Last night I had a work dinner which was lots of fun. It was a going away dinner from some of my colleagues in my current role. It was extremely relaxing and fun, but before we knew it, it was 10 o'clock! I got home and surprisingly, Zak was still awake (barely), and Kuba was asleep. Zak was desperately trying to keep his eyes open and was playing movies on his iPhone. I came to give him a kiss and take away his iPhone. He said "My Mommy" and then turned over and went to sleep.
But it was a bad night. At midnight he woke up crying and it seemed his stomach was hurting him. He wanted to go to the bathroom. His stomach was really hot (is that strange?) He had a 100 fever, so was clearly trying to fight something. He woke up about every 30 minutes after that with the same routine, and finally at around 4 quit waking up. But he insisted on getting up early this morning and clearly didn't get enough sleep (and neither did I.)
We had planned for Chloe to come over today and for us to go to Kings Island. Zak seemed to be doing better, so we went ahead and went...but he was melting down almost as soon as we were there. Everytime he had to wait for more than 2 minutes for a ride, he started crying "Zakie's turn, Zakie's turn." By the end he was almost throwing tantrums whenever he had to wait...so we had to leave. Poor Chloe.
We got some Skyline for lunch, and Zak was almost asleep in the car when we got home. I took him to bed and he started throwing a tantrum again. It took me 30 minutes to get him to sleep....I know he absolutely needed to sleep, but I hate fighting with him. :-( He woke up every 20 minutes or so for about 2 hours, crying, wanting to get up, but not wanting to get up. He's definitely not himself.
He finally did get up, but he's been on and off crying ever since. He cries if the computer is too slow. He cried when Wow wow wubbzy came on because he didn't want to watch it (I don't blame him!), he cried that I picked the wrong juice out of the refrigerator, etc, etc. He says he's got boo, boos in his mouth, so I'm starting to suspect this hand, foot and mouth disease. Luckily it doesn't really seem all that bad, just a couple of days to run its course.
Luckily we got him to bed at 7:30 tonight. We gently brushed his teeth, put cole sore medicine in his mouth, gave him some Tylenol. Oops, he just came to the door of the bedroom and said "Mommy I'm sick. " :-( Time to go hold my baby...
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Day 29
We had a very fun day on Friday. I keep asking Zak how old he is, and he keeps saying he's 2. Wen I say, no, now you are 3, he says, no...I'm 2. Uncle Cad says if he's lying about his age already, he's probably destined to live in Los Angeles. :-)
We took our bikes up to the Dr.'s office for his 3 year check-up. He has a very good memory....and unfortunately he doesn't have fond memories of the dr.'s office, which he assoicates with shots. So he clung to me the whole time. To get his weight I actually had to stand with him on the scale and then again without him because he refused to stand on it alone. A good reminder that I should be on a diet :-P
Anyway, everything checked out fine. He's at 88% for height, 50% for weight...and one inch from getting to ride the next level of rides at King's Island :-) He's 39 inches tall.
On the way back, we stopped at the park and played for 45 minutes. There were 2 very sweet girls there, one 8 and one 5, who adopted Zak and helped him across the monkey bars and such. It was very nice.
Then Aunt Katie came over for lunch, and by 12:30, both Zak and I were asleep for our naps. I slept for 2 hours, Zak for 2.5 hours! We were tired.
After that, we went up to the party store and Zak picked out 3 balloons for his birthday party. He picked a fire truck balloon, a bull dozer ballon, and a giant fish balloon. He carried them around the house for a good half an hour after we got home. By then, the day was over. We packed up and met Kuba down at Hooligan's for some volleyball. Zak LOVED the volleyball...he didn't like having to sit on the sidelines while I was playing.
Anyway, it was a good day.
We took our bikes up to the Dr.'s office for his 3 year check-up. He has a very good memory....and unfortunately he doesn't have fond memories of the dr.'s office, which he assoicates with shots. So he clung to me the whole time. To get his weight I actually had to stand with him on the scale and then again without him because he refused to stand on it alone. A good reminder that I should be on a diet :-P
Anyway, everything checked out fine. He's at 88% for height, 50% for weight...and one inch from getting to ride the next level of rides at King's Island :-) He's 39 inches tall.
On the way back, we stopped at the park and played for 45 minutes. There were 2 very sweet girls there, one 8 and one 5, who adopted Zak and helped him across the monkey bars and such. It was very nice.
Then Aunt Katie came over for lunch, and by 12:30, both Zak and I were asleep for our naps. I slept for 2 hours, Zak for 2.5 hours! We were tired.
After that, we went up to the party store and Zak picked out 3 balloons for his birthday party. He picked a fire truck balloon, a bull dozer ballon, and a giant fish balloon. He carried them around the house for a good half an hour after we got home. By then, the day was over. We packed up and met Kuba down at Hooligan's for some volleyball. Zak LOVED the volleyball...he didn't like having to sit on the sidelines while I was playing.
Anyway, it was a good day.
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Day 28
Well, today is supposed to be about last Friday, and it was a great day, but I just don't feel I can talk about Friday without mentioning my colleague Olga, and her beautiful son. I mentioned them before. Her 8 year old son has been fighting cancer for the last 8 months. He passed away on Sunday. Olga told me they had an awesome Saturday together as a family. She told me that if the story had to end this way, it was the best possible way it could have ended. They all got to say their last words to him, have him close, and he was in almost no pain. She is positive they have a little angel watching over them now. I truly hope so.
Olga and her family are the reason I started considering a part time option for awhile. They have taught me that time is not something we can take for granted. Every day is a gift.
So for today, my thoughts and prayers are with Olga and her family. And as I'm celebrating Zak's 3rd birthday, I'll think of them and be grateful for the time I have, not only with him, but with Kuba...and all my family and friends. I hope you all do the same.
Olga and her family are the reason I started considering a part time option for awhile. They have taught me that time is not something we can take for granted. Every day is a gift.
So for today, my thoughts and prayers are with Olga and her family. And as I'm celebrating Zak's 3rd birthday, I'll think of them and be grateful for the time I have, not only with him, but with Kuba...and all my family and friends. I hope you all do the same.
Friday, June 18, 2010
Day 25, 26 and 27
Well, day 25 was the Friday before I left for Geneva. It seems a long time ago. I've been telling people I'd lost my mojo for awhile, but I think I finally have it back today. :-)
I can finally put on here that I'm getting a new assignment at work. I didn't want to say until it was official, because I know too many people from work read this :-) Anyway, it's a great assignment, working directly with one of the presidents. It's been tailored to my 60% work week, so it just re-enforces for me that making these types of life decisions is very doable. We all too often use our careers as an excuse not to make tough decisions. Right now I feel my career is completely in my hands. I'm nervous and excited...exactly the way I should feel.
Of course doing a transition on a 60% schedule isn't easy. The reason I was in Geneva was to get grounded in the new role. It basically meant I was working 20x6, and it took its toll. I came home and thought I'd be able to just jump back in after a restful weekend...but as usual wasn't able to shut off. I had so much I wanted to do for my new role, and so much to try to close out the old role. It's the usual balancing act of course, I just underestimated the time I would need to get caught up. My calendar at work was again completely insane because of peoples' meetings being pushed back by a week. I spent this whole week with no more than 30 minutes free each day from meetings. I know now something about myself, which is I can't turn off at night in that environment. I need at least 1-2 hours of think and organize time each day.
Side bar - Zak just locked RoboKwiecien into the bathroom. I have no idea why. I let her out, and he trapped her back in there again.
Anyway, Wednesday was a horrible day with Zak. He was a little sick, and so didn't want to do anything. (Want to go to the pool?, no, King's Island?, no, the park?, no, library? no) So we stayed home all day, but it wasn't really relaxing. I had this kind of cloud in my mind the whole day. Maybe from jet lag, maybe from thinking about work, or maybe I was getting a bit sick too. I did sneak a few emails into the day. By the evening I had a migraine that continued over into Thursday. We just sat around the whole day, not doing much. He also picked up some bad things from day care. At one point he said, "Look Mommy, I'm biting" and he bit his own arm. Kuba got 2 incident reports last week (that makes 7 total) of a kid at school biting Zak (apparently biting everyone.) Anyway, just not a great day, and it bled into Thursday. I cancelled all my non-essential meetings Thursday. Slept off the migraine in the morning (well, after my 7am meeting), went to 3 meetings in the afternoon, we were all in bed by about 8:30 Thursday evening, and I got up at 1:30am and worked for a couple hours to feel caught up again.
And today...I've got my mojo back :-) Zak and I slept in. Kuba was very nice to be extra quiet this morning. At about 7:30 Zak asked me to lay next to him on the couch, and we slept for another 30 minutes. We slowly got up, ate breakfast, and then decided to go to King's Island. SO FUN! We came home at about 1:30 so he could nap and get ready for our zoo trip tonight with my cousin Anita. Today was much better. We are like our old selves again :-) I guess we just needed a few days to adjust after the Geneva trip.
I can finally put on here that I'm getting a new assignment at work. I didn't want to say until it was official, because I know too many people from work read this :-) Anyway, it's a great assignment, working directly with one of the presidents. It's been tailored to my 60% work week, so it just re-enforces for me that making these types of life decisions is very doable. We all too often use our careers as an excuse not to make tough decisions. Right now I feel my career is completely in my hands. I'm nervous and excited...exactly the way I should feel.
Of course doing a transition on a 60% schedule isn't easy. The reason I was in Geneva was to get grounded in the new role. It basically meant I was working 20x6, and it took its toll. I came home and thought I'd be able to just jump back in after a restful weekend...but as usual wasn't able to shut off. I had so much I wanted to do for my new role, and so much to try to close out the old role. It's the usual balancing act of course, I just underestimated the time I would need to get caught up. My calendar at work was again completely insane because of peoples' meetings being pushed back by a week. I spent this whole week with no more than 30 minutes free each day from meetings. I know now something about myself, which is I can't turn off at night in that environment. I need at least 1-2 hours of think and organize time each day.
Side bar - Zak just locked RoboKwiecien into the bathroom. I have no idea why. I let her out, and he trapped her back in there again.
Anyway, Wednesday was a horrible day with Zak. He was a little sick, and so didn't want to do anything. (Want to go to the pool?, no, King's Island?, no, the park?, no, library? no) So we stayed home all day, but it wasn't really relaxing. I had this kind of cloud in my mind the whole day. Maybe from jet lag, maybe from thinking about work, or maybe I was getting a bit sick too. I did sneak a few emails into the day. By the evening I had a migraine that continued over into Thursday. We just sat around the whole day, not doing much. He also picked up some bad things from day care. At one point he said, "Look Mommy, I'm biting" and he bit his own arm. Kuba got 2 incident reports last week (that makes 7 total) of a kid at school biting Zak (apparently biting everyone.) Anyway, just not a great day, and it bled into Thursday. I cancelled all my non-essential meetings Thursday. Slept off the migraine in the morning (well, after my 7am meeting), went to 3 meetings in the afternoon, we were all in bed by about 8:30 Thursday evening, and I got up at 1:30am and worked for a couple hours to feel caught up again.
And today...I've got my mojo back :-) Zak and I slept in. Kuba was very nice to be extra quiet this morning. At about 7:30 Zak asked me to lay next to him on the couch, and we slept for another 30 minutes. We slowly got up, ate breakfast, and then decided to go to King's Island. SO FUN! We came home at about 1:30 so he could nap and get ready for our zoo trip tonight with my cousin Anita. Today was much better. We are like our old selves again :-) I guess we just needed a few days to adjust after the Geneva trip.
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Day 24
It was so nice to have a day alone with Zak again. We had a long weekend with the family, which was great. But there is something about having a day with just Zak and I, and no expectations for anyone else.
At work, I'm finding that where as before, I planned for 1-2 weeks out, I now am constantly looking 3-4 weeks out. I guess that makes sense given that 3-4 weeks out is about the same amount of days as 1-2 weeks our for full timers :-P But, for example, I have a VP review coming up at the end of June, and I've already got the presentation outlined and circulating for feedback. I actually think this might make some things easier for people I work with. It gives them a lot more time to provide feedback. So, work-wise, I feel better and better.
There was another little adjustment I needed to think through. My insurance company wanted to schedule a meeting with me to review my policy as a follow-up to me questioning this year's rates. Good idea, but who to steal the time from? Dragging Zak to an insurance policy review did NOT sound like fun. But I also didn't want to take up any work time for it. I pushed them a bit...why can't we do over email? Phone? Do you make house calls? Finally we agreed to phone, and managed to do it in 15 minutes while Zak was napping. And...my premium went down by $600 annually without changing any coverage. Word to the wise...ASK from time to time if you are getting the best possible price. That is all I did, and they came prepared to this 15 minute meeting with the new prices. Live and learn. Anyway, it worked out well.
So now, to the important stuff, how did I spend the day with Zak? He actually slept in, so Tato was gone when he woke up. We made some waffles and decided to eat on the patio. As we were carrying the breakfast out, Zak stopped dead in his tracks at the back door and said "Wait. Where's Tato?" It made me smile. He understands now that we have to work, so I just explained Tato was at work, and he was fine.
The weather forecast for the afternoon was rain, so we headed out in the morning for a bike ride. I decided to bike to the fire house and see if they'd let Zak see the fire trucks. They were so nice! They showed him all the different trucks, let him get inside each of them, and gave him a fire hat. We spent about 30-45 minutes there, and of course he didn't want to leave. As we were biking back though, we saw some street construction going on. He loves all the equipment. We saw one machine, and he said "oo, look." I said "Yeah, big truck" since I have no idea what those different machines are. He said "Steamroller." Wow. After he said it, I knew he was right, but I have no idea where he learned it.
We made it home just before the rain. Then we headed to Costco to get some ingredients to bake some cookies in the afternoon, since he's been incessently talking about Grandma's cookies every since she gave some to us last week. While there, he found this pretty cool sand table like cousin Ethan has, and some Catepillar trucks. He was drooling and I couldn't help myself...so we bought them.
We met Auntie Sara for lunch at Chick-fil-A. It was a little difficult this time because Zak wanted to play on the playground, but also wanted us with him. Since they don't want food in the play area, that makes it a bit difficult. So not exactly the relaxing lunch we wanted, but that's ok, we're learning.
He napped straight after (with his new Catepillar trucks), and I put his sand table together. Forgot the darn sand. Had the quick insurance meeting, and then we hopped on the bike when he woke up to run up to K-Mart and buy some sand. Hauling 40 lbs of sand in the bike trailer + 30 lbs of Zak in the bike seat was NOT as easy as I thought it would be :-) But it did make me feel better about not getting to play tennis last weekend :-P
He loved his sand box, played with it for a solid hour. We made quite a mess. It has a water part to it too. So we took out the some of his pool toys (turtle and dolphins)...and put them in there, and had a blast pretending different scenarios. We even fed them some cashews (his idea!)
That evening at bed time, Zak decided he wanted to sleep in Babcia's bed. It's a queen size bed in our upstairs bedroom. We eventually want this to be his room, but for now, he calls it "Babcia's." I was delighted and said of course he could. About 30 minutes later, I hear him says "Mooommmmyy." Then he comes down the stairs and says "That bed is tooo big." :-)
A great day.
At work, I'm finding that where as before, I planned for 1-2 weeks out, I now am constantly looking 3-4 weeks out. I guess that makes sense given that 3-4 weeks out is about the same amount of days as 1-2 weeks our for full timers :-P But, for example, I have a VP review coming up at the end of June, and I've already got the presentation outlined and circulating for feedback. I actually think this might make some things easier for people I work with. It gives them a lot more time to provide feedback. So, work-wise, I feel better and better.
There was another little adjustment I needed to think through. My insurance company wanted to schedule a meeting with me to review my policy as a follow-up to me questioning this year's rates. Good idea, but who to steal the time from? Dragging Zak to an insurance policy review did NOT sound like fun. But I also didn't want to take up any work time for it. I pushed them a bit...why can't we do over email? Phone? Do you make house calls? Finally we agreed to phone, and managed to do it in 15 minutes while Zak was napping. And...my premium went down by $600 annually without changing any coverage. Word to the wise...ASK from time to time if you are getting the best possible price. That is all I did, and they came prepared to this 15 minute meeting with the new prices. Live and learn. Anyway, it worked out well.
So now, to the important stuff, how did I spend the day with Zak? He actually slept in, so Tato was gone when he woke up. We made some waffles and decided to eat on the patio. As we were carrying the breakfast out, Zak stopped dead in his tracks at the back door and said "Wait. Where's Tato?" It made me smile. He understands now that we have to work, so I just explained Tato was at work, and he was fine.
The weather forecast for the afternoon was rain, so we headed out in the morning for a bike ride. I decided to bike to the fire house and see if they'd let Zak see the fire trucks. They were so nice! They showed him all the different trucks, let him get inside each of them, and gave him a fire hat. We spent about 30-45 minutes there, and of course he didn't want to leave. As we were biking back though, we saw some street construction going on. He loves all the equipment. We saw one machine, and he said "oo, look." I said "Yeah, big truck" since I have no idea what those different machines are. He said "Steamroller." Wow. After he said it, I knew he was right, but I have no idea where he learned it.
We made it home just before the rain. Then we headed to Costco to get some ingredients to bake some cookies in the afternoon, since he's been incessently talking about Grandma's cookies every since she gave some to us last week. While there, he found this pretty cool sand table like cousin Ethan has, and some Catepillar trucks. He was drooling and I couldn't help myself...so we bought them.
We met Auntie Sara for lunch at Chick-fil-A. It was a little difficult this time because Zak wanted to play on the playground, but also wanted us with him. Since they don't want food in the play area, that makes it a bit difficult. So not exactly the relaxing lunch we wanted, but that's ok, we're learning.
He napped straight after (with his new Catepillar trucks), and I put his sand table together. Forgot the darn sand. Had the quick insurance meeting, and then we hopped on the bike when he woke up to run up to K-Mart and buy some sand. Hauling 40 lbs of sand in the bike trailer + 30 lbs of Zak in the bike seat was NOT as easy as I thought it would be :-) But it did make me feel better about not getting to play tennis last weekend :-P
He loved his sand box, played with it for a solid hour. We made quite a mess. It has a water part to it too. So we took out the some of his pool toys (turtle and dolphins)...and put them in there, and had a blast pretending different scenarios. We even fed them some cashews (his idea!)
That evening at bed time, Zak decided he wanted to sleep in Babcia's bed. It's a queen size bed in our upstairs bedroom. We eventually want this to be his room, but for now, he calls it "Babcia's." I was delighted and said of course he could. About 30 minutes later, I hear him says "Mooommmmyy." Then he comes down the stairs and says "That bed is tooo big." :-)
A great day.
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