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Wow I've fallen behind on what's going on in my life.

At this moment I'm feeling really unhappy. If this post it tinged with misery, please accept my apologies...I'm just feeling an unpleasant combination of grumpy and angry and other unhappy emotions for no discernible reason. I'm also craving caffeine, and not because I'm tired. I hoping that a little quiet time while the kids nap will improve my mood.

We spent a week in New York. I'll try and post some photos from that trip. Miriam had her first trip in the pool, Naomi had a blast. My parents went overboard on toy-purchasing for their house (which secretly made me very happy-it wasn't an inappropriate number of toys, just a large number of toys for the time we spend there.) My sister came out from California for a couple of days, and she even took Naomi to the park all by herself. We even managed to get all of my siblings and their children in one place at one time. Which means I've finally met my older sister's children-they're 15 and 12, live 20 minutes from my parents and this was the first time either of my younger siblings or my parents met them. (For those who haven't followed along for a while, I have a younger brother and sister and a half brother and sister who are both older. I see and talk to my older brother's family, but my older sister is distant by her choice.) We went to Massachusetts for the day to see my aunt and uncle, visited a farm and a petting zoo, and I looked at (and probably picked out) kitchen cabinets. It was a nice trip. Our flights...that was another story. We left our house at 10:30 for a 1:30 flight-got to the airport at around 11:30, checked in, got through security, got some lunch and boarded the plane. The flight left on time, too. We hit a little turbulence on the way out but bad weather north of us kept us flying in zigzags, and then we were left circling the airport in Raleigh-Durham NC. We finally landed in NC and sat on the ground for about three hours. We finally landed in New York four hours later than we were supposed to-at about 8 at night rather than at 4 in the afternoon. Southwest very kindly sent us vouchers for the miserable flight though.

We've had a problem with the air conditioner and with the fridge recently. The a/c guy was here on Friday. I need to call the fridge guy.

I'm miserable partly because it's summer and Florida. And even October and cooler weather aren't much to look forward to when it stays warm and sunny all year. There just seems to be no change, no cycle, no motion.

There's also something on my mind I'm just not ready to talk about it with anyone yet. Except for zedrikcayne.

I'm just kind of one lump of misery right now. It's going to get better. I know it. And in the meantime, I can always tell you what my kids are up to because that often makes me smile.

Talking about my kids sometimes makes me happy

So let me tell you what they're doing.

(They're both sleeping right this minute, so I'm indulging in some guilt free internet time.)

Naomi has used several new words recently..."tail," "face," and "ephepahnt" come to mind. "Tail" was particularly interesting because she was very clearly trying have a conversation with me about the tail of the dragon (she calls it a dinosaur) she was playing with. It went something like this:

Naomi: "Di-o-saur! Raar. Babble, babble, babble. Tail."
Mama: "Well yes, the dragon has a tail. Just like the cats have a tail."
Naomi: "Babble, babble, babble. Raar. Tail."
Mama: "The dragon is grey. Do you see how the dragon can stick his tongue out?"
Naomi: "Diosaur. Aaaahhhh. Tail. What I do?"
Mama: "Here. Let me show you how to make the dragon stick out his tongue. And then it's time to go go." (Pushes button that makes the dragon stick out it's tongue.) "Now out. We have to go-go."

She also went down the slide at the playground all by herself. And climbed the stairs to the slide all by herself.

We're thinking about trying to encourage more potty use but undecided. We might do a naked weekend over Labor Day weekend, where we let her run around without a diaper/pants when we're home and sit her on the potty at regular intervals to encourage more potty use. I figure she'll do it when she's totally ready, but if we do a few days of nudity for awareness, we can help the process along. I don't expect her to be in underpants anytime soon-and if she were, I'd probably have trouble finding the right size for her anyway.

Miriam is getting into the banging things stage-banging on the floor, banging together...just noisy. She's still a very serious child-very stranger averse, and taking a long time to warm up to new people in general. She's pulling up, doing a little cruising (not very much-I wouldn't call her cruising yet, but she's getting there.) She's very vocal.

She worries me. She's so serious and so stranger-shy...I'm not used to it-it's so unlike Naomi.

Her physical therapy is going...slowly. We do her stretches, we do her exercises, but she's just not progressing as much as her therapist or I want. I'm sure part of that is that her therapy sessions end up being a half an hour of screaming and her exercises are similar. And it's so upsetting for me.

Her therapist also wants us to have her hips checked out. She doesn't bear weight evenly on her feet when she crawls...kind of pushing with one foot and dragging the other. And one of her feet turns out severely when she sits in a chair. It's causing me a bit of anxiety. I'm torn between making an appointment with the pediatrician to have it checked out now or waiting a few weeks since we've got a nine month appointment coming up.

My kids. Wonderful and scary. And waking up now, too, I think.