Back to School

This week marked the return to school for the Cupertino School District. With that Lars went back to work, and I'm sure Eric got to start his senior year in high school. Unlike the East Coast, California schools start before Labor Day.

With the start of school, I've gotten morning duty with Lauren. Since Lars is gone by 7AM, I get to prepare Lauren for the day. Typically that means, she has her breakfast, her every other day bath, getting dressed, diaper change, prepare bottles for the day, do dishes, laundry, etc., and then we head out for Grandma's house. By the time we're ready to go it's usually 10:30AM. Where does the time go? We get to Grandma's by 11:00AM, and Lauren gets to spend the rest of the day with Grandma, while I go back and try and get the new house ready.

This week, I tore out the upstairs linen closet, and the closet from one of the bedrooms, and repositioned a door to another bedroom, all in the effort to create an upstairs loft area. At this point I've started fixing all the walls I've torn out, so after another few coats of mud and sanding, it'll be ready to paint. Downstairs the contractor has been working on tearing out a downstairs bedroom closet and wall to create a formal dining room. It just seems to be going slowly, so I'm still hoping we pick up speed soon, so we can get moved in before the end of September, when my leave from work is over.

It just seems each project is more money. I got the quote to replace all the windows, as well as replace the broken A/C units. Yikes! Lots of moolah. I have to think about it as an investment, not money wasted (although I'd save lots of money on the windows if I did them myself, which no one wants me to, because of how long it took me to do my parent's house).

Little Lauren is continuing to get bigger. She's gotten to about 13 lbs already! It's incredible to think she's already almost double the size she was when we brought her home from the hospital. She's definitely beginning to develop her own personality as well. The first day she was at Grandma's she was glum the whole day, and it wasn't until my mom and dad put her in her car seat did she perk up and get excited. My mom says that's because she realized she was going home to see her caretakers! She definitely recognizes me as one of her primary caretakers. She calms when I talk to her and hold her.