I kept Anna home from school because of her cold, and Jen stayed home as well for her day off this week. The result? Beach run.

I’m stoked that I can travel with Anna these days quite easily. A couple towels, a juice box, a granola bar, and some flip-flops are about all we needed today. Anna also brought her purse so that she could feed the meter. We spent a couple hours jumping waves. Later, Jen brought Tara out and the boogie board. All was well until Anna took a header off the board and decided she disliked the taste of sand. As we were packing up, the ocean decided that it would desperately like to follow us home, lunged up at our beach towel and bags. I think all the electronics were spared.

At least it does when I never post to it. I have no idea why, but I have far less “free” time now that I’m not working. How does that happen?

A Very Good Day

Thursday stood out for me as a very good day. I took Anna to Legoland, and we had a great time. She didn’t want to go any of the rides, only to see the shows. A couple years ago, she loved going on rides at the Del Mar Fair, even by herself. These days, she’s afraid of even simple rides like the little cars you drive around yourself at 2mph. Not sure what’s going on there. By the end of the day, we were absolutely soaked with sweat. It was a very hot and humid day, and we did a lot of running around in the play areas. Note to fathers in their mid-thirties or later: do not attempt to chase a four-year-old through a kids’ obstacle course. You will lose.

To cap the day off, I went to play volleyball and had a really good match, then at the bar, one of the referees suggested that I should be playing in the next level up, and that he had been talking with the course instructor about this fact. I have been hoping to move up for a while now, so I’m stoked to have to chance to try it in the fall.

Remember that thing I said I would do?

Well I don’t either. But I seriously am going to follow up on the ADD thing and see if there is a fix. When I’m at work, I seriously have 50+ things on my to-do list at any one time, and can work on any of them. At home, with less things to do, and few of them particularly compelling, I can see more clearly than ever that I have no attention span. How about those Padres?

Bleah.

I’ve had a cold all weekend, and I think Anna has it now. This means I get to keep her home while she’s in a bad mood. Fun is not in the forecast today, but we’ll just have to wait and see what we can make of things.

Overheard this weekend:

Anna: Mom, what are you allergic to?
Mom: Lots of things.
Anna: Horses and grass and mangoes and dust and dogs and kitties?
Mom: Yes.
Anna: If you were a horse, you’d say, “Neigh! Achoo! Neigh! Achoo!”

I am a firm believer that children should be seen and not heard at sound pressure levels of greater than 100 decibels. Loyal readers will remember the last time we went to Claim Jumper with two children, it was an absolutely horrifying experience. So horrifying, in fact, that we decided to do it again last Sunday.

We have Tara characterized now to the point that we can make short outings with a reasonable expectation that she’s going to have good behavior if we head out immediately after she wakes up from a nap. On Sunday, she woke up just before dinner time, so we figured it was as good a time as any to give it a shot. Jennifer had some simple shopping to do, so she dropped me off at the restaurant to get a table and get things underway while she stopped at a nearby store. Just about the time I was ready to order, an enormous group sat down next to us and consumed the entire waitstaff of the restaurant. I don’t mean “occupied,” I mean that I think they actually ate them whole because I didn’t see another Claim Jumper employee for about ten minutes. In that ten minutes, Anna decided that she was really really really really really really really hungry, which she communicated to me by saying, “I’m really really really really really really hungry.” Then, in case I didn’t hear, she repeated it 10,000 times. Tara, meanwhile, had decided that she was going to go pro with her screeching, which sounds very much like a train full of seagulls locking up the brakes at full speed. On a chalkboard. Only louder. Anna continued telling my how hungry she was, while looking over the partition at the table behind us.

The last time we ate out, I made the mistake of ordering a big steak, which was cold by the time I had a chance to eat it, so this time I only ordered finger food: shrimp taquitos and martinis. Jennifer arrived in time to order a meatball calzone with no cheese, which arrived as ordered except with cheese on the inside and outside, so she held the screeching Tara while I ate my food. The replacement calzone had no cheese on the outside, but looked the same inside. Oh, that’s not cheese, that’s just raw dough. We’re not going to Claim Jumper anymore.

In another three months we will probably forget this tragedy and venture out again; I’ll have to make a note to try Outback instead. The martinis are bigger, they still serve mac & cheese, and the place is so noisy, nobody will notice the screeching.

Anna is at the dentist for a cleaning and or the first time, x-rays. She has done very well, with no apprehension at all. She is now waiting for the dentist, watching the unedited version of Nemo, so I’m sure there will be some questions later as to where all those sharks came from.

I got the VW back today, and it turned out to be not the dreaded oil sludge problem, but rather the cam tensioner which needed replacing (under warranty). Also, I got the window switches, which were failing, replaced. I knew accessories were a reliability problem with VW, but I expected more from the engine, which has a 10-year/100k-mile warranty. Fahrvernugen is back, but it’s bringing bloggenbitchin with it.

In happier news, I’ve been playing with my new 580EX flash unit, and it’s very cool. It does seem to do a much better metering job than my 420EX (E-TTL II vs. E-TTL), but the really cool thing is the wireless multi-flash setup. The quality of light from two flashes held apart is significant enough, but I can also put one flash behind the subject as a hair light, or just put the second light somewhere pointing straight up as a bounce for really terrific indoor photos.

Tara, having mastered “laying down” is just learning to sit and to roll over as well. We don’t anticipate speaking for another year or so. I have been sitting her up on the bed and seeing how long she can remain upright. Generally she goes for ten seconds or so once I get her situated, but then tips over backwards in a very comical style. Video will be forthcoming. She learned to roll over from her front to her back by bringing her foot up by her side and pushing until she goes over. It still takes a little bit of luck for her to get over, but she’s working on it.

I know that I anticipated doing a lot more blogging on my leave, but I have honestly been having too much fun to bother spending any time writing about it. I am absolutely surprised at how fast the day goes by; it sure seems as though I am keeping busy but I still feel very relaxed. It’s hard to believe I’m already a third done with my leave–I can already tell I’m going to be bummed to go back to work.

Since I picked up Anna early from school today, she has had some really good behavior (and also some more typical behavior as well). Since she as lately taken an interest in money, I have been rewarding her with some coins for doing tasks like setting the table and cleaning up the family room.

At one point, she asked me to help her count her money; I asked her to sort out all the change into piles of quarters, dimes, nickels, and pennies, which she did. I then counted all the change up out loud and arrived $2.28. She responded by saying “No, not like that!” then added up the total number of coins and saying “I have seventeen jingly pieces.” So we’re still at the stage of preferring ten pennies to five quarters. Hmmmm… I wonder how many cents it will cost me to have her finish cleaning the garage.

I’m trying a new strategy to help her get to sleep earlier, which is to sit next to her bed with my laptop (which I’m doing right now) while she goes to sleep, or at least lies down without saying anything. I’m hoping to head off the hour of getting up, running around, using the potty, flipping lights on and off, etc. which generally happens while Jen and I are downstairs cleaning up at night. It really worries me that though bedtime is 11.5 hours long, in the last couple months she has started giving up two hours of it to wandering about the halls at night. At one point, I was coming downstairs at 5:30 am only to catch her coming up–she said she had been checking to make sure that Tara was ok.

I’m willing to spend a little time in her room as long as I don’t end up sleeping there, and I can surf or blog which I would have been doing anyway; perhaps tomorrow I’ll sit for a while, as it would be a good example for her to see me doing that, and it’s a nice quiet time to do so. In the last few days I have managed to squeeze in a sit or two, and it really makes me aware of how out of practice I am–my head is just buzzing with all sorts of things clamoring for resolution, and days like today illustrate clearly that I need to focus if I’m going to ever get anything finished.

Since it is Monday, and the weekend was entirely consumed by birthday parties, I had great ambitions for getting things done today, and I would have, were it not for the fact that Anna woke up in a terrible mood and had a tantrum because she didn’t want to go to school, not sharing the reason why until I probed further and found that she didn’t like her teachers, which was not really true as I discovered by probing even further and finding that the real problem was that her new room did not have a potty like her old one did, which means that the children may not use the potty at the exact moment that they would like to, but rather in batches or at least when there are two teachers available so that one can watch the classroom, which we did eventually make it to after Tara woke up early, which meant that we had to leave for school in something of a rush because at the time that Tara woke up Anna was not yet dressed or fed, so our usual lazy morning routine was something less lazy, but we nevertheless made it in decent spirits until the moment came for me to leave which resulted in not one but three tearful goodbyes as I first said goodbye to her on the playground after forgetting that I had not signed her in, so I had to go back to the classroom which resulted in another tearful goodbye at the windows of the classroom and things were looking good then after I directed her to the fence which is near the parking lot until I ran into our friend M. dropping off her daughter K., which resulted in a conversation which was short by adult standards, I believe it could be considered much longer by tearful-preschooler-waiting-tearfully-at-the-fence standards, which I must point out cannot be considered standard by any means; regardless, our third tearful goodbye nearly turned into a fourth as I finally drove away and saw her crying at the fence again before being rescued by one of the teachers, who regardless of what Anna might say are delightful and understanding as demonstrated by their kind demeanor as I picked up Anna shortly after lunchtime due to the opportunistic waking of Tara from the second of her 45 minute naps by the cleaning ladies, who as luck would have it arrived to do their job just as I was ready to put Tara to bed and take a much needed shower, which was of course canceled instead, though at this point I can at least say that the house is clean despite my inability to get any sort of tasks accomplished today, save for the making of an appointment to take my car to the dealer, which is not so much an accomplishment as an arrangement to accomplish something at a later time, but I guess that’s better than nothing, which it feels exactly what I accomplished today.

We’ve completed two of our four birthday parties this weekend. Last night everyone was pretty much exhausted, but hopefully today will be a little better; the first party looks to be a little bit shorter, so there will probably be time for nap in between, and the second is nearby, so we won’t have much traveling to do.

Yesterday’s first party was a total madhouse, but lots of fun. There was a pool, and I swear there must have been 40 kids in there, many of them armed with squirt guns. Nevertheless, Anna, who is not terribly comfortable in water (but getting better) had a blast. We put a new floatation vest on her, and she took right to the water, even venturing away from me for short periods of time. We stayed in the water long enough that by the time she got out she was hungry enough to eat two entire slices of pizza, and only once requested some alternate food that was not present at the party.

The second party was more low-key, but still complicated by the presence of their family dog. Anna doesn’t like dogs; she’s quite scared of them. She has had very little exposure to them, and to the best of my knowledge has not had a bad experience. In the last couple weeks, she’s had a little bit more exposure, and has even gone so far as to reach out and try to touch some of the tamer specimens we’ve seen.

Ick

We are still in the throes of some really bad sleep. Anna has a very difficult time going to bed; she is very anxious. In the course of her bedtime routine she will ask, either out of genuine anxiety or just stalling:

• Will the power go off tonight?
• Will her light bulb burn out tonight?
• If the fire alarm goes on, will we be able to hear it?
• If she does not wipe properly after using the potty, will she get sick or die?
• If she does not use the potty at all, will she get sick or die?
• Will we come check on her later?
• Do we promise?
• Do we promise to keep our promise?

Various permutations of these questions bring the total question count up into the tens. We have always had a consistent bedtime routine, but it seems to suffer in cycles of “bedtime build-up” in which Anna adds new little variations which accumulate and make the routine progressively longer and bordering on obsessive. During the listing of the “Happy Things,” we absolutely must include M. and K. on the list, after which she will say “I know lots of people,” so that when I list “going to the pumpkin patch” she can say “I know lots of hay.” This was a joke from so long ago that I’ve forgotten why it was funny in the first place.

Double Ick

In other news, I’ve discovered that my Passat has likely fallen victim to the famed Volkswagen sludge problem, even at only 37,000 miles. Most people with this problem end up with repair bills in the $5,000+ range, and Volkswagen will probably require me to produce all the oil change receipts for the life of the car to get it fixed. I’m not so good at keeping records, but hopefully I can piece things together from the oil change shops; I’ve always used blended or full synthetic oil, and I have changed the oil more often than required, so I hope this can be resolved.

Woohoo

On a more positive note, I got a repeat customer for a product shoot, so I’m going to buy the spiffy new Canon Speedlite 580EX, as an upgrade of my venerable 420EX. This will not only give me a more capable flash unit (it has a jog dial, for heaven’s sake), but I can use the 580 and the 420 together for a portable wireless two-light setup, and with my more powerful monolight for a complete three-light portrait setup. Rock on. I should have the unit by Wednesday, which might even be in time to use it for the client.

Tara turned five months old this week. For comparison, I put up Anna’s five months picture as well. Tara seems to be getting even better with age; sleeping well, eating well, and with terrific disposition.

Ok, so I’ve had two full days of being home with just Tara. Actually, Tuesday doesn’t really count, because I had the babysitter over while I went to play volleyball, and missed probably half of Tara’s waking hours that day.

I’m really enjoying my time off. The pace of things seems just right. I get to spend a lot of time with Tara, but I get enough stuff done around the house. Not a ton of stuff, but just enough. After a streak of getting things done… feeding the baby, shopping, getting her to bed, there’s a lull, and I spend about fifteen minutes relaxing, listening to podcasts or the radio, before I realize that I don’t know how long I have before she’s going to wake up, so I hurry up and start trying to check some stuff off my to-do list while I can. It’s busy, but not too busy.

In the last few days, Anna has had some really disturbing behavior–she has asked us to a) lock her in the bathroom b) hit her and c) yell at her. These are not things we (or anyone) do to her, other than the occasional raising of voices. When I follow up on these things, she doesn’t know why she wants us to do this, or what purpose it would serve. I just tell her the same thing I tell her when she wants to exhibit these behaviors: people are not for hitting, etc. I think in her mind, she equates having her feelings hurt (by way of going on time out, or being told that she’s misbehaving) with being physically hurt. I don’t know what to do about this. She has also had a lot of nighttime anxiety: she worries about the power going out, fires, the light bulb burning out, and a ton of other things. In the process of putting her to bed, she probably asks 30+ questions, which are the same every night. I don’t know if this is obsessive behavior, some sort of mood disorder, or what, but it’s making us question the ADHD diagnosis of a couple months back. Last night, I spent a lot of extra time trying to answer all her questions and assuage all her fears. She whined a lot less at bedtime, and slept through the whole night without a peep. She also had her first day in her new preschool class, so she probably had a lot of anxiety on previous nights which was alleviated by a happy day at school with a lot of her old friends and well-like new teachers. I did the same routine again tonight, so we’ll see how she does.

Jennifer has done a terrific thing by establishing the 90-minute wake interval. As long as Tara is put down for bed 90 minutes after she wakes up, she is cheery, and generally goes down to sleep easily. This blessing is also a curse, in that any errand that needs to be run needs to happen in 90 minutes. Minus the time to feed her. And get her ready to go. And haul her around. It’s not easy.

Nevertheless, there is the occasional two hours of downtime when she decides to take a long nap, so I have been able to get some things done to get the house in order, and once I get enough things straightened out, I’ll have some time to get to more meaningful items on my to-do list. In particular, I really want to get a consistent routine of sitting every day; it’s one of the things that I know will help with just about every aspect of my life, and yet I rarely find the time to do it. For the next couple months, I really don’t have an excuse.