Only Constant

The saying "the only constant thing in life is change" has been going through my head a lot lately. Not counting the big changes we hope will occur in 4-5 months (selling the house, moving to another state, Paul starting a new job, etc.), life constantly seems to require flexibility. We were in a routine as far as Oliver's schedule (which then determined many parts of the schedule for Nadia, Ian, and myself) and then he got sick 2 weeks ago. He still has a runny nose, and he's only slept through the night 2 times during that time span. His routine at the moment seems to be to go to bed around 8:30pm and get up around 4am and then after being up for about one hour he sleeps for about two more hours. The good news is that means he is back to getting at least 10 hours total of sleep at night. When he first got the cold he was only sleeping 9 hours total. Also, his day is starting later than usual, and since the other two are generally sleeping until 7am, it means my day is starting later than usual, if I am able to go back to sleep after I feed him. Sometimes I can't get back to sleep. Since he's getting up later, his morning nap is starting later than usual (somewhere around 10am), and he's also decided to make his morning nap really long these days (close to 3 hours). This means there is no way that there is any overlap between Ian and Oliver's naps because he's usually getting up around the time Ian is going down for his nap. Oliver's second nap is also much later than usual (starting sometime between 3-4pm). I've had to wake him up sometimes as I don't want him to take two long naps, and I want him to be awake for at least 3 hours before he goes down at night. One nice thing about the current routine is that he's usually asleep when Nadia, Ian, and I eat lunch and dinner, which is a nice thing since meal times can be challenging.

Here in PA in March the weather is also constantly changing. Last week it was warm enough to play outside without a jacket on, and right now as I am typing Nadia and Ian are outside in their snowsuits and boots playing in the snow. Oi vey. Spring is only 4 days away, and it looks like a winter wonderland out there. At this time two months from now we'll be in Florida. There won't be any snow there! I checked out two books from the library on Tuesday about WDW. Nadia asked me this morning what I was doing, and I told her I was figuring out what rides we should ride at WDW to which she responded, "They have rides? At Disney World?". LOL! I guess she thought it was ONLY a place to meet princesses! If any of you have tips for spending a day at Magic Kingdom with three kids age 4 and under, I am all ears! We're also going to spend a day at Sea World, hang out at the resort for a few days, go swimming with my Aunt Tina in Ponta Vedra Beach on two different days, go to the Jacksonville Zoo with my friend Jo, and spend two nights in San Fernadina Beach with Paul's Aunt Diane and Uncle Jim. Should be a great trip!

Since we stopped going to gymnastics, we haven't been going to the preschool story time at the library on Wedndesdays either. Yesterday we went to the local library's preschool story time for the first time in quite a long time. The librarian (who has been there about 18 months) still isn't as good as the librarian she replaced (in my opinion), but she has definitely improved. At the other library Ian would stay in one area and play with toys while Nadia went to the story time. At this library I asked him to sit on the carpet and listen to the stories. He did fairly well. It was easier than normal yesterday because Paul stayed home to work on finishing his dissertation and also work on finishing another article his advisor wants him to write. He's at work today. Since Paul was home yesterday, I didn't have to bring Oliver to the library. He was napping the whole time we were gone. If Oliver stays on this later schedule, it is going to be a problem for an 11am story time at the library on Fridays. Maybe we'll go every other week or something like that as a compromise.

It will be wonderful for Paul when the PSU chapter is totally done. He's hoping to reach that status in the next two weeks. He has a lot on his plate right now with working FT (most weeks anyhow), wrapping things up at PSU, interviewing for jobs, getting the house ready to sell (he hasn't worked on that for a few weeks), etc. The kids kept thinking that since he was home yesterday he would have time to play with them. Not so much. This too shall pass. As for the job search, I completed application #43 yesterday (another community college in Ohio). Yesterday a college in MA contacted him about doing a phone interview on Wednesday morning for a one year visiting assistant professor position. This is probably our least favorite of the 21 current possibilities, but at the very least it will give him more experience with phone interviews (his 3rd phone interview), and if that was the only place to offer him a job, he'd accept it.