Dominica was up and getting ready to go around six thirty this morning. I woke up just a few minutes after her and did not really manage to get back to sleep for the rest of the morning. I stayed in bed taking care of Liesl and Oreo – Liesl can’t be left alone or she will fall off of the bed and she needs a bottle periodically in the morning – until a quarter after eight when Dominica left to get onto the road out to Warren, New Jersey for her interview there. She is not scheduled to be there until ten thirty but the car needed fueling and she wanted plenty of extra time in case anything went wrong considering she was driving out there in late rush hour traffic and she has to pass through Newark on her way.
Liesl and I got up as Dominica left and went down to the living room to hang out. I did some cleaning in the dining room and got space cleared so that I could set up my laptop on the dining room table and work from there for the day.
Liesl spent the morning wanting to be held so I either had her sitting on my lap while I worked or I carried her around while I talked on the phone. Boy were my arms tired quickly. Liesl decided that she was going to be a no-nap baby today and stayed awake with me all day.
It was really nice getting a chance to just work from the dining room and spend the entire day with my daughter. We had a lot of fun. The Wiggles were on, of course, for most of the day. I hate to do that but this really was a special occasion. Luckily work was extremely slow today and since I had done such a good job of getting caught up on my emails yesterday I did not have any email thrashing to do today and I was able to stay on top of requests and not fall behind even while never having both hands free at any point in time.
I really did not have a chance to make any food today so my only meal was some banana nut Cheerios. Good thing I like cereal a lot.
Dominica got back around two in the afternoon. Liesl had just laid down for her first nap of the day just minutes before Dominica arrived. So Dominica went straight up and took a nap at the same time as Liesl. They woke up together around three thirty. So, effectively, I watched Liesl and Oreo alone for seven and a half hours while working the whole time. Not too shabby. I call that rather impressive, really.
This afternoon I finally got my official start date in Texas. I am officially switching from my current New York contract to my Texas contract on December 28th. That doesn’t mean that we will not be in Texas before that date but it means that the paperwork is in motion and takes place that day. I also found out that I am getting a raise! not a raise enough to bring me back to my rate from 2006-2008 but a significant portion of the way back. That raise, coupled with the tax advantages of Texas, puts us roughly at the same income that we used to have. Sad to still be making somewhat less after four years (never a single raise, only hold steady and cuts even when getting pristine reviews) but at least it is steady work and we are close to the original rates.
As it is Friday work was slow most of the day and then picked up to “really crazy” by late afternoon. So Dominica took care of Liesl while I worked. Then, when worked was slowing down, we ordered in Italian from our “backup” Italian place. We just felt like something slightly different as we have been stuck eating out or ordering in almost every meal. The house is completely devoid of food at this point but there has been no opportunity to go grocery shopping and even if there was there hasn’t been any time to do any cooking.
We watched a few episodes of Rick Steve’s travel show on Hulu. Good stuff. Then, at nine thirty, I decided to call it a night. The past several days have just been impossible and I really, really need to get some sleep or I am going to be getting sick very soon. I can’t keep up with this kind of schedule.
It was more like ten when I finally got to bed. Oreo came upstairs with me but Dominica and Liesl stayed up for a while longer. Dominica ended up with insomnia and did not come to bed until early in the morning.