I knew I should have added more flour.

Or possibly a bucketful.

So far, I'm digging this Stay At Home Mom thing from the 1950's. Obviously, I love being able to stare at my darling* child any moment I choose. It's pretty nice having the time to take care of things around the house so that it doesn't look like a tornado ravaged it with a Mack truck that it picked up from the nearby highway. I can actually make preparations the dinner that I think about at 2pm. I can vacuum cat hair and clean up doggy wizzle more than twice a month. I can wear clean clothes that weren't frantically washed the night before and still partially damp. My plants aren't in a constant state of Wilt. Hell, even the fish are getting fed consistently. It's pretty awesome.

I attempted to make Oatmeal Raisin Cookies! (my favorite, hence the capital letters and mid-sentence punctuation) this afternoon. I added some chocolate chips, let's not get stupid. And they taste pretty good. The problem lies in that "cookie" isn't exactly the appropriate noun for them. No, I made three dozen Oatmeal Raisin [Chocolate Chip] Gooey Mushy Globs! instead. No, it didn't stop me from licking the batter bowl clean. And the beaters.



*My darling child who sleeps through the night all the time. Except last night. She was in and out of sleep all night long. It was...hmm. Unrefreshing. Today, I needed cookies. Or globs. Whatever.

Look, I found five minutes!

For what it's worth, I'm still around. I have officially decided to not go back to work and I think it was the right decision for me. "Stress" doesn't exist like it did before. People keep asking if I've been coping with the adjustment and I feel like I'm cheating somehow because it's been such an easy transition. We may be eating Ramen noodles every night for dinner for the rest of our known existence, but hey, don't they have a million flavors of that crap anyway? I haven't written much lately, mostly because I haven't had much time to sit at the computer for longer that five minutes at a time and also because everything has been pretty good for me. I have nothing bad to say about parenting so far. Nada. Still love it. Rory's smiling and sort of laughing now (it's a funny little inward noise). She's started to become very interested in everything around her. It's pure joy.

Last I heard, my dad's cousin and his wife are doing okay. I keep asking around the family for updates, trying to get a gauge for how things are, and it seems that they are taking things one step (one breath?) at a time.

My husband's cousin and his wife told us last week that they are expecting and I couldn't be more happy for them. I had sensed that they'd been trying for several years, based on bits of conversations and judging by facial expressions when baby stuff has come up now and again. I knew by how honestly sympathetic they were after my miscarriage that they might perhaps know more than we'd realized before. The last time I saw them, I was pregnant and I could see heartbreak in their eyes. It was tough for me and I know it was worse for them. They've always been very private with it, though, so I never wanted to pry. At any rate, they were pregnant with twins and lost one in July. The other wasn't expected to make it, but so far, close to 12 weeks along, the baby's doing fine. She's currently having a ball with progesterone supplements- I'm pretty sure we've officially bonded now! I'm just so glad that things seem to be going their way finally- I know what wonderful parents they'll be.

I've been trying to catch glimpses of everyone's blogs when I can- it seems like there's lots of good stuff out there recently. I'll try to get better about leaving comments when I drop in to read. Here's to a good week!