Catchup.

Let's all have a moment of silence, as I'm mourning something right now.  Synchronized naps. 

By some divine act of God (because I truly have prayed numerous times about it) I've managed to have both babies nap at the same time in the afternoon, pretty much every day since William was born.  Two hours (or more!) of quiet time for myself, where there isn't one child (or more!) tugging on me, pulling on me, stepping on me, begging for Goldfish, or milk, or whatnot.  It has been bliss.  And while I know it can't last forever, I'm sad to say it's coming to an end.  William has been sleeping later in the morning, and rather than wake him up so he'll take a good morning nap, I've been....wait for it....LAZY...and let him sleep.  Notice a trend here?  I'm lazy!!  Anyway, whereas he was once napping from about 9:30-11:00 and then ready for another nap around 1:00 (coincidentally when Amelia takes her nap -- score!  two points for mama!!), the later wakeup means a later morning nap, which means a later afternoon nap.  Which means my two hours of me-time has passed on.  I know it's good for one on one time with each babe, but I'd by lying if I said I wasn't a bit sad to see my own free time drift right on out the window.  Oh, and also?  Amelia took two naps until she was over a year old.  So I feel like from now until August, we are shackled to the house pretty much all day every day, because someone is either a) ready for a nap, b) taking a nap, or c) getting up from a nap.

We are back in Indiana for a bit, visiting the grandparents while Paul is out to sea...indefinitely??  When he left a week ago, he said, "Well, I should be back in about 6 weeks, but we might not come back at all.  This is the last sea trial before we're fully deployable."  Oh, lovely.  Thanks for letting me know in such a timely manner, you know, seeing as how you are walking out the door right now!  There haven't been any world attacks or bombings or sailors who need rescuing that requires his ship's assistance.  At least, I haven't seen any in the 10 minutes of news I'm allowed to sneak in between episodes of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and other quality children's television programming.  So let's hope that continues!!

Amelia is talking pretty much from the second she wakes up until the second she goes to bed.  She makes me laugh all the time, and I am constantly amazed at the words she's learning.  Today we were reading a book, there was a school scene in it, and she pointed to the teacher and said, "Teacher!"  Clear as day.  Seriously.  I didn't have to translate or anything.  So proud of that little one.

William is teething.  Hardcore.  Maybe I don't remember Amelia being such a fussy teether, because let's be honest, if she was awake she was fussy, but my goodness.  I feel so helpless when he's gnawing on whatever he's managed to get his chubby little hands.  I know teeth are a good thing.  I just wish the process of getting them wasn't so difficult!

So that's what's up around here.  It's cold.  It's winter.  We're trying to deal with it, some of us better than others.

Sick? Who's sick?

We're ALL sick!!  Strep throat all around, folks.  Amelia and William have probably already run through the worst of it.  I'm going on day 5, Paul is 2 days into it.  We are stocked up on orange juice, water, Sprite, cough drops, Z-packs, Amoxicillin, probiotics and we are NOT stocked up on good, quality sleep.  I was so naive to think only one of us would get sick.  Rookie mistake, I know.  Now that we're a foursome, it's pretty safe to assume if one of us gets it, we all get it.  I guess that's sharing at its finest, right?

So even though we're all a bit less than our best, things are still happening around here!!  William is sitting up by himself, he has even gotten up on all fours a couple of times.  We promptly lay him flat again, because, uhhhh, NO.  Crawling?  Or even attempting?  This is too soon.  He is a baby.  Just born.  Amelia is really starting to talk a lot.  Most of the time it's commands:  "Up!  Up please!" or "Go away!" or, our personal fave, "NO!"  I mean really, what toddler says no so often?  Ohhh...that's right....pretty much every toddler.

William enjoyed his first popsicle tonight -- an ice cube in a mesh feeder.  This kid is ready for food, but his lazy mama isn't ready to start.  Popsicles are easy peasy.  I think we'll stick with these for a few weeks, at least.  Amelia wasn't ready for solids until about 6 months, and the by-the-book mother in me thinks that since it worked with her, it should work for him to wait 6 months!  His pediatrician gave me a bit of a reality check at his appointment last week, but I'm still holding off.  Again -- I'm lazy!!

And, oh, how I love Craigslist!!  Except the international scams...  I've sold so many things on it recently, but that's not the only reason I love it.  I found a gently used wooden toolbench and it is PERFECT for our new playroom.  Amelia loves to get in the way help Paul whenever he's using his tools, so we've been on the hunt for something like this for a while now.  We brought it home, I cleaned it up during naptime yesterday and she has played with it often!!

Finally! On film!!

I thought Amelia was hard to take pictures of smiling.  Pssh!  It is extremely difficult to get him to smile at the big black box that flashes in his face.  I think I got it though, check it out!!

Is he sitting in a PINK Bumbo!?  Why yes, yes he is...that's what happens when you do gender specific for your babies, since you're not planning to have them quite so close together.  He doesn't care -- he embraces it!  Also?  Is it just me, or is he giving me a "Yah, mama, this is a cheesy grin, but I'm only doing it with the hopes that you'll STOP TAKING PICTURES OF ME ALREADY!!" face?

So there's this girl I know...let's call her Muffy.

To say Amelia likes muffins is sort of like saying the Pope likes God.  It goes much deeper than that!!  The girl is addicted.  So much so that she's been renamed Muffin, Muffy for short.  I have yet to find a mix she doesn't love: blueberry, strawberry, apple cinnamon, blue/strawberry (that was the time I accidentally thought I was making a double batch of blueberry and, turns out, one mix was strawberry).  Anyway, if I'd let her, I'm pretty sure Muffy would subsist alone on muffins, milk and the occasional green bean or sweet pea.

I have to share this next picture -- her hair is getting SO long and the curls are out of control.  Morning bedhead is outrageous, and I love it!

You say you want a resolution, well, you know...

This is the first year I'm really going to make a resolution and stick to it.  There you have it -- everyone knows now, so everyone can hold me accountable.  This year I want to get back into running. 

A few years ago, I took a big gulp and signed up for a Marine Corps-led boot camp at the Citadel.  It was three mornings a week, at the butt crack o'dawn, for 12 weeks.  I paid $200 to get pounded by pushups, situps, 6 inches (grueling, terrible, horrible core exercise) and all sorts of other basic exercises the Marines actually use.  Nothing says glutton for punishment like waking up at 4:45 a.m. to head to the gym and be yelled at by 8 Marine instructors.  I think that qualifies as loony.  But there were over a hundred other suckers who joined me, and to be honest, when we "graduated" at the end of the program, I felt such a sense of accomplishment.  I may or may not have cried the 2nd day of boot camp (OK, I did...)  I may or may not have wanted to quit just about every other day (OK, I did...)  But I ran!  I did pushups!  And situps!  This coming from a self-confessed lazy girl who loved to think of losing weight but never put that into practice.  I was in the best shape of my life.  I also ran my first 10K in Charleston and the sense of pride from competing and completing that race was incredible.

Wow, that was a big ramble. 

So bootcamp!  Yay!!  But then I got pregnant.  No go for boot camp.  Amelia was born.  And then I got pregnant.  Again.  This lady hasn't hit the pavement for a run in several months...I guess years.  SO my resolution this year is to get back into running, run some 5Ks, maybe even some 10Ks.  I'm starting light, with a Couch to 5K program, so here's hoping I love it the second time!!  And here's hoping there are no tears...haha.

I also want to do this 365 Project several mommy friends are doing.  Basically you take a picture of your child(ren) every day for the entire year.  As I don't have too many photos of myself growing up, I think this could be a really neat opportunity to show our babies just how small they once were.  And I'm sure evoke tears from me when, in about 16 years, I'm wishing for small babies once more.  There's a tab at the top of the page now with our 365 Project -- not quite sure if I'll end up having to create a new blog or if I can post every day under that title.  I'm still sort of a Blogger novice, so if anyone knows if it's possible to keep everything on this main blog without me having to create another, let me know the secret!!

I would be remiss to post TWICE now with no pics of the littles, so here they are!!  Growing every single day -- Amelia is still in 18 month clothing, William is in 6-9 month clothing...The race is on to see who is bigger first!!