My baby girl is one.  Oh my goodness.  That's just craziness.  Honestly though, it was been a long, not-so-good year and I'm glad it's behind us.  Though it had absolutely nothing to do with her, her birth just seemed to be the beginning of some many bad things.  Lucy's surgery and recovery, the ill effects of we are still seeing everyday, then a bunch of small but stressful financial things, then Spencer's initial evaluation adn all that followed that, then Mike's office being shut down and him job searching and all that followed that with him emotionally.  I'm just glad that all of that is behind us, for now at least.  I'm sure that more bad and certainly worse things will happen to us, but hopefully not for awhile.

Mike had a second interview today.  It's his first one.  The woman who is leaving the position has specifically said that Mike is the guy for the job.  He went out to lunch with everyone from the office and said that he felt like he fit in well.  He has another interview this afternoon (a first interview with yet another place).  We are really hoping that he gets one of these jobs.  The timing would just be the sign I need that everything is going to be okay.

I have to go see Dr. Heather tonight.  Mike's homework is for him to appreciate the things I have, and he said that mine might be the same.  Uh, done and done lol.  I may bitch about  him (okay a lot), but he is a great catch.  When he's on, he's on.  But when he's not, he's really not.  And he's been really not for a long time.  Getting better now though.

Anyway, Rachel is one.  Wow!!  Her little personality is shining through.  I guess I just expected her to be a smaller, feminine version of Spencer subconsciously because I keep getting surprised when she does something that shows she's her own person.  I guess because Spencer doesn't have that much personality.  He's so go-with-the-flow, whereas Rachel is not.  I handed her a sippy of milk this morning, she took a sip, realized it was milk and handed it back.  Little things like that.  It's unbearable sometimes how much I love her.  I dont' know how I can keep her safe enough or teach her how to avoid the evils of the world (or try to at least, sometimes they come to you).  

Spencer is in a big boy bed.  We took the front off of his crib.  He looks so cute in it, and I love, love, love being able to bend over and kiss him and tuck him in.  We've been reading a lot more before bedtimes and that's been nice too.  He brings me books and sits on my lap so I can read them to him.  I was so worried at one time because he didn't do that.  I was so stupid, but that's a different story.  Yesterday he wouldn't nap in the bed, but I think he has finally fallen asleep today.  He was tasting that freedom for the first time yesterday, and I tried to put him back in bed a couple of times, but I couldn't take that away from him.  Making his own choice about when to sleep and when to rise.  It's probably the very first step toward independence.  He was sly, too when he came out here.  He came running out of the room so excited to have made that decision for himself.  Last night he fell asleep on the couch while watching tv with Tom and Lucy.  Guess is was all just too much for him lol.