oh dear. oh my.

i'm still here. just not commenting or writing much. there's been precious little time. the living room is littered with a mix of moving boxes half filled and christmas gift wrap stuff, captain j is gone (AGAIN!) for almost a week, first noah then natalie succumbed to an evil evil cold that comes with scary high fever that needs both tylenol and advil to control~coughing~lots of stuff from the nose~and general all around discomfort which means NO sleep for me, lots of christmas events i want to do well because i'm either saying goodbye to people or it's noah's first experience with it and i want him to have good memories and it's the christmas before deployment for captain,

(deep breath in)

trying to figure out when best to ship the car, mail boxes off ahead of time and fretting about getting airplane tickets when captain j doesn't even have his tickets yet, keeping house semi clean because people keep dropping by, keeping kids fed and clothed and from smelling, trying to find a christmas tree just the right size, getting christmas cards and letters out, worrying about noah's preschool in january, fielding calls from the mom and mother in law about kids' gifts and general worries they have about EVERYTHING(!), trying to find the perfect gift for everyone i love....

and a partridge in a pear tree.

then again, i know that all of this is not unusual for the life i and other mommas lead. i know we are all running around like a chicken with no head (and maybe a missing leg) too.

and then there are moments that make everything stand still and not matter. like a week ago (that's how long i've been wanting to write this post), natalie turned to me when i came into to sight from another room and said "ummah" and crawled towards me. captain j had to scrape my blubbering melty mushy self off the floor.

but the moment passed quickly. now she says "ummah" with almost the same intensity and just as often as noah. which means now i have two little voices chirping after me. how can something so sweet, grate on you so? i can't even pee without one of them calling for me.

christmas is less than 2 weeks away. that means the new year is 3 weeks away and our move across the ocean is 3 1/2 weeks away. (wild laughing)

ahem.

i'm fine. i promise.