The routine

The weather here has suddenly turned fom mild to downright hot and we would normally be able to leave the sliding doors open if we didn´t have the swimming pool to worry about. The original plan was to gate off the back portion of the garden to allow us access without worring about the pool but the expense of doing that seems frivilous with our leaving in two months. I just hope it doesn't get much hotter. I am always sweating like a sow anyway because of my breastfeeding hormones and I´m running out of deoderant options as it is.

Life around here suddenly got a little more difficult since Seb left to start his new job in Paris. We were a little sad all weekend knowing that this is the start of what will be a lot of time apart. The plan is that he will come back every three weeks for a small week until the month of July when we will leave for good. It´s going to be a long two months but at least Little S will get to finish school and we won´t have to move so quickly. This also gives us time to do Charlotte´s American birth declaration and passport which takes about three weeks from the date you apply. She can´t enter the US without this so it would mean I couldn´t take her on vacation this Summer to meet everyone. So once again I'm destined to be the single mother.

In order to survive I have divided my days into little parts. Here is my daily routine --the morning after S is at school it´s all about breastfeeding and getting Charlotte down for her 10-11 o´clock nap , which is a chore let me tell you--she needs to be held until she drifts off, then there is house cleaning which isn't so difficult with only us three here, then it´s time to pick up Little S at school and eat lunch. After lunch it´s play time for him while I take care of cleaning up lunch dishes and finishing off the laundry and by then it´s our craft time which we do for an hour or more. At four o´clock I´ve started this new thing where we go to the big park for an hour and he can invite a little friend if he likes. Many of the moms don´t want to go out because of the heat (which is not really all that bad...it´s in the 80´s here) so we´ve been going alone and Little S has been making lots of little Mexican friends! Then we come home at 5:30 for the six o´clock bath and hop into pjs and then it´s dinnertime. After dinner we often continue our craft and drawing time together but he can watch a little tv if he likes. I have been trying to steer him away from tv more and more which is great, but I do need a break from time to time so I let him watch a half an hour dvd or one Discovery Kids program as long as it isn´t Barney in which case I will not be relaxed but annoyed. Then it´s story time in his room for 30 minutes and then bed by eight o´clock. Once he´s in bed I can breastfeed Charlotte for the hour she takes to fall asleep in my arms while I check my mail and read a few blogs, then both are in bed, whew--mission accomplished! Once they´re in bed I can sew or maybe have my tv time on the internet which is either an episode of ANTM* (my superficial vice) or American Haunting which I am totally addicted to but can definitely not watch while Seb is away lest I hear growling coming from the back bedroom. This show scares the crap out of me. A lot of good Seb would do in this case though because the husbands on this show always tell the wife they are overreacting to the demons throwing teacups across the room.

And so there is our day. I hope my little routine gets us through the two months and serves as a distraction. I only wish I had another adult around to talk to.


*America´s Next Top Model