Rainy Saturday**

**Note - this post WAS written on Saturday afternoon. However, the power went out in the middle of my composition, and was not back before we left for an overnight adventure at the Hartman house. I won't even begin to get into the chaos we came home to last night, after the power had been restored...let's just say we've had to turn off 4 different circuits in our electric panel in the basement. I'll post more about that as soon as we have some clarification as to what's happening there.

Here I sit on a rainy Saturday, feeling a little unmotivated to do much of anything. Which is bad. Very bad. I haven't posted in over a month (tsk! tsk!), and there is certainly plenty to talk about. The trouble is, this is the end of my Spring Break, and boy did I need every second of it! Before things go from relatively calm back to the oh-my-god-there's-not-enough-time-in-the-day-or-days-in-the-week insanity that is my life, I should really fill you all in on how things are going around here. *Big sigh* So here goes...

First and foremost, let's have our Eily update, shall we? (That way those of you who have no interest in the Big J's can hurry this up and move on with your day without having to stop to read a novel. And don't bother with, That's not me. I am just as interested in the Big J's as I am in little E. We're used to being second-rate entertainment compared to her, so there's no need to try to make us feel better. We accepted the truth long ago.)

As I began pulling together my list of items to include in today's post - believe it or not, there is a method to my ramblings - I had right at the top: "Eily is almost crawling and trying to pull herself up." As of yesterday, however, I've had to amend that. While she still isn't crawling, she is indeed pulling herself up to a stand. Great. Just when I thought it was bad enough keeping up with her backwards belly scoot, I've suddenly become "Paranoid Mommy Extraordinaire", feeling the need to be by her side every waking second as she attempts to scale the furniture. Not that I'm unhappy to see her reach such an important milestone, of course. It's just...well...life is about to get a lot more challenging. Let's face it, keeping an eye on a relatively immobile baby while trying to get some work done is nothing compared to keeping tabs on one that suddenly knows how to get to the dvd player and push enough buttons to successfully lock the damn thing and make it impossible for mommy to get it to play properly ever again. Kids and technology - I tell you, it's scary. She could probably defrag my computer already....whatever that means.

Anyway, that's the big news. She pulled herself up no less than five times yesterday. You'd think I'd have captured it on video at least once, right? Well, much like her first solid food, I've managed to miss out on the opportunity every time. Now just where did I put my "Worst Mommy in the World" crown? I know it's here somewhere....
Fear not! While I don't have video proof of her actually pulling up, I do have some footage from earlier in the week when she was weight training for the big event by pulling her exersaucer around. In case you're wondering, it weighs 300 pounds.



And while this next clip was taken before the fated "pull-to-stand," it demonstrates how ready she is to start cruising. (It's also proof that she does, in fact, cry every now and then. I know some of you don't believe it, but it's true. She can't be perfect all of the time.)



Moving further back in our time warp to last week, we had a much anticipated visit from Auntie Kiki. I, for one, wish she would just move here and become our live-in nanny. I had a lot less mommy-guilt knowing Eily had someone to play with while I worked. Not to mention, Kiara makes a mean dinner. She didn't let the hot plate and microwave scare her off; somehow, she still managed to whip together a gourmet meal for us every night. Oh, and did I also mention that I didn't do the dishes once while she was here? Not that I didn't protest and try to convince her to let me do them. I have to admit, though, having a week off from bending over the tub was pretty darn nice. So for that, Kiara, I owe you many many thanks!!

The day Kiara left was also the day our friend Jim came over to help Jesse put the new electrical wiring in the kitchen. He essentially saved us $5000 - since this is what it would have cost to pay a professional to do the job. Instead, we spent $500 on supplies plus a few bucks for beer and pizza. Not a bad deal if you ask me. So here's a combined video of the work done in the kitchen and Eily saying goodbye to Auntie Kiki after spending the week together.



The video only shows about half of the work the guys did that day. Jim and Jesse spent from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. rewiring the entire kitchen, putting in the recessed lighting units, and connecting everything to the circuit box in the basement. Jim told us to expect the electrical underwriter to be nit-picky and give us a bunch of stuff to fix, but when he showed up here on Wednesday, he gave us the all clear to move forward. Look out plumbing, here we come!

In all honesty, that's pretty much all the excitement I have to share this time around. The month of February was mostly filled with lots of snow, schoolwork, and a trip to CT for my nephew's first birthday. (Guess who forgot to bring her camera for the big event? You guessed it! I'll take that "World's Worst Auntie" crown and put it on top of my "World's Worst Mommy" one. Thanks!)

Oh, but how could I forget - there was one exceptionally note-worthy event in February. You should all sit down for this. Are you sitting? Okay, here goes.

Jesse. Remembered. My. Birthday.

I know, I can't believe it either! No, actually I can. Between the crap I gave him for fogetting last year and just about every one of our friends giving him reminders, there was no way he could forget this time around. In his defense, everyone told me that when they reminded him about the big day, he already had plans. So really, he remembered on his own. I was treated to a yummy (and rather swanky) brunch at a nearby inn, followed by a manicure and full-body massage at a local spa. Can you say pampered? It was a great birthday, and he has hereby been absolved of his past forgetfulness.

I have a few other things to share here, though there's not much of a story behind them. So let's just call this the hodge-podge collage of pictures from the past month, starting with "Funny Things We Do To Eily's Hair."

We like to call this one "Medusa"



Here's her faux hawk




And this is what I mean by having to chase her around when she backward scoots on her belly. She ends up stuck underneath the furniture and even, as in this case, her toys.




And last but not least, here's a video we took last night while hanging out after her bath. There's really nothing too exciting about it, but it gives a pretty good idea of what a regular old night is like at our house. (I know you're all dying to know what that's like, right?)****

****I'll have to give you all a rain check on this one. (Haha, get it? Rain Check?! Because our power went out due to the "rain." Laugh, or I will never ever come back and post the video you're all missing out on.) I'll be sure to put it up as soon as we can get things squared away with the desktop, where the video is currently stored.