We’re starting to come out of the daily candy haze (although packing for the Flea tomorrow begins as soon as Mark gets back from the kitchen). We’ve gotten about 16 hours of sleep total for the past 4 days, but we managed to get into bed last night at midnight so I feel surprisingly refreshed this morning, as opposed to zombie-like the last 2 days. Through it all, The girls have been good sports about all the wackiness, but in true kid fashion, Mia really wants to help. It used to be that all the work would begin as soon as the kids went to bed. After they were tucked in, the apartment would turn into Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory, but all would be swept clean before they got up in the morning. Now work for the biz is running into daylight hours and it’s been frustrating for Mia to not be able to contribute. As you know, a 4 year old “helping” is not really helping at all so I try my best to find little tasks for her. I was printing labels the other day and she surprised me by sitting next to me so patiently, feeding the paper into the printer, watching it print and handing the labels over to me. She was ecstatic to be able to help. Claudine helps out by swiffering the floor, which we have to do often. Since we are packaging the goods here, I am super anal about keeping everything clean. She just discovered the swiffer and is having a ball with it. It so reminds me of Mia at that age. They definitely have different personalities and different faces though they do resemble each other quite a bit, but every once in a while, when I put a hand-me-down outfit on her and she’s doing a particular activity, I glance over at Claudine and think of Mia. And did you check out her haircut? No more mullet! Now she’s really part of the gang - just like everyone else in this family, a whole lifetime of mom-made haircuts in her future.

And for those who have asked…we have a new coffee maker. A shiny, black, digital display $30 special from Costco. Hooray!