Sorry, still no pictures. I can't get around to face the disappointment! Christmas pics are never great, a big, endless series of "record shots". How do you all get your adorable kids to 1) look at the camera and 2) smile and 3) hold that pose for about 7 seconds until the digi cam decides to take the picture???

Happy New Year's anyway! I do not make resolutions. I never have. But, I did work out this morning! Yay for me! Mostly to get the kids out of the house... I am delighted that they love the childcare room so much. I never take that for granted, having gone through years of separation anxiety. Now that Luke is happy at the childcare with Isabel and Steven there, the next hurdle is keeping him happy there even when the older kids are in school. That's about as close to a New Year's Resolution I'll come-- oh yes, and I want to look less flabby and floppy in a tank this summer. I didn't even wear tank tops last summer- I was so self-consious. I am working my arms hard though! It hurts to type!!! I don't expect a 20-year old body, I try to keep it real here. I don't have the time or the desire to work to that end, and I think the pregnancies have done a fair share of "irrecable damage." (Sorry- another resolution I won't make is to improve my spelling. It's just not a big priority...)

Anyway, as I dink around the house looking for easy things to occupy the kids, my husband is at Walter Reed working with injured soldiers returning from Iraq, awaiting surgeries. He is on the team which inprocesses them, taking them from the heavily sedated stage of transport to the stable stage ready for surgery. On the day before New Years' Eve, 3 soldiers came in. They all come in with greusome and life-changing injuries. How does Mac cope with what he sees? I don't know. I can't help him much. It is too real for me. One soldier who arrived late on Sunday was met by Mac and the soldier's mom. The soldier lost both legs and an arm, and had severe injuries to his abdomen. (Mac said his stomach and entrails were exposed.) The next day, New Year's Eve, he was still sedated. The docs tried to ease back on the sedation, but as soon as he regained any level of consciousness, he started to cry. His mom spent New Year's Eve with her formerly able-bodied son, crying as she tried to console him. The docs returned him to a sedated stage. I wonder about this mom today, especially as I look at the Washington Post which has a picture of Iraqis reveling, as they celebrate New Year's for the first time in who knows how long. I will keep her in my prayers.

Meanwhile, the kids ask me if dad will be home tonight. I say, "I don't know. It depends on how many soldiers come in tonight." This worries them. They ask if dad will be all right, or if he'll get hurt. I always tell them that he is safe, he is a doctor who helps the soldiers get better again, and that he is far away from the war. They ask me what happens to the soldiers, why are they sick? I tell them there is a war, and sometimes the soldiers get hurt, and then they come home and daddy helps them get better. My kids have been to Walter Reed, they have seen the amputees literally pouring out of the lobby area. They don't understand how so many men can lose limbs. I don't either.

Then Isabel asks me, "Do the soldiers like pretty women?", completely out of the blue.

"Yes honey, they like pretty women very much."