Likes:
-Food, in solid or liquid form. It took a few months to get him going on the solids but I think he's finally completely on board. He's even eating peas!
-Mia. Or any of the cats really, but Mia is the one who usually gets close enough to him so that he can touch her and grab a handful of fur. 
-Playing with himself while on the changing table. He laughs up a storm while doing so. It feels a little wrong but I just let  him do his thing. 
-His sister. Even though she is rough with him and hurts him to varying degrees on a semi-regular basis and sometimes screams so loud that he cries. Despite that he is pretty enthralled with her and I love seeing them together. 

Dislikes:
-Sleeping through the night. He's better than he was before, like we'll get a night or two a week of him not waking, but more often than not he still wakes up in the night to eat. (this is really more a dislike on my part than his, of course)

 We had to switch him from the handy baby carrier seat to an actual full-sized car seat. He was at the limit of the seat weight, 24 pounds, and when I took him out of the car I hit his little feet against the car because they were hanging far over the end. Ruby had been walking for quite a while by the time she outgrew her first seat! 

Things around here have been very chaotic since the new year (really, since I went back to work). Working almost 40 hours while taking care of two kids and trying not to completely fail at life is really, really hard. 

Heath lost his job at the very very end of 2014. Happy New Year! It was really for the best though. When he called me to tell me he'd been let go I was happy about it. He needed to get out of there and find somewhere that appreciated him and gave him more opportunities. The job market for software development in Lexington is not the greatest so he took a six month contract position working from home for a large pharmecutical company in Los Angeles. He flew out there for a few days a couple weeks ago. I was a little jealous, especially when he called me and told me he was driving along the coast. He seems to like it pretty well and already has a good rapport with his co-workers. Personally, I would hate working from home but he doesn't mind. Hopefully in six months he'll be able to continue on with this contract or find another one easily. 

The kids are good. Ruby is just as energetic as ever. The terrible 3's have turned into the Not-as-Terrible-But-Still-Not-Awesome 4's. I feel like I should just resign myself to the fact that this is just how things are going to be with her. She's always going to have a TON of energy, she's always going to need a lot of attention and stimulations, and she'll always be a very articulate smart ass. When it comes down to it, other than the whole "smart ass" part, I wouldn't have it any other way. I really do like that she is the way that she is, but damn, is it exhausting and frustrating. 

Jasper is almost 8 months old and is still such a little chubby sweetie pie. He's babbling like mad, drooling like mad (but no sign of teeth), sitting up mostly unassisted, and has even been able to roll himself over a few times. He clocked in at 22 pounds at a recent doctors visit so that's quite an accomplishment! He still isn't sleeping through the night like Ruby did but we get a couple nights here and there. 

I guess that leaves me. I could be better. I have definitely been depressed the past few months, a combination of exhaustion, stress, lack of light, and the general gray-ness of winter. Recently we've had some warm days and more importantly *THE SUN* have put me in a better mood but there are a lot of things that I need to work on in my life. I need a few big changes, I need to take better care of myself, and I need more creativity in my life. I could easily say something about "oh, just add that to my (always very long) to-do list" but I've put things off for far too long. Hopefully just putting my intentions out there and being more mindful will help me get over the hump.