I'm still here! Still swamped, but still here!

Hellllllloooooooo!
Do you still remember me?

I so miss blogging, guys. I can't wait for this week to be over, which *should* mean a little downtime at work, at least during my lunch or something, to reflect on life with my kiddos and husband and the world at large.

But for the last few weeks, my work life has been jam-packed! Even when I get home at night, after the kids go to bed, I have been up till 11:30/midnight working. Total suckage.

So much stuff has happened that I'm sure I'll never remember to get down. I never did get to my post about liking my kids (there was a point I wanted to make) and I haven't even had an opportunity to share post-Halloween photos. Blah.

But I had 5 minutes this morning before a call and I wanted to share this photo of the boys, which we snapped last weekend, when we pulled up in front of our house after a lovely afternoon spent at our friend Stacey's house, turned to look in the backseat and found:

Isn't that the sweetest thing? They were just staring up at the DVD player, holding hands, peaceful, blissful and beautiful. I swear one of the sweetest things about being a parent is getting to witness that kind of love.

So imagine how torn I am today, one day after getting a message from the kids' school that Dean had been in an "incident" on the playground. I won't get into it here; it's silly, if you ask me and completely overblown. But suffice it to say, my peaceful, sweet boy Dean -- the one who runs to Clair if she falls and sings to her -- had quite a day yesterday. He was really upset about it most of the evening, and he needed lots of love and attention. I felt so bad for him.

I totally understand that schools need to be safe places for kids, and that staff needs to correct children when they do things they shouldn't. But I just wonder what we've come to that adults think 3-year-olds are supposed to behave like 10-year-olds -- never get frustrated or angry, never have emotions, never act out.

We teach our boys to be peaceful and kind. And you can tell from that photo that they *get* that.

So, I'm OK. Dean's OK. Everything is ... OK.

Day 5: TGIF

As the week winds up, three things are clear:

The boys are still not so sure they love school. But at least they have each other.

Clair is absolutely sure she loves having a little bit of time to herself in the mornings.

And Mommy is happier than she can ever remember that a long weekend is here. One week of school down. (Only a few hundred more to go!)