This week

So this was the first week without Natalie's mother. Our safety net returned home on Monday. This was a fine week to start out because it was a very short week. Monday was pretty well spent getting her to the airport after dropping off Sophia at day care. I had an eye doctor's appointment in the afternoon, so I took the day off. So Monday wasn't so bad. Today is Friday, and Good Friday is a holiday here at NATO. So, we only had to manage 3 real working days this week. Next week, Monday is also a holiday (Easter Monday) making for another short week. We are trying to enjoy a four day weekend here, but it has gotten off to an inauspicious start as Sophia's runny nose turned into Daddy's sore throat.

On Tuesday, NATO had the flag raising ceremony inducting two new nations. Albania and Croatia are now the 27th and 28th members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization or "the alliance" as everyone was saying. "The alliance" sounded too much like something from Star Wars on some other Sci-Fi movie for me. Anyways, the Albanian prime minister spoke in a semi-rambling speech where he stated many, many times that Albania wasn't corrupt. It was a welcome to NATO speech and he was stating numbers like he was reading an Excel spreadsheet. "In Dec 08, we had 2.7 million visitors to our great country...There is no crime.." Me thinks he doth protest too much.


Not much else happened this week as we were simply putting on a plate spinning act trying to handle the kids in a new routine. Natalie walked down the block to a small clinic and had Matthew weighed yesterday. He has gained more weight back and is now at or slightly above his birth weight. This weekend, provided we stay healthy, we will start to make a serious push to get Sophia potty trained. Stay tuned for updates on that.