It’s 6am here. I’m trying to get in a bit of communication with the outside world before Sammy’s awake and the day begins in earnest.
Things here are goodish. Sammy’s not napping well anymore, but sleeps great through the night. While this is good as that we can at least sleep at night, I now have very little time during the day to do anything not Sammy-related. Also, days with Sammy are now a gradual descent into fussiness and despair, as he gets more and more tired but refuses to sleep.
Martha’s off to a conference in Italy this week, at an island resort off the coast of Naples. She leads a hard life.
The long-ago promised postcards are slowly being written and mailed. Your patience is appreciated. If you have any to spare, please send it here posthaste.
There are also pictures and videos from the last month, yet to be uploaded. Hopefully, I will see to them this week.
That is all.
I was just starting to type when Sammy woke up prematurely from his morning nap, as he has done for a week straight now. So much for the resumption of normal service. I am coming to accept that no service is the new normal. If you’re expecting correspondence from me, then keep waiting. Take some consolation that I feel bad about not answering.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Here are assorted pictures of Sammy from the last four weeks. They are provided without commentary.
http://www.permanent-expatriate.com/sammy-march2010/
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
I’ve divided the big block of new pics into 2 themed groups. Here is the first, focusing on our slowly evolving new home:
http://www.permanent-expatriate.com/house-assembly/
After 4 weeks of madness, things around here seem to have settled back into a happy routine. Here’s a terse summary of the recent past:
- Spending every Saturday, all Saturday, at IKEA for 4 weeks straight. The Saturday just past was the first that we were not there.
- 6 IKEA deliveries. The total mass of all the IKEA stuff brought into our home was somewhere around 3’000 kilograms, based on the figures on the delivery receipts.
- 2 of the above-mentioned deliveries included assembly crews; specifically, for our bedroom armoire and our living room wall unit. The armoire took 2 people with power tools 3 hours to assemble. The wall unit took 3 people with power tools 4 hours to assemble, including bolting it into our wall in 8 places. Needless to say, these days were not good ones for Sammy. The sound of a power drill is the first thing to which I’ve seen him react with abject terror.
- The tools necessary for assembling all the stuff from IKEA were packed in a unlabeled box. As such, until this past weekend all I had to work with in assembling the furniture for our bedroom, Sammy’s room, the living room and the office was my Swiss Army knife.
- In the middle of all this, as I mentioned previously, Sammy and I were both ill for close to a week with a stomach flu of some sort…
…AND Sammy got his first tooth during this stretch. We have dubbed it “Chomper”, and taken to calling him “Gummy Joe”. Numerous other white bumps have also developed recently, with the most prominent being Chomper’s immediate neighbour which we have taken to calling “Chomper Jr.”. The journey to his first tooth was not a pleasant one for little Sammy, with which the ongoing disorder in his living arrangements did not help at all.
Our first couple of weeks in our new apartment were not happy ones for us, with stress and discomfort on all our parts wearing patience thin and making tempers short. Now that we’ve gotten past the craziness, things are much better for all of us. Sammy’s teething has abated somewhat; enough at least that he doesn’t require the continual intake of pain medication. With Saturdays no longer being filled with IKEA and house preparation, we finally made it to our local farmers’ market this past Saturday morning. We had a wonderful time seeing what was available and practicing our French. The rest of the weekend was spent at home, playing with Sammy and leisurely getting the last of the furniture put together. All is right again with the world.
I hope that this will mean the resumption of normal posting and commentary about life here in Neuchâtel. There are lots of pictures, so expect a big photo update post in the next day or two. I’ve also been watching developments in the Americans’ ongoing healthcare reform drama, and have thoughts on that saved up. If Sammy continues to nap as he has of late, then I’ll share them with you.
Apologies for not updating since moving into the apartment. We got our Internet connection last week, and the place is slowly coming together. We get the last shipment from IKEA tomorrow, so then it will just be a matter of finally getting things assembled and put away. There’s not much spare time to do either.
Sammy and I were both sick last week with a stomach bug. Since recovering from that, Sammy’s teething has kicked into high gear. His first tooth cut through a few days ago, with several more looking on the verge. It’s been quite a time.
I missed French last week due to illness and Sammy trouble. We’ll see if I go tonight or not. I don’t really feel like doing anything.
From CBC.ca: Throne speech to tackle lack of skilled workers. The Conservatives appear to have found the sweet spot between pandering to their supporters in the business sector and stealing immigrant support from the Liberals. The Liberals can’t oppose this without leaving themselves open to accusations of hurting Canada economically and being anti-immigration, and if a few more people jump on the NDP’s rickety pro-labour bandwagon as a result, who cares? Those slim numbers aren’t going shift a riding race, and will likely hurt the Liberals as much as the Conservatives themselves. Very clever. I’m sadly sure that the Liberals will be completely flummoxed as to how they should respond.
Two batches of photos in as many days? Zut alors! Here are pics I took yesterday of our premier Mars holiday:
http://www.permanent-expatriate.com/premier-mars-2010/
Today is a holiday in the canton of Neuchâtel, celebrating the anniversary of joining the Swiss Confederation. We awoke this morning to a cloudless sky. This is by far the best weather we’ve seen here thus far. Further, Sammy awoke this morning the happiest baby ever. He’s been up for 2 hours now and hasn’t stopped smiling, earning the attention and affection of everyone who sees him. To top it off, today we get our freight from Canada delivered to the apartment! I’m as happy as the Canadians must be today, though for altogether different and more personal reasons. 🙂