A window to spring February 17 - March 4, 2006 Coming back to normal - our new windows - turning into a lazaret

	Salt ponds near Newark, CA

Right after our return home, we had a three-day weekend. Using the extra free time to collectively exterminating our jet lag through exposure to sunshine, we hiked up on a hill, and drove out to the ocean. Tommy ran around outside like crazy and even Lisa looked like she was enjoying time in the sun. I don't have to stress that we were still getting up horribly early -- and so we got to the Pacific right in the morning. Our plan was to get back home for lunch (on a national holiday, majority of restaurants are closed). Alas, when we were passing our favorite Thai restaurant in Santa Cruz on our way back, Tom began to beg for "'bed" ('unch) and asked to go "tam" (there). The worst thing is, Tom is still too small to be able to comprehend some things (a closed restaurant) and too big to be distracted and to forget what he has thought up. And so our drive back passed among his complaining and whining.

	On our first hike after having left Czech snow, we were welcomed by flowers

Just as we somewhat recovered from the jet lag and heaps of dirty laundry, we cut new changes in. Most of all, a belated upgrade of our windows. Those should have been finished before our vacation, but then they did not arrive in time, and so we had to postpone remodeling of our household to the time after our return.

I have been longing for new windows for a long time. Before Tom was born, we had our bedroom window replaced by a patio door. The result was impressive. Our original single-pane aluminum windows have the insulating properties comparable to those of a bead curtain - thus a double glazed construction represented a substantial improvement of our sleeping comfort. The room became warmer in winter and less hot in summer; moreover, sounds from outside are muffled. We had concluded that we deserve a quiet sleep of our children.

	Bushes are still leafless, but spring is coming!

It is not easy to find a good contractor. In the intellectual Silicon Valley, one is more likely to stumble across a programmer, than run into a carpenter. And then, of course, we have impossible requirements on them. Like, they must speak English (just go and try to agree on technical details with someone who's only English word is "OK"), work here legally (i.e. so that we can demand some warranty for their work), arrive at previously agreed times, and not need us to hover around and check every little thing (after we have studied all technological procedures ourselves to prevent the house from crumbling under their hands). Eventually, through a neighborhood grapevine, I got a contact to a man, who picked up the phone himself, spoke English, made an appointment with me and ultimately showed up at the right hour. Then he gave us an estimate. He ordered the windows. They did not arrive, so the works had to be postponed. Later, both windows and the contractor came -- and voilà -- all is done. This is how I imagined it. Joe had spread a barrier three feet from the window, so that dust would not enter the rest of the house, cleaned up everything after himself, and vacuumed all debris. Before he set the first windows, he made a double-check call to be sure which one goes in which hole (we wanted them to open in different directions in each room). He promised to remove all the leftover rubble and add all our other accumulated garbage (landfill charges by a truckload; how much you load is your problem). When Sid bravely stated that we would paint the house ourselves, Joe left a piece of the stucco on a sill so that we could take it into a store and have the paint match. We wrote him a check and the deal was finished. I did a pro-forma wipe of the floors and moved a few rugs back to their places.

	Our house lost its false shutters, but gained new front windows.

	During a deep low tide, the ocean edge reveals various treasures

Since I usually finish my sleep with Lisa in granny's room, I had an immediate chance to test our new windows. One can hardly expect that from one day to another, all neighbors would suddenly stop going to work, walk their dogs and greet each other in the street -- so I can easily declare that new windows work well and really muffle all noises from the street to a pleasant level. And they finally look like bedroom windows. You see -- our house was built in 1964 -- and give then available materials and absence of air conditioning, it was designed to fare well during hot California summers. That is, it had small windows, set high in the walls to be in the shadow of a patio roof. One can probably get used to it, but I kept having the feeling that our bedrooms resembled animal stables -- ventilation openings were rather far up. By lowering (and extending) the windows' bottom edge, we met a new building code (lower edge must not be higher than 42 inches above floor), and fulfilled our idea of how a proper window should look.

On the next weekend, Sid drove down to a store with the piece of stucco. We were prepared to paint the whole house; or rather whole walls affected by the cutting and remodeling), but technology does miracles. The stucco got scanned, a machine burped some yellow and brown color into a pail of white latex paint, and mixed it up. When Sid had painted the new stucco, to give it a prime layer before the final area coverage, we discovered that we could easily omit the rest of the work. There's no way you can tell where the new paint starts. Thus our experience with exchanging the windows was completely positive -- the whole process was more or less painless.

	Our ribbon princess may lack on courtly grace, but not on humor

It's true that I had spent most window-changing days in a pre-school with Tom. We underwent a getting-used-to procedure. I attempted to participate with Tom in every aspect of the program, so that he could see what is where, and when one expects what from him. I was rather satisfied -- it seems that the regime befits Tom, who behaves like an senior pupil, for he knows where they have a bathroom, and what is supposed to happen next.

	We have encountered a large starfish.

I had planned that on his first regular day there, I'd come for Tom early and stay with him there until noon, so that my poor baby would not be abandoned for whole three hours right the first time, but I actually did not make it. I have had some pain in my left foot for a few weeks now, but just on the weekend before Tom's first pre-school day, I must have moved with my aching metatarsus so that I was barely able to walk. I concluded that perhaps it might be better to seek out a specialist. Sid took Tom to the school, I loaded Lisa and went to our clinic. I entered the garage about five minutes before my appointment, but that was in vain. A long line of cars snaked through the lot, organized by local ushers. Just to park the car took me seventeen minutes -- plus then unloading the stroller, re-tethering Lisa, and pushing the whole heap around a huge, confusing building -- simply said, I was late. Then I waited forty minutes more, as doctors were late, too. Eventually I had to make a moderate scene -- it was almost quarter past eleven when it was my turn -- and I was supposed to pick up Tom at twelve.

A doctor examined my foot and announced that without an x-ray he could not say anything definite, but it may be some strained tendon. I countered that I really had no time to wait for x-ray and that I needed to leave; could I come and have it x-rayed some other time? And so I received a therapeutic shoe that immobilizes toes so they don't flex, and has a teeter sole, so one can achieve something very similar to a normal walk. I was glad -- after all I don't know how I would be able to drive with a plaster those twenty five miles to Tom. Since then I wear that shoe and my foot seems to be getting better, and I play with the idea to never go to the x-ray, and pronounce myself cured.

	This snapshot hopefully provides answer for all quizzing queries whether Tommy ever does any mischief.

I watched Tom at the school for a moment, through a window. He ate his lunch, swinging his feet and talking. I reckoned that he was not being abused and that he managed to get OK through the three hours. They told me he was unhappy mostly in the beginning, when Sid had left, but otherwise it was within normal. On the next day alone, it looked similar -- he had allegedly cried a few times, but then got distracted. The teacher, describing the situation, said that it made him cry when he wanted to go out but was supposed to stay indoors, and vice versa -- well, Tommy has been trying to cry things out of me, and I know it well myself. Thus I am not sure whether to attribute his mood to missing his parents, or usual behavior. We shall wait and see; there's not too much one can conclude from two visits. So far I have been optimistic - Tommy pees into a toilet at the school, eats his lunch that I pack for him, paints pictures, plays with toys -- he does to strike me as being overly stressed.

	Lisa rampaged like a dragon at a neighborhood baby meet.

Lizzy had used her jet lag as an excuse to impose a nightly three-hour feeding cycle on me. This I attempt to talk her out of, but with no effect so far. Otherwise, she has been a happy and frisky baby -- influence of her older brother can be clearly seen. At our last neighborhood baby meet, Lisa played best with a ten-months old girl. Her peers were either too static and uninteresting -- Siobhan was her best buddy. They rolled around each other and shared toys. They sometimes ripped some toy from the other party's hands, but then I noticed Siobhan return a toy to Lisa a few times, and watch Lisa to deal with it. Babies seem to learn better from other babies than from adults -- and they use their peers as Guinea pigs. Hence I could really use somebody to teach Lisa how to crawl properly. She keeps dragging herself by her hands on her stomach, as she has not discovered yet her knees to be useful when applied alternatively, unlike an inchworm. Still, she seemed the most alert from all the kids -- the only thing I don't know is whether to be glad or to worry (for one can be afraid of a baby who can, all by herself, crawl to a cabinet with plastic bags, open it, and subsequently lavishly roll in the rustling flood).
The other day I resolved to definitely determine if Lisa had four or five teeth, and I discovered she had six. I'm only not certain about her weight -- but it seems she has gained some and despite being quite far from a spitting image to the Michelin man, she compensates this deficiency by packing strong muscles.

Tom's development is taking smaller steps, but the more enjoyable. His verbal expressions became understandable, sometimes cute, and occasionally really funny. He started using sentences, referring to self as "you", but manages to inflect quite well. He has been using Czech in most cases, and to lesser extent English, and is abandoning his personal Swahili.

Copyright © 2006 by Carol & Sid Paral. All rights reserved.