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Getting behind in the blog is what I'm really good at. Sometimes I'm a month or more behind in my journal, with little notes scrawled to myself to later go back and fill in the details. But somehow that doesn't feel as shameful as when I get behind on the internet, where my sloth won't go undetected. And the way I've currently got it set up, I don't even know who all is detecting my sloth. Speaking of which, a journalist friend has convinced my that I am too trusting and should really password-protect this blog because journalists scour people's personal pages and you never know where this stuff might wind up. And although I don't think I've said anything too revealing or compromising, it would be a shame if Jack ran for president someday and was swiftboated by something his silly mommy blogged about 35 years previously. So I will create a password system. And if you want to keep reading this, tell me and I will create an account for you or whatever it is that I'm supposed to do. Or better yet-- lets make this a fun game. If you want to keep reading this, leave a comment with your best advice you can offer young Jack Llewellyn, that you wish you knew at his age, or any age. That will make a nice little printout for the keepsake books.

Anyway, back to me being behind. I decided to delegate our Oregon trip to Danny because the best way to catch up on what you're behind on is to spread the behindness around. After we got back, I had a brief few days of scrambling around, trying to get stuff done, meeting with the GK-12 program that's starting up alarmingly soon and we still have no idea what we're doing, and paying way too much for babysitting because my regulars are back in school and the only people available are real nannies who charge real nanny rates that I can't afford which is why I worked out this whole childcare swap that hadn't started yet but will run for the rest of the school year. I am aware that that is a horrible run-on sentence, but careful, measured sentences just don't convey the sense of harriedness that was last week.

Thursday we left as soon as Jack woke up to head south for our GK-12 fellows field trip. I stopped in San Jose on the way to pick up Grandma because she was going to take care of Jack while I was off learning how to set mammal traps and noose lizards. What would I do without grandma, seriously? I know we often look enviously on people with parents in town who can help them out with childcare, but really, I am so fortunate to have my grandma so close. And not just so close, but so willing to go with me wherever I drag her and entertain Jack along the way. He absolutely adores her. She taught him how to clap, how to wave, how to do "SO BIG" and how to pay very close attention to the many songs she she sang him and games she played with him. I got one on video, and it occurs to me that I should really record all these songs because they're not written down and they don't seem to exist anywhere besides her head. I told her that, and she said she'd rather just write them down, because her singing doesn't need to be preserved for posterity. I beg to differ.


Anyway, so after two days of Jack having quality time with his nana while his mommy was off gallivanting through the wilds of the UC Hastings Reserve in some of the hottest weather Carmel Valley has ever experienced, we went to spend some time in Pacific Grove with Aunt Annette (who purportedly hates being called "Aunt Annette" even though or perhaps because when I was little I thought her name was just Antannette, like Antoinette, but not). Aunt Annette has a bouncy ball she uses for yoga that Jack just loves. I got video of that, too.

We then had a wedding to attend in Carmel and Carmel Valley. Jack came to the ceremony on the beach, and enjoyed playing in the sand while vows were said and rings were exchanged,


but mommy and daddy decided they'd have a little more fun without him at the reception, so he stayed and played with Annette and grandma. We were ever so grateful for the care. It's one thing to have family you can rely and/or impose on, it's another to have family that is so good at taking care of your kid you wonder if they shouldn't take over permanently. (As evidenced by the fact that I raced home from setting traps one night at Hastings because I thought I was late for putting Jack to bed and he would be melting down, and found him instead asleep ON GRANDMA'S LAP!! Are you kidding me? He would never do that for me! She is magic!)

We had a very excellent time celebrating the union of our friends Becky and Kevin, the Berkeley girls were as classy as ever...

... and the boys were, well, boys


And now I think I am caught up! I probably left out some important details that I will remember later, but that was the gist of it.