Amsterdam

In about 10 days I am leaving for Amsterdam. For a month. Alone.

It is terribly exciting. Its kind of the follow-up to the Fulbright I did not get and the residency I have not been doing since we began to have the sweet kiddos.

ah, the kiddos. There's the rub.

I am going to be gone a month. Simon is a sweet and often easily sad boy. Oh, sure he can be mollified with tv pretty much anytime, but I'm worried/racked with guilt.

I have no doubts about Katie with the kids for a month--it will be hard and I certainly appreciate her efforts to bring this all together. In a great many ways, this would never happen without her constant support and enthusiasm. She's a rock star and a great Mom.

At least Eloise isn't talking too much and won't be able to say "are you ever coming home?" to me on the phone, like Simon did when I went away for 4 days in 2004.

I don't know how much I will be talking to Simon n the phone either. I am planning on sending a great number of postcards and emailing daily. But I'm worried about the calls. I think I'm hoping K will just keep him distracted for a month and then when I show up on Halloween, he'll be like, "oh, you're back so soon."

My coping mechanism is to do as much as I can before I leave, so that it will appear as if I have just left the room.

In addition to cleaning up things, getting the house stocked, the pantry organized and filled with the staples that the family could subsist on if the grocery store is out of the question, I am planning on a few treats.

I'm making mix cd's for Katie, Simon and Eloise (although her's is more of the cd where the extra songs that did not fit on the other cds went).

A dvd of me reading books for Eloise, and maybe a couple for Simon. Of course, this in contingent on being able to figure out how to use the IDVD on my mac as well as transferring out DV Tapes onto my computer.

A story cd (Simon will usually request a story in the car--the favorites are "Star Wars", and we are talking the whole trilogy, and various Super Hero stories, usually needing to involve every single traditional superhero he can think of as well as Super Simon (of course), the Teenage Mutant ninja turtles and yoda.) The story is titled "The Superfriends and the legion of Doom VS the Planet Eater". (Simon recently requested a story in which the Superfriend and the Legion of Doom worked together..I'm oddly proud of him for that). This is of course, contingent on figuring out how to convert a Windows Media file into a mp3 format or some such thing.

I'm also making a calendar for simon to mark off days until Halloween. I'm going to be pasting pictures of evryone I know who will be visiting to paste on the days when they are here.

That may be it. I've finished my large work that i had to before I left, so now its all about getting everything else ready.