19 3/4 months old

How's things? Today was my last day of work at Northwest/Delta. It's a bit of a relief to be done! The last day went very smoothly, with only one passenger being enough of a problem to make me thank my lucky stars I was quitting! All of my coworkers were so nice, and I got a few pictures with everyone who had a moment away from the ticket counter. After nine years, I'm still not sure if I'm vested in my pension or not, so I have to check on that, and it's sad to leave behind the flying benefits, but I'll be happy to spend (almost) all my time with Thomas instead of paying someone else to spend time with him! Dolores (retiree from work) has been babysitting, and Thomas seems to be contented with her, but he's always very excited when I come home, and me too! And here's to saying bye-bye to that 3:50am wake-up and getting more sleep!

More than a week ago, when Matthew was still here, my friend Pam (and Rose on a different occasion) babysat Thomas so that Matthew and I could go see the movie Star Trek! I really liked it! And they gave it a plausible twist that opened up the whole story to all kinds of possibilities! And the thing I enjoyed most about it was coming back and talking nerdily to Pam about the whole Star Trek universe. I love that I have a friend who knows more about the Star Trek universe than I do (not saying much)! So that was a wonderful few hours out, thanks to Rose and Pam!

Thomas and I went to Toddler Time (18 months to 36 months) at the library for the first time last week, not our usual Rhyme Time (babies to 18 months), and to my surprise, Thomas smiled twice and giggled once! He seemed to enjoy himself there, perhaps because the reader was such a ham and really played things up. Now that everyone in our playgroup is getting towards the 18 month mark, we have stopped scheduling playdates at the baby Rhyme Time. Thomas is one of the oldest in his playdate group, which isn't so great for me because I like to see what other people/kids are doing, what they're learning, training, doing ... like potty training ... that's the one I'm thinking about right now.

We've been reading Dad's journal of the trip to New Zealand in 2006, when we all four of us went to Lloyd and Anne's wedding. Thomas loves to page through and point out all the people and birds and cars and food and sheep. We've also been reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar, and when we get to the page with "one slice of chocolate cake, one pickle, one slice of salami, .... " Thomas keeps pointing to the pictures one by one in sequence, over and over again. Also, when we get to "salami," he always says, "mama." Is he saying that salami reminds him of me? Or does he mean it in the Japanese way, where "mama" means food? We may never know.