A Guy, Two Girls and a Pup

Meredith did not take a nap AT ALL today. So much for all that stuff I was going to do today while she was sleeping. On the bright side, she was OUT before I even reached the end of Hop On Pop. Hopefully she’s out for the count tonight.

Apparently, this morning we experienced our first big (”big”) Seattle earthquake — a magnitude 4.6 at about 5:30am. Naturally, given the time, neither Kevin or I felt it. Clearly we will both be sound asleep when The Big One hits.

This afternoon, we went to the BabyLegs store way down south of downtown to check out their warehouse sale. We bought Meredith 4 pairs — watch for cute new BabyLegness soon!

And just like that, things are somewhat better again.

So my lunch on Thursday went well. REALLY well. As in, my contact was so excited that I would be available again that he came prepared with screenshots of everything they’re working on to see if I’d be interested. AND already an idea of what team I should be on and who I should be working with.

And then, yesterday afternoon, it was done. He sent over an offer (the same one I received before!) and I accepted! Voila! I start February 2nd.

Yay employment!

AND we’ve found a nanny for Meredith and Aurora (our new friends’ Matt and Tyra’s little girl.) Her name is Esmerelda — she’s been nannying both here and in Madrid, Spain. She comes from Mexico and is a native Spanish speaker, so she’ll be giving the girls some Spanish language immersion as well as watching after them during the day. She’s a sweetie who seemed very nice and enthusiastic about the girls. I think she’ll work out well!

So things are looking up a little.

Kevin is away for the evening at a D&D gaming thing, so it’s just us girls here at home for a quiet Saturday evening…here’s hoping Meredith decides to sleep tonight: she’s already been up once this evening, and it’s only been 2 hours since she went down… :[

If you were paying close attention, Kevin mentioned something about me in the previous post. Yep, I’m unemployed once again. This time is different, for sure — it was still a surprise, but actually a relief: despite their assurances when they hired me, there did not seem to be enough work to go around for everyone, and so every day I had to harass (nicely!) people until I was assigned to a project. Even then, it often wasn’t enough to fill up my day. There was lots of wasted time, which is definitely not what I’m looking for at this point. So I had already been laying plans to cut my contract short — I’m having lunch with a company who had previously offered me a job and who is really excited at the prospect of bringing me on! However, I had had hoped that the transition wouldn’t include an interruption in work.

Unfortunately, it didn’t go down that way, but at least I don’t have to worry about breaking my contract and awkward explanations. There’s that, anyway…

It’s been an interesting few days here…

M’s stitches are out, to no real trauma. We’re putting vitamin E on the wound track no, to keep it supple and minimize scarring.

I made cheese yesterday. Mozzarella. Not bad for a first attempt, but a little bland and not quite holding together as well as it should. M likes it very much, though. On a directly related note, I am now looking for recipes that use whey.

April’s work moved downtown, so I can use the car in the afternoons to pick up M, instead of cramming her into the old car seat in my truck. Except, of course, that nanny is done at the end of the week… and we’re still looking for a new one. We met a nice family to nanny-share with, several blocks away. We just need to find a nanny… The nanny we’ve been talking to probably isn’t going to work out… more on that later in the week.

April is jobless, again. And Kevin still is as well. She has a discussion or two lined up already. He does not.

M is saying “Da doo” and “Dug” fairly consistently now, for “Thank you” and “Duck.” The duck is one of her new favorite toys; the nurse at the ER gave it to her when she was in for stitches. Even more adorable? “M, what does a COW say?” “MOOOOooooooo.”

And while saying it will probably destroy the magic, she’s actually had 4 nights in a row now where she slept mostly through… here’s hoping for that trend to continue.

Oh, and this evening? While Kevin held M up so she should play with the light switch (”Ight!”) he belched, rather loudly, deeply, and obnoxiously. M replied, “MOOOOOoooooooo.”

-K

Our poor sweetie girl is the walking wounded yet again. Saturdays are definitely not a good day at our house! This past Saturday, Kevin and Meredith were hanging out on the couch; she does well now getting down, so there was little cause for concern. Except for the fact that Meredith decided to change things up a bit and, instead of scooting down like she usually does, went for broke and rolled off the couch unexpectedly. Unfortunately, she rolled right into the coffee table and, against all odds, split her ear open on it — all the way down to the collagen! OUCH! Poor sweet girl.

She is absolutely a trouper, though. Even before we got to the ER, she had already stopped crying and was looking around as she rode in her new car seat. (Like riding in a recliner!) At the ER, she waved and laughed and smiled at everyone — she was doing considerably better than Kevin, who I thought was going to throw up at any second. Every time a nurse came in to do nurse things (especially one young nurse, Kendra, who was awesome and brought Meredith a stuffed duck to hug), she would wave and give them that special Meredith smile. In fact, the worst part of the ordeal was when she was wrapped in a towel and actually stitched up, and I’m fully convinced it was because she was being held down and couldn’t move and was angry!

So little girl has 8 or 10 stitches in her ear that we have been dressing and putting antibiotic ointment on — they come out Friday. and then we’ll see how her ear turns out. Kendra recommended squeezing vitamin E gel on the healed part to minimize scarring, so we have that ready to go…