Sorry.

Sorry for the long disappearance. This has been a tough week. I apparently have the Swine and have since Saturday, though it didn't fully manifest itself until the afternoon after I had run my first 5k! and spent too few short hours with my brother and Amanda and Kaylee. I have been sick since then, and we decided to start on potty training n Sunday anyway, since it appeared as though I wouldn't be able to go anywhere anyway.

Potty training! Whew! Who knew it was so tough and such a pain. Makili has done REALLY well in the house. We're transitioning from the potty seat to the "big potty" at the moment. He's doing really well except that he uses the potty an unbelievable amount. Between 6:00am and noon today he peed a dozen times and pooped 4 or 5 times (and pretty big poops too!). I know that is more detail than you all need, but seriously, the poor kid was practically on the pot the whole morning. He has not embraced the whole potty thing outside of the house, however. That has been a whole other struggle. So we've decided to do potty training in our house only for a little while. Maybe it will cut down on the poopy diapers I have to change, but maybe not. Either way, he's done really well and we don't want to toss that progress away. We're also not ready to be trapped in the house for fear of him peeing all over his pants every time we leave the house.

My kids have been growing and changing so fast it is killing me. We lost our camera battery charger (we have another one ordeR) and we have a serious space issue on our computer, so the images that normally are the meat and potatoes of my posts are going to be scant a little longer.

Remick is getting so big. It makes me tearful just thinking about it. Since we decided long ago that we only wanted two biological children (and made that official by getting my tubes tied at Remick's birth) I am SUPER emotional about everything he does. "This is the last time I'll ever have a baby that will..." The kid is a total menace as a sleeper and this has not helped the sickness for me, but boy does he make up for it in unbelievable sweetness at other times. He'll just sit there and look and me and smile at me and talk to me for hours. It is absolutely delicious. I laid with him on the bed the other day while he was doing this, and I thought to myself "please, please, please remember this moment forever. the way his little smile emerges and his eyes shine just because he sees you. Please remember this little face and the way this makes you feel." I don't even know if it is possible to remember them like this. I look at pictures of Makili from a year ago, and I swear I don't remember him looking like that. I so terribly want to remember his little face just as it is right now.

Makili is a menace in all sorts of ways, being two and all. Reverse psychology is pretty much the only way to get him to do anything these days (though bribing him with tractor videos on youtube is pretty effective too). His language is absolutely delectable. I almost lost it today after I'd cleaned up too much poop and dealt with too much screaming and didn't feel well and my hair is falling out (a whole other topic I won't get into right now) and I have a crapload of homework for my online class so I can renew my teaching lisence, etc. I started crying at one point when my damn phone wouldn't work and Remick was screaming instead of nursing. Makili looked at me and say, "Why are you crying, mama?" He totally knew I was upset, so he decided to help himself to some cereal (instead of bothering me even though he knew I wouldn't let him eat cereal for lunch) and spilled a bunch on the floor. Before I even knew what had happened, he was screaming, "I clean it up, mama! You no clean it up! I clean it up, mama." while putting as much cereal as could from the floor into his wet cup and then pouring it back into the cereal box. And boy, if that wasn't the greatest expression of sweetness.

Also, randomly he likes to tell us, "mama, we don't eat poop." We're really not sure what prompts this, and I try not to get too imaginative trying to figure it out.

Makili is really into passing the soccer ball back and forth these days too. He's pretty damn good with the soccer ball too. Nadine says she wants to invest in his soccer stardom now, since she's sure to amount to something someday. He likes to have a running start and kick it really hard. He is really into apologizing lately, so if he kicks it and it actually goes to your feet, he'll say "I'm sorry, mama." But if I'm talking to Raph or doing anything that slows down the progress of our game, he'll say, "Stop talking, mama." Eye on the prize. Keep your eye on the prize.

A lot to say about nothing. Yet these little things my kids do will someday add up to a childhood and then to a person, and I won't be able to remember them if I don't write them down, like I won't be able to remember Remick's little face smiling up at me like he does, and boy that just kills me.