Friday

I've been away from the blog for awhile -- just these last couple weeks of being pregnant muddling my brain and just a general February malaise.

My younger (by 12 years) sister Bekah has moved in with us for an extended length of time. It is been good in many ways -- nice to have help during outings and good to catch up with her life and let her and the boys enjoy each other. I would also say it's been a big adjustment for her -- going from a single, nocturnal life to a very diurnal small-children-family life. She's been doing great -- exhausted by the kids' bedtimes at night, falling asleep early (she's a chronic insomniac which makes this even more unusual for a lifelong night owl), and rising to go on morning outings with us nearly every day since moving in last week. We plan to have her basement room/with bathroom ready for her within a month -- just waiting on getting radon testing done and then some cosmetic refreshing and deep cleaning and she'll have her own space and a better place to "sleep in" when she needs/wants to.
She is waiting on job situations through Buffalo Wildwings (where she was working previously), Home Depot, Target, and one hole-in-the-wall pizza joint in St.Paul. She should know soon whether she needs to branch out from there. Her application is in at Dunwoody Technical School (the equivalent to Devry in Chicago) to resume school in the fall.

A few days later...
Today we "stayed in" -- Atticus is learning to "sew" using lacing cards we made up with cardboard and shoe laces. Dietrich used a spoon to feed himself applesauce at lunch. It was impressive.

It is 43 degrees here and sparkling sunny. I just returned from a walk by myself while the kids were napping and Bekah "presided". It was wonderful.