happy new year! uh, i mean, happy march!

one of my new years goals was to start blogging again. my first was supposed to be jan 1 of this year. blogging has been on my mind and in my heart for quite some time. i would often tell myself to just START, but would be distracted by something (or should i say little someones) and would push it off to later. and when later finally came, i couldn't remember my password. it took about 500 tries and a month for me to remember! and now march is upon us. i am two months behind my goal. but then again, i feel that way with much of my life as of late. so many good intentions and always taking too long to follow through. so as ingrid is napping and kids are snacking i thought this would be a perfect moment to just go for it.

so ... HI!!!

it feels good to be back. there is been quite a bit of growing since my last post which was about, ummm, 18 months ago. i am not going to go into a loooong recap of where the kids are at. i am just going to dive right in and begin where we are at today. and the big news of today is that we took away ingrid's pacifiers on friday. she had gotten into this really horrible habit of twirling her hair around the paci and then YANKING it out with all her might. a horrible sight to see ... and sound to hear. after learning that continual pulling of the hair *might* cause permanent hair loss i immediately walked around the house and threw out all her pacifiers. there is no good time like the present to quit a bad habit, right?

the first night (friday) was torture. she cried for about 1.5 hours screaming for her "gookie". she finally did fall asleep after much rocking and woke up a few times during the night. yesterday (saturday) she kept walking around the house looking for one in all the usual hiding spots. took an okay nap and then fell asleep on her own at night (surprise to me!). she was, however, up every 2 HOURS during the night. we took turns rocking her back to sleep which luckily didn't take long each time. between her being sick (cold) and huge transition without her paci i am giving her a few nights before we make her "cry it out" ... but all in all she is handling the transition like the star that she is!

and now she is up from her nap and the kids are done with their snack so i am signing off. promise it won't be 18 months until i write again .....

xoxo, the blad pad