Where'd we go?

That, my friends, is an excellent question. This blog has slowed down considerably here in the lord's year of 2008. It's not that we don't love you. It's not that we don't have stuff to tell you. But life interferes, you know?

For example, the not sleeping. Round about early January, The Girl began sleeping through the night. You'd think that would mean her mommies are well rested, right? Wrong. My body has responded to the end of breastfeeding and the wonders of a kid who sleeps 10 hours a stretch with the nastiest case of insomnia I can recall. Every night I collapse by 10:30. Then I wake up at 2 or 3 or 4, wide awake. I should just get the heck up and do some work or read or watch the movies Judybat won't watch with me. Or my Xena DVDs. Instead, I toss and turn ... and notice, as I do, that darling spouse is doing the same thing. She's sleeping, sure, but not deeply enough to really feel rested in the morning. I want her to do one of those sleep studies where they hook electrodes up to her body and track her dream patterns. She wants me to call the doctor and get some Ambien. Either way, we're exhausted.

I'm also working too much. The nice guy who took over city politics for me suffered some severe health problems earlier this month, so I've lost my cushy feature writing gig and am back wandering the halls of government. Speaking of things that keep me up at night ...

And it's the end of college basketball season. And I'm really depressed about what just happened in Ohio and Texas. And The Boy just turned 5, with all the pomp and ceremony such a grand event requires. (Not to mention a clown, who was nowhere near as terrifying as I'd feared. He seemed like what he was, a guy from down the street, rather than one of those Ronald McDonald, my-mouth-looks-like-I-just-ate-a-baby, clowns in the professional makeup.) And we've got a steady stream of visitors enjoying the hospitality and the upstairs skylight shower of the Little Green House. And the big blue car needs new tires. And our basement light needs replacing. And and and.

There's really no excuse, I know. We should be writing more, both of us. For the moment, however, accept my apologies and know that if you could see what I see right this second -- a little girl toddling her way across the hall, a boy making thank you cards for his buddies, early March sunlight shining through the front window -- you wouldn't feel like sitting down at the computer either.