Faced with the impending school year, I'm filled with dread and anxiety. To cope, a total reorginization of furniture and clothing occurs (Shane's favorite, as you can imagine.) This reorginization has led me to places like Cosco and Ikea in search for those items that promise to make life clearer and less cluttered. I come home with buttloads of sponges, green for counter tops and blue for dishes, pork chops to get us through the fall and enough chicken sausages to invite the neighborhood over for brunch. The retail therapy improves my mood temporarily and then the anxiety returns. What is the saying? When mommy's not happy nobody's happy?

We are on the 4th night of Mahalia's rigorous sleep training. Her nightly protests have been met with a looped recording of me singing her favorite lullabies and more stuffed animals jammed into her crib than you can shake a stick at. Amazingly, she manages to smile at her father and I in the morning, despite our torturing her.

You can see that she appears completely unfazed by this, her first yucky life lesson.