This has been a long week. It was the first week of summer break from school and I was simply not prepared. I joined Care.com and set up interviews for caregivers/respite help, one for each day this week and I think I’ve found someone that will work with us this summer. Anna just needs constant interaction and supervision and it can be tiring. She wants to play outside and it gets hot pretty early so we will be spending lots of time at the rec center this summer.
Dominic has been really unhappy for a while now and I’m not sure what is going on with him. Jenny thinks he is beginning to realize the full implications of Anna’s challenges and having some complicated feelings about that. Whatever it is, he is darn grumpy and making everyone miserable. I hate seeing him so sad and upset, it’s killing me. I’ve tried most of my tricks and hardly anything can get him to shift out of a bad mood anymore. It really is so sad.
Jenny left today for an 8-day cruise with her boyfriend and his family. I already miss her. Dominic actually bawled when Jenny left. That made all of us cry, it was very touching.
So we had our block party on Sunday and that was a success so I need to focus on remembering some fun stuff too. I need to get my butt in gear and create a summer schedule for the kids so they know how to earn screen time (computer, tv, video games) and when they have to do academic work. It helps them so much to have expectations. Once I get a caregiver hired, I’ll get that done next.
I haven’t even had time this week to really photograph for fun. I did a quick practice session with Anna the other night using my Speedlite as an OCF (off camera flash) where I attached it to my tripod. I didn’t want a full flash look, so I bounced it behind me at my reflector which my mom held up. Anna was so amenable and gave me some really nice smiles and eye contact! I really don’t know what I’m doing with the Speedlite outside though so I’m signing up for another class to learn more. I miss shooting! It almost makes me wish I had done P365 again this year just to force me to do this everyday. Yesterday was a particularly bad day so I loaded up the kids and we went exploring in a park new to us called Emma Long. I’ll share some photos from that adventure tomorrow.
