But back to hard work.

I’ve been back to work for about two weeks now. I was hoping it would feel more natural and it will be as if I have never left the office… not so much, but hey… this is not the officemonogues.com that is probably getting way more traffic than this secret vacation spot of rich and famous.

So back to the kids.

Mr. Notouching and I have decided that it would be best for everyone if I took the kids to the daycare in the mornings and he picked them up after work. I was never really a morning person (not much of the afternoon or evening either) but now? Mornings are extra special… in a

HOLY!

SHIT!

TRIATHLON!

kind of way…  It’s one thing to get the kids ready and it’s a whole new skill to get them ready AND get yourself ready AND manage to protect your outfit and hair until the point of the drop off! I’m getting to the point were I am laying out my work clothes in the garage so I can quickly slip into them AFTER I have buckled both of them into their car-seats… I mean when people can smell the fact that you have kids – you have a problem. Just saying…

It didn’t help that Mr. Notouching was shipped to Arizona for the last 96 hours. (Apparently that’s how far you have to go these days to get a good nights sleep… or work conference… something boring like that.) Those were the longest four days of my life and I have a whole new appreciation for single parents… And let me tell you, my commitment to make our marriage last has never been stronger… In sickness and babies!

Amen.

(Have I told you that most of my blog traffic is Monday through Friday from about 9am to 5pm? No? Well now you know, but not to worry because your boss is reading this too.)

The kids are still driving me crazy, but that’s their job and we all love it. Liam is rolling around and army crawling… backwards. Which means I spend most of my days pulling him from under the couch. I am starting to think that this is one of his self-defense moves – his sister is too big to fit under the couch.

Leila is heading full speed into her wonderful twos and taking herself very seriously. Her vocabulary if booming and the last time I have played Pink’s Funhouse was the day she sang “I’ll burn this fucker down!” at Target. Let’s just file this under the not-so-proud-moments-of parenting and never talk about this again, mKay?

Holidays were great, but as always I am very relieved they are over. My best memory by far was the making of this slightly ridiculous family portrait:

Welcome to my bedroom. I think I just took my lack of privacy online to a whole new level. You are welcome.

I highly recommend taking a two month long break from blogging. I missed it so much I created another website. No… YOU are crazy. I mean what else am I supposed to do with all that free time and money? (Don’t answer that… I’m practicing my rhetorical questions, that is all)

I always felt that there is just not enough of Daiva on the Internet… so I fixed that -> http://www.dnatochyphotography.com/

Happy holidays, my love muffins!

Love,

I have this voice in my head that keeps screaming not to write about this, but obviously it’s not loud enough…. so let’s talk about comments on the blog, shall we? It is hard to write into this vast space and not hear anything back. Getting a comment on your blog can easily make your day. Make it 10 comments and you don’t need your daily shot of battery liquid to add that extra spring to your step. I truly enjoy reading your comments, emails and questions (on a side note- you can now Ask Me Anything anonymously (or not) over here). It keeps me going, it makes me smile, laugh out loud, think… but then there are those few comments that just make me want to step on a kitten. So to prevent animal cruelty here is the list of comments you should avoid leaving on my blog:

1. Thanks for stopping by! or Thanks for commenting on my blog!… –  Thank-you notes are for your wedding guests – please don’t feel obligated to leave a comment JUST because I liked your post – it wasn’t a guilt-trip.

2. Hi! LOVE your blog! Come check out mine! – no.

3. You are such a great writer! - under my picture-only post… signed – WorkFromHomeClickHere – delete.

4. Love it here! You have an award at my blog – come check it out! – which basically leads to a blog meme that usually reads something along the lines of “you guys, so and so totally just gave me this awesome award and now I have to pick 50 other blogs to give this award to and then post 5 things about myself!” which is followed by a laundry list of random blogs with yours truly and according to the instructions all I have to do to claim my awesome-awesome award is to make a post about their blog and list 50 others…. It could be totally flattering, because after all they say they picked your blog because they really totally liked it… even though they have never visited you before, they read only one of your posts (thank you, statcounter.com), your blog is not on their blogroll and they will never come back again… mostly because instead of posting their link I wrote this post instead. Ok, I have nothing against blog awards, but I really don’t like memes – a bit too much of self-promotion for my taste.

5. I just subscribed to your blog – can you subscribe to mine? – how about dinner and a movie first?

I think I will stop here, but feel free to add more, that is if you are not afraid to comment after this rant… no seriously, I love you. And I really mean it this time.