We’ve ditched the Italian schedule. No more dinners at 7:00. We need to get this family to bed at a reasonable time. Tony was thinking yesterday that most of our productive, happy family time is in the morning. Afternoon is for naps. So we’ve decided to lengthen the morning at the expense of the afternoon. Instead of having a three-hour morning and a seven-hour afternoon, we’ll have a five-hour morning and a five-hour afternoon, and spend some time in the afternoon doing things like tidying the house, setting out everyone’s clothes, and fixing a picnic lunch for the next day.
For the past year or so (since our second child was born, coincidentally enough), we’ve had something of a schedule fetish. We always think that the next new schedule will solve all our problems. We really are tweaking things little by little, though, and they are getting better. Moving across the Pond threw a wrench in things a bit (even beyond the initial jet lag). But we’re learning which local elements are the ones we truly wish to incorporate in our life.
And speaking of jet lag, we have our plane tickets for the trip to the U.S. We leave October 7 and fly back January 7. All in all, it’s quite a bit longer than I want our typical U.S. vacation to be. But it’s not a vacation. This one is strictly business. Of course we’ll spend some time with relatives too, and I definitely want to do quite a bit of nature study at the beach.
This time we’re going to get a nice little furnished corporate apartment. The two and a half months that happened at the beginning of this move, shuttling between relatives and hotels, is not something I want to repeat. We need a home of our own and a normal life for any trip longer then a week or two. It is nice that we already know where grocery stores, library, and everything are in San Diego. We can also go dig some of our books and things out of storage to make it all feel like home (Axa is looking forward to reconnecting with her toys).
San Diego, here we come!