The Small Family     

Well, our week started rather dismally here in the Small household, but it ended in a quite lovely manner! Let’s start with the dismal and then move to the good. Theo generously shared his vile cold with Chris and me, so in the early part of the week, all three of us were feeling really lousy--which meant all three of us where whiny, grouchy, coughing, sneezing complainers. It was great fun around here; let me tell you! We singlehandedly kept the Kleenex corporation afloat, Theo learned to love our new thermometer (previously his mortal enemy), I convinced Chris to try a nasal-irrigation system (ha!), and I learned that my chiropractor is a master at reducing sinus pressure. One night, Chris and I were slouched on the couch and in the rocking chair, both snuffling and coughing like crazy and feeling like death warmed over, and I just looked at him and said, “We might as well just go ahead and die now.” Joking, of course, but we really did sound like two pretty pathetic human beings!

Theo’s fever broke after about four days, and Chris and I started to feel better by late in the week, too, so I suppose we shall live. ;-) Perhaps the only casualty of our illness (besides a lot of innocent Kleenex) was my job interview--I was feeling kind of miserable that day, and so I don’t think I came off as energetic and cheery as I would normally like to. Mostly, I tried hard not to cough the whole time! But if the State is looking for a rather serious person, then I guess you could say the interview went well--I didn’t flub anything, but I just wasn’t overly chipper that day!

I should hear back about whether I got the position in a week or 10 days.  It’s a contract position, so I’d be on contract until June, and after that point they would reassess, possibly give me a small promotion (if they were happy with my work), and sign me up for a second contract. To be quite honest, the work isn't particularly my area of interest--it’s editing reports about audits of State departments, basically. But the pay is phenomenal compared to what I usually make, so I can surely learn to find State audits interesting for a nice pay increase! (It’s about twice what I make for my usual publisher, and it’s three times as much as I make for some of the smaller clients I work for.) The contract is only for about 20 hours per month, so we’re certainly not going to get rich on just that pay alone, but certainly the increased hourly rate would be very, very nice--even if it’s for a relatively minimal number of hours per month! Anyway, fingers crossed….

And on to the rest of the good parts of the week. We’ve had beautiful weather (supposedly set to end on Monday) for a few weeks now, and Theo and I have been taking every possible opportunity to enjoy it. We had free time on Wednesday and Thursday, so we went to the park both days. Theo played up a storm--I swear, that child would be happy as a clam playing outside all day, every day. And I love it, too, because (1) I happen to like being outside better than being inside, (2) he’s so happy when he’s outside that he rarely gets into mischief, so I don’t have to spend much time disciplining him--I can just enjoy my time with him, and (3) I love to watch what his little mind makes up when he’s outside. One day this week, he found a long stick and played with it for quite some time. First it was his “fishing pole,” then it became an “edger,” and finally it was a “mosquito getter.” Busy little guy with his stick--I love it!

I took on a rather gruesome freelance proofreading project over the weekend, so I was stuck working all day Friday and much of Sunday (and Chris pitched in and helped quite a bit!), but we were determined to have at least one family day together, since we hadn’t had one in a while. (Chris was working/gone last weekend.) So Saturday morning, we drove down to the Sausalito area (north of San Francisco) to go to Muir Woods. There are walking trails among the trees, which we thought Theo would really like, and we had seen on the Food Network that the café there supposedly makes a grilled-cheese sandwich that is to die for. So we thought we’d walk a bit, work up an appetite, and have some grilled cheese (well, not Theo…) before heading home. Alas, others apparently had the same idea--lots of others. We couldn’t find parking anywhere within a mile of the trailheads/café, so we gave up and decided to follow the signs to Muir Beach, which neither of us had ever been to.

What a find! Actually, we ended up being glad that Plan A didn’t work out, since we had so much fun at Muir Beach! My only regret is that we didn’t have a picnic lunch with us, so we had to leave after about 90 minutes and go find food. I would’ve been happy to stay for hours, and I know Theo would’ve too--we haven’t seen him have so much fun in a long time! I’m actually not normally much of a beach person--I like the beach okay, but I actually prefer mountains, lakes, streams, meadows, etc. But that is probably because I grew up near the beach in Santa Cruz, which tends to be very crowded--and I’m really not a fan of crowds. But Muir Beach was relatively uncrowded, very clean, with gentle, tiny waves just lapping at the sand so that Theo could easily play in the water without getting overwhelmed. It was gorgeous. It reminded me of the beaches in Oregon that I like, only much warmer! We were in shirt-sleeves much of the time, and it was perfect.

Theo discovered the joy of running up to the incoming surf, splashing in the water, and then running back out of it as fast as he could! Unfortunately, the sun was at his back when he was playing in the water, so I didn’t get too many clear pictures of him where you can see his face, but hopefully in the few I got, you can tell just how much fun he was having playing in the gentle surf--grinning ear to ear! Chris and I took turns running in and out with him, and we all just had a ball!

Later, Theo wanted to explore a “river” of sorts--just a sort of stream of water that wound lazily through the sand on one side of the beach. There he met a little friend named Evan, and they played together for quite a while. It was so cute to watch them--they were giggling like crazy, and they even made up some little language between the two of them. To us, it sounded like Klingon, but who knows what they were saying?!

We finally went to find lunch, but Theo fell asleep within minutes of getting in the car, so we decided to get him at least a short nap and drive over the Golden Gate into San Francisco. We went to Fog City Diner and had a yummy meal--fish and chips and a cheeseburger, both of which we split. And a plate of roasted Brussels sprouts, which were probably our favorite part of the meal. They roasted them with bacon, so how can you go wrong?!

Theo also finally got to go see Grandma Diane this week, and he was very happy about that because he’s been asking and asking to see her. I had been going over to her house without him, because I didn’t want him trying to crawl into her lap, but on Thursday night Chris came along to wrangle Theo, and we had a very nice visit. And surprisingly enough, Theo must’ve actually listened to us when we told him not to climb on Grandma because she has a big “owie,” because he stayed off of her--we didn’t even have to remind him. Big boy! I think Grandma Diane was pretty darn happy to see him again. :-)

Last but not least, I have a fun new Theo development to report. I’m guessing this is the next stage of “pre-reading” skills, and it’s just fascinating and amusing to watch! Theo is now spelling things he sees written out all the time--he’ll read the letters carefully, and then say, “That spells  ______!” But the funny part is, since he really can’t spell yet (except a couple simple words and his name), he just tells you it spells either (a) something related to the object, or (b) more amusingly, something he wants. So for his package of “play dough,” we hear, “P-l-a-y-d-o-u-g-h. That spells stickers!” For the Panasonic remote, we hear, “P-a-n-a-s-o-n-i-c. That spells show! Feo want show!”

So most of the time, this is just an amusement for us--hearing what he decides things spell. We give him the right word, but it’s actually most fun just to hear what he thinks it spells. However, the little turkey surprised me this week. Last week he was holding an old Sony remote that we no longer use, and he pointed to the brand name on it and said, “S-o-n-y. That spells remote!” I said, “Actually, it spells Sony!” He said nothing more on the subject for several days, and then on Wednesday, while Chris was at school, Theo picked something up and said, “That spells Sony!” I wasn’t really paying attention, but he repeated it, so I turned around, expecting to see him holding the black remote. No, actually, he was holding a silver CD-R disc that I had left on the couch. And it did indeed say Sony on it! But what surprised me was that on the remote, Sony is in small white letters on a black remote, with no logo or anything. On the CD-R, Sony is in larger silver letters embossed on a silver CD, with no logo. So the font size and color didn’t match, and there was no logo on either product--yet he still knew they both said “Sony.” Given that, all I can figure is that he does indeed know that an S, an O, an N, and a Y put together spell Sony. Crazy. The 2-1/2-year-old brain never ceases to amaze me. They are just so much fun to watch at this age--every day is learning something new! And surprising their parents with it, obviously….

Anyway, on that note, Happy Valentine’s Day, all!