The Small Family     

Well, what a week it’s been!  Chris got his job offer from Genentech, took it to his current employer to see what their counter-offer might be, and then…drum roll, please…accepted Genentech’s offer!

Long story short, the Genentech offer is fantastic--really a better offer than we could’ve hoped for. The salary is a big step up--though a lot of that will go to much higher rent and preschool costs in the Bay Area. But the other benefits to the offer made it nearly impossible to refuse: Our medical coverage will go from $420/month to $110/month (wow!!). Chris finally has some upward mobility again--they’re starting him at Salary Grade 2 out of 5, so he has room to work his way up! The 401(k) plan is far better than what his previous employer had. He can take transit to work (either BART or Genentech shuttle busses that are WiFi-enabled and take you right to the campus!) and get reimbursed for it--plus not having to battle the hideous Bay Area traffic. And the list of smaller benefits goes on and on. Really, their package is pretty amazing.

He did go to his current (soon-to-be previous) employer to see whether they could come anywhere close to Genentech’s offer. Truth is, we knew they couldn’t--Sacramento pay scales are much lower than the Bay Area, and environmental consulting isn’t a big-money business by any means. But ICF has been good to him for 12 years, and he does like his coworkers and bosses, so he figured he might as well at least see what they had to say. And they made a nice financial offer, but it just couldn’t compare. And so…we move on, with a mixture of excitement and sadness. We’re excited about the new opportunities that await us, but we’re sad to leave family, friends, and Theo’s preschool. (Strange that we’re so attached to the darn preschool, but we really are--we feel like we hit the jackpot on it, and it’s scary to think that we might not find something as appealing where we move.)

But let me tell you what most excites me right in the here and now: FULL-SERVICE PACKING AND MOVING!! Oh yes, that was part of the offer: Genentech is paying for our move and having our packing done for us! What?! Why have we spent the past couple of weeks frantically packing boxes whenever we had a spare minute?! Ah well, that has now come to an end, and we can sit back and let someone do it for us. Bliss!  We kinda feel like we’ve hit the big time on that one. ;-) And it’s a good thing, too, because we got one other bit of news this week. Literally hours after Chris accepted the job and was told he needed to start work on November 14^th, we got an email from our realtor telling us that our short sale is scheduled to close Monday (tomorrow!), and we’ll have to be out of here in two weeks. YIKES! It’s not quite as bad as it sounds--we can likely rent back from the new owners for a week or two if we need to. But that’s a rather pricey option (probably about $400/week), so we’d rather just be out in two weeks if we can. We shall see… Fastest short sale in history, I think. Some man in Starbucks overheard me talking about it, and he looked at me in disbelief and said, “Is that a short sale?” I said it was, and he shook his head and said, “I tried to do a short sale, and after nine months, the bank finally just foreclosed. Yours only took four weeks?” Indeed. A property manager I spoke to expressed similar disbelief about the speed at which our transaction went through. Evidently this is very uncommon. Chris and I chalk it up to a few likely factors: (1) we’re ridiculously organized with paperwork and had everything ready for the bank when they needed it; (2) our realtor is awesome and on the ball; (3) our buyers offered full cash with no contingencies; (4) our house is in great shape--all it really needs is new carpet, but that’s to be expected of a seven-year-old house that had cheap carpet installed in the first place and has survived two years of renters and then five years of two dogs and one kid who spit up everywhere for nine straight months; and (5) a dash of good old karma--perhaps all our attempts to live an honest life and do good things are being paid back in the form of extraordinarily good luck with our short sale! We like to think that perhaps the universe works in such ways now and then....

But I digress--back to the relocation company. They also will help us find a place to live--I need to talk to the relocation specialists on Monday and figure out how that works. We’ve done some scouting on our own, too, though. This is all happening very quickly, so we figured we’d better be proactive in our own housing search, too. So, we took a trip to Walnut Creek on Saturday to see a house that was open for viewing and to drive by several other possibilities. The house that was open is a great option, but for two things: It’s at the very top of our price range, and it’s not terrifically close to any of the preschools we’re looking at. It’d probably be a good 20-minute drive each way to get Theo to preschool. And he may be going five mornings a week (this is apparently standard with Bay Area Montessori schools), which means a lot of driving back and forth for me. (I have mixed emotions about this five mornings a week. Theo will love it; I have no doubt. However, his mama will miss him! I’m not sure I’m ready for my little guy to be gone that often yet! But I do know he’d enjoy it--he’d very happily go five days a week right now if we let him. He lives for preschool….)

But, the preschool commute may be a tradeoff I have to make. With our budget, we have very limited options, even in the East Bay, so something has to give. The open house we saw is in a fabulous neighborhood--far better than anything I thought we could get. It’s an older neighborhood with big houses from the 1960s, but it’s beautiful and quiet with huge trees and quiet streets. Looks like a really nice family neighborhood--one that I thought would be far above our reach. (I think the reason that it’s not is that the house is on the small side for the neighborhood--it’s 1,700 square feet, which is huge for us but small for the neighborhood. And it hasn’t been updated since the 1970s, so it’s pretty disco-funky inside. But it’s reasonably clean and has a nice, big backyard…and as I said, the neighborhood is really perfect.)

The other houses we saw were…mixed. Some were, frankly, gross on the outside, and I’d really prefer not to even go there. The neighborhoods were fine (you can’t really go wrong in Walnut Creek area), but the houses themselves were just dilapidated. (Probably why they’re in our price range, right?!) But there were a couple of condos that we could afford, so we’ll look into those, too. Not really ideal, as we’re a little sick of living right on top of our neighbors (our vampire neighbors kept us awake until 2:30am on Friday!), but it could work.

It’s hard finding something near a good preschool that we’re interested in, too. We’re not 100% set on Montessori if it comes down to it, but we’ve been so pleased with Theo’s progress in their environment that we really want to stick with that style of learning if we can. I’ve found five or six Montessori preschools that look as if they might fit the bill, but I need to go tour them and see what I think, as all Montessori schools are not created equal. (And in fact, all of them require you to come observe before you even apply to send your kiddo there, so even if I weren’t a preschool control freak, I’d have to go take a look….) I’m hoping I can schedule a tour of my top four favorites on a single day this week, so I only have to drive down there once. The 70-mile drive is a little rough on my back at this stage of pregnancy. (Odd, because I’m still really quite small--but somehow, I’m already uncomfortable if I sit in one position for too long.)

Speaking of preschool, we had an interesting report this week. Ms. Asha (who I’d say is probably Theo’s favorite teacher, although he really likes all three--but he especially loves Ms. Asha) came up to me on Friday and said, “I wanted to ask you--have you told Theo about 911?” I said, “No, not yet--why?” She showed me an emergency-response necklace she wears (perhaps she’s diabetic? Not sure…) and said that Theo had noticed her wearing it, walked up to her, and said, “That necklace is for 911. If you call 911, the firemen will come and help you when you’re sick.” He apparently went on to tell her in great detail all about how those medical-alert necklaces work and what 911 does--so Asha assumed we must’ve taught him that. Only thing is, we didn’t. Neither Chris nor I have ever showed him the emergency-alert symbol or talked to him about 911. Nor have any of the preschool teachers. We checked with the grandparents and with my sister--no one has told him any of this. So where he learned it is a complete and total mystery, but according to Asha, he has quite the knowledge of the emergency-response system. We’re rather baffled! Our only guess is that perhaps he saw something about it on TV, though neither of us can remember him watching a show that covers this. But it’s the only thing we can think of! Little Dr. Reid the Braniac never ceases to amaze me....

Ms. Dorothy, his head teacher, said maybe he heard bits and pieces in different places and just put it all together--she said he’s the type of thinker who can do that, even at three. She sort of laughed and told me, “His mind never stops working--it’s kind of exhausting to see how much his brain is working at all times!” She suggested that this is probably part of why it can be rather hard to get through to him sometimes--he’s so focused on what’s going on in his head that it can be tough to break through that. Indeed. I told her we often find ourselves exhausted by how much his mind is going. :-) Funny kid…

I’m looking forward to reading the preschool’s assessment of him so far. They’re supposed to give us a written one because we’ll be leaving before fall conferences would normally start. My guess? Something along the lines of “Extremely bright with a phenomenal memory. Very friendly but would often prefer to be alone instead of interacting with the other kids. Struggles with structure.” We’ll see how close I get on that one…. Dorothy did say he’s making a lot of progress with handling structure--but that she still doesn’t recommend a traditional structured school environment at this point, because he’s “not there yet.” That gels with what we’ve seen of him, so I suspect she’s right: We’re definitely seeing progress, but he still often rebels against structured environments. But hey--progress is what we want. Our goal isn’t to make him some obedient little robot--it’s to get him to a point where he won’t end up being constantly disciplined in kindergarten for not adhering to the classroom rules. In my ideal world, he will keep that wonderful open mind of his but learn to deal with the inevitable rules and structure that exist in the world. I’d certainly never stick him in a military-style school, as I don’t think that will ever be a good fit for his personality--but even your standard K-8 school is going to require him to sit still for periods of time, do activities at specific times, etc. I'm curious as heck to see what Theo's little brother will be like. Will he share his brother's extremely strong will and fierce independence, or will he be a more mellow, go-with-the-flow type? It's anyone's guess at this point--I can't wait to see what their personalities become as they grow up! 

As for this week’s pictures, some were taken in Walnut Creek, at a big park near the open house we saw. The rest were taken here in Rocklin, at a park not far from our house here. Theo had a great time exploring the wooded creek area at the park in Rocklin, and it was fun to watch his imagination come out. Imaginative play is a fairly new development, and we’re really enjoying watching it! This time, he decided that the trees were hungry, so he was foraging for things to feed them. (Evidently trees like celery and cucumbers. Bet y’all didn’t know that!)

Theo also expressed some real interest in the baby this week. He’s been talking about the baby in the abstract for months, but this week he seemed to really connect the fact that it’s growing in my tummy. (Probably because my tummy is finally actually visibly larger. It’s still much smaller than I was with Theo at this stage, but it sticks out enough to be more obvious.) He came up to me and was patting my stomach and poking at it, all the while telling me all manner of things about the baby. According to Theo, it’s the size of a peach (actually, a carrot at this point). It wants to watch Baby Einstein with him. It wants to read books with him. And it likes office buildings. Not sure where that last one came from, but okay…. Anyway, it was neat to see him make that sort of connection. The idea of growing a baby is still way too complex for him to really get, but I do think he’s got the idea that the baby is alive in my tummy and that it’s going to be a little person, instead of just some abstract creature.

Speaking of Garbanzo, at 23 weeks he is now 8 inches long and weighs slightly more than a pound. In the next four weeks, he’s in the business of putting on weight: He should be two pounds by this time next month! (This might explain why I’ve been eating nonstop….) And--drum roll, please--he has reached the age of viability outside the womb. That is, if he was born now, he might survive. The chances are slim, of course, and we definitely want him to stay put for another 15 weeks or so, but babies have survived outside of the womb this early. So yay for Garbanzo for hitting that milestone!

He has taken up residence on my bladder, and he doesn’t show any signs of giving up his comfy spot.  I spent much of my time in the bathroom. Seriously--I go right before we leave the house, and then I have to pull over half an hour later and go again. I don’t remember the urgency to urinate hitting quite this early with Theo, but maybe I just conveniently blocked that from my mind! Other than peeing nonstop and getting a sore back when I drive too far, though, I’m feeling pretty darn good now. And boy, is this kid a mover! I feel as if he moves even more than Theo, but it’s hard to remember. I do remember that Theo moved a lot, and this one certainly does, too. It’s comforting, though--like he’s in there saying “hi!” to me all the time. It is the part about growing a baby that I love--feeling him move. I’m glad I got to do it one more time in my life. :-)

Anyway, enjoy your week, everyone--and I’m sure I’ll have much to report next week, after I’ve spent some time dealing with the relocation folks and hopefully visiting preschools. Gearing up for a crazy week!