Author: Doris

Edda found herself with a 38.5 C fever today – so it has been a day of Motrin, cuddles and TV. No school, no occupational therapy – just pacing the well worn carpet in front of the TV with frequent breaks to sit on the couch and just lounge in pajamas all day.  She was happy and smiling when the Motrin was in effect, but when it wore off, she looked a worn out and tired.  Still, she ate well and was in good spirits.

I’m glad she was well enough to spend the weekend happy and unsick with Jeremy’s parents. They were in town to see us over the long Columbus Day weekend – and we had a weekend packed of movie going, concert hearing and restaurant eating. And, I suppose unfortunately for Vince, a weekend of music practicing.

I have recently jump started Vince’s violin practice schedule (gotta whip out my best Asian mom impression) and we have been making good progress. Bob brought his cello to complete our little trio – Vince on violin, me on piano and Bob on cello.  Below is a snapshot of Vince, Bob and Kelly (Vince’s violin teacher) playing a trio at his lesson on Sunday.

A few years ago, my best friends from high school, who I generally had lost touch with, and I started getting together and traveling once a year. This year, we all turned 40, and we traveled around to see each other to celebrate, this weekend was one of celebration and lots of eating. We tried to recreate a photo of us in the high school yearbook.

1990:

today!

Ah, look at the glory of a nice picture taken by a real camera! We love Boba so much – he is scheduled to head home in the middle of October and we will be so sad when he leaves. He is 20 pounds and lets me hold him like a nursing baby. He sleeps on Vince’s pillow at night. He runs into walls because he is blind.

I know I said no more instagram photos, but it’s not true. I am a hypocrite.

After a tough, tough summer with Edda’s moods, we have now had a few weeks where Edda is happy and excited to be out and about,  I hope this mood never goes away. This weekend I took her Vince’s soccer game and it was fine. Almost relaxing. I was beginning to doubt myself that I could take Edda on my own into the outside world, but there I was on a beautiful day with my beautiful daughter just hanging out.

I almost can’t believe it, but I have been a diligent runner since the beginning of summer – I’ve found an early morning running partner, I’ve found a running club, I’ve found race friends. It doesn’t mean that I don’t run on my own, one of the best parts of running is that it is cheap and fast, you leave your house and you are back home at the end of the workout – no scheduled class to make, no drive to the gym – this week, I’m doing early morning runs by myself and Maxi – rocking out to my electronica music and wearing my reflective safely patrol gear.

Maxi is usually a very good running partner, eager and persistent and excited. All the motivation I need to head out in the dark and cold. Yesterday provided an extra challenge – pouring rain. I though I saw a break in the rain when I headed out, but by the time I hit the half mile mark, I was soaked through and Maxi was looking very, very sad and not going very fast. So I took a shortcut and headed home. As soon as Maxi discovered that we were headed home, she practically broke out in a sprint.

Hours later, it was still pouring – Vince convinced me to walk to school. That did not work out so well 🙁

Thank goodness for nice picture quality. No more instagram photos. Whew. (Well OK, maybe there will be a few more, but I’m going to try and go back to the DSLR.)

Everyone in the household has a “fun fund” – grown ups get $20 a week, kids get less – it’s money that you can use without anyone else giving you the evil eye saying that it was a silly purchase. I run my “fun fund” pretty low – I think I have about 45 dollars in my account now, because I like to spend my money on margaritas with my Rett mom friends or monogrammed stationary or yoga class or my poker buy-in – Jeremy is much more patient with his savings, he was almost up to $900 and had his eye on his first expensive bike.  I think that a $1000 bike is a pretty silly purchase for basically
riding the 1.25 miles to the Metro – but it’s all his to spend.  My brother, a bike enthusiast, will tell you that real bikes just start at 1K, but to me it just seems like a tremendous investment for non-racers like us. (Jeremy – for five years now – has been riding every day my brother’s old Trek that my parents bought  for him in 1988 or so – you can tell by the purple detailing).  For years, he’s been looking for bikes all around the DC metro area, obscure brands that no one carried and would have to special order. Every where we are near a bike shop, he wants to stop in and see if they have exactly what he wanted.

So last week, we stopped into a local bike shop and he ended up spontaneously buying a Trek which was used in a rental program for a song – they were clearing out last year’s bikes to get in an infusion of the 2013 models – it’s like buying a rental car. A used bike that was guaranteed not to have been stolen, included a U-lock, fenders, and to top it all off, faux leather seat.  I think he paid just over $200 for it and now still has enough money left to buy a flat screen TV he has been eying.

Somehow I have found a group of friends that like to get together on weeknights (!) and drink and play poker – mostly women, they all have demanding jobs, they all have kids, and yet – they party like it’s 1999. So out of my normal milieu! As a policy, I try not to turn things that I’m invited to down, just because, you know, it could be kind of fun and interesting and it was (it was also a little boozy – nothing like being a touch hung over on Friday morning)!

I learned all the good stuff, 5/7 card draw and stud, some variations like High Chicago. Lost like 7 dollars and was the first one to leave at 11 pm which is good because I have an anatomy exam in about 3 hours that I need to cram for.

Jeremy went to NYC earlier this week to give a talk. He wearing my favorite tweed jacket.

Vince doesn’t want to play violin anymore. It’s really no surprise. It’s hard work. I told him that we were just going to go ahead and plow through it – that this was the one thing I was going to make him do. I told him the pay off was going to be when he was a grown up and could appreciate that he knew how to play some music. He replied that the payoff was going to be when he made his own kids play a musical instrument. I told him he was probably right.