warp speed

Moving at 100 miles per hour leaves little time for the creativity of new posts. Somehow I'm fitting in over 30 hours a week of editing while scrabbling together bits of childcare. Usually that means me editing from 6:30 to 10 am. Plus the 3 days a week we have babysitters. And I'm working in the teeny, tiny cracks to prepare for a big conference presentation in June (for which I'd like to finish a little booklet and have a website together.)

The scrabbling together part might be changing. Isaiah is going to try out a home-based Montessori preschool, just 6 children and 1 teacher for the next couple of months, twice a week. His little buddy C goes to the school and as we were saying goodnight to them after a baseball-filled, ice cream truck excited dinner (the sheer joy of the boy house!), Isaiah got to say "See you at school tomorrow!" to his friend.

He is in equal parts excited and apprehensive. He tells me doesn't feel like going tomorrow, then talk about the lunch we planned and the backpack he'll take it in. Of course, lunch and snacks have received elaborate planning from our little gourmand.

I'm curious how others handle the juggle of work, ambitions, and inspired family life. I seek--as with everything else I've ever done in life--to find that precise optimal balance of challenge, inspiration, relaxation, stimulation. It's a joy (and essential for us) to keep the money flowing in, and I have some large ambitions that are important to keep working toward, and I want to give the children the best of my time and energy. It's an ever-evolving spiral, isn't it? Rather than one perfect moment. It's all the perfect moment.

Isaiah is full of his first joke these days, learned from TQ:
"Why did the banana go to the doctor?"
"Because he wasn't peeling well."
And Miel, bless her little heart, repeats it over and over, a laugh if you already know what she's saying..