Rare Date Night

My husband and I enjoyed an evening out together for the first time in a LONG LONG TIME. The last time we had needed a babysitter was a year ago last November, when we celebrated a friend's 50th birthday with other friends. I honestly do not remember the last time my husband and I went out for dinner alone! It could have been almost two years ago, on an occasion when my sister in law was visiting.

Anyways, we went to an Indian Restaurant. My husband, who works for an British-owned company, was introduced to this restaurant by some of his co-workers who are from England. Neither of us has much familiarity with Indian food so this was a bit of an adventure for us.

When we left we had two babysitters and one of Samuel's helpers at our house. His helper went home within a half hour after that. Our babysitters have known us for 6 years and it is such a relief to be able to leave our children with them without a worry. Even though we don't need a babysitter very often, they are over at our house regularly to help me in other ways so our children know them and are very comfortable with them. They are wonderful with Samuel, without my having to go into all kinds of explanations of how to do things with him or for him.

Thank you, fellow bloggers!

I'm taking some time this morning to forget about housework (which I should forget about on Sunday, a day of rest, anyways!), schoolwork, and other pending things I have so that I can catch up with my fellow bloggers. I haven't had much time to "visit" with everyone that I like to catch up with. Besides the other blogs I have listed there are lots of others I like to look at too!

Anyways, I think back to how alone I felt before I started blogging compared to how much support, comraderie, knowledge, and even entertainment I experience by blogging and "visiting" other bloggers. I am so glad to have this at a time when I'm less able to get out and about outside of my home!

Quiet Time, More Fuel for My Sanity

I've mentioned before that my children have a late bedtime, partly to accomodate Samuel's "natural time clock." He just isn't ready to settle down at night much before 9:30 or 10:00. A few years ago there were many nights that he was up well past 11pm, or if he did fall asleep earlier then he was up and rarin' to go at about 3:30am! Samuel's sleep patterns are much more "normal" now. Even if he does wake up in the middle of the night we are usually able to get him to go back to sleep without too much trouble.

Anyways, because they are up so late at night they sleep in later in the morning. I do my best to get up early because this is the best time for me to be alone and get a few things done around the house. Sometimes I do this late at night, but that is more difficult because I'm often worn out at the end of the day.

Well, youngest son just peered over my shoulder and asked "Mommy, when you gonna get us breakfast?" Time's up! "Mommy, where's my sippy cup!"

My Computer, My Friend

We recently made the switch from dial-up to high speed internet. In the process of loading the software to take care of this, the person helping us could not load it onto the hard drive of my computer. He had to take it away to clean up the memory and I was without my computer for a week! I was so worried about being without it! How would I live without my e-mail address book?!!! Fortunately I did have another computer available to use (though it didn't have a good printer), I was able to check my e-mail an alternate way, I survived without my address book, and I was able to create homework for Samuel manually. Talk about roughing it though! I feel LOST without my computer, my access to the internet (ie my link to the rest of the world), and a good printer!

I've had my computer back for a little over a week now and life is good again. Now I just have to figure out how to get Outlook to pick up my e-mails again. That is a glitch that I haven't ironed out yet.

I don't know how I would keep my sanity as the mother of a special needs child without my computer!