Month: July 2009

The patent office has a serious budgeting issue this year, but Congress has passed a “bailout” which will help us out at least until the end of the fiscal year…

Sunday morning. My house. 9:21 am. Do you see what Vince is doing? He’s doing the “Edda block”, a move he has developed from years of practice. If he doesn’t stand right in front of the TV, inevitably Edda will plant herself right in front of the TV thus preventing any digi-entertainment from entering the eyeballs of anyone else in the room – so the “Edda block” move is a defensive tactic against lack of video entertainment.

He has not learned that in most households, one watches TV from a distance of approximately 10 feet or so, so whenever we go to someone else’s house to watch TV, he has to be reminded to not stand within 2 inches of the screen.

Most weekends, the house is a loud mess – mainly because we have kids from both next doors and a kid from across the street running in and out of all the houses all weekend. However, this weekend, all our neighbors seemed to have timed their out-of-town-ness on the same weekend. This is just fine with us, because we are all slightly sick and we still need this weekend to recover from the “best vacation ever“.

Jeremy kept his word and worked all day today. This meant that I had a day very much like my days circa early 2004-late 2005 when the kids were home most of the time with only me as a companion, and I have to say, I pretty much suck as the lone companion to small children. (Are my kids still considered small? I dunno.)

Edda, who is not really much of a snuggler, followed me around today like a lost puppy (and somewhat sounding like a lost puppy as well) and I could not figure out what she wanted until I picked her up and sat her in my lap and within 5 minutes she was asleep. She did this to me at least 3 times today – very unusual (both the following around and the sleeping schedule). She’s still under the weather, not really feverish, but not herself. (Note Motrin stains all over her shirt.)

Vincent, who usually relies on entertainment provided by neighbor children (and found me sorely lacking in playing skills), was a little at a loss of what to do with himself, spend some of the day entertaining himself with disposable and recyclable products. Watch out! Will attack with deadly noodles!

Also, we solved the mystery of the leaking ceiling (this photo is trying to depict a veritable rainstorm in the middle of the living room – note at least 1 inch of water in the pan):

Before our vacation, we had called a plumber, who declared that it was the caulking and then refused to do the caulking because it was handyman’s work, so then I went to Home Depot and ripped out the old caulk and put in the new caulk about 30 minutes before we left for our vacation (talk about being rushed..). I told Eliana (who’s bathroom the leak is eminating from) that she needed to wait 24 hours before taking a bath/shower which she did and then discovered that the bathroom still leaked. Sooo, to make a long story short, it is in the pipes – for all those who love plumbing, it’s in the overflow pipe, there is a joint close to the bottom of the tub which fills when the filled tub is drained and there is a leak… Anyhow, I’m kind of mad that the plumber came already and didn’t solve my problem….

Vincent is better. I’m getting better. Edda is mid-way through so she’s presently the sickest one. Our au pair, Eliana got sick today. Jeremy has a little twinge-y cough that he’s insisting isn’t really becoming sick.

Jeremy needs to work on a report all weekend, so I’m on main parenting duty this weekend. We cleared out our weekend schedule so that we are just sitting around recuperating.

Hmmm, anything else interesting? Not really.

We are all sick (well except for Ruby, Jeremy and Eliana – but really, it’s only a matter of time). I knew we were going to be sick this week because on the last day of our vacation we snuggled and played with our snuffly, coughing and slightly feverish cousins Felix and Ruben. There was really no way to reschedule the visit, nor did I want to cancel since it is so hard to see them, so here we are, all a bit ill.

In addition to being sick, it’s been kind of a crazy week. On Tuesday, I went with my friend Jane to the Alexandria Animal Shelter to put down her pet cat that she adopted four days earlier. It was a pretty emotionally draining experience, Jane is very tender-hearted when it comes to animals and it was very difficult for her to realize and come to the decision that Walter had health issues that were rapidly becoming worse and should be put to sleep and once she had decided that that was the right thing to do, she didn’t want to go to the shelter alone. Needless to say, I did not go to work on Tuesday thinking that at the end of the day, I would be hold a cat paw in one hand and a friend’s hand in the other.

Jeremy’s been doing a lot of the night-time sick childcare, and he’s stayed home 2 days this week and he’s feverishly working on an important report. I’ve been dragging myself to work because I’m taking this intensive Patent Law and Evidence Course which is hard to make-up.

Anyhow – it’s just how it goes.

I took today off to tend to Edda’s teeth which involved physical strength on my part and some hearty yelling on Edda’s part. She needed to get a tooth removed which had died (long story) and the dentist did with with a shot of novacaine and just 20 minutes in the chair. I don’t think the actual extraction bothered Edda at all, she just hated to be held down so tightly in a burrito roll. I did many other errands today which were not very interesting – however, I managed to get Vince a new 20 inch bike with hand brakes, gears and shocks for the impressive price of $25 at the Goodwill! Hooray for me :).

Finally, I get to go back to work tomorrow for some peace and quiet. 😉

We made it home last night – started the laundry and cleaned up a little. On our last day, we went to San Francisco and met up with Ben, Johanna, Felix and Ruben. I failed to get any photos, I’m sorry, it will have to wait for the next trip. Their new place is fabulously cute as are the kiddos (of course).

Back to the grind, we’ve got dental appointments, therapy, ESY, science camp all starting today. Edda is apparently all over jet lag. Vince is still sleeping on the couch, he needs to leave in 30 minutes. Ack.