Happy 3rd Birthday Max and Vanh

I have not blogged in a while as it has been a busy couple of weeks...As I mentioned in my last post, I have been very tired and I'm sure most of it has to do with jet lag...additionally I have been preparing to do part-time work, until the end of July, followed by more full-time work for August. I was able to get an additional contract that I jumped at and so it means that Matteo will be going into full-time care starting August 1st and not September 1st. Now the bad news is that moving to do more work has been hard. As much as I did teach one course during the winter only a month after Matteo arrived in Canada, it was really about 6-10 hours a week at the most. I got a taste of more full-time work for three weeks in May before leaving on our trip and it was very hard. I know what Catherine means in her post about being a single parent and I think of her often. For me I have been trying to make sure to have a number of good babysitters around me and family who is willing to help out...but juggling all of it takes some practice. I am feeling better about having to leave Matteo with sitters, but they are all so good with him and I need to take care of things for both us and for me. Now the good news for the next while is that I will be mostly working from home with maybe one day at the archives, so I'll be able to set my schedule and maybe be with Matteo earlier in the afternoon rather than later, and in addition I plan to incorporate some long weekends, though have nothing planned except to hang out at our local swimming pools and splash pads and relax at home.

Now as to Matteo and water. I have posted below Matteo's first time in his small swimming pool. He still seems to be hot and cold in his bath time water. Sometimes he plays and at other times he just wants out as quick as possible so I am trying to introduce him to pools and splashpads slowly. I hope he grows to enjoy the playtime in the water as I love the water and would hate for him to be afraid of it as he was when I first met him in Vietnam.

Today we had a relaxing day and then got to spend part of our afternoon at Max and Vanh's birthday parties with their parents and grandmother and house guest and also enjoy Bev and Ben visiting from Toronto. Happy Birthday Maxem and Vanh. It was great to watch the three three year olds and also to see how Matteo reacted to them.. Will try to post some photos below though will probably just create a link to Samantha's blog here as I'm sure she'll post some photos.

Matteo has been changing so much. His little personality continues to surprise me. Last week on Wednesday we were having breakfast when he reached out to give me one of his puff wheat cereal nuggets. He had been starting to feed me pieces of his food, just as I feed him, but this time instead of putting it in my mouth, he pretended to give it to me and when it got near my mouth and I had my mouth open, he pulled his hand away quickly and stuck it in his own mouth and started to laugh!!....I'm not sure where he learned this or if someone did it to him but I sure never did that with him to tease him like that. He enjoyed my reaction so much he continues to do this and sometimes he lets me eat what he is giving me and sometimes he tricks me and he laughs so much at his trickery!!

He has a great sense of humour and continues to laugh at me when I do something different or silly or say a different word over and over again that sounds funny or I say in a funny way. It will be very hard being away from him for longer days as I much prefer a 4 hour workday. The part-time work suits me fine and if I can move that to only 6 hour day instead of 8 then that would be great...at least until he is in school...so for now that's where we're at. I will post below some photos I took of Matteo after he tried his little trick on me with his food and if I can, will also upload a video of Matteo's progress on his walking.