Have the terrible 2s started early?

Lately Trent has been a bit of a drama queen. If we try to redirect him from his intended path/activity, he throws a massive wobbler. Throwing himself on the ground and crying. I guess it's developmentally appropriate, but it is NO FUN at all for me and Brian. I haven't much patience for this kind of stuff. On Tuesday he wanted cookies instead of dinner, and kept slapping his lasagna away and screaming. Finally I put him in time out. I turned his high chair towards the wall and let him cry. He eventually calmed down when Brian offered him some cheese, and he eventually decided that the lasagna was looking good and ate some. Then he had the audacity to ask for cookies and ice cream. Of course he didn't get any. Naughty boys don't get cookies or ice cream.
Mornings are starting to become a bit of a battle, too. He's not interested in getting dressed and he gets so mad if you even show him his shoes. It has to be his idea to put his shoes on. Yesterday I had to pin him down and put them on him. It's not how you want to start your day.

a small shift in the work/life balance

In the past 1.5 years that Trent has been going to daycare, Brian has always picked him up at the last possible minute to "get his money's worth" out of daycare. A practice I haven't fully approved of but tolerated mostly because we both have demanding jobs and we'd very much like to keep them.
But on our ski trip during a philosophical conversation with Tara in tha hot tub, I finally made my point that the extra 5 hours a week that Trent spends at daycare could be time spent with us, and time that we'll never get back. So we've made some minor adjustments to our schedule. It's taking a little bit of getting used to, especially for me, because my usual routine was to quit working at 6pm and take 45 mins to tidy the house and make dinner so it'd be ready when the boys get home. Now with Trent getting home earlier, I have to make dinner with him around, which is difficult because he's always on my leg when I'm in the kitchen. Last night I took him out for a run so Brian could work a little bit more, then Brian took him upstairs to play while I made dinner. We sat down to a family dinner a little later than usual, and Trent was very fussy while he was banished to the game room so I could make dinner. I think it's going to take a little time to get the routine right, but I am so glad we made the decision to spend a little extra time with him.
I am making the shift from having an office at work (which I rarely use) to going full time working from home. That means that Brian would always have to drive Trent to daycare because it's near the office. We think it's time to make the switch to a new daycare that's closer to home. This way I can run with the jogging stroller to pick him up and Brian can work however late he wants at the office. Stay tuned for more on that.

keep piling it on...

Well, I guess I shouldn't complain because this falls under the category of job security, but it can't go un-commented. I have received 2 new assignments in the past week. Not to replace anything I'm currently doing, but in addition to. There weren't enough hours in the days before, so you can imagine what this is going to mean for my work schedule. I'm trying to keep a positive attitude about it and an open mind. One of the projects - well, it's not really a project because that would suggest it has an end - is handling a multi-million dollar budget for the creation of educational courseware. It's my first time to do this kind of work, so this will be a completely new experience for me and an opportunity to learn. I'll be working with external vendors and internal financial people, and I've got some great people supporting me as I learn so hopefully I'll gain some good project management experience. The down-side is that I'm taking this responsibility from someone who got laid off. She was gracious enough to give me an orientation.

The second project that landed on my lap is to manage a project that converts DITA source to a format consumable by a Notes database. This one most definitely will have an end date, but this project runs in parallel with the other development project I handle, so it's a significant increase in workload.
We'll see how it goes. Don't get me wrong, I don't mean to complain, just processing what this will mean to my work/life balance.

Taos ski report

We're back from a wonderful mini-break. A big thanks to Grandma and Grandpapparazzi for taking Trent for 4 whole days!
We headed to Houston on Thursday afternoon, just in time for dinner. We got Trent settled in and spent some time hanging out with Bri's parents.

Friday
7am flight to Albuquerque, NM. We got up soooo early, not that I slept anyway. Arrived in ABQ at 8-ish and picked up the rental car. A Pontiac G5. What a piece of crap that car is, but it seemed the lesser of all evils given our choice. I picked it because it was cuter than the other options, but it's downsides became apparent very quickly. Massive blind spot, useless rear window, oddly small trunk opening and a cavernous trunk, and the worst feature: MASSIVE doors. Like to get out of them you had to practically back out of the car. Anyway... won't spend too much time dwelling on that but it was worth a mention.
We arrived in Taos around 11:30 or so and had no trouble finding the condo, which was right above Terry's Sports. Tara was there, Mike was already on the slopes. We settled in, radiod Mike to come in for lunch, then after lunch we suited up, rented our gear, and spent the rest of the day throwing ourselves down the mountain. The lift ride up is long and the face of the mountain is intimidating, but there were many great easy and medium runs. The weather was perfect. Not too cold, and beautiful blue skies. That evening we hung out in the hot tub, made a small dent in the giant bottle of Makers Mark we brought with us, and had a pasta dinner.
Grandpa reported that Trent hadn't mentioned us even once! Glad to hear Trent isn't missing us. That must mean that he's enjoying spending the day with Grandpa.
Saturday:
Up early, yummy egg breakfast, and off to the slopes. The morning was lovely and sunny and after we went in for lunch, Tara joined us on the slopes in the afternoon. Unfortunately, the weather took a turn between when we came in for lunch and the time we got back on the mountain. The wind had picked up and the temp. had dropped drastically, which made it less enjoyable to ski.
Again, we spent time haning out in the hot tub, drinking whiskey and cokes and enjoying the calm and relaxation of not having a toddler around, and spending quality time with our friends. Valentine's day dinner was prepared by the men. Steak and asparagus on the menu, two of my favourite things. Delicious!
Trent had a fun day with Grandma and Grandpa and was being a perfect little boy. Awh!
Sunday:
Pancake breakfast! mmmmm. I traded my skis for a snowboard this morning. Brian and Mike headed up the mountain while I spent time on the bunny slope trying to get reaquainted with the snowboard. It's amazing how little of what I learned last time I snowboard stuck with me. The theory was there, but the execution was horrendous and I spent a lot of time on my arse or flat out on my stomach. But I persevered and kept getting up and trying again. By the end of the morning I was able to get down the hill without falling over, but was ready to go back to skiing so I could end my trip on a high note. Brian made me lunch. Least said about that the better, I think, other than it was a nice thought ;-)
While on the bunny hill, I noticed a lot of little kids learning to ski. By little, I mean as young as 3. They were so cute in their little tiny ski outfits, and so fearless. It made me miss Trent and Brian and I decided we would take Trent skiing as soon as he was old enough.
The afternoon's skiing was wonderful. Brian spent some time going down the black diamonds with Mike (and some time hiking back up one that was beyond his abilities - haha). I stuck to the blue runs, mostly because the black runs have mogels, which I absolutely can't stand. I did make one attempt to do mogels as we were heading down to see how Tara was doing on the bunny slope (Mike had managed to talk her into trying skiing again so she'd have a more positive experience than the day before - Tara's such a good sport). During my mogel attempt, I managed to lose control and not only fall over, but take out Brian as well. Poor Brian ended up on the ground with his skis buried all the way up to his boots! I managed to lose a ski and gave up trying to get it back on on the hill and hiked down swearing a LOT.
We ended the day with a visit to the clam bake that was going on at the base. Sadly, all the clams were gone, though. We went to dinner at Tim's (something or other) Tavern and I tried the green chile that New Mexico is so famous for. MMMMmmmm. good.
More hot tubbing, more whisky and coke, and finally, off to bed ready for an early start the next day.
Monday:
We got up at 6:30 and packed up the cars. We were on the road by 7:30 and back in Albuquerque by 11 or so. Uneventful flight (thankfully) and back in Houston. Trent was indifferent at first when we showed up. He walked into the kitchen, saw me, smiled, and walked back to the living room to get a toy! About 5 minutes later, though, he gave me a big hug. Grandpa looked a little exhausted but we could tell he and Trent really enjoyed spending time together. We ate dinner in Houston then headed home to Austin, arriving around 10:30, just in time to go straight to bed.

Taos here we come!

Ski trip imminent. We took all our ski stuff over to Mike and Tara's last night. They are going to drive there, so they are taking our bulky items with them.
Brian and I are heading to Houston tomorrow to drop Trent off for 4 days of fun with Grandma and Grandpapparrazzi. I think it will be fun for Grandpa and Trent, who will get to spend the whole day together on Friday and Monday. This will be the longest time we've spent away from Trent. I'm gonna miss him soooooo much, but I know that he's in the best hands possible.
On Friday we fly from Houston to Albuquerque, then rent a car and drive 3 hours to Taos. Half a day of skiing on Friday to get reacquainted with the sport, then hopefully 2 days of snowboarding to follow.
The condo has an indoor hot tub so we're definitely going to take advantage of that with our aching muscles.
Mum & Dad, I'll be sending updates via twitter from my mobile phone periodically. Updates will display here in my blog, as well as on my Facebook status. So stay tuned :-)

eeeeee! excited. Tonight we have to pack!

Quick update

Turns out that my voice loss is not from all the singing and woo-hooing at the Suede concert. I actually have a sore throat and congestion :-( Boooo! Hopefully it'll all clear up before this weekend's ski trip, but regardless, I'm gonna tear it up on the slopes.

fun night downtown

The front row of the Suede show is always crazy. Michelle and I spent the entire evening there, from the second song all the way to the very last, dancing our arses off. The crowd starts off thin but by about 10:30 there's only hip shakin' room in front of the stage, and by midnight a whole bunch of crazy comes out. I always find mystery bruises on my knees the next day. I finally figured out why last night. The stage is exactly knee high to me, and the crowd behind me was particularly pushy last night. I banged both knees several times! Bruised knees = Suede tattoo. Mike took some awesome pics of the band last night. I imagine he'll put them on his web site soon: www.johnmichaelharris.com. I haven't looked at my camera yet, but I imagine it's a whole bunch of pics of me and Michelle taking pictures of ourselves as usual! Oh, I can't belive I almost forgot to mention this, John Popper, of Blues Traveler fame, sat in. Good stuff!

I woke up this morning as hoarse as can be. I sounded like an old smoker!
Note to self: Nobody can hear you singing at the top of your lungs with the band playing, so turn it down a couple a notches. Sure was fun, though. Michelle was sounding a little raspy when I talked to her this morning, too.

the good news... not conjuntivitis!

The bad news... double ear infection, sinus infection. Nurse Grace prescribed an antibiotic for the ear infection and eye drops to clear up Trent's snotty eyes. Poor kid, it's so hard for us to know when he's sick because he never ever complains. We have one tough kid. Sometimes I wonder if his pain receptors work, but I get confirmation that they do whenever he bumps his head (often) and says "hurt! hurt!" and rubs it.

A good end to a bad week

It's been a very, very rough week. It started off ok on Monday, but on Monday evening Brian came running in like his arse was on fire... except it wasn't his arse, it was the car. Ok, well it wasn't on fire, but it was smoking. Between stopping for petrol half a mile from the house, and getting home, something happened to the Subie and it was leaking coolant all over the garage. Lucky for us that Brian has become so handy lately, and could diganose the problem, and even more lucky that we have such great friends who would loan us their vehicle so we could take Trent to daycare on Tuesday!
Tuesday got progressively worse. As Brian took the day off to fix the car, I started my morning with optimism that soon gave way to shock, then incredulousness, then nervousness as friends and co-workers pinged me to tell me the news of all the layoffs happening that day. People you'd never in a million years expect to be cut got cut. Whole departments. Managers, too!. Rumours were flying and it felt like someone had walked into a conf. room with a machete and started slashing. By noon I was completely convinced I was going to be given bad news and was contemplating all the things we would need to change in our lives if both of us lost our jobs.

Around noon I couldn't stand the waiting any longer and so I aksed my manager to put me out of my misery. Thankfully, the news for me was not as dismal as the news others had recived that day, but you can't help but be affected by it. Later that day Brian was also told that his job wasn't selected for the "resource action". We both felt a mixture of relief and guilt, for obvious reasons. I found it interesting, the choice of words many managers used when telling those of us who were not laid off. "Not affected". Everyone is affected by a round of layoffs, especially one like that that hit over a third of the people you know! You can't just go about your business like nothing happened. You feel for the people you know who's lives are about to take a major change that wasn't their decision. You feel guilty that you get to keep your job and they don't. You feel angry that this is happening to people you care about. You feel helpless because there's nothing you can say or do to make it better for anyone. You feel relief that you aren't in their shoes, then more guilt! You feel disenchanted with the company and its leadership. It threw me off my game for most of the week.
On Thursday I quit early and went to happy hour with a bunch of people from my old dev team (Brian's current dept). A few of those who were laid off were there, and I was so happy to see them and know that they were in good spirits, despite the crap that just happened.

On a more positive note, I am happy to report that Brian fixed the subaru on Tuesday, so it was only out of commision for one day. Thankfully, we made it through this bad week with only a few mental scars and a couple of bucks spent on fixing the car.

What we can take away from this experience is that life can take a turn at someone else's hand, and you need to be prepared for that.