The Weekend!

This week.  Man, just this week.  It's all I can say.  We've tried so hard to have fun amidst the end of Fall B (meaning that we had to grade a lot and submit final grades).  I think we succeeded and I also got a tonnnn of work done.  It can be exhausting, but so worth it.

Also in there, we have had showings for our house every other day (or even more frequently) since we dropped the price again about a week and a half ago.  In fact, we had one Thursday, Saturday, Sunday, and one tomorrow.  That is a lot of traffic, I think, and a lot of clean up times.  The house is usually in good shape, but it is hard keeping all the toys picked up with a toddler.

But!  Chris's mom rode the train in on Friday night to spend some time with Elizabeth (I think she is at mid-term).  We picked her up late at night.  Eliot did not like the noise, but his eyes nearly popped out of their sockets when he saw his Mawmaw!

In between our house showings and grading, we had lunch with Chris's mom and sister.  Then they hung out at our house for a while.

Today, Mawmaw and Elizabeth took Eliot off for a long date.  They visited Chris's grandmother, had lunch at Panera (Eliot's favorite!), and played at the park.  Chris and I had about twooo hours to ourselves to grade and get ready for the house showing.

Eliot goes off with family members so happily.  I always worried about separation anxiety, especially since we both work from home, but he just says, "Bye-bye."  And that is it.  Either it is just his personality or maybe he feels so secure that he is fine being away from us.

Everything is quicker without a toddler pulling you away.  I missed him badly, even though we were working and it was a short period of time, but I think  maybe for our sanity, we should try to get some time alone more often.  Sometimes we need a chance to decompress and not hide our food (greedy baby).

After a few showings, we decided to try taking the baby gates down.  The house feels so much better without interrupted flow.  This worked OK for a while--until Eliot dumped a whole box of couscous on the ground.

Later, all five of us went to dinner at Harbor Inn.  I think we mostly go to see all the silly sharks and whales.  It had been a while since we took Eliot there; this time, he was much more aware and excited about the sharks.  However, the food is so fried that I think I can go a long time without eating there again.

So, that has been us the past few days.  Chris's mom has an early train back home tomorrow morning.  My grading is done.  My final grades are saved and I will submit them a little later when I have "fresh eyes" to go over all of the details.  It is always a relief to get that done.  And a new sub-term begins tomorrow.