Busy, busy January

It's been 2 weeks since my last post, and here I am asking myself: How did January go by so fast? The best answer I could find is: We've been on the party circuit. We celebrated with 2 friends' birthdays 2 weeks ago: Henry, who turned 2; and Paul, aged 2 and then some. Clara loved both parties because a) she loves a party, and b)both accomodated her love for fun toys and goldfish crackers.

Then last weekend we had a special visit from Uncle Fun (aka Russell!) Clara was very taken with Russ, after she got over the initial confusion when he emerged from our basement Saturday morning. (She was asleep when Russ arrived Friday night.) We were blessed with the best weather we've had all winter, so it was out into the great outdoors for us. We hiked to the breath-taking top of Little Mt. Si on Saturday (only to realize the camera was down in the parking lot below us--2.5 miles away). We also went for a long walk along Alki Beach and while we didn't don our shorts, some brave joggers did. We had our share of downtime too, playing peanuts, watching Clara play with toys, and visiting our favorite novelty toy store, Archie McPhee. There, Russ was taken with a miniature cubicle set, and Clara enjoyed shaking a pair of maracas with the Star of David on them, but in the end we went home amused yet empty-handed.

I've also gone "back to work". Starting last week, Clara's Bamford grandparents are spending Fridays with her while I try to get my private practice off the ground. I'm focusing my therapy practice on postpartum and post-adoption families, so I've been networking, passing out business cards, and writing yet another blog about issues that affect families with young children. (Check it out at www.lifetransitions.blogspot.com). I'm excited to be "back to work", but it also means that I spend Clara's nap times working on the business, AND preparing meals, AND doing laundry, AND scheduling our busy activity calendar, etc. Our days were full before--how much more can we cram in?

So how do we make it through the day? Apparently, with a little help from Starbucks.