We’ve had a wild week – so wild I haven’t been able to gather my thoughts and digest our experiences, much less carve out time to write. I’ll try to piece some of it together in chronological flashbacks. After a window of time like this, my blogging feels more like essay writing, so forgive me if it’s missing some flair.

Working is good! I struggled hardly at all once I badged in on Monday – call me a bad mom if you dare. Going back to work reinspired my parenting; I came home raring to see my kids, refreshed and happy. That held all week, and was reinforced by my team winning a project I put a little extra love into. What a way to come back! By the end of the week, I was in the groove.

We got lots of random visits from Sassy all week, who I’m convinced was stopping by because a) she misses me already and b) she was convinced we were falling apart (likely!). She even made it to the first part of Nerd Night, greatly impressing the guys. On the down side, Tess and I both caught the plague from Sassy, or

Typhoid Mom

as I was calling her. Tess sounds terrible but is acting normal (chest cold). I feel better but know there’s more where that came from. We kindly passed it to Dave, who got sick towards the end of the week.

When dad invited us for a last minute dinner Friday with his aunts and uncles, we couldn’t say no – so we went, colds and all. We left the kids at home and went to catch up with the older generation! Bawdy stories, business coups, introductions, giggles, frank confessions – we had it all. As dad summed up,

What more can you expect from three generations of jackasses?!

Ah, my roots.

The next day we went to the Kite Festival and watched as Tess eyes grew huge and her head swiveled frantically to watch the kites and kids and food and pinwheels and cars and dogs and flags…but you get the picture. Despite our colds, Max and Liam tagged along for a bit. After a year of watching Liam’s ever running nose with concern and suspicion, we now flagrantly wiped Tess’ as it ran like an Olympic sprinter. (Toddler sneezes are disgusting – truly. You hear one behind you and don’t want to turn around and see what just entered your air space, all while knowing that if you don’t leap, said toddler will get to it first and wipe it all over themselves and the kitchen.) We had a lovely walk and enjoyed the low key fest before heading back to the house, just in time for family reunion part II! The great aunts and uncle came to see the kids and our construction project that we like to call home. We chatted and laughed for a good few hours, and then were joined by my sister, brothers and family – for a rousing finale. We had a blast, but when the door closed we kind of sank into chairs in a stupor. When you live a fairly chill life and suddenly get tossed in a room with rowdy fun people – classics or not! – your energy dissipates quickly. 🙂 Miracle mom came by again after, and we cajoled her into staying for dinner. Sassy is not an eater of spicy street food, but when we presented her with her Mr. Señor tacos, she did us proud – really proud considering Dave accidentally got fresh chopped jalapeño on everyone’s dinners! Winding down, chatting about nothing and everything, was a lovely way to wrap up what we thought was going to be a hibernation weekend.

As she was leaving, I got a surprising email: one of our nannies found another position starting immediately. Poor mom – I conscripted her as backup on the spot, hoping our lovely evening would soften her up for any frantic,

I’m on deadline and can’t get home!!!

phone calls in the next few weeks while we reshuffle. Our new nanny Julie seems to be a good fit, and is kindly jumping in a little sooner than expected. Brittney is also charging to the rescue, so my worry of Saturday was resolved by these competent and generous women by Sunday afternoon. Still, I hadn’t realized how perilously balanced our little world really was!

Sunday morning we grabbed coffee with the people who set up Remy’s adoption, who just wanted to meet him and say hi. It was weird – which I’m sure K understands! Adoption makes close strangers out of people you’ve never met before and probably won’t see again. They know intimate details about you, your life, your kids – but they don’t know the real live people at all. It’s strange. These two seem to want to bridge that gap a bit, which is awkward and sweet all at once.

We came home to get Tess a longer nap, then realized we’re all still sick enough that we shouldn’t be the plague people at multiple Memorial Day BBQs. So we stayed in, finally having our quiet day with the kids – who were of course horrendous in order to punish us for our stupidity on Saturday. Sigh.

As for the kiddos:

Remy abhors tummy time but is making progress, and everybody notices his growing alertness. I adore seeing him observe the world, and catching his grins delights everyone, including strangers! This kid’s got a truly winning smile.

Tess is testing out her standing skills, although she’s still ignoring our efforts to get her cruising from object to object. She obstinately crawls from clutch stand to clutch stand, which is so exuberant I can’t really be mad. She also chooses to do the deep splits rather than fall into the unknown – so she clearly has some crazy idea that falling stinks. We therefore love seeing her gain confidence in her ability to let go – a good reminder that she’s taking her first steps towards independence, baby steps though they may be. Sometimes we wish she wasn’t in quite such a hurry! She loves to look over the edge of things to see what’s down there. This led to a header off our bed the other day, despite my firm grip on her ankle! She fortunately landed on a giant pile of pillows, but I’m pretty sure the event took decades off of David and my lives!

She’s playing at everything with gusto, and is turning into the chattiest of little people – just not with many real words.