January 2009

Hopefully, future blog posts will have more creative titles than this, but it’s been a long day.

January was a busy month for us. I started my new school psychologist position this month; it can be challenging at times, but the best jobs tend to be. I’m lucky in that I have a great support system at work; between my colleagues and my supervisor, everyone’s been very helpful and gracious to the new guy.

With my new job taking me away from Hunterdon Central, Steph has become the sole daycare chauffeur, and I admire the fact that she has handled her new role with dignity and aplomb (by which I mean she is still relatively sane by the time she gets home, which is better than I’d do).  It sounds silly, but in the entire time we’ve known each other, this is the first time Steph and I have not worked at the same place, so we kind of wondered how the logistical stuff was going to pan out.  At the end of our first month apart (during the workday!), we’ve pretty much got it down to a science.

We also celebrated a few birthdays this month; our nephews Kyle and Matthew II both turned 2. Kyle had the (mis?)fortune of having his birthday party coincide with the Eagles’ NFC Championship loss to the Cardinals, but we’re going to give him the benefit of the doubt and presume the two were not related (although it’ll be interesting to see how things work out schedule-wise next January!). Although there was a lot of good food at the party, I bet Kyle’s favorite was his Thomas the Tank Engine birthday cake. Matthew had his birthday party at the clubhouse in his Aunt LilyAnn’s development, and despite his leg still being stuck in a cast (and a good amount of soda finding its way down the cast), a fantastic time was had by all – Dylan’s still wearing his Spider-Man mask around the house, and he learned how to play checkers on the Spider-Man/Green Goblin checkers set he won as a prize.

Kiera took her first tentative steps toward the end of December, but January has seen her tearing around the house.  She’s walking all over the place now, and I imagine it’s only a matter of time until she’s fully bipedal and walking becomes running.  We can’t stop her; we can only hope to contain her.

One last note: I’m taking part in something called “365/09″, which means I’m trying to document the entire year 2009 in pictures, one a day (hence the 365).  Each day, I will take one picture and post it to a set on my Flickr account.  It’s challenging, but I’ve been good about sticking to it so far (famous last words!); the set is here if you’d like to bookmark it or subscribe in an RSS reader.

Lots to look forward to next month, including the kids’ birthday party and hopefully getting a nice fat tax refund (and if you don’t think the two are related, you haven’t priced children’s birthday parties lately!).

Til next time!