Sheep Guarding Llama

I believe that this weekend is my longest stretch, ever, being alone in charge of both girls.  Three full days just us, sequestered at the house.

The alarm went off at three and we had half an hour to get out of the door with the four of us.  That was a very short night.  Getting up at three really throws you off, that is early enough that it is truly the middle of the night.  If you consider a normal person sleeps from eleven to seven, three is the dead center of the night.  For most people on the weekend, midnight to eight is more likely, so this is actually on the early side of the night.  We sure felt it.

We did well, getting ready, though and were out the door nearly on time.  We got the girls up at the last second and had them just go in their pajamas although both of them ended up being wide awake and did not fall back asleep either in the car nor once I got them back to the house later.

The drive was fine.  We had forgotten water bottles for the girls for the car so swung into a Dunkin Donuts and got Dominica some coffee, me a Monster and the girls water cups so that they could drink in the car.  It took about seventy five minutes to get down to LaGuardia in Queens.  No traffic though and only a few snow flakes on the way down.  So that was good.

We dropped Dominica off at the airport right on time.  She had plenty of time to get through the empty lines, through security and on the plane.  She is flying Southwest with a layover in Houston at Hobby right next to the Grices’, which is pretty silly as they could have all ridden together up to Carrollton since Francesca and Emily are going from right there at Hobby up to Carrollton to help Dominica pack up the house.

The girls and I got back home much more quickly than we had gotten down to the airport.  Less than an hour back to the house.  I took a different route through Manhattan and that must have helped a lot.  The snow was starting to come down on our drive back to the house and soon after we were home it turned into rather a serious snow storm.  The snow came down hard all morning and we got a few inches by the time that it was over.  A good weekend to be camped out in the house without needing to go anywhere at all.

I was not sure if the girls might not fall back asleep as it was still before the time that they would normally have woken up and they had been up for hours already.  I set them up with iPads in our bed and blankets and Care Bear and Lambie to see if they might just drift off.  They stayed there for quite a while but neither one fell asleep again.

The girls and I had a lot of fun today.  Playing board games together, having a big fire in the fireplace and playing Night of the Rabbit together.

Luciana had to go to bed on the early side tonight, she was over tired but wanted to stay up with us.  I took her up and put her to bed in our big bed and laid down with her for twenty minutes or so until she fell asleep snuggling with me.  Then Liesl and I went back to the basement and played more of Night of the Rabbit until Liesl was tired of it and then we put in “The Snow Queen” that Liesl likes on Netflix and we watched that, snuggled together on the couch.

I was asleep for half of the movie, I could not stay alert for any of it.  I have no idea what happened in the story.  It was probably ten when Liesl and I went up and climbed into bed with Luciana.  Liesl has been excited all week knowing that she would get to sleep in our bed this weekend.  It is one of her favourite things.  She lives for her snuggles.

Work went quite late tonight, I did not get to leave until seven.  That’s not quite late, I suppose, but for a Friday night when you hope to leave more like five thirty it is pretty late.  Especially when the evening at home is going to be so short.

I was surprised to find that the Kurdish Deli was still open, even though it was so late.  So I swung in and hung out while they made falafel for Dominica and I for dinner.  Dominica was hoping that I would bring home dinner but had not asked me to do so.  She guessed that I was there getting food while I was there.  The deli is experimenting with staying open until three in the morning to see if that attracts a weekend crowd as very little in the area stays open late.  That is a general shortcoming of all of downstate, including even Manhattan, this region is extremely “sleepy” compared to Upstate New York which is practically hallmarked by its late night venues and twenty four hour stores.  It is an odd combination considering that downstate tends to come from southern European stock that are well known for the late night lifestyle and upstate is primarily from northern European stock and culture known for its early to bed mentality and lifestyle.

I got home and Luciana was already in bed and asleep.  She had gotten into trouble and had been put to bed, no way for her to stay up waiting for me to get home.  It was nearly nine by the time that I got home.  Liesl was still awake but just long enough to see me and have me put her in bed.

Dominica and I ate our dinner, watched just a little Doctor Who and went to bed very early ourselves.  Only getting a little sleep tonight, need to be up at three thirty to get Dominica her to flight.

This is our last “normal” day of the week.  Tomorrow we are prepping for Dominica to leave so we have to be in bed super early or there will be problems since we need to get up at three thirty on Saturday morning to get Dominica to LaGuardia in time for her early morning flight to Love Field in Dallas.

This morning I finished reading Jefferson’s War and started reading Meet the Austins.  “Jefferson’s War” was really good as it covered tons of history that I knew almost nothing about.  It went well with my recent biography reading about James Monroe.  Covering a similar time period, the end of the founding era of America after 1800 in the time period where Americans rarely study their history.  The period between the Revolution and the Civil Wars, the antebellum period, is barely taught or well known.  Quite a bit of defining history happened during that period that we often forget.  The First and Second Barbary Wars are pretty important bits of that period and were really important in understanding our place in the world in the War of 1812 (also known as the Second War of Independence.)

Today after work I swung into the Kurdish Deli that I go to nearly every day and got falafel for Dominica and I for dinner.  I had gotten out of work decently early since yesterday had been such a long day, so I was home at a good time, even having stopped for food.

The family ate dinner while watching Doctor Who.  Dominica is convinced that this is the best falafel that she has ever tasted.  It really is amazingly good.  We managed to watch several episodes and relaxed a bit.  I read more of “Prince Caspian” and the girls were off to sleep.

I was in at a good time this morning. Both girls slept in our bed last night making it hard for me to sleep as I was getting pushed out of bed. So I was up a little on the early side. I grabbed breakfast at the Kurdish deli on my way in.

Today was a really light and short day in the office. Well, in the normal office. Big meeting offsite this afternoon that had me leaving the office for a carpool before three. I got to see parts of Connecticut that I have never seen before, so that was interesting, I guess.

I did not get to leave work until seven and I was deep into Connecticut so carpooled back to the office and then headed for home, leaving the office at seven thirty. I immediately hit construction on CT15, which I should not have taken, and it ended up taking me until after nine to get home! That was no fun.

So I was exhausted by the time that I got home. Luciana was just about to head to bed when I got there. So the whole family watched one episode of Doctor Who with Luciana snuggled in my lap and Liesl under my arm then we put Luciana to bed and watched one more episode before the older three of us turned in as well. I read Liesl her “Prince Caspian” for the night, we are a good way through it now, and she was off to bed.

Got up at six thirty when I heard Luciana screaming. I ran in and got her and Liesl and moved them into our bed. Liesl stayed asleep for a long time, Luciana got out of bed when I went downstairs to head to work. That was at eight. So she slept for probably, fourteen hours last night! I got her a banana for breakfast and set her up on the couch with a show to watch and cleaned up the kitchen and took out the trash while waiting for the Spark to warm up enough for me to be able to see to drive. It is not that cold this morning, less than ten degrees below freezing, but the car was covered in frost and the driver’s side door lock was frozen and did not work. Had to open the door from the passenger side.

After I got to work, Dominica emailed to tell me that she got up and found Luciana at the front door crying for “daddy” after I had gone. 🙁  That is incredibly sad.  I wish that I did not have to leave the girls at home.  Luciana is going through the sadness of daddy going to work during the day and not getting nearly as much time with me as they want.  Liesl had it rough around Luciana’s age too.  It was a little younger for Liesl.

An earlier day getting home from work.  Still just an evening at home for us to relax.  Our evenings are really short.  We are trying to decide what we want to do about the house.  How quickly we want to move, rent or whatever.  Moving to Connecticut will be a huge pain.  We are so sick of moving and not having a place to call home for any length of time.  At least the Peekskill house is the same house “again” so it feels like “home” already even though we just got here.  We have had nearly a year and a half in this house total now.  One of our longer places.  It will catch up with Newark (1180) quickly now.  Our longest stays are Geneseo, Carrollton and Newark.  Geneseo will be quite some effort to overtake.  Newark was just two years.  Carrollton was three years (we celebrated Liesl’s second birthday as we moved in and celebrated her fifth just after leaving!)  Geneseo is the long one but the hardest to calculate because we bought it in April, 2003, moved in in July, 2003.  Dominica moved away that next summer for a few months to work in Ithaca and I lived 2005 on the road.  In 2006 I moved to North Brunswick in February and Dominica moved down during the late spring.  But we kept the Geneseo house and did not rent it so we continued to keep our stuff there and use it on weekends for another year until we sold it.  So we had it for four years, but neither of us lived in it as our primary residence for that long.  Dominica lived in it quite a bit more than me.