Our Day Off

The last few days have been a little weird for us since we have two new house guests.

Since Saturday night we've had a family friend staying in Eddie's room so she can avoid paying for a hotel. Her first grandson was born last week and she's helping out the new parents, who live here in Davis.

On Monday we got a new roommate (for just this month probably)--his name is Lucas, he's from Brazil, and he's the new post doc in our lab. When I heard he was looking for a place to stay, I offered our extra room after Arek moved out. After emailing back and forth, he decided he probably didn't want to live with a family long term but that maybe he could stay for the first month, until he got his bearings and found some roommates or a single apartment. Having a new roommate is quite an adjustment, especially in this case. I got SO used to Arek's schedule and antics (he holed up in his room working most of the time, was pretty shy, and quite a night owl). Lucas is almost the complete opposite--he's outgoing and gregarious and plays with Eddie.

Yesterday Jonah came down with a stomach bug so Morgan and I had to cancel swap-sitting again. We haven't actually swapped for three weeks now (they were on vacation, then her mom was in town and watched Jonah, and now he's sick). Sigh...I just hope we can make it more regular come spring quarter because I'm gonna be b.u.s.y. with TAing and whatnot.

So today Eddie and I stayed home together.

With all the changes in our household lately, it was actually nice for me and Eddie to just hang out all day. We accomplished a lot, but none of it was "must do" stuff--just little things that were mostly for fun.

We started our day with a full breakfast like usual (Eddie ate two eggs, cereal, some banana, AND apple sauce). Then we fed the chickens, I ordered my Groupon-discounted Sunday paper subscription (coupons!) and dog medicine refills from 1-800-Pet-Meds, and then we planted some pansy seeds in a flower box. Eddie was very insistent that he get to scatter seeds, too. Next time I will give him some corn meal to scatter since he won't know the difference because his aim sucks. I'm going to have pretty flowers growing all over the place!

Our local library was just renovated and we've not been to the new digs yet. There was a "Mother Goose on the Loose" story and activity time at 11am for toddlers. So I loaded Eddie into the bike trailer and off we went. He was not happy that I made him relinquish his snack before we went into the library, but he calmed down when I gave him a toothbrush to chew on (don't ask...). He was sort of shy during the activity time, but he did get up and dance with the teacher a little bit. At the end everyone got a set of bells to dance with (parents included! woo!)...Eddie kept throwing his so we left early. I'd like to blame his behavior on the timing since it was right around his nap time, but he's in a "throw everything to see what happens to it or Mama's mood" phase. It's real fun.

We biked to Chipotle to use our last buy 1/get 1 free burrito coupons. I had to wake him up before I took him out of the trailer! Poor bumkin was so tired...but he did eat a bunch of burrito before we headed home. Luckily he stayed awake during the ride home, but later only took a 40 minute nap. I tried to nap at the same time, but it wasn't long enough and I got up more tired than I started out. Bleh.

After a diaper change and snack, we headed to Vacaville to sell our original double stroller at a consignment store (it doesn't work well for heavy kids). Unfortuntely they woudn't take it because there are some minute mildew stains on the label...so I'll have to sell it on Craigslist (where I got it), which is fine, just more work for me. We stopped at the hospital on our way home and got Eddie's blood drawn for a blood lead level check. He was a good boy and only fell apart briefly while the needle was in his arm. But once the lady handed him a couple of Nemo stickers he calmed down. It didn't hurt that I also gave him a Lemonades Girl Scout cookie, too!

When we got home I set out all the fixings to make mini pizzas for dinner, then we headed out into the garden yard to play with the chickens. Eddie was mesmerized by Vindaloo, who was taking a dust bath near his bedroom window. I have NO idea what he was saying, but he was narrating the whole thing. Dang, I wish I'd had the video camera with me to capture it!

The other chickens were busy eating all the worms I was unearthing while I turned the soil to plant more lettuce seeds. It was really annoying because they kept getting in my way--they are lucky they didn't get stabbed with the pitch fork. Once I got the soil bed nice and leveled with the rake, Eddie realized I was scattering more seeds and he fussed until he got to "help." I had to put the chickens back in the pen (except Vindaloo because she was still bathing) because they were eating all the lettuce seeds! After I covered the seeds with soil, we went into the front yard and planted the wine barrels with left over seeds from last year--I mixed everything together since I doubt most of it will germinate. I figured we'll get what we get (hopefully something will grow of the carrots, beets, butterhead, romaine, arugula, spicy mesclun mix, and Asian greens).

Then it was pizza for dinner, bathtime, lots of stories, and bed for Eddie! I know how lucky I am to be able to stay home with Eddie on days like this--not many people have this type of flexibility. We usually only get an afternoon alone together each week so having a whole day really was a blessing. That being said, I'm looking forward to getting some work done at school tomorrow!