Sheep Guarding Llama

I got up and seven and did some work from home before heading to the office at nine.  No one was able to go out for lunch today so I took it as a sign and use the lunch time to go for a walk up the street for exercise and just picked up some nuts and an energy drink instead of lunch.  That worked decently well. The walk was good for me.  I really need to start doing that every day.

The big project today, and going into the weekend, is that we are migrating our emails to Office 365.  This is one of those “opportunistic” moves that, of course, costs all kinds of time and effort.  This is going to be exhausting.  Dominica is going to be working on this all weekend.

It was a long day for me and I came home to the email migration which we worked on, along with other projects, all evening.  Exhausting.  This is going to be a long weekend coming up.

I got up nice and early this morning and got into the office.  Pretty normal day until I came home at twelve thirty so that I could take Dominica to the doctor’s and watch the girls for the afternoon.  We drove down to Irving at one thirty and the girls and I dropped her off at the doctor.  Liesl, Luciana and I went driving looking for a McDonald’s with a Play Place so that the girls could play and I could work on the McDonald’s WiFi while we waited for Dominica.

The McDonald’s in downtown Irving was really nice.  A huge location with a big playground.  I got a snack and turned the girls loose in the play area while I sat at a table with my laptop and tried to keep working.  It was going well until Liesl climbed to the top of the playground equipment and, inside of the metal mesh, or course, got stuck so high on a platform that there was no way for her to get down.

So for about fifteen minutes I had to deal with a terrified, screaming Liesl trapped far beyond the point where I could do anything about it.  It was pretty awful.  She was only an inch away from being able to get her foot onto the platform below but she just couldn’t quite do it.  Eventually a boy who was hanging out with his little siblings, I’m guessing, climbed up into the structure and rescued her.  We really can’t do this again.  She totally froze and wasn’t able to drop the inch that it would take for her to get back down.

So the rest of the time the girls played only down on the ground but still had quite a bit of fun.  Luciana was too small to climb on anything but there were other girls there her own age and she made friends with them and had a good time.  So cute watching Luciana socialize with kids her own age for a change.  She wasn’t the only one and a half year old for once.

Dominica got done earlier than we had expected.  It took a bit to pack up and gather the girls but getting back to the doctor’s office was easy.  Then it was back home.  Dominica was totally out of it being on codeine so she was pretty nutsy.

I got home and logged into work for a while.  Liesl fell asleep in the car on the way back and happily put herself down for a nap for an hour or so.  That worked well for me getting work done.  Luciana was very quiet and just wandered around for a while harassing Dominica who had laid down for a few hours and then coming to see me and back again.

This evening Dominica sent me out to pick up Indian food to make her feel better and as a family we all settled in and watched 1981’s For Your Eyes Only which Liesl really liked.  She is really into the Bond films which is hilarious.

Dominica went to bed around nine thirty.  Liesl around ten thirty and me around a quarter till three in the morning after doing some Ruby on Rails work.

Even after working so late last night I was still up and going before eight this morning.  And both Liesl and Luciana slept in quite late, till around nine or so.

I worked from home today as it is Wednesday.  Dominica and I kept up the cleaning around the house and my office is really looking good.  I put in a floor standing lamp in the back of the office and I can see where I would like to have a reading nook there so my plan is to clean stuff up and get the printer stand out of that corner (there is shelf space where that printer is supposed to be anyway) and put the gliding rocking chair (the one that we used to rock Liesl to sleep the first year in Peekskill that has seen almost zero use since then) into that corner so that I can have a spot to just sit and read.

I am also looking into options for mounting the Optoma HD projector up at my desk so that I can project onto the white wall in front of my desk to use that much like a tertiary monitor.  It will be really handy for monitoring things or watching movies or whatever while I work and make the room much more general purpose.

Dominica took Liesl out today for her first ever hair cut.  It was a sad day.  When she was a baby it took her so long to get her hair.  We waited and waited.  Dominica feared that our little girl would always be bald.  Her hair is so cute, it seems like a crime to cut it.  And the hair that we are cutting, of course, is the very hair that was all that she had at the very beginning.  It is just the very tip of her long, long hair now but once upon a time this was her entire bit of fuzz.  So I made Dominica save the lock of her hair for me.

Luciana still has a very long way to go before she has to worry about getting a haircut.  She is stuck in the toddler mullet phase right now.

Dominica is mostly feeling better today.  Not quite 100%, but close.

Everyone but me went to bed early tonight.  I stayed up a little late, till about twelve thirty, working.  But didn’t do too much.  I was a bit tired after last night.

Liesl turns four today!  I cannot believe that my little baby is already four.  She is growing up so quickly.  It really is amazing how the time just flies by.  She is getting so big and mature.

I went into the office today but came home at lunch to do some work with Danielle on the phone and to spend some time with the girls.  They were pretty happy that I was home.

I decided that Liesl would get to pick what she wanted for dinner tonight.  I told her at lunch that she could pick and on my way back to work I was thinking about what she might choose and I guessed that she would mostly likely want to get chow mein noodles from Panda Express.  Several hours later… that is exactly what Liesl picked.  It has been months, I would say, since we have gotten Panda Express.  Do I know my girl or what?

So on the way home from work I picked up dinner for everyone.  Dominica still isn’t feeling completely better, but she ate some noodles with Liesl.  We put on a movie and hung out in the playroom as a family.  After not too long I put in Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune which Liesl loves watching and played that for about forty-five minutes until I got frustrated and wanted to take a break.  Liesl thinks watching the game is great fun and loves to narrate what is happening and try to be helpful.  She piles into a big mound of blankets and her Dora the Explorer pillow and follows all of the action as I take out the bad guys, climb rock walls, swing from vines, look for treasure, etc.

Dominica made chocolate chip cookies tonight for Liesl’s birthday and Liesl spent nearly an hour on the phone with dad just talking and talking.  There are few people who have as much to say as Liesl does.

Liesl stayed up late (she is four now, you know) till almost eleven.  She and Dominica went to bed at about the same time.  I stayed up working until after four in the morning.  A very long day.

I am working from home tomorrow, if anyone needs me.

Hard to believe that Liesl turns four tomorrow.  Today is my very last day to spend with her as a three year old.  Three was a great age.  I am really going to miss three year old Liesl.

I woke up, on my own, at six thirty this morning so got up and got ready for work.  Today is my first day back in the office in five days so I am sure that there is plenty to be catching up on.

When I got out of the shower I discovered both Liesl and Luciana had gotten up and gotten into bed snuggling with mommy.  Liesl was fast asleep but Luciana was awake and waving at me.  What a cutie.  I can’t believe that they were all up so early.  Luciana got up and followed me around the house as I got ready for work.

Rather quiet day at work, I was expecting there to be far more going on.  Medifast was very busy and had me go in to my appointment early today so that they could squeeze me in as they did not have enough time to see everyone today.  So I went to my appointment during lunch.

I’ve put on six pounds this past week.  That’s not horrible since I took off twelve the week before.  But it is depressing either way.

On the way home from work I swung into Rockfish and picked up dinner.  Dominica is still feeling sick but she thought that maybe some mahi mahi would go down well.  It did not.

I had dancing tonight in Las Colinas.  I keep wanting Dominica to go so that I can stay home and relax for a change but there is always a reason that it has to be that goes.  This week, obviously, because she is not feeling well.  Very likely it will have to be me on Thursday as well.

I came home this evening and did a mix of work and hanging out with the family, but mostly just hanging out as it was so late.  At one point this evening we had Liesl crying for nearly half an hour because she was so upset that she is turning four tomorrow.  She is sad because she loved being three so much and she doesn’t want it to be over.  It was sad and adorable at the same time.  A very complex concern for someone so young.  That she realizes time passes as it were and seeing her childhood slipping away already seems abnormal.  It is awesome that she has been so happy that she doesn’t want it to end.  She often says that she does not want to grow up and wants to be little forever.