I know, it’s been a long long time. Five months and five days, or something like that.

Anyway, I’m good. How are you? Good.

My first term of seminary was great. It kept me a bit busy. Just a bit. I did really well in all my classes, but in order to do that, I had to develop tunnel vision. I did school and kids and home and that was it. I allowed nothing to derail me, and I am so proud of myself. Sick kids? Not thrown off track. Not enough time or energy to work part time? Quit my job, not thrown off track. Miscarriage #3 in less than two years? Lay in bed reading for a week, not thrown off track. Nasty virus stealing my voice and making me physically miserable? Not thrown off track.

Maybe it’s odd that I’m so proud of not being thrown off track, but I have a history of starting things. This is a big thing I’ve started. This is a big thing that I put off starting for ten years, actually, so continuing with the starting is kind of a big deal for me.

Unfortunately, one of the things I did not allow to throw me off track was the internet. So if anything really important has happened to you since August, and you think I should know about it, send me an email, or call me or something. I haven’t been reading blogs any more than I’ve been writing them.

I have an important thing to tell you. If, that is, you’re even still there after all this time. I am going to tell you the same thing I told you in the very first blog post I ever wrote. I probably have about as many readers left as I started out with, namely, my husband. That was a little over six years ago, on a whole other blog. I started this process when I was twelve weeks pregnant with Rowan, as a way of documenting the exciting journey to parenthood and staying in touch with far-off friends and family. I had no idea how this would become so central to my life and parenthood. Through both Rowan and Lilah’s infancies, this (and the previous) blog were essential to my survival and enjoyment of that time in my life.

And it looks like we’ll be doing it all again. Yes folks, at long last, I’m twelve weeks pregnant. It’s taken us two years and a lot of false starts and tests and stresses to get here since we started trying for another baby, and it finally seems that we might have one. On Monday, we had our third ultrasound for this pregnancy, and saw a little alien with a good heart rate and good measurements waving and kicking and basically seeming to thrive.

It looks like la Troisieme Banane may finally be on its way.

As you may know, we recently bought a house. It is not a new house. This is a good thing. We don’t particularly like new houses. We prefer the character found in character homes. We bought a character home.

This means that our house has previously been owned by other people, of course. In fact, due to Michael having a cool job in a cool organization, a coworker of his was able to dig up a photo of the two couples who owned the house when it was built. It would seem that our house has a history of being shared.

Fortunately, it has been owned by people who have taken very good care of it and done good quality updating and maintaining. It is a beautiful house. I love it. And I love that the decorator of the people from whom we bought the house used a theme that coincides with our taste and our stuff. This house really suits us, and I think it knows we love it. I think it has been loved before.

I am in some ways mystified by the people who were here before us. I think they probably bought the house and had it fixed up and “flipped” it over to us. That’s fine: now there’s very little work we need to do to make the place Perfect In Every Way. But I’m not convinced that they loved the house like we do. In fact, I’m not convinced that they understood it.

I base this theory of lack of love and/or understanding not only on the fact that they seem to have believed that if they couldn’t see the tops of moldings and cabinets that dust couldn’t, either, though that is a clue. I think that this house didn’t suit them the way it does us. Their decorator chose colours and fabrics that really go with the house, and put lovely sleigh beds in the bedrooms. And then the people living here put exercise equipment in. In almost every room. As weird as this is esthetically in a 96-year-old house, it’s even stranger in the context of exercising. This is a tall skinny house. Two-and-a-half stories with a finished full-height basement. That’s three full flights of stairs. To go anywhere and do anything. Why, for the love of Pete, would anyone climb three flights down to the basement to huff and puff on their treadmill and then climb three flights up to the garret so they can sweat it out on a stairmaster? Those of us who are in the house all day find we get a pretty good workout going to the bathroom and doing the laundry.

So I’m a bit confused by the previous owners. I think that they did not love this house as we do. I think that, perhaps, they flipped it so quick they didn’t even really ever live here. How else could a family of five survive with only one towel bar, I ask you?

I’m not much of a magazine reader. I’m a big reader. An avid reader. Some might even say a voracious reader. I average about 2 or 3 books a week. But I don’t read a lot of magazines.

From time to time, Michael points me in the direction of an article he thinks I’ll enjoy, and once or twice a year I treat myself to an evening of celebrity fluff and cheap wine. As a general rule, though, there’s only one magazine I read cover-to-cover on a regular basis. I subscribe to Today’s Parent because I’m soooo cool. I like Today’s Parent for a few reasons. For one, it’s Canadian, so it has more geographical relevance than many other publications. For another, parenting issues generally have more significance to my daily life than who is sleeping with Jennifer Aniston or what length of skirts they’re wearing in Paris. Also, I love reading “expert advice” on common problems and learning that I’m doing something right. In case you didn’t know, mothers in their thirties give nineteen-year-old single girls a serious run for their money in the whores-for-affirmation department.

Anyway, I keep the current issue of Today’s Parent on top of the laundry hamper in the bathroom, and peruse it in my rare moments of peace and quiet. The July issue arrived last week, and I started with the cover stories that grabbed my attention, and then went back to begin at the beginning.

In the Mailbag department, there is a letter emailed in by a gentleman named Doug Hyde. Mr Hyde has his knickers in a twist about the under-representation of fathers in the magazine’s depiction of parents. He writes: “It’s no wonder you call your magazine Today’s Parent because that’s all you portray: one parent. Jamie Sale on May’s cover is the latest example.” He goes on to describe how he is a committed and involved husband and father, and describes these relationships as an “honour and privilege.”

Now, I feel for Doug. Often, “parenting” issues really means “mothering” issues, and fathers get left in the cold. I think, though, that he maybe missed the moment for making his point. When actually reading the article about Jamie Sale, it turns out to be an interview with both her and her husband and skating partner, David Pelletier, and describes a very balanced and equitable parenting partnership.

What really makes me think Dougie missed his mark with his letter, though, is the statement of the May issue’s theme in big white block letters next to Ms. Sale’s head on the cover: MOMS SPECIAL. Maybe it’s just me, but I’m not convinced that Mother’s Day is the best time to complain about people saying too many nice things about mothers.

I wonder how many people were offended by June’s Dads We Love feature?