Wow — a busy busy weekend. There was lots of ritual and energy work. I facilitated the last level 4 class on Saturday afternoon, and the students handled two very challenging energy exercises with grace and aplomb. On Sunday we conducted an elevation ritual for one of our coveners, and that went spectacularly well too, both in general and on the part of the covener, of whose demonstrated work and skills we are so very very proud. The weekend was busy in an everyday sort of way too. On Friday night Liam’s godparents brought dinner over to our place and watched Liam while I went out to pick up HRH from work. When we returned they’d pulled the table out and set it beautifully, so all we had to do was sit down and eat once Liam was in bed. We had a lovely relaxing evening; it was a real treat. There was even birthday cake, the candles on which my goddaughter helped me to blow out. Saturday morning was band, of course, which was cut short when the power went out due to the nasty storm that swept through the city. Being an acoustic-based band, we simply propped open the door and went merrily back to playing songs on our setlist in the dark, but the lack of fans circulating the air drove us out after about ten minutes, alas. Sunday morning saw us picking up new plexiglass to fill in the rest of the kitchen window above the air conditioner (yes, we’ve moved it from the bedroom to the kitchen to facilitate the circulation of the cool air through the living area) and a new air conditioning unit for the Baronial residence.

Now we all need a day to recover from the weekend. And I sort of have one! Yes, today is Liam’s first full day over at his home daycare! We are both very excited. There are friendly cats, excellent toys, a cool caregiver, a hamster and rats to look at, and a turtle. What more could a chipper and social and inquisitive little boy want?

The morning visit with the daycare last Friday morning went tremendously well. The only problem we ran into was the early afternoon nap, where he was just too excited to settle down for milk or sleep, so we headed for home. He ended up falling asleep in the car five minutes before we reached the house, and I foolishly unpacked him thinking he’d fall asleep again after nursing. He didn’t, of course, so that was the total of the afternoon nap, and on top of only forty minutes of nap time earlier that morning, too. Today, however, he has his playpen in which to nap, plus his Magic Rabbit nap buddy and the crocheted afghan his great-gran made for him to help him think of being asleep in his own bed at home. He’ll eventually nap once he plays himself out, despite being in an exciting new environment. So he’s in two days a week for now, which gives me time to get my current work done.

When we were over playing there on Friday, Liam did something mildly freaky. There are baskets of toys on the lower shelf of the playroom, and I thought I’d teach him something new. “Where’s the tiger, Liam?” I said from a few feet away. “Where’s the tiger?” He turned to look at the baskets of toys, and I figured that after asking him again I’d reach over and pick up the little plastic tiger and show it to him. But before I could he reached over and grabbed the tiger toy, then turned back to face me with a “Yeah, this is the tiger, so?” look on his face. “That’s right, that’s the tiger,” I said, and when he looked down to turn it over and over in his hands and examine it, I freaked out quietly at Prospero’s Daughter, because he’s only ever seen a minute or so of a tiger on one of his videos that we’ve played for him maybe four or five times in his life, and it’s not one of the words we’ve been teaching him. Part of me thinks it must be the group mind thing, because I was visualising that little tiger toy and its position pretty hard while I was talking to him. Very cool.

Liam is now narrating our car rides, which is quite entertaining. “Car. Car. Car,” he says, pointing out the window at the other vehicles on the highway as they pass. Every once in a while he says, “Truck,” pointing at a cube van or a semi. And he flirts with people at stoplights, giving them huge grins and talking away to them. The awesome thing is that most people smile back, and chat or wave through the window. Some parents move their vehicles a little forward or back so that their child in the back seat can see and wave at Liam too. While the majority of the time these days I think the population in general sucks, sometimes people can be pretty cool.

So this is my first grown-up day of work with the boy in daycare. I have a proposed table of contents to polish and send off to another editor, a bit of correspondence to handle, some developmental work to do, and laundry to keep doing. I already stopped off on the way home to pick up some new tank tops (although no capris, alas, which were also on my list) and a few groceries.

I should add “eating” to my to-do list, because I haven’t had any appetite over the past three days. It’s just been too dreadfully hot and humid, and eating in weather like this makes me feel ill.