Day 5

Today I conscoiusly agreed to have a meeting in the afternoon. I did this for a few reasons: a key person in the meeting was in town from Brussels, so we could meet face to face, I still have the luxury of having my mother-in-law in town (for 2 more weeks) so I don't have to worry about daycare, and it was a very important meeting. What do you think? Was it the right move? I can hear all of you now, NO, such a slippery slope to start down so soon! And I've turned down many, many requests for important meetings already (in only 5 days!)...but I also don't want to become too rigid on all this. After all, I do think it is a privledge that I'm getting to do this. But read on...and you'll realize you were all right after all :-)

Let me tell you, knowing I had a meeting at 1:30 changed the whole day, but I was determined to try NOT to let it. But even from the morning when deciding what to wear...the meeting was in the back of my mind. I was actually afraid I'd forget about it, and that would be worse than not having it at all :-) Still, the weather was beautiful, and I wasn't going to let the whole day get away from us...so at 9:30, Zak and I set out to go on a 3 hour trek together.

We started by collecting some toys to give away and loaded them into his little red wagon and set off to Goodwill. Normally that's a 10 min walk, but I let Zak walk at his own pace, stopping to look at every water drain and squirrel...so it took us about 30 minutes. We handed over our stuff, then walked up to Pipkens to buy some flowers to plant (Zak picked some purple ones...I don't remember what they are called). By the time we were walking back, I was already getting antsy to get downtown for my meeting. What if traffic was bad? What about parking in the middle of the day? Still...I wouldn't let myself leave earlier than I had planned. We got back home and we threw the ball around a bit...and then Zak surprised me.

We accidentally threw the ball under the car...teaching moment! Zak, make sure you never, ever go under the car unless you Mommy or Daddy sees you and tells you it's ok...so for now, I tell you you can go get it. He appears to ignore me and walks away. I figure I'll let Kuba get the ball later (I have no intention of crawling under the car.) A few minutes later, Zak comes back out of the house with a broom. I was so impressed! I start telling him what a great idea and proceed to try to take it from him to push the ball out. He refuses to hand over the broom and gets down on the ground and sweeps under the car, the balls comes flying out. I'm gushing with pride. THIS IS WHY I'M DOING THIS! Would I have gotten to see something like this on the weekend? Probably, but I'm guaranteed to see 2x more having 2 extra days for it! Of course, then it became a game for the next 10 minutes as he continued to throw the ball under the car, and then sweep it out. But hey, the original problem solving skills were there!

So we wrap up our morning with another lunch on the patio. I get him tucked into bed then proceed downtown.

Only to learn that the person from Brussels had double-booked himself. (That will teach me!) The whole meeting was almost cancelled except I used every guilt trip I could to keep everyone else in the meeting. It actually turned out very productive, with extermely quality outcomes. So it was worth it...but not worth the special schedule to accomodate the face 2 face from Brussels. Live and learn.

So, for a 1 hour meeting, I gave up 3 hours of Zak time (driving, parking, etc)....so I came home with renewed energy. Zak and I hopped on the bikes and went up to the library, where he played with, what else? The trains (didn't really need to go to the library for that, but ok).

And so, Day 5 ended up ok.