Aside from sorrow over the increasing devastation in new orleans and the south, it's been a great day.
yesterday i spent several hours trying to install a new router, hoping to get internet back up for mbv and get a functioning firewall again, only to have tech support tell me that it must be a defective router and to send it back. i woke up to the thought that "i never tried the new power supply that came with the new one, just used the old one, and the lights on it seemed a bit dim. plugged it all back in with the new one, and bingo! I still had to call tech support again, but it was just a matter of resetting the thing. joy!
then a trip to get school supplies for douglas, and the purchase of a $1 train set at the cheapie store down the street that had him excited ALL day. 4 cars, a battery operated engine, and the tiniest little track you've ever seen, but he was in heaven and catalogued and compared all his train sets with glee for the rest of the day.
we made it to the library too, and the man in front of us was returning a big stack of Asterix books! we have a tiny library, and I couldn't believe they had such a pile when much larger libraries have never had any. i think we were equally delighted with that one. the checkout lady is a huge fan of douglas, and when she informed me that we had $25 in fines (they really nick you for late videos) i wasn't too pleased. she said it had to be lower than 25, and when I pulled out the $5 i had in my pocket and said it was all I had today, she said that's fine, just forget the rest :) lovely.
then a rather frantic afternoon putting together all kinds of forms for douglas' school, labelling clothes and bedding and school supplies in magic marker, and dropping him off at the sitter that we'd been using, just for the evening, while we went to parent orientation at his new school. to say i was pleased would be a rather strong understatement ... we'd signed him up sight unseen, just based on recommendations and several people telling us we'd love it. we did. period. it's the coolest preschool i've ever seen, not that i've toured many ... but it's all parent run and is in a converted duplex apt about 15 min from here. 2400 square feet of totally kid-oriented space. he'll be in a class of about 15 kids ages 3 and 4, with 3 teachers. there are murals, a piano, lots of books, mini lofts for reading and sleeping, quiet spaces, a science room with microscopes, amazing animals painted on the wall, a bubble mirror, a drama room with a mini stage and tons of costumes, a play room with a velcro wall, a lego wall, and a chalkboard wall ... the list goes on. can you tell I'm excited? i can't wait to see how he reacts to it all. each child gets a handmade pillow with their favorite thing on it (he gets a backhoe, no surprise), which I'm sure will please him. he can use the structure of a more or less regulated day, interaction with kids his age, and 'sit and listen' time.
the other parents were very enjoyable as a group, and we thankfully knew a few from a birthday party a couple months ago, and I got to put faces to a lot of the names I've seen on the local parents e-mail list I've been on for the last year. energetic, open, welcoming ... breath of fresh air parents that i've been hunting for since we moved. one of us has to be on a committee, so i joined the fundraising group and hope to pitch in heartily. michael promised to come paint on saturday as he really connected with one of the other men that volunteered.
whew. then home to a delayed supper, a great chat with the roommate who's back in the house again, and i think i'll grab an asterix book and crawl into bed.
thank you god, and catch you on the flip side.