months. Try having your husband miss your first child's first (and as we found out later, only) birthday. If you think that's hard, try making friends. Regular moms don't understand you. People you have been friends with for years will say things like "better you than me" or "I wouldn't have married him then" when you are in your darkest hour. Single moms won't sympathize with you, "At least you have help from your husband when he's home". They don't understand that he's never home, even when he is physically there, it's all about getting ready for the next time he leaves. They don't understand that it's one thing to be single with a baby and have the support of your entire family and all your friends, and it's quite another to be alone in a town you don't know with nobody, and no support and a newborn. So you look to other navy wives and hope to make friends. This option is much like trying to sit with the cool kids in the lunch room in high school without being invited. They all know each other already, they have their cliques and they don't need you. After all this, try explaining to yourself why you encourage him to stay in, and serve his country because it's a job he actually enjoys.

So I'm a mom, I'm a navy wife. I'm a daughter, a sister, a lover, a fighter, an activist, and a pacifist. I'm a personal chef, a maid, a tailor, a driver, a peace keeper, a bouncer, a dog walker/groomer. I'm a dreamer, an artist, the craft lady, a geeky girl gamer. I'm an electrician, a plumber, a painter, an exterminator, a financial planner. I am not a mechanic, but luckily my husband is. I wear many hats, I preform many jobs. I do most of them with a smile, because no matter how hard my life can be, it's also wonderful. I love my boys more than life! I wouldn't trade my life for anything.

I guess my point is that I'm a lot of things. There's a few things I'm NOT. I'm NOT a writer. I've never so much as kept a journal before. I'm dyslexic and even tho I have a decent vocabulary I'm intimidated by writing. I'm also very scattered and unorganized (if you haven't noticed). I'm not a photographer. I wish I had a better eye for the perfect pictures. I enjoy taking pictures, but I don't even really know how to work my camera, aside from the obvious point and click.

Of all the things I am, and am not, I wonder what makes me think I should be a blogger. Who in the world would read this mess? Especially in a world with so many well written blogs out there already. So far the answer is nobody. That's ok, I didn't expect any followers on the first day. I really don't expect that I'll ever have readers. But that kind of begs the question I've been asking myself, why bother?

For now the only answer I have come up with is that maybe blogging will make me a better writer, or a better photographer. Maybe I'll never be as eloquent and inspired as some of those pro mommy bloggers I love to read, but maybe someday I'll write something worth reading.

Happy Memorial Day!

Happy Memorial Day Internet! No yard work for Ed today I think. Yesterday I actually got him to help me clean out the baby's room, thanks to a surprise rain shower that brought him in. He tore out the shelves that were built into the wall so he could build a closet, turns out there is a closet behind them. We're not working on the room today either tho. Just making some ribs on the grill, and maybe playing in the pool. I started Xander's sleep diary today, I'm hoping I can remember to keep it up. Well, the pool is calling me! Hope everyone has a great day!

(Ok, so the date on this post is wrong. I posted it yesterday which was in fact Memorial Day, but I wanted to add the picture today. I'm still fairly new to the whole blog world and apparently I did something wrong because my original post was deleted. Ooops. Luckily I managed to find the post in my browser history, but the only way I could figure out to fix it was to post it as a new blog and that messed up the date. )

Hush Little Baby

I'm really starting to think Xander has some kind of sleep disorder. He has never been a good sleeper. He woke up every 4 hours for the first 9 months of his life. He never regularly napped twice a day. He wouldn't nap at all by himself until right before his first birthday, until then he only napped if I held him the whole time. He still isn't sleeping through the night. I thought he was, because I was sleeping through the night and he doesn't usually cry when he wakes up. We have a video monitor on him and I don't sleep with the sound on because it keeps me awake, and I can hear him clearly through the wall so it seems pointless. I do keep the video on tho, so whenever I roll over during the night I peek at him and then go back to sleep. Usually he's sleeping when I look at the monitor, but lately I've been getting up much more frequently to use the potty during the night thanks to Ethan kicking my bladder all night. This has lead me to notice that quite frequently Xander will be sitting in the corner of his crib during the night. We co-slept for the first 5 months and I knew he was a restless sleeper. When we moved, back when he was about 8 months old we co-slept again for a short time, while we were staying with family before we got our house, and I had noticed him occasionally sitting up out of a deep sleep and talking (babbling) for a few seconds and then laying back down. I had chalked it up to him being disturbed by Ed's snoring or me moving. Now I'm starting to notice that he does it very often during the night, and frequently he isn't just sitting up for a second, but rather he seems to be in a state between being awake and asleep and he sits there like that from anywhere between a few minutes to a few hours. I've seen him go as long as 3 hours just sitting in the same spot, eyes open but not really moving. Occasionally he'll nod off and his head slumps over for a second before he jerks it back up, or he'll wiggle his toes or stretch his leg, but mostly he's very still. Most of the time he will lay back down eventually and go back to sleep. The last week that Ed was out to sea he was ending these episodes by screaming, and the only way to get him back to sleep was to go change his diaper, give him a sippy cup of milk (not in his bed, he isn't that spoiled), hug him and tuck him back in his crib. I hate doing that, I know it only encourages the behavior I'm trying to avoid, but at 5am I'm too exhausted to listen to him scream, and he's never been one to cry it out, he's very stubborn. My attempts with the CIO method were very short lived when he was a newborn because even then he could scream for over an hour without showing any signs of letting up and it broke my heart to let him go longer than that. Besides that, when he wakes up shrieking out of one of his sitting up looking awake episodes at 5am, even tho the bitch in me doesn't want to get out of bed and would love to be heartless enough to just let him cry it out, the mommy in me can't help but think that since he hasn't eaten anything or been changed in 9 hours maybe he actually needs those things. Most of the time I was finding that he had peed through his diaper a little, and changing him was necessary. I even believed that this was the cause of his waking up and went out and bought overnight diapers. They are working great, he is no longer getting up feeling wet, but he's still getting up. Now I'm also starting to notice that he is spending a very long time just sitting in his crib when we put him to bed. He has a stuffed toy lion that he sleeps with and he will quietly play with that for over an hour before actually falling asleep. His bedtime is 8pm, and when we put him down he seems tired. Why he isn't sleeping is really starting to bug me. He only takes an hour nap, sometimes an hour and a half if I'm really lucky, in the early afternoon. I've thought about cutting it out, but he had other ideas and put himself down for a nap on the living room floor when I didn't take him to his crib at nap time. I'm at my wits end. In 2 months Ethan will be here, I'm not expecting to get any sleep then, but I sure was hoping to get some before then. I feel like I'm not doing enough for Xander, but I think all I can do for now is start keeping a sleep diary for him so I can ask his pediatrician about it at his next check up. I know that kids his age frequently go through phases of not sleeping through the night. I guess it just bothers me that it seems like he's never really been a good sleeper, and I keep waiting for him to outgrow his problems. At this point I'm starting to wonder if instead of helping him by trying to wait till he out grows it, am I really hurting him by not teaching him a solution?

Cleaning Up

Ed is doing more imaginary yard work, big surprise there. I just got Xander settled down for his nap. I think I'm going to jump in the shower and then I have to get started cleaning. It's cloudy today and the pool doesn't look very inviting. As much as I really want to just sit here on the computer and relax while Xander sleeps, if I don't clean that room out it will never ever get done. Of course there's a ton of laundry with my name on it too. Time to get to work.

Lazy

Sometimes I wonder who is lazier, me or Ed. After a wonderful afternoon in the pool I came in to cool off while Xander naps. Ed is still playing in the yard, doing "jobs" that he's made up to get out of actually working on Ethan's room. He's pulling weeds out of a garden that doesn't exist except in his mind and trimming bushes he's already trimmed just yesterday. All I want to do is sit here ans relax. He just came in to ask me when I'm gonna wake Xander up from his nap, he's been asleep for two hours. I know Xander needs to get up but I swear I just sat down. Why is it always my job to get him up? Because Ed is busy. He'll be busy when dinner time rolls around too. If he was busy with any of the things I'd asked him to do it wouldn't be so bad, but he's just busy avoiding us, and any work we might need done. Well, I guess duty calls.

Banana Split

Today was a long day. It was fun, don't get me wrong, just really super long. We got our grocery shopping done at least. I always dread going to our commissary, but the nice one is a bit of a drive and really not practical since I love frozen foods. Most of our stuff would melt on the way home, so we stick to the crappy commissary close to our house. It's small, the selection sucks, and it's always packed with old, rude, slow people. The last time we were there this older lady rammed her shopping cart into my belly, not once, not twice but three times before I finally decided that the item I was looking for at the time was not worth it. She had come up the isle the wrong way (there are actually arrows on the floor cause the isles are too small for more than one cart) and smacked right into me. I was surprised and expected her to say "excuse me" or at least back up a little, but instead she glared at me as if I had done something wrong. So I went back to looking for my item. A few seconds later I feel her cart smack into my side, and I look up to see that she is leaning on her cart looking at the shelf for who knows what and slowly walking forward. I said excuse me this time, and stepped back quite a bit. She looks up to shoot me a dirty look and stops walking. I proceed to look for whatever I was looking for and I feel her nudge me with the cart again. At this point I had already moved several feet from where I had started just to get out of her way, so I said to hell with it and moved on to the next item on my list. I was astounded at how rude some people are, at the time I was 6 1/2 months pregnant and this woman is shoving her cart into my belly without even so much as muttering sorry. I haven't been back there since until today, opting instead to go to Food Lion or to just send Ed with a list and hope for the best. I'm really claustrophobic and the thought of going in our commissary is a little overwhelming. The thought of doing it on a holiday weekend like today was almost enough to give me a panic attack, especially when I saw the parking lot was full. Once we got inside it wasn't actually bad tho and we got our shopping done in about an hour and a half which was fairly quick considering how long we had to stand in line to check out. At least I don't have to leave the house again this weekend. And, since I actually went shopping instead of sending Ed, I got ice cream. Ben and Jerry's Banana Split, YUMMY!

Pool Time!

We got our pool set up today! Nothing to big, just one of those quickset pools. I'm not even sure of the dimensions but it's a huge improvement over the kiddie pools we've had for the last few years. Living in navy housing has meant that any pools we had, had to be dumped out every night. Now that we own our house, we are excited to have a "real" pool. Xander loved it, my little Pisces boy loves the water, he would live in the bathtub if I would let him. Even tho the water was almost too cold for me he didn't complain. I can't wait for tomorrow, when it will actually be full, and hopefully a little warmer.

Ed is home on a 4 day weekend and I'm trying to get him to spend some quality time with me and Xander. Of course, he has other ideas. He installed a new hard drive on my computer yesterday, my old one was only 80gb, this one is 320gb. He also got me a copy of Windows 7, so no more Vista, Hooray! However, I'm convinced this was all an evil plot to distract me from the fact that he just bought himself new toys, and plans on doing "yard work" for most of the weekend. I wouldn't mind so much if it was stuff that actually needed to be done, like mowing the lawn. I really don't think that's the case tho, he bought himself a weed wacker and a hedge trimmer and this saw thing on a long pole to trim trees. Every tree in my yard is in danger of being "trimmed" now. Not because they need it, but because I asked him to take us to the zoo tomorrow, play with us in the pool a little, and most importantly, start work on Ethan's room. I'm somehow sure that the new hard drive, as nice as a gesture as it seems, is only supposed to keep me too busy to complain if nothing on my honey-do list gets done. After all, I'm now busy re-installing all my programs. He thinks he's sneaky, but I haven't forgotten. Only time will tell, I mean at the rate he's going there won't be any trees left by Sunday, so maybe I can get at least one day of work on Ethan's room out of him this weekend. I can hope anyway!

Giveaway Alert: Rockabye Baby! Renditions of Queen

Enter to win one of ten Rockabye Baby! Renditions of Queen CDs!!

One of the coolest things I've found in the baby music world are these CD's by Rockabye Baby! They were featured on Rachel Ray when I was pregnant with Xander and I absolutely adore them. My personal favorite is their renditions of Greenday, but they also feature artists like The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, The Pixies, Metalica, and The Smashing Pumpkins. If you haven't heard of them you really should head over to the site and check it out for yourself. Currently, they are giving away 10 copies of their renditions of Queen CD, and all you have to do to win one for yourself is head over to their site and tell them a little something about why you love Queen and deserve a copy. Just so you know, I have no association with Rockabye Baby! (or anyone else currently) but as a fan I recieve updates through myspace and this seems like the kind of thing I'd like to share with other parents. I'm not actually a huge fan of Queen so I won't be entering this contest myself, but I do really love what they do over there and I thought I'd spread the word. Any time there is a way for me and my kids to find some common ground when it comes to music, I'm all for it!

Lucky Me, and a Crayola Review

Ed's boat left yesterday for 8 weeks. Lucky for me, Ed wasn't on it. He was supposed to go for 6 weeks and then get sent home early so he could start his last school. Lucky for us, the navy is having some budget issues. They didn't want to spend the money to buy him a plane ticket home. So instead of leaving me and Xander alone again, he get's to stay in and go to some other schools while he waits for his big one to start. I'm so grateful, being 7 months pregnant and spending the last 3 weeks alone with Xander was hell. I love my son dearly, but as anyone who's ever been pregnant can tell you, the last few months are never fun. Take all the back pain, exhaustion, and insomnia, add to it the stress of a husband that is out to sea, and throw in a toddler who is getting more active every day and it's a recipe for disaster. We have barely even begun to prepare for Ethan's arrival and Ed staying home means that we'll have more time for that as well. I feel extremely lucky, I haven't always had the best luck with the navy and them changing plans on us. In fact, the whole reason why he was supposed to have left yesterday was because of a mix up with his schools in the first place. When we planned this pregnancy he wasn't even supposed to get to the boat until the end of June. Even with him staying in, there are a lot of long days ahead of us, but at least he'll be home every night, and I don't have to worry about him missing the birth if I go early again.

On another note, yesterday we decided we would have some family time. During our trip to Wal-mart this weekend I finally decided to break down and buy Xander some crayons. We have boxes and boxes of crayons at home, but I keep seeing ads for the Crayola TaDoodles. You know the crayons that are made for toddlers to hold easily? I guess I'm a sucker for marketing, because even tho we had crayons at home the smiling children on the package convinced me that in order to be a good mommy I had to spend $6.49 for three crayons. Of course these weren't just any crayons, they come seated in these nifty looking holders that are wide and round and obviously made for little hands to hold on to easily. Crayola has always been my crayon of choice, so I decided we'd give them a try even tho the price made me cringe just a little. I also got him one of those huge coloring books, the book is taller than Xander and has pictures of the backyardigans, one of his favorite shows. So for family time yesterday, I bring out the coloring book, the crayons, and the TaDoodles. Xander and his daddy started coloring while I fought with the package of the TaDoodles, but pretty soon I had them out and I was very excited to see how Xander would do with them. He picked them up just right on the first try and immediately went to work coloring on the paper. Of course he was no where near the lines, but for a first time I was impressed he even found the paper. My first impression of the TaDoodles was that even tho I was a little disappointed in the price, and color choice (you get three crayons, and I would have expected them to be primary colors, red, yellow, and blue, but for some reason they give you red, green, and blue, green and blue being so close in color it seems pointless to me), I was impressed at how quickly my little artist picked them up. My first impression was quickly shattered when Xander started to show some frustration. They are heavy and awkward. After just a few minutes of coloring he started to get mad because they kept slipping out of his hands, he'd end up holding the side and rubbing the bulky plastic against the paper. After a few more minutes he did what most toddlers do when frustrated, he threw it on the floor. We were all sitting at the coffee table, so the drop wasn't very far, maybe a foot, foot and a half, but the crayon inside shattered as soon as it hit the carpet. I was disappointed and thought for sure that our great family time coloring was about to be cut short, but daddy came to the rescue just in time. He handed Xander a regular crayon and much to my suprise Xander took it as if he had been coloring for years. We spent the rest of the afternoon coloring happily using good old fashioned crayola crayons, and Xander didn't even think about eating them or snapping them in half as I had feared. As for the TaDoodles, I think they are great in theory, but poor in practice. I'm not sure exactly what I would do to improve them, I am sure I would tell other moms and dads out there that are considering this purchase to skip it, they really aren't worth the money.

A Simple Introduction

I suppose I should start this blog off with an introduction. I'm gonna try to keep it simple, I'm not an avid blogger or blog reader, so I'm not really sure how these things work. I would figure a little background is in order tho, for anyone who doesn't already know me, which I assume is most of you.
My name is Lisa. I'm 26 years old. I married my best friend, Ed, on my 21st birthday, October 18th 2003. He is an ET in the US Navy, which makes me a proud Navy wife. We're currently transitioning from the Submarine fleet to the Surface fleet, and while life with a submariner was never dull, I must admit, I'm loving the surface!
On august 22nd, 2004 I gave birth to our first son, Edmond Nathaniel, who we called Nate. Nate left this world on April 24, 2006. He died peacefully in his sleep with no warning. At 20 months old we had believed the danger of SIDS had long since passed, but life isn't always as simple as standards and statistics. I have since all but blocked the memory of his passing, but his life is still fresh in my mind, and I often find myself referring to his life for comparisons or just reflecting on things he did. I believe this bothers some people, that I talk about my dead son as tho he was still here, but it's a habit I haven't been able to break. Frankly, he'll always live on in my memories, so remembering him is just my way of keeping him alive, and I make no apologies for that.
Shortly after Nate's passing, my husband and I decided to go ahead with plans we had to try for baby number two. This time around it wasn't easy, after 6 months we finally saw a positive pregnancy test, only to miscarry right before Christmas. In July, just as I was about to give up all hope of ever being a mommy again, the stress of trying to conceive on top of the stress of having lost a child was starting to be more than I could stand, we found out we were expecting. Alexander William, whom we call Xander, was born on February 29th, 2008. Xander is my pride and joy, he is the reason I get out of bed every morning, and the reason I hardly ever sleep at night, lol.
Xander was only about 2 months old when we started talking about having baby number 3. At first it was all just a lot of talk. Mostly it sounded like we were trying to come up with a million and one reasons why it would be an awful idea to start trying again. By the time he was 4 months old, Ed was convinced he wasn't getting any younger and since he was in school, and would be for quite some time, it would be best to try again soon if we planned on having another baby while he was on shore duty. Otherwise we'd have to wait 4 more years, or try while he was attached to a ship, with the possibility of him missing the pregnancy and/or birth. I still needed a bit of convincing, Xander wasn't even sleeping through the night yet, I wasn't quite ready. When Xander was 6 months old I decided we could start trying again. After all the trouble we had getting pregnant with him I had serious doubts that another baby was even in the cards, but i figured what the heck. Xander is now 14 months old, and baby number 3, a boy we plan to name Ethan, is due in July.
I forgot to mention, being a Navy family, over the last 5 1/2 years we have moved around quite a bit. From Virginia where we met and married, to Connecticut, to Maine, back to Connecticut, to Illinois, and now finally back to Virginia. We'll be stationed here for quite awhile, which is a good thing, because it gave us a chance to buy our first house together and finally get out of Navy housing. It can also be a bad thing because our families are within driving distance now, and his parents don't always understand the concept of boundaries.
Ok folks, I suppose I lied about keeping this simple. I ment to, but as you can see my thoughts are rarely organized, and I felt like I had alot of ground to cover. I think you've got enough history for now.

Exahustion

It's 11:17pm, Monday night. I'm listening to my husband play Call of Duty and my head feels like it might explode with every blast of his gun. I love him dearly, but I'm exhausted and I'm finding every noise he makes incredibly annoying tonight. Maybe this wasn't the best night to start blogging. I had a bunch of thoughts in my head I really wanted to get down but they all feel scrambled and this isn't going quite as I had planned. The visit from the in-laws on Saturday, a long day of shopping on Sunday, and a sweet but sleepless Xander-bug have left me drained. I'll have to try this again tomorrow after (hopefully) a good night's sleep.