After Daddy being gone for three weeks I am happy he is finally home! He got home just in time to come to the two birthday parties I was invited to on Saturday.
He said
Finally after three weeks of living out of a suitcase which included: one trip by plane to San Francisco back and forth 4000 km each way; one trip with Wolfie back and forth to the Port Huron 110 km each way; and, one trip VIA train 200 km back and forth from Toronto I am finally home for the foreseeable future! Friday I arrived in the train station in London at 7:55pm ready for an extended stay at home, and more importantly stint in our bed!
It was an amazing learning experience all three weeks and I wouldn’t trade what I gleaned from that time for anything, but I am quite happy to being doing the next of this journey all from the confines of this house with my two ladies in tow.
This past week I was doing some in-store training at our Yorkdale location learning what it is like in a much bigger and more busier store. The team there was great and shared a lot of learns for me which have me in the appropriately ready state to return to my own store and flex my newly honed managerial skills. But at the end of a very fruitful and learn-filled week, I was ready to return to my store and my team, much like my family and my house. The bitter sweet pill in all of this was while I was away my brother Matthew worked his last day in our store and has since moved on to his new team at Conestoga Mall in Waterloo. As much as I figured one day we’d have to navigate different stores in search of our growth at Apple, I don’t think I was prepared for it to happen so soon… as was he, I think.
The week down in Toronto saw me reunite with our old friend Judyth who Danielle and Emelia squeezed in a visit with while I was in California. And it also saw me reconnect with our good friend Dawn who I also haven’t seen in far too long. Both of those visits were filled with laughter, smiles and were all too short. And the one surprise visit was with Nancy a co-worker who actually facilitated the first bit of training Matthew and I embarked on when we first joined Apple two years ago. It was great to see her and compare both of our journeys of growth and development.
As for Emelia… This last week with me coming home and us heading out for a brief weekend trip in Wolfie with Danielle and her last weekend seemed to make my last four day stint in Toronto the breaking point for her. She had a very hard time with the goodbye at the train station Tuesday morning, tugging on my heart strings with extra sad look that made me feel terrible for leaving yet again. And as much as Danielle and I knew it would be over as quickly as it started, Emelia was very vocal about not approving all my training this time around!
As anticipated, the week did fly by in a heartbeat and before I knew it I was hauling ass southbound on the TTC subway trying to catch my 5:30pm VIA Rail train back to London. By 8pm, we were loading up the CRV with my suitcase and heading back to the house. We all crashed with exhaustion pretty early that night! I slept straight through as long as I could before I was awoken by Emelia and her hungry tummy.
Saturday was all about falling headlong back into our usual familiar routines. Ever the socialite Emelia had not one, but two birthday party invites on our docket for Saturday: one for a pair of twin schoolmates; and, one for her former daycare pal Reece. Both for me were a triumphant return to all that family connection time I had been missing the past three weeks. We had a great time at both and when we were all wrapped up we proceeded to head to the grocery store to pick up supplies for a wonderful BBQ dinner. We retired for the night at our house with food, laughter and the right complement of relaxation together. It was pure bliss.
Today was my return to work. Finally as a full fledged manager. It was great to be finally back at my store, and reconnecting with my team. After three weeks away it felt like I was very much out of sync with my team so it was good to make those reconnections and to get back into the swing of things. And it was good to be missed and hugged so much!
Tomorrow, thankfully I have a day off, because with all the travel and interaction with people I feel like I am coming down with a bit of a cold. My throat is a bit sore and I am feeling pretty worn out. So, I am going to try and use tomorrow to catch up on some rest and more importantly slow down time to get recuperated from all this going here, and being there. Hopefully by this time best week, I will be feeling 100% back and on top of my game.
One thing for sure, it’s good to be home!
She said
I can say from my end it was a crazy and long couple weeks. The last week did go by in a flash but by the end Emelia’s sleep went into the tank and she was having a harder and harder time emotionally. Well, as I type the sleep in the tank continues and we are in the middle of a 5 day stretch of Emelia’s sleep battle hell. It is almost 10:00pm and we are over two hours into this night’s battle. And needless to say her emotions in the day are over the top because she is beyond overtired. I feel terrible for her teacher tomorrow dealing with this her but according to her teacher she does fine in the day. At school, at least.
On a complete opposite note this week was the end of a stage in Emelia’s life, this Thursday was Emelia’s last Sparks meeting which means in the fall she will be a Brownie. She is so excited about it, she cannot wait to have camp days and nights. The nights are debatable considering her history of terrible sleeping I cannot imagine her at an overnight camp. Anyway she is very excited for the next step in her journey. She is excited to do the activities to earn her badges and to move on with Anna and Grace to the bigger girl world of Brownies.
By Friday Emelia and I were very excited to pick up John at the train station and finally put to bed John’s travel and our time away from each other. She was having a terrible time and she was really missing her daddy and our family together. We enjoyed the family time Friday night and when we FINALLY got Emelia to sleep that night John and I enjoyed some time tougher, had a couple drinks and crashed for the night.
Saturday turned out to be a crazy busy day. John VERY sweetly took Emelia in the morning as I was beyond burnt out between her and the daycare kids I just needed a bit of quiet and sleep. I got out of bed just ahead of 9:00 and got ready for our busy day. Emelia had been invited to back to back birthday parties that would quickly fill our day. At 11:00 we were off to the Palasad, the same place we had Emelia’s 1st birthday party. The party this time was for twins Siobhan and Aiden who are both in her class. It was a large party including most of the children in the class and some of the children’s neighbours. It was a great party. We have been so fortunate with the school that Emelia attends. The parents are all incredible and are all very involved with their children. I have become friends with a number of the moms and it was wonderful to spend the afternoon catching up and chatting away while the kids bowled, played, ate pizza and cake and generally had an amazing time.
Next we dashed over to one of our favourite people’s 5th birthday. Reece is one of my former daycare boys and her family are one of my all time favourite families I have ever had in care. Norma (Reece’s mom) is amazing and has always been an incredible source of love and support to our family. Their entire family have such an incredible and generous nature about them and we were honoured to be invited to Reece’s 5th birthday. We spent the afternoon in the heat and enjoyed meeting their extended family and friends. All in all it was an incredible afternoon with close friends.
By the time we left the party we had to quickly make our way over to Costco to get some groceries for dinner that night and for the next week. We came home and had some yummy steaks on the BBQ and John could take time to relax as he had to go to work the next day. Emelia managed to have a playdate with her friends Marin and Gracyn and even an after dinner bike ride with the girls.
Today John was back at work and Emelia and I could get back to our regular Sunday routine when John works. The first stop was the gym which with John gone and our crazy schedule over the last couple weeks has gone FAR on the back burner and man did I miss it. I was so happy to get back and get in a good workout it and Emelia as always had a great time at Kinetic Kids. After we got the rest of our groceries done and a few other errands and we were not even home ½ hour and it started….
“I’m bored… I want to play with my friends.”
A couple calls later and a trip to Target and we had an afternoon planned. I had sold some daycare equipment that I no longer used and it gave me some money to get something that was perfect for Emelia and her friends. I got a double race slip and slide. Between that and the splash pool the 6 girls (Anna, Grace, Lydia, Marin, Gracyn and Emelia) had lots to keep them busy and cool while the moms and I hung out and had a drink while watching the girls have a great time splashing around.
You would think all this activity this weekend would mean Emelia would crash hard at night, but nope, it’s now after 10:00pm and the battle continues. Well off for the night and to relieve John from the battle and finish getting the long list of ‘to do’ before the work week starts early in the morning.