Mommy and Mama Plus Three: Pickles and ice cream

No, we're not pregnant again - we just couldn't resist the title because Sacha and her parents made pickles today. Yes, they made pickles. We have also recently made homemade blueberry jam, using blueberries we picked ourselves, and have canned peaches for the first time. We are going back to the land, people. Pretty soon, we'll be making our own granola. Watch out!

Anyway, I just wanted to quickly post to say that we made it through our first week. There were some ups and some big downs, especially on my part. It seemed to get harder and harder to leave the kids as the week went on. I think the fact that going to work was just a lot of absorbing of information and not much actual action on my part contributed to me feeling overwhelmed. Today, I actually got to practice doing some parts of my job and I left feeling much better overall. It helps to know that the kids are in really good hands with my lovely wife. She's doing great. And, I love having the mornings with them. And we're adjusting. I think it will probably just get better from here on out. At least, I hope it will!

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(Sacha) My first week at work has been good. As an update, after all the fuss, I was actually offered a half time teaching position back at the school that had unassigned me! I now teach reading and coordinate beginning Spanish language instruction.

Speaking of that - I have great news! I passed my praxis test and am now certified as a Spanish language teacher. I just have to finish the paperwork and send it in!!! Alayna says that the fact I managed to pass that with a 4 week old baby and 20 month old toddler in tow and massive sleep debt makes me the "greatest Spanish speaker the world has ever known." She does not acknowledge that she could be biased in any way. . . lol

Anyway, what I wanted to write about is what our afternoons look like so far. Briefly, we drew, yes literally, drew a schedule for our afternoons. Mateo likes to look at it. Here's what we've been up to: First I get home from work and change clothes, then put away the pumped milk. Then Mateo (who has hopefully been napping for at least a little while) gets up and has a snack and we all clean up from lunch. After that, we talk in Spanish (if we haven't already started), get dressed for the afternoon, do some activity outside and have a snack or dinner. At the end, I get him ready for bed time and our time is done. Alayna comes home, nurses him and he falls fast asleep. And that is our day!

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Finally, we had a fun visit with my mom yesterday afternoon and with Sacha's parents today. They spent the night on their way to a weekend dance camp about an hour away from here, so we got to all spend the morning together. On the spur of the moment, we went on a nectarine-picking expedition. I had to leave midway through to go to work, but Sacha and her dad and baby Talia ended up picking up a huge bag of pickling cucumbers while they were paying for the nectarines. By the time I got home, there were actual jars of pickles all over our kitchen!

Here are a few photos from the nectarine field:

Mama feeding Teo a nectarine: