The strike has ended.

I present to you, in all his glory, Joshua...smiling, happy, wearing a cheeseburger shirt (which cracks me up for some reason) and allowing me to take his picture. Oh happy day. There's no guarantee when he might be in the mood to allow such a photo again, so we'll just enjoy this one for now. He's a tough negotiator, you know.

And you know I can't forget about the little lady...


Here she is in her little dress from Sunday morning at church. I couldn't get over how cute she looked. I'm definitely loving dresses and look forward to getting her dressed for church on Sunday morning. She's cute all the time, but I can't get enough of her in her little dresses. In fact, she stayed in her dress until bedtime on Sunday night. Nana and Pap made a trip to see the kids after church on Sunday, so I kept her dressed up for them.

Here's the view I get early in the mornings when she either wakes up (or I wake her up which has been the case the past few mornings). She's all snuggled into her miracle blanket and as soon as I say "Good morning", I get the biggest smile. She knows that eating quickly follows...as well as getting out of the baby straight jacket. It's fantastic news when she sees me coming.

---------------

Week #2 of going back to work has been a bit smoother than week #1 so far. I'm adjusting. The kids are adjusting. We're getting by. I'm feeling less frazzled and more together. I'm at least wearing matching shoes. And most days, my shoes even match my outfit. The progress is mind blowing, isn't it? Don't think that I'm not racing home at the end of the day because I definitely am. I can't get into the garage soon enough. But I'm enjoing being at the office, seeing clients, spending time with my staff.

Today I got to go home mid day to meet with a contractor for some estimates on some work at the house, and while I was there I got to feed Lauren (which was good because of a milk spilling incident on my desk yesterday that left me short a few ounces for today's bottles...I don't really want to talk about it. "Don't cry over spilled milk" was my mantra all the way home last night.) Because I was home, Joshua got to have some Play-Doh time with grandma and seemed to really enjoy that.

I'm learning that it's OK if each day is a little different. The new "routine" is that there's less of one, and I'm learning, in all my control freak OCD'ness, that that's perfectly fine. I'm making decisions about what I can and can't do based on how things are going at that exact moment. (Nope...can't attend that board meeting. Sure I can go and look at that house to insure it. Sorry...not a chance that I can be away for a whole day on a weekend. OK, I can work it out so that Lauren and I can make an appearance at the basketball game this weekend to represent State Farm.) It's not quite the way I'm used to working, particularly since "no" wasn't something I said very often, but I'm not having nearly as hard of a time saying "no" as I thought I would. That's been one of the most pleasant surprises of the past two weeks. (Perhaps spending three months with Joshua, who has absolutely no qualms about saying "no" did me some good!)