Rules for touching other people's babies:

In light of my brand new nephew and the equally brand new baby girl that our friend gave birth to over Thanksgiving, I got to thinking about the etiquette involved in handling babies that you did not contribute to the DNA of:

• If you knocked on my door and I opened it, would I say "Hey, come in!!" or "May I help you?" 
• If I would not immediately hug you and invite you in, please don't put your hands on my brand new baby.  If I know you well enough that I would let you in, but would be a bit confused as to why you are showing up to my house, at least ask permission before you touch my child. And keep your hands off of his/her face!
• If you would think twice before walking up and planting a kiss on me or my husband's face, please don't kiss our baby on the face.  Period. No exceptions.

What is it about middle school...

...that makes me completely and utterly uncomfortable and awkward feeling. I mean seriously, I graduated a LONG time ago.  But whenever I step through the door of K's school, I'm instantly self-conscious and weirded out.  :)  Don't get me wrong, I love that she wants me there, but my inner nerd cringes.

The book fair has made it's appearance in the library this week. I gave her the option of just taking money and buying herself a book but she chose to take me (and my debit card) along this morning.  I'm going to tell myself that she just wanted to spend some quality book-browsing time with me and that it had nothing to do with her being smart enough to realize that she is likely to beg her way into a better haul if she has me there to beg than if I just send her a set amount of cash.  :)  Where did my princess-loving wookie go, and who is this Twilight-browsing (I'm not cool enough to let her read them yet) tween?  *Sigh*  So after she made her selection, she deposited me in the line to pay, kissed me good-bye and asked me to pay and take it home so that she could go chat with her friends before school. I stood in line with a bunch of middle school kids and paid for her book and walked out to the car quite contentedly, because she still thinks I'm cool enough to kiss in front of her friends.  How the heck did I get such a cool, self-confident kid? Life is good.

Hey, I'm still here!

I abandoned this thing for a little while (okay, a long while) but I'm back!

To catch up:

K is now 11 and in 6th grade.
B is now 5 1/2 and in kindergarten (yikes, that boy is going to turn me gray)!

Fearless leader (the hubby) has been in the Air Force for 11 1/2 years and became an officer in April of this year. Yay! We're currently in West Texas for Intelligence training before we set off on the next leg of our adventure in the spring.

As for me, I'm just hanging on for dear life, trying to maintain my sanity on this wild ride and, hopefully, do it with some semblance of grace. :)

I'm going to try to post something here at least a couple of times a week. We shall see. :)