let's start with childcare. evie's nanny gladys is moving to san diego in september, so her daughter jeannette moved here from north carolina to take care of evie and paloma. only paloma's parents decided it was time for paloma to start pre-school, so they decided that it was a good time for them to start with something new. so the plan became evie with jeannette three days per week and then two days a week with some hippies in noe valley (more on that later). well it turns out that jeannette was just offered a fulltime position back in north carolina, so she's going to move back there and work and be with her husband. all around a very good thing for her.
so now our plan with evie is changing again. i think our friday nanny share which was going to end this month is now going to be mon/weds/fri thru october when my friend spring has her second baby. tues/thurs with the hippies (i promise i'll get to that at some point) for now then full time in november, unless of course i can start a four day work schedule, then just mon-thurs with them. are you keeping up with this all? i think i may need a diagram.
all in all i think this is going to work out, but my head does spin a bit at this point.
ok, let's see next topic - potty training. overall it's going pretty well. we're running at about an 80% success rate. the problem seems to be when she's having too much fun playing she's not very interested in stopping to use the potty. we'll get there, though. of course not all accidents are created equal. let's just leave it at, a little pee is a whole lot easier to deal with than when you're out and about.
next up the big girl bed. still feeling like we made the right decision on this one. i loved that she bunked with grandma on the recent visit, and i just adore laying in there with her and reading. both mike and i have fallen asleep at her side. pretty damned sweet. she has figured out that she doesn't need to stay in the bed at night, and mike was awakened two evenings with her standing at his bedside. we were a little nervous that it was going to become a nightly event, but fortunately it seems to have been just those occasions - for now.
on my birthday, evie and i went down to the san francisco main library to pick out a new book. in talking to the aforementioned hippies (don't worry, i'll get to them) a couple of weeks ago, they had mentioned that their three year old daughter would sit and listen to chapter books. i was intrigued by the idea, though somewhat skeptical. i decided that i wanted to try a copy of "charlotte's web".
unfortunately all of the copies were out, but the librarian suggested "mr. popper's penguins". she too was pretty skeptical about evie being old enough to sit and listen to a chapter book, but she thought that this one would be a good one to try.she was right. the book is 139 pages (not very dense) and we made it to page 100 by monday morning! it's such a nice change from reading the same short books over and over (and over) again. it was written in 1938, but holds up well, mostly because of the penguins. i'm looking forward to another chapter tonight.
ok, now for the hippies, i suppose you'd like to know a little more about that, especially after the build up. our nanny share partner dana (as opposed to our friday nanny dana, who evie calls "different dana") met this couple through a midwife that she works with at the hospital (dana is a nurse practitioner). they have two kids of there own - henry, five, and iris, three. they've decided that what they really want is to spend as much time with their kids as possible. so duncan (the dad) has been home with the kids since birth, and jeannie (the mom) recently decided to give up her job teaching art in the public schools so that she could be home with the kids too. they've got a small apartment with an amazing yard. the yard is kind of magical with a playhouse, garden and a couple of chickens to boot. we took evie there to meet them a few weeks ago and she was in heaven. she was absolutely filthy by the time we left, and you couldn't wipe the smiles off of any of our faces. my kid needs to be familiar with dirt - it's the only way that i can assuage the guilt i feel about her growing up in such an urban environment when i was practically raised by wolves by comparison (um, no offense mom!).
that's all for now. fingers are tired. evie's asleep and i have a little time all to my self while mike is out. *smile*
