9/15/2011 Helmets

"Life is hard -- wear a helmet!" Gabriel informed me tonight. Very clever! "Where did you get that?" I asked him. "From my teacher," he said. Then he said that his teacher has two helmets, one labelled "No Whining" and one labelled "No Complaining." If anyone whines or complains too much in class, they get to wear that helmet for the rest of the day. So far no one has, but I think it's a very clever threat! I'm sure some parents would object to having kids singled out that way, but I really like his creativity.

9/15/2011

9/14/2011 Wrapping up!!

Two more days at work!! It's incredible to believe. Even though I took so much time off and Covad was off my mind for so long while I was having babies, it feels like such a part of my life now that it's about to be not part of my life. I guess anything that's been in your immediacy for 14 years is hard to let go of. One more day of "real" work, then the final day will just be saying goodbyes and packing up my office.

This is so not the most important thing in my life, but it's very very real and present to me now. Until Friday at 5pm that is!!

9/14/2011

9/13/2011 New computer

Yayy!!! I'm typing to you from my new Dell Latitude laptop. It's not set up at all, it'll take weeks to get everything transferred over and my whole picky environment set up, but this is a huge start. I was long overdue to upgrade my computer, but that was the easy part -- I'm also long overdue to upgrade the way I do things. For instance, an address book in an ancient program in a proprietary format? Get OVER it, everyone uses Google Contacts!

Homework was amazingly easy tonight. Gabriel got in trouble immediately and was sent to his room to do his homework. Julian had already gotten a little ahead on his language work, then finished his week's worth of math.

Katrina was the real killer though: she blew through her first week's worth of homework in under an hour, with no guidance, help or encouragement, insisting on reading all the instructions herself, and remaining completely undistracted by her brothers. She announced, "I TOASTED it!"

In fairness, all three kids had no trouble with kinder homework; they'd been well-prepared in preschool, but I think it's safe to say she's the most enthusiastic.

I know I can't count on this breeze every night, but for tonight, I'll take it!

9/13/11

9/12/11 Last Monday

My new computer arrived! It's in a box.

I'll get to it as soon as I clean up the kitchen, make 3 lunches, fill out emergency information for all 3 kids, fill out a county assessment health form for Gabriel, answer notes to two teachers, fill out a class directory form for kindergarten, sign a permission slip and another form about if I want to apply for a library card for 2nd grade, go through papers the kids brought home from school today and make sure I don't miss any notices, put a Thursday field trip on the calendar so I don't forget to send a bagged lunch, look for the kindergarten P.E. schedule and make sure Katrina wears sneakers if PE is on Tuesdays -- and then I can unbox my new computer. Thank goodness tonight is a light workload night!

My last Monday at my current company...the only place I've worked for the last 14 years, where I have many good friends and lots and lots of memories. Recent memories are really bad, but many others are good. No matter how I dice it up, there's no question that my new job is far, far better, but it's still a big change. It reminds me how I really need challenge but how real change stresses me.

I'm happy to be changing to a new computer though -- then I can edit photos again and post them to this poor image-starved blog!

9/12/11