Our crew dove into 2014 headlong. We’ve got a lot going on at work, there have been tons of birthdays and social events, and the kids are getting into everything. I long for spring.

All of the crazy means we’ve gotten less time with Tess and Remy than normal, which always makes me feel guilty and unhappy. Our kids spend every day in a stable, loving environment. Estelle works miracles, and the kids love her. We both understand (most of the time) that as a two-career family, we’ll have weeks like this – where time is the most precious commodity and we can’t do it all. We’ll never like it, but we understand in our heads if not our hearts.

What it comes down to though is that we’re all trying to raise happy, self-confident, respectful and curious little people. As parents, we get so hung up on the day-to-day moments: we missed this or forgot that, we snapped when we should have smiled, we ran out the door instead of taking that extra five minutes to read a story. Still, our end goal hasn’t changed, and our decisions in that regard seem to be working. Tess may miss us when life gets crazy, but she still feels loved and safe. I pray Remy’s still slightly oblivious. He seems happy all the time too, so I sense he’s fine.

So we’re making the most of the time we have. This weekend, we all went to dinner and a modern dance performance that a friend of mine was in. It was super fun! They had a cat room where Tess chanted “Chat! Chat!” in the silence. (I checked with my friend the performer – she said it would add to the ambiance.) We went to a birthday party too – Tess was shocked and amazed!