Spanish? Polish? English?

Wednesday was a great day.  I had to fly out Wednesday evening for a quick 1 day business trip, so Zak and I made the most of it in preparation for not seeing each other for the next 2 nights.

We had a lot of errands to run in the morning, but we chit chatted as we went.  He told me that he slept well, but had silly dreams.  I was intrigued, because he's never told me about his dreams before.  He said he dreamt about letter Zs turning into letter Ns, and started laughing..."Isn't that silly?"

I also asked him about his school day the day before, and he told me they had a fire drill...which was pretty fun because we had had a fire drill at work too, which of course I told him.  So then he proceeded to ask me all the details and how it related to his...did we have to walk out single file?  Did we have to hold hands?  Was the alarm going?  Did the fire truck come?  And two police cars?

One of our errands was to go buy 2 children's digital cameras for Rowan and Ethan's Christmas gifts (yes, I'm already shopping for Christmas...but I saw them on a great sale at CVS of all places, so wanted to get them before they were out)...well Zak wanted one too.  I reminded him he already had one, and he reminded me that the batteries keep running out.  Right!  So I told him that we'd check it out when we got home, and see if I could fix it.  He did have 10 stars, so I told him he could pick another toy.  It's so interesting to watch him look through the shelves.  He'll pick up something big, and then say, "No, that's probably too expensive."  Then pick up something else and go through the same thing.  Sometimes, he'll ask "Is this too expensive?"  So he has some concept of knowing 10 stars is worth something, but not everything...and generally he has me about right, he asks at about the $10-$15 mark.  In the end, he decided not to get a toy that time out, and wanted to wait and see if he needed his stars to buy a new camera.  Turns out, I thought the camera had rechargeable batteries and kept plugging it into the computer thinking I was charging the stupid thing...so all I had to do was actually replace the batteries...  Anyway, he was extremely happy to have his working camera again, and started having me pose for him.  "Look this way please.  Ok.  Smile please.  Say cheese please."

Which leads me to our wonderful afternoon at the park.  We spent a good hour or more hanging out at the park, enjoying the beautiful fall.  There is a little creek there, and we sat cross-legged on a little concrete bridge and threw sticks into it.  I got some pictures, and whenever I asked him to say cheese, he said "Formaggio!"  Something he picked up in Italy :-)  I thought he had forgotten about that.  He also found "an interesting stick that looked like a Y," which made me smile that he presented it that way.  I thought I'd share with him the wishbone concept...so I explained how he should make a wish, then we'd both pull and whoever got the bigger side's wish would come true.  So we did it and he got the bigger side.  "What did you wish for Zak?"  "Oh.  I wished for the bigger side."  Guess it worked out. :-)

Telling Stories

Searching for sticks

Making our wishes

After the park, I started reminding him that I'd be leaving for the evening and he'd stay with Tato.  He told me he really wanted to invite someone over to play with him.  He proceeded to think of who he should invite, and said "Hmm...I'd like to invite.....someone that begins with the letter E....is there anyone that begins with E that we can invite?....Hmm....I know!  Ethan and Logan!"  It was so cute how he thought he was leading me on this little journey of who to invite....also cute that he thinks of Ethan and Logan as a pair that comes together...beginning with E :-)

Last thing I wanted to share today is actually about our evening ritual the last couple of nights.  Kuba and I typically will go up with Zak to his room, and I'll read to them 3 books.  This week, we started adding a Polish book that Kuba reads.  After the first couple of pages, Zak asked Tato to quit reading in Spanish and please read in English.  Of course we corrected him and moved on.  At some point he pointed to something and asked what it was...we answered in Polish...he said "No, quit saying it in Spanish!  What is it in English?"  I'm assuming this is from the fact that at school they teach a Spanish class.  Anyway, it's fun to see him learn about different countries and languages.  Yesterday we told him that Mattie lives in Poland, like Babcia...and his first question was "Do they live together?"  So we got out the map and showed him.

It's been really hard to manage work lately in the 3 days...we have lots of people coming into town the next 2 weeks, with almost every night packed with business dinners.  I already know I'll work at least 4 days each of the next 2 weeks, and probably should do 5 if I really plan to keep up.  Unfortunately I couldn't get the HR paperwork done in time to up it officially to 4 days until November, so I'll just have to manage it. It's actually affecting my personal time more than anything, because it means if I'm not at work, I want to spend as much as possible with Zak after work, which means my tennis specifically then suffers.  It's been nice with the 3 days, because I never felt guilty on Wed or Fri leaving Zak with a babysitter while I played some tennis since we got to spend the days together.  I hate the thought of picking him up from one day care, and then dropping him at another so Kuba and I can play....and besides that, I just really want to spend time with Zak as well.  Such is life :-)  We'll manage it, even if it means I don't get to be the tennis super star I want to be!  :-P

Friday was also a great day, but more about that in my next blog!

A very good Friday

We made up for the mediocre day on Wednesday with an awesome day on Friday.  I started off feeling a little sluggish still, but got better as the day went on.  We got up and had breakfast with Tato and were all chatting about what birthday gift we should get for our nephew, Logan.  Zak wanted to get him some cars or trains, and was listing off all the possibilities.  Tato asked that, if we were shopping, could we also get a toy for him.  Zak thought for a second and said, "Well, you have to be good first Tato.  Let's see how your day goes."  Surprised us both :-)

Zak and I headed up to Toys R Us, and for some strange reason they open up at 9:00 on every weekday, except Fridays...where they don't open until 9:30.  It gave us a good excuse to head over to Graeters and have a muffin.  We then headed back over to Toys R Us and spent an hour searching, selecting and reselecting something for Logan...and something for Zak too :-)

On the way home, Zak asked if we could go out for lunch somewhere, and wanted to invite Aunt Katie.  He said he wanted a cheese coney, so we called up Aunt Katie, who unfortunately (or fortunately), doesn't like Skyline....it was cute because then Zak thought for a minute, and said, "Hmm, does Aunt Katie like McDonald's?"...and Aunt Katie, who was on speaker phone, said "Sure, she likes McDonald's."  So we picked up Katie, went to McDonald's, where Zak proceeded to play on the playground, while Katie and I watched from the window (it was too cold for us)...and he didn't eat even one bite of his lunch.

We came home and Zak asked me to play "Garbage Trucks" with him.  So for 30 minutes I laid out legos as if they were trash across the room, and he had the garbage truck come by and load them up to take to the dump.

Then, we laid down for a nap...perfect day for it.  I fell asleep for 30 minutes, then got up and rearranged his toys a bit.  He asked that his "car garage" be brought downstairs, so we moved all his other toys upstairs to make room for it.  I also put a bunch out to give to goodwill.  When he woke up, he surprisingly wanted to do some school work.  I had bought him this Thomas the Train workbook, and we spent about 45 minutes doing the different exercises.  The math pieces he's great at...he still doesn't like to write much though.  So he always wants me to help guide his hand when he writes the numbers or letters.     I'm sure he'll get it :-)  By the way, we've also been doing homework for his school.  So far, so good.  They've been pretty easy so far.  The last one was circle everything that begins with an F, and put an X through everything that doesn't.  He did that very easily, although I can see a clear difference between his attitude and mine on it.  He kind of sloppily puts a circle on it, can even be directly on the picture, not around it.  I notice the girls in his class try to be very precise with their circles (me too).  Should I care?  The best part though was the 2nd part of the homework, where he had to guess a riddle (answer Firetruck), and then draw it.  He got very excited about that...first drew a little boy, then a house around the boy, then fire in the house, then the fire truck (and police car) coming to rescue them.  He was very deliberate about what he wanted to draw and how.  He surprised me :-)

Anyway, it was a nice day after the rather mediocre day on Wednesday and the rather stressful day at work on Thursday.

The Post Vacation Catch Up Mode

And so we just finished 2 weeks with our dear friends from Poland, Darek, Beata and Mattie.  So much fun, and Zak changed so much.

First of all, he's getting much better at expressing his feelings...but he does get mad.  I don't even remember what he was mad at me for, but right before Darek and Beata came, he was so frustrated with me for something.  I saw him walking around my bedroom fuming.  Finally, he took a wedding picture of Kuba and I, and put it in the bathroom.  He said he was so mad, he didn't want to see our picture right then. 

On my day off, we took them all to Glenwood Commons.  I like that park, but it's impossible for me to get Zak away from the trains they have there.  Mattie was not so interested in the trains, so I forced Zak to explore a bit more the rest of the park.  He again got very frustrated with me, and told me to sit right down and explain to him what I wanted from him and why.  He then proceeded to sit cross-legged on the ground and waited for me to sit down across from him and talk to him.  I assume this is something they do at school because I certainly didn't teach it to him.  It did work though, I sat down, explained that Mattie wanted to see more of the park, and he said, "OK, 5 minutes.  Then we go back to the trains."  I think I was too shocked to argue.

On the flip side, he'll just come up to me sometimes and say things like "I just love you so much."  Or yesterday, Kuba went out to the backyard in the morning to check on something, and Zak hollered out "Tato!  It's a little coldish out there...you might want to put on a jacket!"  He was very serious.  

Work wise I've decided to go back to 4 days a week.  There was definitely an interesting discussion with my manager about what are my ambitions here, do I want to continue further up the ladder, time is ticking by, etc.    I still need to internalize some of the discussion.  I think he was very happy I decided to return to 4 days.  Funny thing is, no discussion on the work load, because I had already let it grow too much for 3 days, and we both knew it.  I think going from 3 days to 4 days is going to feel like a huge amount of time for me...and I think Zak is ready for 4 days a week at school.  We have such a good base.  I'm so proud that I made it work for a year and a half..and happy to continue on at 4 days.

Today wasn't the best use of our day together though.  I had a migraine all night, and it continued until around noon.  Poor Zak.  I debated between taking him on in to school or not...but he sat near me on the bed, bounced around and watched WallE all morning.  The bouncing around certainly didn't help my head...neither did the little face in my face every 30 minutes asking me "Mommy, are you still sick?  Can you get up now and play?"  It made me feel even worse.  I feel so sorry for any mom dealing with a chronic illness....I would hate for Zak to see me like that all the time.  The afternoon we spent doing chores to catch up from our vacation.  Zak has chores that he likes to do, and those that he doesn't.  I asked him to take some folded laundry up to his room...but he said he felt the floor needed cleaning instead.  He said Tato "made a big mess of the floor and he needed to clean it up."  Never mind that we just mopped it yesterday, and I have no idea what mess he thought Kuba made.  Anyway, it got a good Zak cleaning today.  

I did ask him if he'd like to take some more swim classes, he said he'd prefer gymnastics (Tumblebees)...so I think I'll look into that again.  

Anyway, last month for 3 days a week!  I hope to make the most of it from here!

5 day weekend (can I still call it a weekend?)

So last week I rearranged my work schedule so that I'd have Thursday and Friday off, which then tagged onto the Labor Day holiday on Monday...hence a 5 day weekend. We flew up to Minnesota to visit with my brother's family (Jude, Chad and Maya). My sister and her family flew up too (Ann, Dave, Ethan and Logan)...and we rented 2 cabins on Farmer's Lake (one of the 10,000 Lakes, very near the Canadian border.)

Some Pics

We had no internet in our cabins, nor phone service. We could go to the main lodge for internet, and we did so several times a day, I mean, you can't be disconnected for toooo long...but for the most part we were disconnected. Having 4 children 4 yrs old and under all together can never be completely relaxing (unless they are all napping, which never happened at the same time), but it was certainly enjoyable. We went for a pontoon boat ride, hiked to a waterfall, threw rocks in the lake, and grilled hot dogs and smores over the camp fire. By the end, I was definitely tired of managing the interactions of the kids (don't take that without asking, say thank you!, no hitting!), and really liked my brother-in-law Chad's idea to just let them go and see what happens. :-) One more day and I would have been there.

It was our first attempt at getting our families together...and I think our 8 bedroom set up really helped us feel close, yet not crowded. Maybe we overdid it on the bedrooms, but the set up worked and we had a great time.

Before we left for vacation, Zak worked very hard to get 15 stars. He needed 15 because he asked for a specific train track that was more expensive than his normal toys. Once he got his 15 stars, he had to wait a couple of days before I could get it. I had it set up in the living room for him when he came home from school. He didn't disappoint me :-) He ran over to it, and said very slowly..."This is a very, special track." He's been having a blast with it.

Later that night he was so engrossed in his train track that he probably waited a bit too long to decide to go to the restroom. He went running in to the restroom, pulled down his pants and started to go....and accidentally hit the floor with the first bit. Kuba happened to be walking by and said "Zak, are you crazy? Your supposed to pee in the toilet!" He was joking, but Zak didn't find it funny. He came back with "Hey! Don't call me crazy! It was just a mistake!" Kuba and I loved that. So I called in..."Hey, no problem on the mistake, but make sure you clean up the floor afterward." He responded "Oh, just wait a few minutes. It'll dry, you'll see." At least he's thinking things through. :-)

Our close friends from Poland arrive tomorrow, Darek, Beata and their 3 year old son Mattie. I can't wait to see Mattie and Zak interact without understanding each other's language. Something tells me they will manage just fine :-) Zak is excited because we decided to let them have our upstairs for the week (Polish people don't like basements, even if they are finished)...which means Zak will come down to our room. He told my friend Sara at lunch today that our friends will sleep in his room, so he'll have to sleep in Mommy's room now.

Work this week is hectic, but not too out of control. I had a president/CIO review yesterday, which I finished the prep for before I left...and surprisingly there were no last minute changes to it while I was gone :-) I actually had a very productive day yesterday even though my calendar was a mess. I weeded out the non-essential meetings and in the end think I picked the right ones because they were all very productive. It's tough having a 2 day work week this week...I know... **sniff, sniff**. I think Zak needed a relax day. It's been rainy and dreary all day, and we cuddled up a lot to just recoup from being gone the 5 days (and prep for our friends' visit)...he's been hugging me all day and saying "I just love you so much." Am I making him too sappy? :-) I'll take it while I can get it.

We did start the day with 30 minutes of homework which is due tomorrow. I'm in for a rude awakening when that has to be done during the night. When he gets home from school and Kuba and I from work, helping him with homework is the last thing we're going to want to do. I'm sure we'll manage :-)

Recovering

Well, at the beginning of this week, I thought Zak had completely changed his demeanor, and that maybe I was hitting a new stage of "terrible fours." Whenever we have a couple of tough days, I start thinking, wow, maybe I've spoiled him or done something wrong. But then I remembered how busy the last week was at the tennis tournament, and that he'd not gotten enough sleep at all...and I felt a little better. By Friday we were back to normal and I had my normally awesome son back :-)

On Wednesday, he was doing strange things like...as I was unloading the car, I put our backpack down on the ground to get some other things out. I put it down apparently right where he wanted to walk. He walked right up to the backpack and started crying "Why did you put the backpack here? I need to walk here and I can't!" I told him, "Zak, go around the backpack, there is plenty of room...I'll pick it up in a minute." But he continued to cry "No, I want to go through it! Why did you block me!" And he pushed through the backpack.

He also had gotten pretty bossy. I turned right on a red light, and he shouted out "Noooo!!!! Why did you go!?!?! It was RED!!!!! STOPP!!!"

Everything was just a bit more dramatic than it needed to be. But, as I said, by Friday, he was back to his wonderful self, I think because we had gotten back into some semblance of a normal schedule. On Friday we did a 3 hour bike/playground trip with Rowan and Dana. On the way to get them, Zak and I sang songs on the bike. Zak still loves that "You are my sunshine" song, and then he tells me that he's my sunshine. Then he also tells me that I'm HIS sunshine. Which makes me feel good. Then he says "and Tato's our coconut!" :-) Makes me laugh!

His new thing is to ask me "What's the problem?" If I say, "Oh shoot" because I hit a traffic jam, or I forgot to buy milk, or something...he comes running over "What? What's the problem here?"

Friday evening I was getting ready to go out for birthday drinks with friends, and I put on an outfit...Zak told me, "Mama, I like black, but that's not a good outfit for you at all." Then he proceeded to find another, purple outfit that he liked better. Wow! I wore the one he picked out, because it was more comfortable anyway :-)

Work is becoming a bit more challenging. We have quite a bit of business travel planned, which basically makes it impossible to do 3 days. The week of the travel obviously doesn't make sense...and then there is no possibility to catch it up because you already get way too far behind when you travel anyway. My work plan continues to "creep" up...and its slowly becoming much more than I can manage in my 3 days. I'm seriously considering going up to 4 days a week. Not only because of work, because I think I could force the issue if I really wanted to...but because I think Zak would probably do better going that one extra day to pre-school, and I feel like we've got such a great base set now. I'm going to think about it through September and then decide.

By the way, last week at work was great. As always, ups and downs...but all in all, I'm still on the right track and adding value :-)

A Very Busy Week

This week has been probably a little too hectic. The ATP is here, and we've become friends with some of the players, so we get to see the "backstage" of tennis.

We've been there late all week (around 11:00ish)...so poor Zak is exhausted. He wanted to go to King's Island on Wednesday, but I felt he needed to just relax and catch up on some sleep. I offered him a bike ride instead, but he didn't want it. We just kind of hung around all day, then went to the tourney around 4. I planned to come back around 8, but just when we were about to leave, the Polish doubles guys started to play, so we all went over to watch. Of course, we said just for the first set, but then for the second as well, and then for congrats after, etc. etc. So again, 11:00 to get home. Zak did another photo shoot this year with the Polish newspaper columnist from Chicago...he always seems to find Zak in his Polska shirt. If I actually see the publication, I'll make sure to put the link here.

Thursday Zak was sad that Marta had left us, but happy enough that Maciek, Ala and Klaudia came over for dinner and stayed the night. But this morning, when we told him they were all leaving today, he literally threw himself on the ground and said "No! I want some friends to stay with us right now!" I guess he's bored with just Mommy and Tato now.

Also, because we needed to use his room last night, we had him sleep with Kuba and I. Every time we do that, it's a fight the next night to get him back to his room. A few months ago he proclaimed that only little girls needed to sleep in their own beds, little boys need to sleep with their parents. I have no idea where that one came from. Anyway, tonight he informed me that he couldn't sleep in his room because it doesn't have a bathroom in it. So now he needs an "en-suite bathroom!" Anyway, he's asleep now in his own bedroom again, and hopefully will make it to the bathroom literally one step from his bedroom if needed :-)

Today (Friday) - we also took it easy since we were up again last night to midnight hanging out with the crew. I bought a new board game for us to play (Richard Scarry's "I can see it") - another great game. We had fun playing it twice, then got into a fight over who should go first. I wanted to go first, Zak said no, and when I said that was only fair since he went first the last two times, he said he didn't want to play. So we didn't. I didn't want to give into him. I think I'm a little on the tired side myself.

Kuba's aunt passed away on Wednesday. She's been fighting cancer for about 10 years, and it got really bad in the last couple of weeks. I can't do justice to the stress that has put Kuba under, and the arranging of when he should go to Poland, if we should all go, etc. Since Kuba's grandfather passed away just a few weeks ago, it's definitely a trying time for him and his family, which is a very small family anyway. Needless to say, it makes you appreciate what you have.

Anyway, the nice part of this week is that when things are this busy, having those extra two days to recuperate with Zak, or pitch in more to help Kuba, are very nice.

Work was very productive this week too. Ended on a very high note. Monday will be a critical day for me to know how I've really been doing over the past couple of months. I'll let you know how that goes next week :-)

the Renewal

Ok, well, I've been trying to determine what to do with this blog. I made it for a year, which was longer than I thought I would :-) But then abruptly stopped. I quit blogging because of what I'll call "the incident" at work. When the "incident" happened, I knew I could not blog about it. It was one of those times where I needed to wait a week or two for my head to clear before I did anything, lest I act (or write) irrationally.

In the end, I decided that no, I couldn't write honestly about the incident, which by the way, had nothing to do with my working part time, but everything to do with the colossal amount of stress that executives get put under (or put themselves under?). And so then I started questioning the whole purpose of my blog. I said in the beginning, I would write honestly about what it is like to work part time as an executive at a large company...and suddenly realized that when it came down to it, I wasn't able to be completely honest. So, am I being fake by continuing to blog under such a pretense?

On the other hand, I've had SO MANY people ask me why I've quit blogging. I think people appreciated it for several reasons, but one recurring one was that it reminded them to appreciate the little, but important things. So even if they aren't blogging, or working part time...some of the little things I recorded about Zak helped them remember not to take their own little life treasures for granted.

So, I've made peace with the fact that I probably won't be completely honest about some of the trials and tribulations at work (although I will try to be as honest as possible)...and so I will change the focus of the blog to be about appreciating the journey...which is what I'm trying to do. Appreciating the journey, in a responsible way :-)

I really missed blogging. It takes effort, but on the other hand, it made me really watch throughout the day for those little nuggets that I could share. So, let's try again :-)

Zak has come a long way in the last few months. He's 4 and so clearly a little boy now. If there is a group of kids between 3 and 6...he hangs with the older kids. He does simple math, and loves to play a subtraction board game I bought for us to play together. On the other hand, I can't get him to spend any time on forming words out of letters, or writing for that matter. So it looks like Math is his clear preference.

I started this "star" system with him, which has had so many unbelievable benefits. I was trying to think of an allowance system, but something not quite as complex because I think he's too young to understand fully money and savings. So we came up with "10 stars" gets him pretty much a toy of his choice. He's got it down and told me the other day that he has 5 stars, 2 5s makes 10, so he needs 5 more stars for "Dash" the tank engine (which he is now back into after several months of cars). I was really, really surprised that he basically figured out 2 sets of 5 = 10! He also negotiates with us all the time (Zak, if you eat some peas, I'll give you a star....hmmm, how about 3 stars?) If he's getting close to the target, he gets really motivated....earlier this week, he was at 7 stars and asked if we had any laundry to do so he could get a star. He then asked if we had any carrots to eat so he could get another star :-)

He's become very aware of his age, and that he's taller than some kids, but shorter than others. He tells anyone who will listen that he was 3, but now he's 4...and now he's tall enough to ride the colorful slide at the King's Island water park. Today he told me "One day, I'll be as tall as Chloe, and then I'll be able to ride all the rides at King's Island" :-) The King's Island height limits have really made an impression on him :-)

Another big impression, his best friend at school, Aiden, broke his arm, so has had a cast for the last month or so. Zak fell the other day, hurt his arm (a little only), ran over to me, and asked me to kiss it quick so it won't be broken. I did so, and luckily, it was just in time to prevent him needing a cast :-)

Today was Chloe's birthday, and she had her party at the Blue Ash Rec Center. Zak and Rowan were playing in one of the playgrounds where we could see them from the picnic shelter. Matt and I were talking about how nice it is that they are old enough to play without us having to watch every minute. About 5 minutes later, we realized there were still a lot of kids at that playground, but no Rowan or Zak. We started to walk over, thinking they were probably in the slide or something....started walking a bit faster when kids were coming out of the slide...but no Rowan or Zak. So Matt, Dana and I start running, realizing that Zak probably convinced Rowan to go to another part of the park. Matt found them first...they came running when they saw him...Zak said, "We were just checking out the river." oo la la. I trusted Zak again a little later...he gave me a high five, and promised he would come and tell me if he wanted to leave the playground within our sight. He kept his promise this time.

Work is going really well right now. The atmosphere is high stress, but manageable. I have a pretty strong team again, and they really step up on the days I'm not there. I think it's pretty seamless for most people. I try to look at it this way...if I had the 2 more days, sure I'd get more done, but I'd also probably spin a bit more as well. I literally tell myself sometimes...you don't have time to deal with that, make a decision and go. And that's what I do :-)

I can't believe next year at this time I'll be sending Zak off to kindergarten, celebrating my 40th birthday, and probably upping my work days (maybe I'll ease back into 4 days a week to start :-))...I have a good life. The best of a lot of worlds.