I've taken quite a leave of absence. I doubt anyone is still reading, but on the off chance, I'll update.

Here's the deal. I'm really feeling like this blog has served its purpose. For the last year or so, since Quinn came home, I've felt somewhat obligated to keep up with it. I appreciate those who enjoy reading it. But in all honesty, keeping it up is a reminder of a very difficult time in my life, one I'm glad I'm moving away from. So I'm not even going to pretend that I'm going to update on any sort of regular basis. I tried once a week, and that lengthened into every two weeks, then every month, and now it's just become burdensome. In theory, I'm glad I have a record of our NICU experience, but I can't picture a time when I'll be willing to go back and read it. It's still too painful. So thank you to all those who read along last year, and who have checked up on us since then. I'll still be around, but not regularly. I've taken to Facebook, along with the rest of the world it seems. That's where most of my keeping up with people has been.

Quick updates: Quinn took his first step August 29. He's since taken another step and stood on his own, but has yet to officially begin walking. I've never seen a kid so thoroughly master the arts of crawling and cruising.


Dorian started school on Friday. So far, so good. I'd been dreading it for the last year, largely made more vivid by my experience with Quinn. The idea of handing my child over to an institution just did not feel good. Add to that our district's recent decision to begin full-day kindergarten, and I was a wreck over the whole situation. So I spent a lot of the summer with a feeling of impending doom. But Friday came, the bus came and picked up Dorian along with our two neighbors who are also starting kindergarten, and off they went. I waited anxiously for 3:30 when he would come home, hoping and praying for a good experience. When the bus finally came back, Dorian bounded off with a big smile on his face. I couldn't pull too many details out of him, but he says he wants to go back. That right there lifted an enormous burden from me. Let's hope we continue after that great start.


Faith and I will begin a preschool curriculum this week. I did this 2 years ago with Dorian, and we had a lot of fun with it. Faith is anxious to do something herself. She was disappointed to be left behind, wanting to go to school herself. All too soon, Faith. All too soon.