nanny

We have a new nanny! She is warm and loving and smart and experienced and chatty, and I think she will be great. She started this week with just a couple of mornings, and I'm going to work from home for most of next week to ease the transition. I still don't feel entirely ready to go back to work full-time, but having had 3 months of paid leave is more than most people get in this country, so I'm grateful to have had that. And I'm ready to start thinking and working again... I just wish I could do it for, say, 25 or 30 hours/week. I have enjoyed spending time with Sam after school, and getting a few projects done around the house that there won't be time for once I'm in the midst of analyzing data and designing stimuli and writing papers and coordinating research assistants. I'm still planning to duck out of work a couple hours early one day a week to do something special with Sam, and to work from home one morning a week to get a little solo time with Frida, so we'll see how that goes.

In the meantime Frida is grudgingly getting used to taking bottles (she's had about one a week from J., but has never been too thrilled about them) and going to sleep some way other than nursing.

F. and S.'s Grandma and Grandpa are arriving tomorrow morning to spend Thanksgiving in town (Aunt Sara and Uncle Dan are hosting); Aunt Liz is arriving tomorrow night. We're excited to see them! And I'm ready to start the winter holiday season... it gets dark shortly after 4 already, and I'm having a hard time facing the fact that the days will be getting shorter for another month before they start getting longer again. So being reminded, first, of gratitude, is a good way to head into the season.

Another email quote from Karla (Sam's babysitter)-- they have been spending a lot of afternoons in the Natural History Museum, when it's too dark or cold or rainy to hang out outside: When we grow up, Sam's going to be a paleontologist, and I'm going to be a lepidopterist/singer. We're going to go to conferences and he's going to present the dinosaur bones he's dug up; I get to sing about them. ("T-Reeeexxxx") Kids would be allowed into the conferences, but not dogs. The dogs may confuse the dinosaur bones with chew toys, and that's not good. Sam is learning to pronounce lepidopterist, slowly but surely :)