Huzzah!

We have had THREE massively huge successes in our family in the last couple of weeks.

In a sudden bout of amazingness, Megan is now potty trained. I let her wear underwear one day just for the heck of it and she has worn it ever since. A few accidents here and there, a rough time in the feces department for a while there, but she's pretty much there now. She has yet to wet the bed at night, and she has no problem using a toilet anywhere.

Hooray for having a much, MUCH better experience this time around, for all involved.

With the last sticker on her chart, she earned her prize: the Cinderella Princess barbie.

And by the way, note our awesome new entertainment center!

I designed it, and our neighbor Tony built it for us. It is GORGEOUS. I absolutely love it. Yay!! Thanks Tony!

Chris had made amazing progress on the bed--all pieces are now pieced together. There is a bit of finishing and structural touches to add, and then it's on to gluing. The end is near!

And last but not least, I NAILED MY GOAL!!!!

My book is not done, but I do have well over sixty pages written. Just for fun, I took a screen shot of the print preview scaled back as far as it would go. It doesn't even show all the pages.

I have written much of the major trauma moments, with two major exceptions. Now I am working on incorporating funny parts. What I have written is intense and serious, but generally speaking, I am not an intense and serious person. In fact, I am hilarious. That's like totally opposite. So I'm going to make my book funny, while of course still maintaining the truth of my traumas.

Any suggestions on switching back and forth between funny and traumatic?

And just for cutes, here's our picture of the day.

To Fill the Empty Spaces

Name each logo.

Rules: Don't cheat.

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May I Review

The downside to writing a book is that the time I have for writing is generally spent writing my book. Not posting on my blog.

The upside to writing a book is processing and healing from my trauma and abuse.

The downside to learning about abuse is a massive downward spiral right back into depression.

The upside to having such a backslide now is that I have the tools, the support, and the desire to honestly and truly fix it and move on. The upside to that is the depression only lasts a couple of weeks, as opposed to months and months with no end in sight. Life is so much better now.

And because life is continually improving, I can occasionally put my trauma aside and post on the blog.

Audrey Jane

Jane has graduated from her first year of preschool! It was actually a rather amusing event. She is most definitely NOT a shy and quiet person (as many of you know), but she refused to participate in any of the songs they had planned for the program.

She was quite adamant on her non-participation.

Although I think she did eventually get bored, while everyone else was having fun singing.

She was the first in the class to receive her certificate, but she wouldn't stand up. Oh, well.

Sara and Marley were two of Jane's best friends this year. They will both be in kindergarten next year while Jane will stay in preschool for one more year. We attempted a lovely picture of the three of them together. I'll let you guess how Jane felt about that idea.

Megan Leigh

Megan has sprouted quite the vocabulary lately. She is much more coherent now when she speaks, and she has a few good jokes of her own that almost rival Jane's. I'll start making note of those, too.

Benjamin Ryan

Yes, he can climb. He can crawl with a fury, and he often attempts standing. If he has shoes on, he can last a few seconds. Otherwise, he sticks pretty close to furniture.

Once upon a time we took him to his 9-month check-up. On that day, he was

19 lbs 6 oz

35th percentile

28 inches

42nd percentile

With all his crawling, he has thinned out quite a bit. And it would seem is propensity for higher-than-average height has ceased. Or at least taken a temporary break.

He keeps us all entertained.

Laura Diane

One of my momentums for our Power 90 class a few weeks back was to do my hair up every day for seven days. I documented my experimentations with different styles--forgive the odd angles on a few of them. Jane played photographer for me on the days that Chris was gone to work before I had my hair done.

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

Day 5

Day 6

Day 7

Which one do you like the best?

Christopher Ryan

Great progress is being made on the king size bed Chris is building for us. It's going to be gorgeous.