5 Things Friday

Happy Friday! I'm off next week on another vacation so it's an extra happy Friday for me! Here's 5 things on my mind today. And buckle up, it's a bit wordy. 

1. After some hemming and hawing, we've made the decision to move Taco/Will to a new daycare. I am so sad about this because I love the teachers and the families we've met at our daycare. But 3 of the 6 preschool teachers resigned (a 4th teacher almost resigned but they must have talked her into staying, although she shifted from Taco's room to a different preschool room so it didn't really help our situation). We are so very disappointed in the leadership of the daycare. I won't go into too much detail, but there is a reason teachers are leaving in droves and I feel they are taking advantage of a vulnerable population as all of the teachers are Latina immigrants. The new daycare is not Spanish Immersion but we aren't sticking with Spanish Immersion for schooling as our boys will go to our community school. So it's not the biggest deal and hopefully Taco will retain some of the Spanish he's learned. There is a Spanish after-school program that we enrolled Paul in, so someday Taco will enroll in that as well. And maybe it will be like riding a bike and the base Spanish knowledge will come back? I am not thinking about it too much because maybe they won't even want to stick with Spanish. We need stability and to send our $$$ to a company that treats its staff well and has a healthy workplace environment. All this is to say that this has been a source of stress for us and has weighed on my mind so much over the last several months. Taco starts at his new daycare on August 28th. So we'll have more transitions ahead... Maybe by January life will feel settled for both kiddos? 

My sensitive little guy, eating apples on the couch while snuggling with Mickey.

2. So now that we are done with Spanish immersion, I've decided to shift from learning Spanish through Duolingo to learning French! I started to use Duolingo to learn Spanish a little over a year ago so I could better communicate with Taco's toddler teachers. A lot of shade is thrown at Duolingo but it has been wonderful for me. Some of the focus of the courses is a bit odd, like I don't need to say the cow opened the window or the owl opened the fridge. But it gave me more vocabulary so I could communicate a bit better with the teachers (usually one teacher is fluent in English but that was not the case in Taco's last classroom - which is FINE because Phil speaks Spanish and they brought in another English speaking teacher to translate for conferences or more involved conversations). But the country I am most obsessed with is France, so this week I switched over to learning French! Newer readers to my blog might not know how much I adore France. I mean, my love of France is mentioned in the tagline of my blog! But having kids is not conducive (for me) with traveling to France. So I'm on a grand pause for international travel until our kids are a bit older. But you can bet I'll be going back to France! When we are retired, I'd love to rent an apartment in France for like 3 months and really settle in/experience life as an ultra-short-term resident. So it makes sense to switch to learning French. Plus Phil has us covered on Spanish since he studied abroad in Spain and minored in Spanish. He isn't super secure speaking in Spanish but understands everything.

3. Onto a more positive topic: I am the person in our house who is most excited for Paul to get his welcome letter from his elementary school because it will include his school supply list (so I've heard - I can't find a supply list on the school website)!! I have the absolute best memories of shopping for school supplies with my mom. I usually went shopping with her for the supplies and then shortly before school started, us kids would sit around my mom and she'd disperse said supplies. Oh it was exciting! I loved school so so much. My mom talks about how I was up at 4:30 on my first day of school because I was SO EXCITED. I want Paul to be excited but I do not need to be woken up at 4:30 am so hopefully he doesn't "pull a Lisa." 

4. So I've mentioned that the transitions we've gone through this summer have been challenging - lots of big feelings/emotions/acting out. When I dropped Paul off at his summer program yesterday morning, one of the teachers said that he's the absolute best kid and is always happy and interested in what they have planned for the kids. He was always kind of the teacher's pet at daycare so I'm not surprised but it's nice to hear that he's doing well when he's at the program.

5. Next week I am going on what I can say is truly a vacation! I fly to Calgary on Sunday morning, spend a night with my friend Leigh, a URL turned IRL friend, and then my other friend Amber (also a URL turned IRL friend) flies in on Monday (neither blogs anymore - sob). Leigh leaves for vacation on Tuesday but she'll go for a hike with us on Monday. I haven't seen Leigh since our running trip to the Bay Area in October 2014 when she was pregnant with her first child! I haven't seen Amber since my wedding in May of 2017! We used to meet up every year and I consider her one of my closest friends. But we've both had 2 kids since we last saw each other. Her daughter is 3 months older than Paul and her son is 13 months younger than Taco. We keep in touch mostly over whatsapp but there is nothing like meeting up and spending time together doing something we love! We'll be staying in Canmore which is just south of Banff and will do lots of hiking. We used to run a race together when we met up, but for this trip I suggested we pivot to hiking - still a fun/active activity but no pressure to train for something! I do hope we can get back to seeing each other every 1-2 years now that we are both done having babies! I feel a bit guilty for doing a solo trip on top of all of the work travel I've done this year, but am trying to push away that guilt since traveling is part of my job... And I am hoping to not work on this trip. I said I would check emails at the end of the day on Monday and Tuesday since my co-worker is out those days, but once she's back on Wednesday I am not going to look at email until next Saturday when I will have to log in for my weekly Saturday data work. I fly back on Thursday night but I took Friday off as I figured it wasn't worth to work one day, especially since Fridays can be pretty quiet. 

Amber, Kyria and me, days before my wedding. They both flew in a bit early so they spend more time with me and Phil and could be at my bridal lunch the day before my wedding.

How are you? What's on your mind these days? Do you use Duolingo?