Life is just too busy to blog these days. I was sick for two weeks, but I’m over it now. Martin, Shea and our nanny all caught it from me, and Martin and Shea are still getting over it. Shea had a really high fever the last three days, so I took him to the doctor. She was baffled. She said he was the healthiest sick person she’d seen all week because he was talking (bababa, dadada), smiling, etc. I could tell that he wasn’t himself because he wasn’t jumping around and laughing like he usually does, but she couldn’t find anything wrong with him. I gave him both Tylenol and Motrin again last night and his fever was gone this morning, so we’ll see. (Yesterday the same thing happened and his fever was back to 103 by afternoon).
I’m having a harder time sticking with my writing schedule. Rather than force myself to do the five hours in one day, I think, “Oh, if I don’t do them, I’ll just make them up some night this week.” So yesterday I only did two hours and now I have three hours to make up and no evenings free to do them. (And yes, I should be doing them now instead of blogging.) Anyway, goals are much more enjoyable when you make them, so I’ve got to get back on track today.
I took on a new SAT student last week, and I haven’t tutored the SAT in more than a year (maybe two) and I’ve forgotten everything in those practice tests (I have my students do a test a week), so now I’M doing an SAT a week, and it’s a LOT of extra time out of my schedule.
In addition to my strict new writing schedule and doing an SAT a week, our house near Guerneville is about to go on the rental market, so there’s been a lot of last minute things to do, including all the paperwork with the management company. I spent half my work day doing that stuff yesterday. I’m happy that it’s almost done, but it’s really taking up a lot of my time. And when I was up there this past weekend, I was feeling despondent that I never get to have any FUN when I’m there. The point was to have a place to hang out, play board games, go hiking, etc. I hardly ever get out of the house when I’m up there (which is almost every weekend) because I’m either working or watching Shea while Martin works. I’ve hardly done any hikes, haven’t been in the river once all season, and have played maybe one board game all year. But we did get our pool table Saturday and I played one quick game, and I make sure to use the hot tub at least once per weekend. Still, I’ll be happy when I can go up there and enjoy it and not spend every weekend painting, cleaning and running errands.
I signed Shea up for music classes yesterday, so in September we’ll be going to the library Mondays for their little baby/toddler story hour and to music class on Thursdays (as well as swimming). Should be fun.
Shea still isn’t crawling, which is fine since we still haven’t babyproofed the house yet. I think he’s just not that motivated to go anywhere. He’s been on all fours for two months, rocking back and forth and maybe moving one hand forward, but then he just gets tired and lies down. He can sit up on his own now, though. And his new thing is to point up in the air and say, “Da!” I thought he was pointing at lights at first, but he seems to point at anything that interests him. He’s also started reaching his arms up when he wants you to pick him up, which I think is so cute. Before he would just cry.
Last night we had dinner at Quince, a fancy restaurant in San Francisco. It was very exciting to CROSS THE BRIDGE for dinner. We had our friends A&A babysit, and Shea did wake up (which he doesn’t usually do), but they managed to soothe him back to sleep. Quince was delicious. At first I thought it wasn’t as good as Chez Panisse (and maybe it isn’t), but then my duck came and I had to reassess. It was damn good duck and I haven’t had duck since I lived in Paris! Crazy! I used to eat duck all the time, and I miss it—yum. So we ate and ate and ate, and then forked over our life savings to pay for the bill, but it was worth it.
So now it’s 6:50 a.m. (I slept about five hours last night) and I have to read pieces for my writers group meeting, then get ready for work, then take care of Shea when he gets up at 8, then leave for the city at 9, work until 2 when I have my goals meeting, come home by 5, take care of Shea until 6:30, then go to my writers group, come home around 9:30 or 10 and do some SAT. This is my life. There’s no break! And when I do have a break late in the evening I watch Battlestar Galactica with Martin. We’re near the end of Season Three, and it’s so good. I love that show. It was killing me to have the disc with me all weekend up at the river and not have time to watch it.
Our river house, by the way (which isn’t actually on the river) is called Sweet Dreams and will be listed very soon with Russian River Getaways. I’ll post a link once they have the listing ready (ie once I send them the photos, something I plan to do, uh, at 11 p.m. tonight?) Zzzzzz…
Bustopher Jones 