Turning a corner

Well some things happened. The holidays. The New Year. It's 2012. Am I being silly optimistic when I say that 2012 has a nice ring to it? It does. It really does although it also sounds so futuristic. Like I can't believe we're not flying around in space suits. 2012, really?

2012 is the year that Davey starts kindergarten. This fall, he will start. CRAZY. I need to call and make an appointment to register him. Coo Coo. He continues to do really well in his Spanish pre-school and his teachers have us working on some things to prepare him for Kinder. Mainly not hitting his amigos. He gets very into his role playing games and clobbers people. It's not so good. Also his attention is very scattered in class and he likes to do things like lie down in the corner while the teacher is giving a lesson. He says he gets tired. I don't doubt it. Painting and singing and playing with playdough and doing soccer all day would wipe me out too but if I laid down on the carpet behind my desk every time I felt tired, I'd have been fired 100 times by now. The sooner he learns to face this reality the better. Other than these things, he's doing well. We've learned that there is a possibility that he can "test" into the Spanish Language Charter School that we really want to get him in. It's more like a fun little interview with the Kindergarten teacher and he won't know it's a test. She'll just speak to him in Spanish and see how much he understands. So there's no risk, we'll give it a shot and if he doesn't know enough he'll still be in the regular lottery, cool. We'll see!

The other really exciting thing that is happening in 2012 is Disney Passes. We got Annual Passes to Disneyland. They are the very cheapest level and so we can't ever go on the weekend and a lot of days are blacked out but we don't want to go on those days anyway so it works out. The good thing about having passes this year is that we don't have to pay for Jasper and since Davey is still in pre-school, it's easy for us to go half-days during the week. I take a half-day at work and we pick davey up at 1pm and go from there. We're in the park by 2-2:30 and we have a good 6 hours. We bring the boy's pajamas and they fall asleep in the car on the way home. With Deron working most evenings and weekends and me working during the day, it's a good family bonding activity. We all really love it and have a lot of fun there. I think it's going to make the year really fun for us. It's not something that we'll be able to afford to do every year but that's fine too because I'm sure we'll burn out on the place eventually, especially since you end up dropping so much money on food and junk once you walk in the gate.

Two big corners have been turned. First, Jasper is no longer sleeping in a crib. He's in the bunk beds now and so he and Davey are officially sharing a room! So exciting. He did it all on his own. It started during nap time. He just announced that he wanted to sleep in the bunk beds. The funny thing is that he demands to sleep on top, which is perfectly fine with Davey. I was a little scared at first because even though the railing is very sturdy and there's no real danger of him rolling off, I thought he might get disoriented in the middle of the night and try and climb down and fall that way. So far this hasn't happened and he's actually quite coordinated and good and climbing up and down all on his own. There is something about the two of them sleeping together in one room that just kills me. I guess because my sister and I slept in bunk beds. Also they are just playing together more and more now and even though they do fight a lot, when they get a long, it's beyond sweet.

The second big corner is the state of the condo. After I repainted the bathroom, I decided that what I needed to do next is get the bathtub redone, so I'd been saving for that but once I saved up about half the money, I decided instead to hire a painter to paint what I hadn't yet done which was half of the living room, the loft and our bedroom. Well it's done and boy howdy and I happy. It's truly wonderful to have it done. I can actually sit in the living room and not feel the impulse to gouge my eyes out because the walls are so horrible and need paint so badly. I don't have to sit there and feel, "I should be painting." I can just sit. Phew. Also, I found this really nice painter who did a great job for a very good price. I still need our master bath painted and the stair railings so I'm going to have him do those next when I save a little more. I'm done painting. It's so horrible and boring and I'm horrible at it. I get so bored that I do a crappy job. No more! Well, maybe just the closets.

Ok, that's all I got for today. Here's to turning corners and the hope of a good 2012. May it bring us all peace, health and joy.