I'm sorry if I haven't written in... FOREVER, but....

first Merry whatever you celebrate, in this family it's Christmas, which we make no relation to the Christian Christ-child, but instead to a historic myth/monk/saint named called "Santa". As all good parents of their first child, we spoiled the H*ll out of her and were left with a brat for almost a month... This not being helped by the fact that she has a birthday 8 days before Christmas, at which she also got spoiled, and cake (aka, frosting). LMS is now FIVE!!!

First of course, MommyT got all of her teeth pulled (henceforth to be called , according to LMS, "my mommy with no teeth" who is different from "my mommy who can't walk") in late October and early November, because they don't ask a person to do all of that at once. THEN she went (almost) completely blind in her right eye... THEN she got diagnosed with MS... THEN she got five days of REALLY BIG DOSES of prenisone... THEN she got her sight back, well, 95% of it anyways, which is pretty astounding when you go from 20/17 to 20/400 to 20/30 -all corrected- vision (and I probably put all of those upside down, but cope, I don't care, the important thing is the changing number). Through all of this, LMS was testing, testing, seeming happy and adjusting, testing, trying to blow out, testing....

That takes us to the second week of January. Suddenly, MommyT can see, and LMS is.... Happy??? Full of five year old can-I-get-away-with-this Attitude, and enjoying "reprishushuns" of the constant trail of no, you can't make me, DUHHHH, I will not, sassy mouth, lying, backtalk, of a five year old who is comfortable enough to test the limits possibly for the first time in her little life.

She LOVES her bed time story, and her goodnight song, and hugs and cuddles and eating dinner around the kitchen table, and when her DaddyJ(a LONG time friend of MommyM and friend of MommyT who is, for all intents and purposes that aren't legal/official, is LMS's father) comes to visit, and, she loves having TWO MOMMIES, (screw Heather, LMS has two mommies, and they are better!), and she loves her grandparents, and she loves her AuntA, and she feels conflicted about her previous families, because she feels like she should want to go back, but she knows that she is safer here, even if it is different and confusing....

She recently had to come to terms with the idea that spatulas are for COOKING, and are NEVER FOR SPANKING and that anyone who uses them for such is dumb and gross because we don't want our cooking tools to touch people's butts - that's gross! So now she freaks out when she first sees the spatula being welded like a pointer, but instead of crying (literally) no spank no spank no spaaaank and shaking, she she get really tense and starts to cry, announcing, statoolas is for cooking, NO spank, that's gwoss!!! (because we instantly revert to being three and making TWO MOMMIES feel like they could easily beat a B**** down for traumatizing their baby...) but then after receiving confirmation that, indeed, spatulas are for cooking, and occasionally taste-testing, but not for spanking, because that is, indeed, gross, LMS, the magical mighty morphing five year old, returns to playing and giggling.

We like to call that "progress", primarily because we don't end up ducking tiny toddler metal folding chairs.

The last weekend in January, MommyM winds up in the hospital for a week because she is spasming and it won't stop and her chest hurts... They don't know what is/was causing it, but it isn't heart issues, a blood clot, pneumonia, brain cancer, spine cancer, a fatty liver, or anything else that could be found on an x-ray, ct scan, brain/spine MRI, EKG, or blood test(s)... so now we're out of the hospital but still testing. Now the brain electric for seizures/etc, but NOT doing a spinal tap due to a long standing instinct that that particular test would wind up badly (aka, have had night mares for a long -since early teens- time that should MommyM ever have a spinal tap, she would be one of the less than 2% who wind up dead or d*mned close, living on a vent, in constant pain and paralyzed, etc).

But LMS is happy to be back from the Grandparents, and happy to be home with her (TWO, if you missed it) mommies (and she's really glad that MommyM stopped kicking her own butt so she could come home and read bedtime stories)!

And the back and forth between home and grandmas seems to be doing her good, because it seems to solidify that she's stuck with us, even if she does spend a week away. So happy New Year and whatever you celebrate, we're still here and still alive.