Under New Management

I guess I wasn't fired so much as I was put under new management. The company Frank works for no longer wants to pay for his English lessons, but he is perfectly willing to continue to pay for them himself. At least I know now that he is satisfied. Today he took our family to see the project he is working on. He works for a German company the makes round concrete forms. They're currently building a digestor at a big farm north of town. Even though I must confess I didn't really understand any of how it works, it was neat to see. It's huge and round and concrete. When it's done, the farmer can fill it up with corn waste and it will create methane which will then be his energy source to power his farm. At the construction site, Lizzy just wanted me to let her down so she could run around and fall off stuff, trip over things, and generally get herself hurt. Eventually we were able to let her play in some gravel. The rocks fascinated her, and she gave everyone there handfuls of them. She is so generous.

Tomorrow Better be Sunny

Today should have been a good day. But then I got fired. I (used to) tutor an Austrian man in English three days a week, but his company called me today and said they no longer wish to pay for this. Is it bad to hope this is a result of the weak economy? I'd rather assume that they're desperately trying to save pennies than think they were dissatisfied with my work. English is a hard language. It can't be learned in only a couple of months. Oh well. So now I find myself with free time in the evening and no spending money. I'm sure I can find enough projects to fill the time, and I'm trying not to feel sad about the money. It really doesn't affect our financial stability, but it was nice to be contributing something.
The other thing that was not fun about today was the WIC appointment Lizzy had. She was fine- happy, playing, smiling - until we walked into the room where they weigh and measure her. She threw one of her biggest tantrums yet. For some reason, nurses and doctors TERRIFY her. She clung to me, sobbing and screaming while I tried to get her clothes off and put her on the scale. It took a very long time, and we never did get an accurate reading, because she never stopped screaming and thrashing around. Once her clothes were back on, she was fine. Maybe she's just very shy.
And if her behavior wasn't bad enough, she fell off the chart as far as weight for length. She is basically tall, and very, very skinny. I'm not shocked by this (the child won't eat), but I can't help but feel a little bit like a failure. Why can't I get my child to eat? Anyway, tomorrow has to be better.

Jingle Bells

I am so exited for Christmas this year. I think Lizzy is just old enough to really appreciate the lights, the music, the decorations, the presents . . . all of it! And if there are even half the sweets at Christmas as there were on Thanksgiving, she is going to be one happy little girl. On Saturday we got our Christmas tree. We bought it from a little stand that was only about a block and a half away from our apartment, so we didn't have to strap it to the car or anything. My big strong man CARRIED it home. (It helps that the tree is only about 4 feet tall.) We decorated it right away, and I think Lizzy had a great time throwing the ornaments at the branches. It's been a bit difficult teaching her that all those interesting objects have to STAY on the tree, though.

Lizzy was very helpful:

The finished product:

You can sorta see the tree behind all these people:

My Big Strong, Tree-carrying Man! (I made that hat!)