Family update

Where to begin? I suppose the beginning of October is a good place to start. Carl left for St. Louis the first week of October to stay with my parents and sister while he did an away rotation in surgical pathology at Washington University. So for one week, I was on my own. I could write pages about that week. But, suffice to say, when Carl left, Lily did not end up with one parent but barely half of a parent. I was amazed at how quickly I went south as a parent. Patience was no where to be found, leaving me feeling like the worst parent ever. This is incredibly pathetic, especially in light of those with multiple children, harder life circumstances, etc. For perspective, I watch Jon and Kate + 8, and then tell myself to "suck it up Sally"; life could be much more complicated.

As timing would have it, Ingrid (Carl's sister) and her dog, Irie, moved in with us the second week of October. When I told my sister Suzanne about Ingrid moving in, she commented "Oh, how nice", which pretty much summed up my thoughts on the matter. I think that it takes the parent of little ones to fully appreciate this set-up. In my line of work, ratios are everything. We maintain a 1:3 ratio of caregiver to infants under the age of 2 at all times. This comes at a cost of $1175 per month to parents. In our household, we now have a ratio of 3:1. As the commercial says, "priceless".

It's funny having such a full household. As Carl said, he feels like he lives in munchkin land now. There are now three little beings under 2 1/2 feet tall, and you have to really watch where you're walking around here to not step on any little toes or paws. And, the clean up crew is ready and waiting should you drop any food, which often comes in handy with Lily. It's all very amusing. I know that Terra is very happy about the new situation. She now has more frequent walks, trips to the dog park, more play time in general, and less time spent alone in the basement - all good things. Even though Terra still covets her alone time on the couch at the end of the night, you can tell that she is happy with the new arrangements.

So, back to the timeline. (This is not going to be a short post, if you could not already tell.) Ingrid, Irie, Terra, Lily and I were all here together for one week before Lily and I left to join Carl in St. Louis for 2 1/2 weeks, my longest vacation ever. Again, I could go on and on about these weeks, but in short, it was wonderful. There is no other place in the world where you could go to stay where all meals are taken care of, help with Lily is available at all times, fun outings are planned nearly every day - and it's all free. Someone at work commented that it must be hard to return to work after all that time off. And I replied very honestly, "Not at all". I just felt refreshed and ready to return to "normal", like my soul had be replenished, and I was ready to tackle the world again. It also doesn't hurt that I really like my job.

St. Louis was not all play and no work however. Even though we will not know until Match Day where we will be living next year, we have gotten positive feedback from Wash U and remain optimistic about returning to the St. Louis area. Since I will not have another period of time when I'll be off for such an extended period of time, I tried to use this time to check out the daycares and the local housing market while I was in the Lou. Overall, good news on both fronts. In general, I did not like any of the early education centers that I visited either virtually or in person, except one. And, it was a big, huge, resounding YES! when I visited there. This place is amazing. The owner gave me a tour of the facility which opened in July of this year. He laid out their educational philosophy which borrows concepts from both Reggio and Waldorf schools, and I was sold. (The Preschool where I work is Reggio-inspired.) They also have an on-site chef that makes things like bell pepper omelets and zucchini muffins for morning snack. The children grow some of the food that they prepare,and they have parent teams dedicated to finding ways that the school can become more "green". I was so happy that I thought I was going to cry. I have very high standards when it comes to early childhood ed, and this place blew even me away.

The housing market in St. Louis, like most places, is pretty much flooded with homes right now. It doesn't look like the situation is going to improve before the spring, which means we should still be in a buyer's market - good for us. Values of houses in the Baltimore area seem to be holding steady for now, so we really hope that we are able to gain a little more house for our dollar when we move. We'll see. Again, we remain cautiously optimistic.

Lily and I returned from St. Louis last Tuesday and Carl returned very late the following night after stopping at the University of Chicago for an interview. Unfortunately, after only a week of being back at work, my good friend Tori's dad passed away. So yesterday I flew back to Kansas City to be with Tori for her dad's service. It was a lovely service that highlighted his quirky sense of humor, his years of acting, his love of theater, and his love of family. I was glad to be with Tori during this difficult time, but I know that now the real work begins of coping with her dad's passing, and I send her all my love and best wishes that she is able to work through the pain and begin the process of healing.

Timing, once again, is a funny thing. Carl had two interviews scheduled for Thursday and Friday of this week, which required him to leave tonight for where else but Kansas City.

And that catches everyone up until now. Here are a few more details to give everyone a preview of the rest of November and beyond for us: Friday is Lily's 2nd birthday which will be very low-key with just us that night and probably a picnic lunch over the weekend with a friend of ours whose son turned 2 last Friday. Lily's Grandma Deetz and Great Grandma Murphy will be joining us for Thanksgiving (which I cannot believe is next week), and we are very excited to have them here for a visit. Carl has been studying night and day (literally) for the past few weeks for a major test (Step 2 of his Boards) which he takes the day before Thanksgiving. After Thanksgiving, Carl begins a new rotation which will last until Christmas. He is then off for the month of January, which will likely be spent making preparations for our move in June.

Through all of this, I really have not given any updates on Lily, but I will have to save that for a later time. For now, I will just say that she is amazing. It is not uncommon for her to speak in 5-6 word sentences, and she loves to comment on everything in her world. She is processing so much right now; you can almost see the wheels turning in her little head. She is into attributes and adjectives right now, telling me when it is dark outside, when we are laughing too loud, when she thinks her clothes are pretty, when she's chilly (with a little exaggerated body shiver)...and the list goes on and on. She also understands categories; and although she doesn't always get the answer right, if you ask her about an object's color, she always answers with a color; or when you ask her what day of the week it is, she'll give you one of the days of the week. The same is true for shapes, numbers, and so forth, and many times she does give the correct answer. She has also decoded the verbal spelling of several words which we can no longer safely use when speaking to one another, like p-a-r-k. She has also developed a sense of humor and loves when we laugh at things she says. For example, 2 months ago, I told her that she was going to be 2 in 2 months. Ever since then, when you ask her how old she is going to be, she says "2 months". She quickly found out that others laugh at her when she says this, so she now answers the question very boisterously and with a little smile, just waiting for someone to correct her so that she can say it again. I suppose that this paragraph was a little lengthy for someone who stated that they'd "save that for a later time". But, I warned you that this post was not going to be brief, and there are still many more things to share, but I'll stop here for tonight for your sake and mine.