Remember when I was all whining about James' teeth and his not sleeping and stuff? Well, the boy now has two upper teeth (his left middle and the tooth next to it). They broke through about a week ago. And the other middle tooth is so close to the surface that you can feel it through his thin layer of gum. And while Kris and I were whining about his upper teeth, James went and cut a lower tooth too. His bottom two middle teeth have been in for a while and now his tooth to the left of those two is also in! Poor boy was cutting so many teeth at one time! He's been pretty happy lately though and is sleeping much better at night.

Monday Kris called me at work to report that James was standing up playing with a toy, leaning against something (the toy, the couch, something which I can't remember right now). Nothing new there. The new part was when James let go of the toy and was just standing there not holding on to anything for a good 5 seconds before plopping down on his butt. And Monday night when I got home, I put him up by the couch and then sat on the floor a couple steps away from him and called for him to come to me. He reached out his arms, grabbed my hands and then took 2-3 baby steps to get to me! He's by no means walking or really all that near it, but his balance and coordination is getting better!

Annika has been "reading" me bedtime stories lately. Each night part of our routine is to read two books. And now when I'm done reading them to her she asks if she can read them and then she "reads" them back to me. Either she has the book memorized and she recites it back to me or she makes up a story talking in her weird made up language. Have I told you about her weird made up language? Once in a while she'll just start talking in words that aren't really words and have a little conversation with herself or her toys. It's fun to watch her explore language and she does come up with some pretty silly words.

Lately Annika has insisted upon sleeping on her bed without any pillows or covers. And she must have a light on (I've convinced her that the overhead light is too bright at night so we only use the lamp instead) and her closet doors must be closed and her bedroom door must be completely all the way open so it's touching her closet door. And if any of this is not just right she will refuse to go to sleep. I'm guessing this is a normal phase of preschoolerhood (that is so totally a word!). The last couple nights she has allowed us to put a small blanket on her and tonight she is actually sleeping with a pillow. Everything else is the same though. She's also been more and more perceptive of noises the house makes at night. I hope my baby isn't scared at night! I'm hoping she grows out of this soon. In the mean time, we just do as she asks since it's not hurting anything anyway.

I've been given a big "opportunity" (don't you hate it when your boss and your boss's boss use those words?) at work. I'm now leading a big "high gain" team. The top execs at my work are watching this team very closely. This role means later nights at work (not getting home until 5-5:30pm when usually I was home between 4:15-4:30pm) and probably some working from home in the evenings after the kids go to bed. It also means being at work on Wednesdays instead of working from home. I was offered this role on Tuesday, accepted it and started that same day. Before I accepted it though I called Kris to run it by him since my getting home later screws up his work schedule plus he'll have longer days with the kids then - a stressful job in itself. He was of course supportive and told me to go for it. It probably didn't help that I was crying when I called him. Yes, I do want opportunities like this so I can advance at my job. I do want a promotion (and I think I deserve one for all the responsibility I've taken on in the last two years) but it's so hard to be away from my kids for so long. James goes to sleep at 7pm (tonight he made it until 7:20pm before he was done and needed to go to sleep) so now I only get to see him for about an hour and a half in the evenings. Annika's up a little later but not much. This should be a temporary position (it better be since none of my other work is letting up while I do this!) but for now I'm a bit conflicted about it. I'm happy that I'm given all these chances to lead teams (last year I was lead of another red team - successful red team too I might add) but I wish it didn't have to come at the expense of my family time, my precious, precious family time. When this problem is fixed, I'm going back to my regular hours immediately. I miss my babies already!