Out with the Old, In with the New

Toad at the library

We're near the end of a memorable week in the Hammer Family. There's so much to tell, I'm not sure how far to go back. Somehow, I missed all of October, November, and December.

January 11th was Toad's and Birdy's last day at their Montessori. They both started at new places on Monday -- Toad with his former teacher, Ms. K, who started her own wonderful, peaceful true Montessori in her home in September, and Birdy at the "Perfect Place" (a home daycare) just down the block from Ms. K. Toad has transitioned beautifully; Bird has gone three days and is having separation issues -- not surprising considering she is almost 10 months old and is in new surroundings. There are only 3 children there besides her, however, and this is the first week in many months that she hasn't had a runny nose. And I didn't think I'd ever say this, but dropping off at two places is actually easier than dropping off in one. And I'm taking the freeway to work! What is the world coming to?

More firsts: Today Ms. K. sponsored a field trip to Sesame Street Live. We've avoided these live shows for 4.5 years, but I was actually kind of excited about this one -- Elmo Grows Up. Birdy was able to go with us. There were a total of 6 children including Birdy, one teenager (K's daughter -- I see some babysitting in her future as she easily became my helper), and four adults. It was one of the coldest days of the year and we had to park on the tippy top roof of the parking ramp at Target Center, and there were a few tense moments when Birdy lost a sock and spilled Cheerios, but overall it was a terrific experience. I had my camera but it was impossible to get pictures with that squirmy baby in such a tight space.

After the show, we drove back to the outer ring of the suburbs and had lunch at Subway with Ms. K and her daughter while we waited for the library to open. And then Toad applied for his very own library card! He checked out nine items, including Muppet Treasure Island, which we watched this afternoon.

Basement update: not much to report. It's been very hard for HG to get down there and get anything done.

Work update: I'm hanging on until at least April when I hit my four-year anniversary and get three weeks of vacation. I'm now the Merchandising Manager -- finally! We started a Biggest Loser Couples competition at work, too. Ugh. It's so much harder to lose the extra pounds after Baby #2. To all my friends who find time to workout -- how do you do it? What do you sacrifice? I'm already only getting five hours of sleep at night!

I'm still dabbling in Pampered Chef, but after a crazy November, I didn't do any shows in December and am just doing one in January. As much as I love it and have fun with it, it's so time consuming and takes away time from my family.... it's a double edged sword, because eventually I'd like it to help me have more time for my family. And writing? This is as good as it gets right now, and you can see I'm not too timely here either.

Things I should be doing right now: switching out the laundry, dishes, cleaning the kitchen, balancing the checkbook and paying bills, folding laundry, making lunches for tomorrow and packing backpacks, etc. etc. Time to go.