May

Craig’s trying to get in better shape, and he has a program that tracks food, calories, etc. According to his program, “active, vigorous sexual activity” burns 26 calories every 25 minutes. (!!!) By comparison, a new report indicates that you burn 1.03 calories sending a tweet. So, how many tweets can you send in 25 minutes?!!

Thank you Mashable for this little tidbit … and, if you want to check it our yourself, you can see your person rates @ the Tweet Calories Performance Test.

  

Dec

Barely in time for Chanukah, but will arrive in plenty of time for those of you who celebrate XMas! %-)

Two versions … the collage went inside the handmade cards I made …

And this was the all-in-one that I sent to everyone else. No offense if you got this version … most people did! I only hand-make cards for family members … there are only so many hours in the day! I actually really like this one, and may do away with hand-made cards altogether next year.

Whatever you celebrate this time of year … Merry Everything!

  

Jan

This week’s topic is things I want to do in 2009. I like this better than the New Year’s Resolutions … ’cause they’re more specific, and they can just be for fun (which most of mine are).

1. Be a good coach – I got conned into coaching BOTH kids’ basketball teams this year! I have pretty low expectations performance-wise – only one kid on each team has ever played basketball before. My goal is to teach them to love the game, and hopefully make sure they know which goal is theirs! In all seriousness, my kids have played enough sports that I’ve seen a lot of coaches – some great, some absolutely awful. Even if I can’t be great, I hope I always am able to find something positive to say to each kid after the game, and to make sure they have fun, regardless of outcome.

2. Cosmo challenge – this one is for Craig, he knows what it means!

3. Watch either Kentucky or Vanderbilt win the NCAA championship – based on pre-conference play, this one doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell, but you gotta dream! In the case of Kentucky, a follow-up to this one is that I’d like to watch a press conference where the UK athletics director fires Billy Gillespie.

4. Go on another sisters weekend with my sisters – girls, we’ve been talking about this for TWO YEARS, we gotta get our acts together and just do it!

5. Enjoy celebrating my 10th wedding anniversary

6. Join (or start) a book club – again, this is something I’ve talked to several people about, and just need to get my act together and do!

7. Be better about keeping the web page/blog updated – Facebook is great, and I have been doing more of that, but I know some of you want more details!

8. Go somewhere I’ve never been – that’s on my list every year!

9. Submit at least 5 papers for publication, and two grant proposals – need to kick my work up into a higher gear, and now’s the time.

10. Have a Passover seder or Rosh Hashanah dinner at my house – we have gotten out of the habit of entertaining, but I really like having people over, and holidays are an easy way to get back into that groove.

Will try to check back in over the course of the year to see how well I do!

  

Jul

Okay, so head over to TeamKirith Tidbits (our home page). I bought a new template from 11 Mystics – love, love, LOVE their stuff! Also love the ease of getting advanced features all the while be clueless as to HOW they happened – compliments of iWeb. Made some quick pages for Samara and Eli, too. Will be updating mine/Craig’s work pages soon. Stay tuned!

  

May

Haha

Craig turned 50 yesterday! The kids and I planned an adventure-filled day with him … 50 things to celebrate being 50. The day started with a special breakfast we made, but the breakfast was at 7:00, so we could make an 8am soccer game! The day improved dramatically after that!

I made a photo-blog of his day: http://www.teamkirith.net/TeamKirith_Tidbits/Craigs_50th_Birthday.html

By the way, to those of you who sent in your “Craig’s List”. Those were the highlight of his day!!! He got tears in his eyes when he read them.

  

Mar

Ha – what great timing, I just got back from having a very nice lunch with my husband, so this week’s topic might be a little skewed for me, since I’m feeling very positively disposed toward him at the moment!

Since I am female, and heterosexual, I am going to specify my list to what I think WOMEN should do before they get married to MEN. That’s all I really know much about! I will try to get Craig to do a guys list later.

1. Keep your own bank account. No compromising on this one. TRULY. You can have a joint account for household expenses and even have your paycheck direct deposited into the joint account, but keep SOMETHING in your own name, and add to it when possible. I’m not saying keep this account a secret, just saying be sure you have some money you can access that is JUST YOURS. Think of the practicalities – you can buy presents for him without him knowing, it keeps him from knowing how much shoes really cost, and (most importantly) you have it in case of emergency.

2. Have sex. Again, truly. It is too big a part of married life (or should be) to realize after the fact that you’re not compatible in that way.

3. Don’t settle. Do NOT, under ANY circumstances, get married because all your friends from college are getting married, or your grandmother keeps making not-so-subtle comments about you being an old maid, or you feel like you’re ready to have a baby. You will not be happy, and it will not last. You will find someone who’s RIGHT for you. Be patient, it’s worth waiting for.

4. Have a career. Even if you are going to be a stay-at-home-mom, establish yourself so that you know (and your resume demonstrates) that you COULD take care of yourself if you had to. ‘Cause sometimes, things go wrong (for all sorts of reasons) and you do have to.

5. Understand what you’re getting. MEN DON’T CHANGE!!! Seriously. This is related to #3, above. Be sure you love him, and can live with him, AS IS. If he drinks too much, spends too much time with his guy friends, speaks disrespectfully to you, whatever it is … he is NOT going to stop just because you are married. He needs to be ready just like you do. And if he isn’t, you aren’t going to be able to fix him.

6. Talk about kids. A LOT. Talk about how you were raised, and how you want to raise your own kids. Talk about yelling, about spanking and time out, about breastfeeding, about kids sleeping with you, about public vs private school, about how you feel about toy guns and Barbie dolls, about how much TV & video gaming is okay, about what age they should be before they have their own email account and Facebook page, anything and everything you can think of. Trust me, it is MUCH better to discuss all this ahead of time. Yes, you might change your minds, that is natural. But you will be coming in, if not fully on the same page, at least aware of where your “issues” are likely to come from.

7. Talk about religion. This is often related to talking about kids, because it’s often when the little ones arrive that you realize you want a bris or a christening or whatever your background is. Again, you don’t have to be the same, but you do need to talk about it. Especially how active you want to be in a synagogue/temple/church/mosque/whatever (and how active you want your spouse to be), and how you want to raise the kids. If you are going to be a mixed marriage, go ahead and have a plan for how you’re going to deal with holiday celebrations, etc., and go ahead and clue your families in, too.

8. No secrets. Okay, let me qualify that – we all have things we don’t tell our spouse, anyone who says they don’t is lying. But no BIG secrets. If you owe $75,000 on your credit cards, or you were secretly married for one drunken weekend in Vegas, or you used to be a prostitute, or you used to be a man, or you were abducted by space aliens, or whatever … it ALWAYS comes out in the end. Don’t let bombshells drop later on, talk about it upfront. Your spouse will lose all trust in you otherwise, and it’s really hard to have a marriage without trust.

9. Understand that it will not be perfect and endlessly blissful. Seriously. We all go in thinking we’re different from all other marriages we’ve seen, and that we’re never going to fight, and we’re compatible in every way, and blah blah blah. Except that’s a total load of crap. Don’t get me wrong – I have a great marriage, I really do. And Craig feels that way, too. But we have “issues” that we have to work through, and it’s not always hunky-dory. One of the hardest things to get used to with marriage is that it ebbs & flows – there are times when you feel incredibly close, and times when you feel incredibly distant. Also, you have to pick your battles. He’s going to do a lot of things that annoy you. (And, frankly, you’re going to do a lot of things that annoy him). You simply cannot throw a fit about all of them. Well, technically you CAN, but unless you want to be perusing the yellow pages for a divorce lawyer in 6 months, it’s not a good idea.

10. Premarital counseling. This helps you talk about all of the above in a safe, structured environment, helps you quickly hone in on problem areas, and encourages you to keep talking when (not if) it gets hard. I HIGHLY recommend it.

Wow, that was a lot of words. Guess I feel pretty strongly about this!!! I have been married long enough now that I’m starting to have a fair # of friends going through divorce, and it is a horrible thing. Most of the things on this list have come out of seeing, up close and personal, other marriages fall apart. Remember, no one gets married thinking they’re going to end up divorced. But half of us are wrong. Communication, and being honest with yourself, are key.

  

Dec

Craig is in the hospital. We were going about our normal day, when he got a phone call saying to go to the ER or he would die. There really just aren’t words…

It’s 3:00 am now, that phone call came 11 hours ago, but it seems like eternity. His kidneys have failed. All of a sudden. They found it through a blood test that his nurse practitioner added on as an afterthought at his regular checkup today. We still don’t know much. We waited in the ER for 8 hours before he got taken up to his room. He STILL hasn’t seen a doctor. They’ve taken him off all his medicines, and are hoping they can reverse the damage. The process has been maddening.

He sent me home, so I could take the kids to school in the morning – they are staying overnight with my friend Kate. But I want to be with him at the hospital. I can’t sleep at all. Like I said, there really just aren’t words…

  

Apr

Okay, this is a random blog challenge I found in the 2 Peas scrapbooking message board. The topic: “For Better or Worse”. This kind of thing has been on my mind lately, since next month Craig and I will be celebrating 7 years of marriage – yes, SEVEN!!! In some ways I feel like I’ve been married to him my whole life; in some ways it feels like our wedding was just yesterday.

Marriage is great. Marriage sucks. Marriage is fun. Marriage is hard. Marriage is rewarding. Marriage is limiting. Marriage is comforting. Marriage is STRESSFUL. And all of these statements are true! %-)

  

May

Six years – amazing! There was a time right after we got married that I wouldn’t have given us 6 months! %-)

Seriously, Craig is my soulmate, and we have a very good, healthy marriage that we both (I think! get a lot of satisfaction from. In some ways it seems like we’ve been married forever – I have a hard time remembering what my life was like before I met him. But in other ways, it seems like just yesterday that we were standing under the chuppah exchanging vows.

This year, our trip to Disney was really our anniversary present. We were going to go out, but couldn’t get a babysitter, so we decided to have an at home lobster-fest celebration, with champagne. Hopefully it will be fun! My guess is, the key to the fun will be how early we can get the munchkins to go to sleep!

Everyone has left for home now – it’s kind of quiet after having a house full of people all weekend. We had a good time today going downtown and having lunch at Hard Rock, and then walking around. It was a nice, sunny day, not too hot. Grandma left not long after lunch, and Mom & Dad stayed a little while longer. Dayna & Josh were the last ones to go – it was good to be able to hang out with them for a while after all the “grown ups” were gone. How funny is that – I’m 33 years old, with a family of my own, but in the Rouse clan, we’re still “kids” and they’re still “adults”.

Okay, time to feed the munchkins. We’re actually considering giving them a double dose of Benadryl or something, just to make sure they go to sleep so we can have some nice couple time! How horrible is that?!! Seriously, they’re pretty exhausted from the weekend, so they *should* be out pretty early. Keep your fingers crossed for us!

  

Jul

Today, Craig and I had the place to ourselves (we work primarily at home in the summer, even when we don’t need to be home with Sami). It was so quiet and peaceful! It probably seems strange to most people, but I was so relieved to actually be able to get some work done. Craig joked that we needed a vacation so we could work. It’s nice not to feel guilty every time I sit down at my computer, or try to do something for myself.

And it’s good for Sami, too – we’re not just being selfish. She was so excited to see Isabella (Caroline’s daughter, two months younger than Sami) this morning when I dropped her off. And her time with Craig and me is more positive, since when she came home tonight we actually wanted to see her and play with her, rather than trying to distract her so we could do other things.

As to my tirade from last night – I don’t take any of it back, that really is my perspective on things. But, lest anyone read it and think I’m evil, do remember that I’m pregnant and my hormones are all out of whack! %-)

  

Jun

I’m about to lose my &^&*#%*^&%^#@*@ mind!!! I love my baby, don’t get me wrong. But I have been with her practically 24/7 for the last three weeks, and that is a bit much.

The first week, Sami and I went by ourselves to visit my parents, and she wasn’t any problem at all (once we were there – she didn’t enjoy the car ride *at all*). She really enjoyed being with her Grandma, Popeye, and Aunt Dayna (who she calls “Nay-Na”). And Sami *really* enjoyed meeting Sebo, the boxer “puppy” (who is about 60 pounds and taller than Sami already). He loves to play, and so does she, so they got along beautifully. She got scared of him a few times when he would get very excited and bark loudly or knock her over, but for the most part she couldn’t get enough of “Bobo”. Craig came up for the weekend, and he and my dad had a nice Father’s Day celebration on Sunday before we came back home. We left after Sami had her dinner, so she mercifully slept most of the way home.

The next week, Sami did go to Caroline’s on Monday and Tuesday, but then Caroline and her family went for a trip to New York for a week, and then moved into a new house. We were supposed to go visit Terra for much of the third week, but they ended up having to go out of town themselves, so we had to cancel that. So, we had Sami to ourselves. Actually, Sami herself is not so much of a problem, really the problem stems from *other people* in the house.

Suffice it to say that Craig and I both feel like we’ve borne the brunt of entertaining Sami while she’s been home. Who knows, maybe we’re both right – Sami does seem to think that since we’re both home, we should both pay attention to her continually. But, from my perspective, here is how a day goes: Sami wakes up between 7:00 and 8:00 every morning (yes, I know, we’re very lucky that she’s such a good sleeper). Craig gets up with her and feeds her breakfast, and quasi-entertains her (in other words, he turns a movie on for her and then goes to do his email) until either I decide to get up, or Sami decides that I should. Then, I am pretty much responsible for her until lunch, and if I can take her somewhere out of the house, that’s all the better. If I ask permission, I can take a shower sometime during the morning. In that case, Craig “watches” her, which means he turns her movie back on and goes back to his work, and she ignores the movie and stands at the bathroom door crying (which I can hear) the whole time I’m in the shower. Craig feeds her lunch, then she takes a nap. She sleeps for two hours (almost exactly), and during that time I can either get a few things done, or nap if I’m exhausted (which I am more and more these days – the second trimester burst of energy has worn off, and now we’re into third trimester sluggishness). When she wakes up, I am basically responsible for entertaining her until it’s time for dinner, unless it is a grocery day and then Craig takes her with him to the grocery store and I get about an hour break. After dinner I play with her until she takes her bath. Craig gives her the bath, and I have 10 minutes or so then to send an email or do some laundry or whatnot, but I have to remember to check that her pajamas are in their special place under he changing table before I go off to do anything else. Otherwise, if I’ve forgotten and left them hanging in the laundry room, or stacked on the chair in her room without putting them in the special place, I have to drop what I’m doing and go hand them to Craig when he’s ready to put them on her – I mean, God forbid he actually pick out a pair himself!!! After bath time, I play with her again until it’s time for night-night. Oh, and by the way, if I lose my patience with Sami at any point during the day (which I try very hard not to do, but sometimes I just get frustrated…), I get in trouble, because she’s just a baby. When he *yells* at her, incidentally, it is always perfectly justified.

Oh, and then there’s Aaron. He was with us most of the third week. His idea of being at our house is that he does whatever he wants, whenever he wants. Craig feels bad for him because his mother is so verly restrictive (to put it mildly), so he wants him to learn to regulate himself. In theory, I agree with this. The problem is, Aaron does *not* regulate himself. Rather, he takes advantage of the fact that he knows Craig isn’t ever going to discipline him, and does whatever, whenever. the first thing this means is that he takes over the family room when he’s here – he feels like he’s entitled to watch as much TV as he wants, (which means, *literally* that the TV is on every single moment from the time he wakes up until the time he goes to bed), and to eat as much as he wants of whatever he wants. Usually this means a steady diet of sugar and cheese (eaten in front of the TV, naturally, rather than at the table), which is a real problem with Sami, because she doesn’t understand why she can’t eat that. He also expects Craig to wait on him hand and foot. Oh, and not only does the TV have to be on, it has to be blairing loud enough that it can be heard quite clearly from any room in the house. One can ask him to turn the TV down, which he will – until you turn your back, then it goes right back up. One day I counted, and I asked him *seven* separate times to turn the TV down before finally giving up. God forbid he watch TV in his own room – that’s no what he wants, after all! In fact, if we want to watch TV, we have to give him fair notice so he can either finish his PlayStation game or finish the show that he’s watching – it really wouldn’t be right to inconvenience him in any way, after all (I hope you can read the sarcasm! %-). If I get sick of his selfish behavior and take one of his priviledges away, then Aaron thinks I’m a bitch, and Craig thinks I am being overly hard on him. *Then* there is the way he treats Sami – if he wants to play with her, Aaron is really great with her, and she loves him. But, he will very suddenly decide that he is bored with her and doesn’t want to play anymore. In that case, she is supposed to instantly go away and leave him alone. Of course, seeing how she’s only 16 months old, she doesn’t understand this very well. If she keeps “bothering” him, he either shoves her down (literally), or picks her up by the arms and half-carries, half-drags her to another room and then closes her in there. At least once a day, he has done something to hurt Sami, and Craig has seen most of them. His response is “Aaron, don’t do that again”. Very effective. If I dare suggest that simply telling him over and over to stop, without there being any consequences to his behavior, then Craig gets very defensive and we end up having a big fight, and nothing changes anyway. Frankly, it’s just not worth it.

*Then* there’s the heat. It’s well over 90 degrees every day now, and incredibly humid. When you go outside, it truly feels like you’re in a sauna. So, we go out as little as possible. But even inside, for some reason, the air conditioner in our house can’t manage to keep the temperature less than 78 inside, which to me is hot. This just contributes to the overall tense/grumpy atmosphere.

Oh, and lest I forget – problems at work. The fellowship that I had for the last three years is ending, and I’m actually glad even though there was a lot of flexibility there. My supervisor and I just have very different work styles, and I am very ready to be on my own and not working “for” anyone, however loosely – that’s one of the perks of years and years of school, once you have your Ph.D. and get a professorship, you are mostly autonomous, without really having a “boss”. Another good thing about the fellowship ending – no more trips down to Birmingham! I had a position all lined up at Vanderbilt, but then we got some grants and they decided to upgrade my position. This is good news, except that we just found out they can’t get all the paperwork filed until the semester starts. It seems like it will all be fine in the end, it’s just one more hassle to deal with at a time when I am feeling continually hassled. Oh, and I won’t get my raise until the paperwork is all done…

Okay, I guess I’m out of things to complain about for now. In summation – the last two weeks have sucked, and I am *very* glad that Aaron has gone home and that Sami will be going to Caroline’s tomorrow. Now if I could just get rid of Craig for a while…%-)

  

Nov

I just got back from Belize! Kim and I are both about to turn 30 (!!!), and we have been talking for years about getting certified to scuba dive. So, as a birthday present to ourselves, we decided to do it, and then go on a trip to a fabulous dive area to celebrate/mourn and practice our new skills. It was *so* amazing! We stayed at Journey’s End Resort on the Ambergris Caye, just north of San Pedro (it’s where they filmed the first “Temptation Island”, in case anyone watched that .

Getting there was a bit of an adventure, since American Airlines (I know, I know, they suck, but we were using frequent flier miles) did there best to make sure we didn’t arrive y changing our flight without telling us. Luckily, we made it to Belize proper (though several hours later than we should’ve), and then took what was truly the smallest plane I’ve ever seen out to San Pedro, and finally a water taxi to the resort. Kim’s sister Kristen also joined us (we were supposed to meet up in Miami, but due to our last minute change, we didn’t actually find her until we got to Belize), and Julie, another friend of Kim’s and mine from grad school came down, too. We met her at the resort, since she hadn’t done her certification dives yet and had to come a couple of days early.

They call the resort “a barefoot adventure”, and that is a very apt name! It is one of those fantastic places where you can totally relax and veg, or stay incredibly busy with all the activities they have, or some combination of both (which is what we did). We went diving every day, and also did a night dive. The resort has its own dive shop Belize Ocean Divers, and they were really great. We had very small groups of divers on each trip, and they had a divemaster who would lead us through the site, but also give us autonomy to explore. As for the diving itself, it was really amazing! I have to admit that, during the training, there were several points when I thought I just wasn’t going to make it. But I stuck through it, and it was *so* worth it! Diving in the ocean was much easier than I expected, even doing the backward roll off the boat. I didn’t have any bouyancy problems like I did during the training.

Oh, and while I was off having a blast, Craig stayed home with Sami. What a great husband I have, eh?!!

  

Jun

My baby is 4 months old now!!! I just doesn’t seem like she should be that “old” already; on the other hand, it seems like she has always been a part of us. She’s down for the night now – she is sleeping through the night more and more, but the cost is that she likes to be up until 11:00 or so before she will settle down. She’s so funny the way she fights sleep – I joke with Dayna all the time about how if she only knew how tired she would be as an adult, she would want to sleep all the time! But not our Sami – she doesn’t want to miss a thing.

Speaking of her sleeping, I’m embarrassed at how often I still go in and check on her while she’s sleeping, to make sure she’s still breathing. All the talk about SIDS really scares me, even though we do everything “right” – put her to sleep on her back, no pillows or toys or blankets in the crib, make sure she doesn’t get overheated while she’s sleeping, etc. But someone in Craig’s ex-wife’s family had a baby die of SIDS, and they did everything right, too; it can happen to anybody. I just can’t stand the thought of anything bad happening to her.

Well, I think that’s enough for now – since she’s asleep, I better take the opportunity to get some shut-eye, too. I’ve learned to live on a lot less sleep than I would’ve ever believed was possible, but still! And who knows, maybe I’ll actually have the energy to kiss my husband good night before I pass out…;-)

  

Mar

I’m back! Long time, no blog. I have a good excuse, though – a beautiful, sweet, loving, lovable, challenging, wonderful baby girl!!! A baby girl who will be 3 weeks old tomorrow – WOW! It is hard to believe – the time is just flying by.

I won’t try to detail all that has happened in the last 3 weeks here, since I don’t know how much time I will have before the phone rings, the UPS man comes, the baby wakes up…you get the idea. However, for those who are interested, I have put our birth story and an annotated list of Sami’s milestones up on our web site.

Speaking of the web site – we now have our own domain name! We are very excited. The Brinkster service has been good to us (large storage allotment, it’s free, and there are no ads); unfortunately, they are now pushing everyone toward their pay service and so the free service essentially sucks now. For days at a time, we will be unable to login to update the page, etc. So, I took the plunge and registered a domain name for us. Now I have no excuses for not updating the page regularly! %-)

On a more substantive note, today was a very big day for Sami and me. We spent the *whole day* by ourselves! This is actually the second time we have been by ourselves for a long period of time, but the first time she was only a week old and we were both exhausted so we slept the whole day. Today, Craig had to go to Nashville to pick up Aaron anyway, so he agreed to a couple of meetings as well – even though he is on leave right now! (I can’t ride him too much about this, though, because he did get my permission ahead of time! . Then, after picking up Aaron, he had to go with him to a basketball banquet for the 5th grade basketball team at Aaron’s school. They all got trophies, which Craig and I both thought was kind of funny since they only won one game. When we were kids, you didn’t get trophies just for participating! But, this seems to be a yuppie-parent kind of thing – always make the kids feel good. Craig and I have a lot to learn about how to be good yuppie parents!

Anyway, I was worried about today, because I’m still adjusting to this being a new mom thing. For the first couple of weeks, I would kind of panic every time she cried – I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to figure out what was wrong with her, and that even if I did, I surely wouldn’t be able to fix it! But I am getting a lot more comfortable with her now. We actually had a really great day today. She is becoming more and more social by the day, and she likes to stay awake and play more now, instead of just eat-sleep-eat-sleep-eat-sleep. We even did our Shabbat candle-lighting service together, and she loved looking at the candles.

Well, that’s enough for now – Daddy is home now and he wants his girls to pay attention to him! More later…hopefully not three weeks later this time, but I can’t make any promises. This mom thing is hard!

  

Feb

It has been an interesting couple of days, since we have come home from the hospital. Until just a few minutes ago both Leslies mother and grandmother were here. And I know all about the old in-law jokes — but they were truly a Godsend. They were both incredibly helpful as we made the transition from hospital to home.

It was a good thing, too. Since things didn’t go as smoothly at first as I was expecting, based on how soothable Sami was the first night at the Hospital. The second night at the hospital, and the first two nights at home she was incredibly fussy! In part it was because Leslie’s milk hadn’t come in yet, and so she was continually starving (she lost 10 oz between being born and leaving the hospital) — but even worse, once we got home, it seemed like she *hated* her cradle. Every time we put her down, she would be screaming within five minutes, even when she was clearly exhausted. I was starting to get prepared for a *very* rough couple of months!

Fortunately, two things happened yesterday, and now it seems again that we have been blessed with an incredibly easygoing baby. First, yesterday around noon-time Leslie’s milk started to come in, and Sami was able to really eat (drink) until she was satisfied. Since that time she has been taking longer naps — 2 – three hours in a stretch.

Just as importantly, we made an interesting, if slightly bizarre discovery the night before last. For largely random reasons having to do with its orientation in the room, etc., we had been laying Sami down in the cradle on her *left* side. At some point, during early morning hallucinations from sleep-deprivation it occurred to me that in the hospital, right from birth, the Nurses, etc., had been putting Sami down to sleep on her *right* side. So, we made the switch — and “viola!” — all of a sudden we had a different baby. Even before the milk came in she would take real naps in the cradle. And then, last night, it was a miracle! We fed her at midnight before we went to sleep, and then again at 3:30, and then at 7:30! And she slept soundly and contentedly all the rest of the time. It was a parent’s *dream* night. I’m not expecting all nights to go so well, but if the majority can go something along those lines, we will be extremely lucky!

OK, back to my other responsibilities — now that we are back home, I am *slowly* but surely trying to get back into something like a work routine …

  

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