Did I spell continuum right? Spell check tells me I did. This has got to be the only word with two u's in a row. Anyways, on to business.
Our weekends have been busy lately. Every year as summer slows down I always look forward to the weekends lightening up some. This winter that doesn't seem to have happened. There is always that little inkling of being ready to go back to work on Monday to relax a little.
Oh my goodness - I wrote "being ready to go back to work on Monday"... Yes, things are going better for me at work lately. The fall is such a hard time as it's transition time for projects. Once we get past the holidays though the money starts rolling again and new projects are spinning up. I have my big project that is very nearly managed into the ground by a high up who is absent much of the time. I am tossed up between trying to step up to the plate, take control and be the hero that rescues the day and gets us back on track (or not) - I am afterall now the project manager for a project between three and five times this one in monetary value and with 12 staff members working on it. Or do I bide my time, do my job for the next 6 months while shrugging my shoulders saying "I offered to manage the project but you guys said I was too young".
Yeah, I talk big, but I am not that type of person.
Yet.
I have a few more years before I get that cynical. I have a meeting where I am sure I will find the words seeping out of my lips offering to take over project management. Frankly I will be surprised if it happens, but then I can at least say I offered twice.
I picked up a new task and managed to finagle 2/3's of the project's budget for my task. Finagle... ok, I didn't finagle much, they gave it. While it seems like a lot in the coffers, lining out what needs to be done and my time and the engineer's time, and it is pretty small potatoes. But I have the opportunity to make a big splash if it works. And it opened a door for me that I never expected with sharing the job of being a custodian of a brand new, big money, new capability instrument. That and being labeled as the go to girl for gas handling systems since I have had two more inquiries since. Not exactly what I want to do in the long run, but it's kind of fun to design and build things.
I still have one proposal sitting out there in "strong consideration" and I just sent out another that I am very hopeful on. I am in a happy place with work right now.
AB as well. He hasn't said it yet, but he loves his job. So being gone 12 hours a day is rough (mostly on me). Going to bed by 9pm sucks (for both of us). Vanpooling an hour each way isn't fun. But he is excelling at his job and appears to be a shooting star - that hopefully doesn't burn out anytime soon. He is working Safety, but was offered the chance to move back into Environmental - more related to his Masters degree. In one instant he was excited to do Environmental work, but in the next is a little mournful of "but I really like what I am doing right now". Deciding what is best career-wise is hard. I tell him to just do what he likes... but his response is that he likes it all. Which is a new world compared to where we were a year ago today.
He has five weeks of vacation a year on top of having Fridays off. Every Friday off. Unless he wants to work overtime - which is nice too. This has been great. Today, for example, he was pouring Pinot Noir all day. A little tasting might have been going on too... A week from Monday he is staying home with both kids for President's Day and says he is looking forward to it. I, otoh, am completely lacking time off of all types and will be toiling away in my office.
Moving onto the kids...
Skadi is leaning towards deciding that she is a one nap girl. Leif didn't jump on this boat until he was a few months older and I remember bemoaning the fact that daycare was forcing him into one nap and he needed two. On Monday, Skadi's teacher told me they are struggling with forcing her into two naps and she just wants one long one. In the middle of the day. Which I hate to admit, we have often been doing on Saturday out of convenience to our schedule. She is so the second child...
But this nap in the middle of the day? The same time *I* go see her daily.
I wasn't ready to give up my lunchtime visits yet. I am fully in denial that she turns one year old in just six weeks on Easter Sunday. (Yes, Easter is THAT early this year.) Her best friend has hung out in the Infant room despite having turned one a few weeks ago. This has been nice for Skadi, and after a discussion today I am going to push that she stay in this room until she moves to Leif's school. Her teacher said it is not an unreasonable request given the overload of kids in the room up and the waiting list in front of her from her present room going into the next higher room.
She isn't walking yet and I don't see much motivation to walk in her anytime soon. Why spend the time standing up and getting somewhere on two feet when you can crawl there three times as fast? She cruises along the furniture, people's legs, the cupboards. But she doesn't stand by herself much yet and has yet to get herself to standing from being on the ground without help.
She is set to start at Leif's school in June and is fought over with regard to teachers. One teacher (Leif's teacher from last year) informed me it was decided, she was hers. But today I ran into Leif's 1-2 year teacher who said, "not so fast!' - and proceeded to make my little girl giggle.
I could have selected her teacher - AB asked why I didn't. I narrowed down the selection to the two teachers, both fantastic but very different people. This is one of the few times in the daycare/preschool period where I feel completely at ease with whoever cares for her. I figured I would let them battle it out. I told AB that the person who wanted her the most would win - and I want my daughter's teacher to want her from day one.
I left out the tiny little fact in talking to the two teachers fighting over her that she isn't her easy-going brother. She is a true redhead - personality, temper and all!
We will just let them be surprised!
I had good news earlier this week in dropping Leif off that he seems to have transformed again. All week he was a pleasant child who napped and did the things the teachers asked and didn't push buttons. She said he was just back to being a joy to be around. I don't understand the mood changes. But we have seen it at home too.
I don't have much new or original (not already blogged about) to report on Leif's end. Right now he has an obsession with being "big". Most mornings he wakes up and after telling me he had a good sleep, he tells me, "I grew a little bit and now I am bigger". This morning he told me that "this leg grew longer last night". He kills me! It pains me to hear his desire to be big. I want to tell him to just enjoy being little for now, no need to grow up too soon! And I probably will start telling him this. Though I distinctly remember hearing this myself and promptly ignoring it.
When I was talking with my Co-PI this morning he had a rationale for this, Leif still has his entire life ahead of him, everything for him is looking forward. While we as adults spend a lot of time, good or bad, looking backwards.
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