Sunday, July 20, 2003

Well, here it is morn of the start of our “holiday”. I believe we lift off the ground at around 9.30 p.m. and head off to Munich on route to Barcelona. We will finally land in the evening in Barcelona and will thus be able to head to bed shortly after a very very long day!

A red letter day for me was earlier this week – perhaps Monday (July 14th – Bastille Day) when Quincy slept through the night for the FIRST time! Of course it has also been the only time… but I have hopes! He was waking around every 3 hours at the time of his 18 month check up but shortly afterwards started increasing his initial waking from around 11 p.m. to 3 a.m. or sometimes later. He still often wakes at 6 and the bad part re earlier this week is that there were 3 days in a row where he decided to wake up for the day at 6 a.m. – and we were used to both kids sleeping in til 7.30 or 8. Calorie intake definitely effects how long Quincy will sleep – so I do my best to get some good high cal food in him in the evening or better yet all day long. We aren’t always successful esp if we have days out and about. He eats fast and well when he first sits down but then tires rapidly of the offering and the sitting and heads off to play. Sometimes I can pursuade him to come back for more bites later on. Other days he needs to do a poop and then makes room for more.

A red letter day for Aidan was on Thursday. We headed off to Thomas’ (new) house down in Redwood City (30 miles south of here) where the summers are hot hot hot. After being served a nice lunch and having a little playtime (and I was very proud of Quincy – he played nicely with the train set upsetting no tracks and not bothering Aidan or Thomas’ trains), Thomas went off for his soccer class and Sara & Aidan went to watch while I put Quincy down for a nap at the house. The boys came back after class and watching some skateboarders do their thing in the park and downing an ice cream with beet red faces from the 90 some degree heat. Time for the pool! I think the 3 of them played in (or around as Aidan’s case is) from about 4 til 5.30. I waited for Quincy to wake up (tried to wake him up!). To join them. Aidan is unbelievable timid around the water. But this time he had on water wings (and goggles – very important). I was busy splashing both my kids to try to get them used to the water in the face thing. But the point here is that by the time we left Aidan was striking out ALL BY HIMSELF in the water with just his wings on! He was also shimmying along the wall in a “monkey walk” – something that earlier that day he kind of screamed in horror when I suggested it. Aidan needs very long warm up time each time, but this was frankly amazing to see. I think having Thomas so comfortable in the water – Thomas is truly swimming at this point – is a big help too. Quincy loves the water and has no fears and is a natural little swimmer. He does get purple in the lips quite easily – not enough fat on him! A last note here – it is quite funny afterwards to watch Thomas & Aidan taking a nice hot shower together and listen to their comments and see them try to apply soap to each other.

I have remained quite busy with school. My Board position has changed over and I have been trying to help out my replacement (although I had no help when I took it on but she has been a bit needy). I have also been working hard to convince someone, anyone, to take on a couple of the jobs that report to me – Maintenance Coordinator and Immediate Fix-It Person. I finally have that out of the way. The school has about its all time highest enrollment at present at 58 families – it apparently used to be around 48 families as there was some sort of $ incentive to have your kids go more days. A result of more families has been that there are more people to do the work. A nice thing! We are going to be doing a remodel to the shed where all the outside toys are stored – we will be adding a wall in the middle and creating a Teacher’s Lounge at long last. I am of course heavily involved with this. But the best of all is that one of the new family jobs is going to be an architect to do the drawings for this remodel. A very good thing as otherwise I was on the hook for it and 1) I haven’t been able to find my drafting board – let alone my pencils and triangles and scale and 2) I am not proficient enough to put it on computer without many many many hours. So I am heading off on this trip with a sigh of relief for some of the school stuff being roughly taken care of.

Now we just need to wait until we return to find out what is happening with Pete’s job. He has been posted at The Gap downtown in a lovely building by the water since we got back from New Zealand. The project was being done by consultants and Pete wasn’t very happy with their progress / solution – and it turns out neither was The Gap as the plug was pulled on Friday. So Pete spent the day packing his desk and getting his computer files sorted out. When we return he might need to return to The Gap with whoever ends up taking the project over – OR he might be posted to San Antonio TX for 4 or 5 months to work on a large project for USAA. Yikes! Life is never dull!

I hear squawking kids so should go relieve Pete.