Happier thoughts
November 8th, 2007 by amylherzog
Though it has been pretty gray and foggy for the past week, I snapped this shot of our new backyard when it was sunny. And since it seems like most people I know need some sunshine in their lives right now…
I’m still working a lot from home, here, with a babysitter. It looks like this is going to be the status quo for quite some time, so I’m starting to consider morning preschool for Jacob. It’s a hard topic to think about, so I avoid it when I can, but the reliability of the babysitters we’ve had in leaves quite a lot to be desired. And it would be nice for a full week to pass when I can work the number of hours I need to without having to cram it into naptime or bathtime.
I’m not sure how Jacob will feel about it. He loves the class we take together in a preschool-like environment, and he’s not very clingy anymore, but it’s still hard to think about putting him in childcare when one of the whole points of moving to this damn place was so that I could stay home with him. Bah.
We played hooky for a day and went up to San Jose to visit friends on Halloween. At first, Jacob was having nothing whatsoever to do with his costume. (Which, by the way, we’ve been unable to get off of him for the last month.)
Eventually, though, peer pressure prevailed. Asher was wearing his dragon costume, so Jacob had to put on his Tigger costume before he could eat his candy corn.
He was pretty fond of the whole candy thing, and eventually had a lot of fun running around shouting “Gwick n GWEEEEEEEEET!” at full volume. He was (predictably) less fond of the door-to-door thing and more fond of the answering-the-door thing.
I’m really looking forward to next Halloween, now. I think he’ll actually get it, next year. This year, we let him gorge on candy on Halloween itself and then tossed the rest since he’d already forgotten about it by Thursday. Next year, I doubt we’ll be so lucky.
*****
We’ve got our first overnight guests staying with us since the move this weekend, something Jon and I both are really, really looking forward to. We’ve actually cleared all of the boxes out of the house, so here are a few random afternoon shots, for those of you who are curious (*cough*DAD*cough*).
There are basically two sides to the downstairs: one side has the kitchen and tv/playroom, separated by that bar. This is my favorite because the kitchen is nice and because it has built-in, toddler-height storage for all of Jacob’s toys. When he goes to sleep, we put them away and it actually looks like adults live here, by god.
The other side has a tv-free living room and the dining room. This is also where I work.
The dining room looks out onto the back yard and when it’s nice out, like it was the day I took the picture, it’s totally sun-drenched and my favorite room in the house. On gray days, not so much. We really like it here, overall. It’s drafty and chilly, because Californians apparently don’t know insulation and double-paned windows exist, but it’s bright and spacious and really fits life with a toddler well.