January 10th: What a boring day.

I woke up early this morning to take care of little E-bot (think 5 a.m. ish) and then did some work for a little bit translating letters for some of the kids at Renacer. (I figured, hey, I'm up, and even though Ethan went back to sleep, that could be for 5 minutes or 2 hours.) I eventually got re-tired and went back to bed. I was awakened by John saying "Fatima's here!" She's our part-time nanny, and since she just got back from a long trip this morning at 6 a.m., I told her to come to work late at 10 instead of 8 like normal. My first thought: Fatima can't be here. That would mean it's at least 10 a.m. and I am supposed to be at the home to do group therapy. Great. I just get back from vacation and already I've ticked off an educator by not showing up. Good times. I called Chi Chi, told him I wouldn't be able to make it (sorry sorry sorry!) and spent some time teaching Fatima how to use the formula we just started Ethan on and his new solid food schedule/ menu. Then I cranked out a couple more letter translations and responded to a mountain of email. (People, don't hate me. I really do get a lot of email and I wouldn't be that great about responding to it "promptly" even if there are only a couple. Yup. I'm a procrastinator.) Then I made lunch which was totally boring tuna fish wrap and this semi-gross diet salad that consisted of cucumbers and radishes with a vinager dressing. (If that sounds nasty, you're right. And I ate a bunch of it anyway. Uck.)

My day already half-over, I got down to a not-work-related but pretty important task: learning how to make baby food from scratch. I thought I'd have more time to figure this out, but when we returned to Bolivia on Sunday, I was not-too-surprised to find out that the blessed shipment of Gerber baby food had run out and there was no more to be had in the supermarket. Awesome. If we were just talking peas and applesauce, that's not such a big deal. I mean, how hard is it? You cook it, you put it in the blender with water, you blend. But now little E is into meat, combo foods, "level 3" chunky style, and it's a little trickier. So I read a bunch of stuff written by people who are super-serious about never ever ever ever no never serving your baby anything but homemade baby food, and I think I've got it figured out. E ate the last jar of "Chicken Vegetable Dinner" today, so I guess I'm going to the store tonight to buy ingredients. Wish me luck. I can make "real people" food, but baby food is a new culinary challenge for me, so we'll see. I can't wait to see Ethan make his "this-is-so-gross face" the first time he tries it. It's pretty cute and funny.

I finished off my day with some more email and reading some reports from our staff, and I gotta say: it was a boring day. Really pretty boring. I hope this blog captured the boredom by totally boring you too. :)

'Till next time,

Michelle