A late update

Wee!!!

Sorry everyone! It has been pretty hectic here and I haven't had much time to get online lately. I have an unfinished post in my draft folder which I've been trying to finish for a week now. I'll get it up, but for the sake of getting everyone up to speed, I'll post the highlights of the week, with nifty titles, so you can just scroll to whatever interests you.

The stand
John stood all by himself for the first time yesterday!!! It was a little surreal to watch. We don't think he realized he was doing it. We were lying on the bed; he was playing on the floor. He pulled himself up onto my bedside table, picked up his moniter with one hand, then started tinkering with both hands. I think he was so obsorbed in his tinkering, it didn't even register that he wasn't holding onto anything. He didn't even wobble. After a minute or so, he put the moniter down and crawled off to something new. It's almost like he's been working on it in secret all this time, and he did it in front of us by accident without realizing. He's only kind of done it once since - he was standing on the couch, threw both hands in the air and let out a little squeal of glee as he fell onto Mike.

The weather
Ugh. It's hot, hot, hot!!! We're in the middle of our first heat wave - 34 with the humidex (that's like windchill, only it measures how hot it feels with the humidity, instead of how cold with the wind.) John hasn't worn more than a diaper in days, unless we go somewhere. Even then, we have to hose him down now and then to cool him off. His favourite game these days is to sit buck naked under the shade tree, with a big bucket of cold water in front of him; he splashes and squeals, then dumps the water all over himself. It's great fun. We have an air conditioner running in his room all the time and he sleeps practically naked. I give him several cool baths a day and plenty to drink. Despite it all, he still got a little heat rash the other day. So frustrating - I guess heat tolerance is inherited too.

The strike
It's still going on. Mike has a terrible sunburn - he's finally started using John's SPF 50 Baby Block. Without it, I'm sure he's just hours away from blistering. There's a rumour that the company is working on a new contract. It'll be pretty much the same deal, but with an offer to promote all the temps to permenant part-time. There's a good chance it would be accepted, according to Mike.

The job
Very few people know this, but I applied for an editor's position recently. I didn't get it, but it left a reporter's position free, which I will more than likely be getting - I just found out today. It's not finalized, but that's the intention. It's a small weekly in the rural community where I used to work - this paper used to be our competition, but my company bought them out and shut our paper down, transferring me to the ad department. So, this is kind of like going home. However, my company never makes things easy. Instead of being just a reporter, I'm also being made editor of a monthly business publication - it's a 20 page tabloid, targeted at managers and business owners. I'll get paid a small bonus to put it together every month and I'll have a small freelance budget to use as needed. It's a lot more responsibility for a little more money, but the logic is to give me some more editor practice. This publication is pre-existing, but it has never had an editor before. They've just thrown in whatever business stories happened to already be written for the regular papers and gotten the ad and production departments to slap it together. I guess they want me to make it into something people would actually want to read. I'm pretty excited about it - I have a bunch of ideas already - I welcome suggestions from all you managers out there - Mom, Dad, Bruce. The only concern in John. His daycare is actually clear on the other side of the city! We're next on the waiting list for one that would be along the way to this town, so i'll give them a call and see what our chances are - they were pretty sure another spot would open up in time the last time I spoke to them. I'll call about home care in the town itself. That would be nice to have him close by like that. We just need a short term solution - in six months he's being transferred to the french daycare, which is only a few blocks from our house. It's just so stupid - I spent so long finding one I was happy with, and now we need a sudden change. Ugh. I'll hear about the job for sure in a day or two - the managing editor is trying to arrange it as a transfer, but she may be forced to post it, so she can't tell me for sure that I'm in. Keep your fingers crossed - for the job and the daycare!