I honestly didn’t mean to sign off on such a wretched note and then not return for months on end. But things got worse before they got better. No point in getting into details. Needless to say, I’m in good spirits now.

So what’s new? Well, Budsie is in preschool and loving it…now. He loathed it with the passion of 1000 burning suns for the first few weeks and that was Not Fun. Oh the screaming, oh the crying. And of course he couldn’t just cry like a regular three year old. No, he had to speak his articulate little mind and say things like “I DON’T FEEL READY TO HANDLE THIS PRESCHOOL BUSINESS AND I HATE ALL OF THE TEACHERS!!” Fantastic. Anyway, he likes it now. In other Budsie news, he reads! I had seen this coming for awhile but I thought he was just memorizing everything. Until one day over lunch he read the title of one of my books. And the headlines in a magazine. This was a few weeks ago and now he’s in full swing. He reads and spells and everything. It’s absolutely amazing to watch. Words seem to just jump out at him wherever we go and he’s so excited. On the downside, A. and I have officially been reduced to speaking in pig latin in order to hide things from our son. And it turns out that a) we have a lot of stuff we don’t want him hearing and b) I’m actually not that great at pig latin. Hmpf.

Gingerbean is also doing well. She’s walking (!!!) and chatting away happily. I’m starting to love our three mornings a week together. I’d forgotten how nice small kids can be. Gingerbean never tells me that I’m terrible for not letting her eat chocolate for breakfast and she never shouts at me that she’s bored with “all of the things in Israel.” I mean, I know she will do these things, but right now she’s just the best during the day. Now, at night she sucks. I love her but she sucks. She’s been weaned off daytime boob for the last couple of months, but she’s up every hour or two wanting to chew on me in the evening. It’s positively exhausting. Ah well, we’ll sort things out soon enough.

Anyway, so the kids are doing great. And I’m getting better too, due in no small part to my membership in a bookclub of dip. spouses, and my friendship with a certain Canadian dip. spouse (CW!). I’ve been meeting some perfectly lovely people, setting up playdates and coffee dates, and generally just settling in better than before. Phew!

Right, so the kids outside have woken up Gingerbean so I have to go. Boo. But more posts soon!