Falco just finished his first week of preschool, and he adores it so far. From the minute we got there on the first day, he dove right in like he was at an amusement park. He isn’t upset when I leave, so it’s easy to kiss him goodbye and be on my way on my days off. (I drop him off three mornings and stay one morning each work because I’m a working parent.) The hardest part is getting him to leave when I pick him up.

I’m a little sad that he’s going to be three years old and is growing up so fast, but we were both ready for this. He has way too much energy to be contained, and there he can run and play and do art projects and get filthy for a few hours while I get a break a few mornings a week. It’s great that we chose a co-op because I’m still up in his business enough to make the separation easier (on me).

Oh, and did I mention that he gets filthy there? There is a huge playground/sand area, usually a painting project, and always a water table. Mix those with a child who constantly runs from one activity to the next, and you get wet clothes dragging in the dirt, sandy paint in hair, etc. I’m not one who’s fond of outdoors or getting dirty, but Falco is so happy that I don’t mind having to strip him at the door before he can come inside after school. I’ll leave you with this photo of his wet, sandy socks from his first day.

Today, Falco and I went with a crew of friends to the Jelly Belly factory in Fairfield, CA. It was my brilliant idea, and we were both pretty excited about it. The hour-long drive went well, and Falco was giddy when we got out of the car and he saw the enormous jelly bean out front. That was probably the happiest moment we had there.

We got inside, and it was a huge place with high ceilings and a million kinds of candy dispensers and loads of people and color everywhere. What started as a fun, exciting adventure quickly turned into an overstimulating, over-crowded hellscape for my child. After a half hour of waiting for the tour to start, he had deteriorated into a hitting, whining, squirming mess. I thought we just needed to get the tour (and fun) started to get the good times rolling, but he was well past the point of no return by the time we got our paper hats and made it upstairs for the tour.

By the time the (lame) tour started, he had already struck pretty much every adult and child in our party and would not stop whining about wanting a beverage and why was it taking so long and when could we go home, etc. About 10 minutes in (about an hour after arrival), I finally carried him out of there like a sack of potatoes and sat in the car with a crying kid until we both calmed down.

After our cronies made it out with free jelly beans in hand, we went to Westfield Mall and ate lunch at Chick-Fil-A, which made it all worth it. Falco had pulled himself together by lunchtime, and good times were had by all. (I need to go email Mr. Chick-Fil-A right now and beg for a San Francisco location.)

Moral of the story: If your kid gets frustrated and overstimulated and mean in crowded indoor spaces, don’t take him to busy factory tours. Also, Chick-Fil-A makes delicious chicken sandwiches.

It’s that time again. Time for a huge catchup post because I’ve fallen behind. This time I’m even more behind than usual because something went horribly wrong with my Wordpress. I couldn’t log into my own blog, but thankfully Matt straightened it out. Now I can fill you in on the last couple months.

1. We thought we didn’t get into any preschools because we only applied to two and we were waitlisted at both. We thought we’d hang around at Slippery Fish for another year, but then we got a call from Playmates at the end of May with the good news that a 3-day morning spot opened up for Falco. We were thrilled to accept, and Falco will start there at the end of August. It’s a co-op, so I’ll work one morning and he’ll be there without me two mornings each week.

2. At the beginning of June, Falco fell down a step at school and broke his clavicle! It was very sad, and he had a rough couple days. He didn’t need a sling or anything, so we just had to wait for it to heal. He bounced back incredibly quickly. Within a week he was only guarding it a little, and after three weeks he seemed like nothing ever happened.

3. A few days after Falco’s injury, I got rear ended again, smashing the rear window again. The dude who hit me wanted to pay for it on his own, and I went to a body shop where he knew the owner. The guy ended up getting a black door that he could swap out so it was a cheap fix, which was fine with me. However, now the back door doesn’t quite match, it isn’t water tight (which I need to get fixed), and the exhaust makes a weird noise. It just passed 100,000 miles and is looking a little worse for wear, so I’m hoping to trade up for a Prius soon anyway.

4. We went to Mississippi last week, and Falco did great. The flights were 1,000 times better than last time, and he slept well and was cute and fun. We stayed in a fancy pants condo on the beach with a gorgeous pool, and that made for a nice getaway. It was really nice to see my family, and I was especially glad Falco got to see his great grandma, Ma-Ma Hazel, who is about to be 97!

5. The pets are all fine. Rosco is back on meds for his only eye, and he has regained some vision. Adelaide is stable on her current meds and pretty much acts like a civilized pet again, though I don’t really trust her alone in the house. Miu is still around and unremarkable.

I think that’s all the exciting news I have to share, and people probably stopped reading a couple paragraphs ago anyway. Stay tuned for photos TOMORROW!

Matt’s startup, Cubetree, has been in stealth mode for over a year. Today was the official public launch, and it’s all very exciting. Check it out (for free!) and invite some coworkers.

Are you like me in that you depend on your husband to find all your new music, counting on him to look for new quirky, upbeat, probably British, indie pop bands? Well, you might not be exactly like me, but maybe you don’t know where to find new music. Head on over to CD Baby and see what you can find! There you can browse ridiculously specific genres and listen to samples, read reviews, and download MP3s. As I type this, I am downloading three CDs of bands I never would have known about unless Matt happened to find them, and I can’t wait to hear more. Check it out!

A few times lately, I’ve caught glimpses of my reflection and worried that I’m just a few burritos away from seeing zoomed in footage of my belly on a CNN story about obesity. The question is, what do I do about it? I’m not going to give up wine or burritos or chevre or wine or pizza or wine, that’s for sure. I used to be able to lose a few pounds by skipping breakfast a few days in a row, but now that I’m past thirty, it’s not so easy, and I hear it only gets worse. So, this means, ugh, adding exercise to the picture.

Fortunately, I have good friends who go to a good gym. After going as their guest to the very nice, new UCSF gym a couple of times to take our kids swimming, I joined with the aspiration of working out at least twice a week. Tomorrow is the big day. I’m meeting two of said peeps to go to a spinning class. Falco is prepped that he is going to stay for an hour at their kids’ club with two of his friends from school, and I am going to do my best to not have a heart attack while trying to keep up with my two athletic pals. I hope to live to tell you how it goes.

At her recheck yesterday, Adelaide is up about seven pounds, and an overweight whippet is just so wrong. She used to be such a refined, delicate animal, and now she’s a desperate scavenger. The vet told us we could stop the phenobarbital as of yesterday, so here’s hoping that her appetite gets back to normal.

On the Falco front, so far two is the cutest age ever. He is talking a lot (constantly) and is very busy and fun. Right now he’s super snotty with probably his fifth cold so far this winter, but he is enjoying all the holiday decorations all the same. I’ll post Thanksgiving and birthday photos and stories as soon as I can tear myself away from Fable 2. Who can blog about their kid when there’s polygamy and arena battles to be done?

We had a pretty fun Halloween, and I have the photos to prove it. Falco was a turkey, or a chicken according to most people. He was a real sport about keeping his costume on, just like last year. He had four opportunities to wear it, at the zoo, at school, on actual Halloween, and at a day-after party at our house. We’re hoping to still get more use out of the turkey suit for Thanksgiving, though that seems a little weird since we will be eating said bird.

OK, so maybe I overreacted a tad with my last post assuming that Adelaide’s days were numbered. I freaked out when her condition started deteriorating again, but after increasing her steroids again, she is doing well. She is back to having a ridiculous appetite, but we’ll taper her again in a couple weeks. Her disease is strange and variable, so we never know what to expect, but she seems out of the woods again for now.

For those of you who don’t know the story, Matt was hit by a car while riding his bike to the train station on 9/30. The driver didn’t see him and made a quick right turn, taking my poor husband out in the process. I got a very scary call on my way to Falco’s school from a stranger calling from Matt’s cell phone. He said that Matt was in an accident and asked him to call me to let me know. The stranger, Tom, said that he was OK but confused, and an ambulance was on the way. Matt does not remember Tom or asking him to call me, but I’m so glad he did. I dropped Falco at school and met Matt at the emergency room. His poor head was banged up, but he was awake and oriented.

Turns out he was scraped and bruised all over and had facial fractures. He was wearing his helmet, which definitely protected him from worse head trauma, but his poor face still hit the asphalt. He needed a laceration repair on his eyebrow and ultimately surgery to correct his fracture. There are many stories about his time in the ER and rechecks and day of surgery that are outdated and unpleasant, so suffice it to say that he is recovering and doing well, all things considering.

You may remember that we have a child, Falco, who I used to tell you about, post cute photos of, etc. I will be sure to write my next post soon about how hilarious, adorable, and brilliant he is. Stay tuned.

No time to write because it’s 10:30 and I’m sleepy, but I just wanted to say that pooping on the potty (by Falco) has happened, twice in the past four days!

Oh, and tomorrow morning Matt is having surgery to repair his broken cheekbone from when he was hit by a car on his bike two weeks ago. I KNOW I should have mentioned it sooner, but I’m telling you now, m’kay? He is OK but still has to get through this surgery and recovery.

That’s all the breaking news for now.