Sometimes I clearly remember what life was like before we had kids. I could pay attention to my husband for awhile and then bury myself in a stack of magazines or a great book for the rest of the day. I mean the entire day, like 10 hours of reading.

I miss those days.

I usually make it through the newspaper every day. On Sundays, when it takes me an hour and a half total to read the paper, I'll plant Allie in front of a movie and hope Julia naps so I can read the paper in short segments. It usually takes me all morning to get through it, if not into the afternoon.

Sigh.

Now the books I get all the way through are "Pocahontas" and "Go Dog Go." It's better than nothing, but not much. I'm already looking forward to when my kids can read on their own. Allie is making strides, sounding out letters. I figure it'll be about four more years until I can read as much as I want for leisure again.

I wonder if we should start Julia on flashcards now to speed things up.

Julia had a giggling fit tonight. It was pretty unintentional on my part--I was changing her clothes for bed. She needed to be washed with a warm washcloth around the neck because she was wet with drool or spit-up.

She laughed when I took her arm out of one sleeve and I tickled her, and when I started washing her neck, she got the giggles. I yelled for Greg and Allie to come downstairs from where they were playing on the computer in Allie's room, so they got to hear it too. Julia was giggling and laughing and doing the baby version of guffawing.

It was very cool. Babies are fun.

Greg arrived home today from Baltimore. No more trips until next year.

Shortly after he arrived and after Julia had become somewhat reacquainted with him, Allie woke up from her nap. She came downstairs and I took Julia from Greg's arms so Allie could squeeze him and hug him (which she's been talking about doing for days).

Greg grabbed her in a big hug and the two of them started rolling back and forth on the couch, tickling and laughing. Julia was watching and she immediately started to cry. She thought Allie's screaming was in pain or fear and boy, did she react. We had Allie come over and try to get Julia to smile again, but it took awhile.

I told Greg, just like dogs do sometimes, Julia misinterpreted what she saw as fighting and she reacted. Is it OK that I compared my daughter to a dog?

She doesn't look like a dog. She looks a lot like me when I was a baby. My mom and I went through a bunch of family photos and I've got one photo of me as a baby (with my sisters, of course, curse of being a third child) that looks just like Julia. I don't think my hair was quite as spikey, however!

I've made my husband a happy man. How, you may ask? What wonder of marriage bliss do I have knowledge of? I let him talk me into spending $1300 on a new computer. I hate spending money like that right before Christmas, but I let him talk me into it. He kept complaining about our old computer crashing and I got as tired as he did of him staying up until all hours of the night reloading stuff when it crashed.

So now we have a new Mac G4. It's very futuristic looking. All one box and the CD drive is completely hidden. I'll probably know how to do about three things on it.

Today, the Lees went out to lunch at a local cafe and then we got groceries, and tonight Allie and I made cookies. It would have been a just lovely day if not for the fact that this red-headed waitress at the cafe terrorized Julia. Julia had been peacefully sitting in her carseat while we ate, chewing on her fist and contemplating going to sleep, when this waitress stopped by to say how cute she was.

For some reason, Julia didn't like her and she started to huff and scrunch her face like she was going to cry. So did the waitress leave before she actually got going? No, she stayed standing over Julia, even leaning in to comment on how she looked like she was going to cry.

So she wailed. Even then, the waitress didn't move. Greg tried to rock Julia a little and finally had to put down his sandwich to pick Julia up. She cried and cried. Thanks a lot, red. Julia cried and sobbed and everyone in the restaurant looked over as if to say, who pinched that baby that was so peaceful for the last 20 minutes?

I know. And if she's our waitress next time we're in there--no tip for her!!!

Well, Halloween has come and gone and it keeps getting better every year as Allie gets older. As you probably know, she was a butterfly this year, with elaborate colorful wings and a thankfully-warm jumpsuit.

It was cold and damp, but we did better with trick-or-treaters than last year, when it was very cold. 258 this year vs. 216 last year (that's in 2 hours, folks). I think our all time high was 320 or so. That's a lot of kids begging for candy on our corner.

We had guests again, which we've had for the last three years. It freed Greg and I to both go begging for candy with Allie, so we both got to hear all the neighbors tell us how cute she looked. Yep, she doesn't hear that enough on regular days, so we have to stock up on holidays.

It's raining steadily outside, and that always makes me want to bake cookies. I would be insane to do so, however, since we have a bunch of candy left over, plus Allie's proceeds, plus Greg bought cookies for our visitors (which went uneaten since they brought cookies with them), plus a friend of ours gave Allie cookies in her Halloween bag. That's too much sugar even for me.

Gloomy day--I hate fall. I'd almost rather have winter, when you at least get bright snowy days. My favorite time of year is spring, when all the flowers are coming up and everything's turning green. How many days away is that?