The washer broke. We got pooped on. (These two facts do not coexist well.) I drove to Oxford at 75 miles an hour today with a grimacing Annaliese in the back seat. Then she puked. K. went on a three-day business trip AGAIN. Then he came home grumpy and sick.

But! The weather is beautiful-- think first signs of spring-- and the kids are Alright. Caspian's basically talking, if you take the time to converse with him. He gives beautiful wet kisses over and over again. Annaliese says things like "Mommy, cars eat chickens when they're hungry," and her favorite song is Swing Low, Sweet Chariot which makes me feel like an accomplished mother.

I really enjoy NOT having an infant. There are still tantrums, and whininess, and clinging, but the desperate tunnel days of infancy are behind us, and man, it feels good. We're finding our rhythm as a family; K and I no longer have to cram every minute of relaxed time into the hours after the children are asleep. The golden days of them feeding and entertaining themselves while we sleep in on Saturdays are beginning to take the shape of someday possability.

I like 2011. Knock on wood.

Annaliese, in her new tutu, wearing her boots because it was raining and she refuses to let her dancing shoes hit the ground anyhow. She carries them in her ladybug bag and only after she has hugged her best friend Maddie BrockBrock and exchanged compliments on tutus will she plop on her butt and extend her foot for ballet slippers.

The kids now having matching dinosaur PJs, which I LOVE. Sunday morning: cereal, pjs, and Bob the Builder so I can have a quiet cup of coffee. It's a trade I can live with.

Lounging with the bebes, watching something or another, loving how they cuddle with me now.

In another year, people are going to think they're twins. Caspian's still 4 inches shorter but he's within a pound and a half of Annaliese's weight and growing like a weed. I kind of think of them as twins, though 17 months is not Irish-twin territory. There's one on my right and one on my left and it feels right. The urge to have another baby hit hard 6 months after Annaliese's birth, but we're 19 months in with Caspian and while we haven't totaly ruled it out, both of us shake our heads when it comes up.

Plus a rash of people have gotten pregnant lately. And the thrill of it Not Being Us is pretty heady.

I wonder if that will change.