Last week I inadvertently got my laptop wet and now it is fried. BIG whoops. So no blog photos until repairs are made and bank accounts emptied to pay for repairs.
Dave and I are anxiously awaiting results of his interview in Mosier, Oregon, near Hood River. It's an excellent little charter school in a great area and we are really hopeful that this could be a great place for us. Dave thought the interview went really well, so we are just waiting and waiting and waiting for the phone call. He's got another interview lined up this week for a school near Bellingham, Wa. It's a skype interview, so he doesn't have to travel for it. That's a relief, as the cost of flying down for an interview is hard to swallow, not to mention the difficulties of keeping his current responsibilities covered while he's gone. The ice has started to move up there, and there's reports of some minor flooding in our last village of Sleetmute. It's an exciting time as everyone exchanges news of what the ice is doing where, and after a long winter, it's a sure sign of spring. It also means that river travel will be possible again soon which is really good. While the ice is breaking up and in the dangerous zone when it could go any day there's pretty much no way to get to another village except by flying. Everyone is on high alert for flooding though, especially if the ice upriver is breaking up before the ice downriver. A bottleneck can easily form and the water can flood low-lying villages quickly.
There's no flooding here, just full time spring. Our little garden has sprouted with speed, and things are growing well. We still have some freezing nights, so it's a bit of a dance to keep things covered at night and uncovered in the day.
Julia and I have a little playgroup going now, with my friends Annette and her son Cruz, and Clarinda and her daughter Celia. They all come over on Tuesday mornings, and the kids play in the yard (sunny weather so far!) and we drink coffee and talk. It's pretty great to feel settled enough to have a playgroup, and at the same time, all 3 of us are on the job hunt, so we have lots of common ground to relate from. Julia really gets excited when I tell her that it's the day for Celia and Cruz to come play.
Julia's doing great. I love this age (2 years)! She's getting verbal enough to express herself pretty easily, she's starting to develop some imagination and plays more on her own, and as long as we get regular time out and about, outside or at activities or running errands, her behavior is really good. She's fine when I leave to go to class and thrilled when I come home. She follows simple directions, to do things like get a book, or to carry a cup to the kitchen, and she loves to do "helping" things. Lately I've been actively working on cutting back on the night nursing, hoping to get her to sleep in longer stretches instead of the wake-and-snack mode that she's been in for two years. I do this by telling her "no more nunnies till morning." Simple, eh? At first, she was none too pleased, and threw some huge fits several times a night, but it has decreased to mild fits and I am hopeful that someday soon, I'll wake up and realize that we went the whole night without a fit or waking of any sort. I was offering her a cracker or apple instead of a nurse, to satisfy hunger, but the crumbs in the bed got old quickly, and luckily she's not asking for one often now. I do keep a sippy cup of water in bed, so she can drink that if she's thirsty. I also offer her back rubs and songs if she needs help falling asleep again, and a back rub gets her to sleep pretty quickly.
Classes are going well too, and I'm already almost to midterm time. Just 22 more days till Dave comes down!
