Satisfaction at Last

I waited all year to see the wisteria on this covered bridge in our park next door go into bloom. We ran into the head gardener for that park around the same time, and he insisted that it was not wisteria. Looks like it to me, though.

I have been a big blog flake for a long time now. I've been spending most of my non-Tristram time working on a chapter on interventions to help dementia caregivers for a geropsychiatry textbook, which the psychologist I RAed for between college and grad school was kind enough to offer me first-author slot on so I could get a more recent publication on my CV and have a better chance of getting a job. It's a lot of fun, but it's a weird, weird format. I would be astounded if anyone could show me evidence that practitioners actually change their practice in any significant way after reading such a document--and yet these books are very popular. They are called textbooks, but they're not for students. They're for practicing clinicians, in this case psychiatrists and other MDs. What seems weird about the format is that 5000 words is far too little to actually teach people to do new things they don't know how to do, but too much to just say "refer your patients to a specialist who does X, Y, and Z." No, the rhetorical goal of the format here seems to be to give people the illusion that after reading one chapter, they'll be ready to run right out and start treating these people effectively--but at the same time, to make sure that they have enough real information they won't do something really stupid like just hand out a referral to a support group and think they've provided effective treatment for all eventualities.

At the same time, we've been getting ready for our move. Tonight is my last night sleeping in this apartment; Friday afternoon Tris and I will move to a hotel near CDG so Jonathan can have that night and Saturday morning to clean. We want our deposit back! He hands in the keys on Saturday (the French won't work on Sundays), and we fly out Monday morning. That's going to be a long day of travel with a 17-month-old. In the meantime, we've been trying to make arrangements for when we get back. We've got our apartment, we've got internet set up (we're foregoing cable for the time being), we're trying to set up child care. That would be a lot easier if our boss for the summer would stop changing my schedule around. Arranging a babysitter from overseas is a little complicated to begin with; add in that I've now had to say, "Sorry, forget that whole morning thing--now I need afternoons--and maybe two other mornings, but I don't know yet," and I will be surprised if I'm not frantically scrambling up to the last minute despite my best efforts to do it early. There will be plenty of other things to do when we get back--get Jonathan a bike, get his driver's license renewed, hopefully get me some health insurance, get Tristram set back up for MediCal for kids, finish this chapter, resume looking for a real job...

Tristram is great. He is 13.4 kilos now (29.5 lbs) and 84 cm tall (33 inches). He got his vaccinations at the doctor's on Tuesday (it's a lot easier to do them a shade early here than to wait till we get back), and now he doesn't need shots again for a year, then for five years. He did not cry at all, which amazed the doctor. She couldn't stop saying how rare that is. He was just delighted that we all clapped for him.

He is finally de-spoiled. He now understands that Mama and Daddy will, when he asks for his drink, for example, tell him where it is and say, "Go get it!" And we will just laugh if he starts crying because he wants someone else to walk across the room for him and bring it to him. He is definitely in the "No" stage, but he's not belligerent about it. The one issue now is that he throws things at us. He only does it when he's trying to play with us or is excited; it's never an angry/aggressive thing. But I got a split lip this week nonetheless. His throwing abilities far outstrip his ability to understand that we don't throw hard toys at people or inside the house. I have also caught Jonathan gleefully throwing blocks with him twice in the last week, both times hours after complaining bitterly to me that he doesn't understand why Tristram won't stop. I think I have a pretty good idea why not.