Day 60, 61, 62

Last Tuesday was no good. Zak and I did some things, and had some fun, but I was very preoccupied with work. I think there a few things at play here. 1. I’m still trying to build up the faith and confidence between myself and my team. On my old team, we had such a good working model, it was just very natural…they knew the days I was going to be off, and they made sure they got anything they needed from me before that day, and knew how to survive the day I was gone. I think we still have some growing pains with the new team trying to figure out how to operate when I’m only there 3 days. 2) I think there is a lot of stress trying to wrap up the year before Christmas, making everyone a bit more stressed and 3) I think Mon, Wed and Thurs just isn’t a good drumbeat of work days for me. Can’t wait to get back to Mon, Tues and Thursday. Friday was better. We went up to see Grandma and Grandpa and had a great time. We raked up leaves and ran through them, had breakfast and lunch there. I added some new music to my mom's iPod (I think she's had the exact same music on that thing for 5 years!) Friday evening we threw ourselves into a family "house improvement project", and I was feeling much better (and physically exhausted) by Monday. Tuesday this week was good, and I'm going into tomorrow feeling better than last week. Thursday, we started the final pieces of our patio renovation....we replaced our existing French Doors with outward swinging doors, and put in a low-profile threshold so we can finally roll our food preparation cart in and out from the patio to the kitchen. We knocked down a small wall between the patio and kitchen, and patched the hardwood floor. My dad came down and helped do the big part (ie, actually replacing the door jambs, cutting out the old doors, patching the hardwood, etc)..but then we had 3 days worth (well, more, because we aren't finished) of switching out the windows of the doors, replacing the trim, caulking, insulating, etc. It feels so good to do physical work like that from time to time. Zak was a trooper and helped the whole time. A huge smile from me on Friday when he woke up from his nap. We had been working on the doors, and he fell asleep on the couch. I saw him starting to stir and was ready for a break, so I came over and sat on the chair beside him so I could hold him if he wanted when he woke up. Just as he was waking, I noticed there was a ladybug on his pillow. He opened his eyes, and I put my fingers on my lips so he wouldn't move too much, and pointed to his pillow. He saw the ladybug and said, "Ahh. It's a ladybug, and he's happy!" I asked, reconfirming "He's happy?" Zak said "Yeah! He sees his mommy." I couldn't ask for anything nicer. Of course I prefer to write about those things, but, there are of course those trying times. Friday night we went for dinner...we came home, and Zak apparently thought the garage floor was the place to hang his coat. It was a battle of wills to get him to pick it up. Or on Saturday, when he was taking a bath, and I told him it was time to get out...he pointed to the door and told me "No. I'm not ready...you go talk to Tato, I'll stay in the bath." The ladybug story is much nicer :-) Time is flying by. Just this week, Zak has stopped running to me when I come to the daycare. He still gets a big smile, and still says "Hi Mommy!"...but he doesn't come running, he finishes playing, shows me what he was doing, says bye to his friends. I've already missed getting the energetic run on film. One more sweet memory this week...we bought our airline tickets for our Christmas vacation. I asked Zak if he was ready to get back on an airplane. He said "Yes! I want to get on that airplane and bring Maya back here!" He knows Maya flies to see us :-) I love writing this blog. It keeps me appreciating my time during this very precious period of my life.