Finally Getting To See Silvia

Today was a busy day for me. And not because of that Little Guy with the now missing front tooth again <see pic>. Thank God it came out under Lisa's watch. And now I don't have to worry about it. I do have to worry about 4 meetings today starting from 9 AM on and on and on and on. Just as soon as I dropped Johnnie off, I made myself breakfast and hunkered down for the day. It turned out I didn't even have time to take a shower. First meeting was with the Data Team, which took 20 minutes and then what used to be the Communications Meeting now reconvened and repurposed and otherwise resurrected. I had a ton of material from the upcoming Tech Council Meeting of course and I just gave an overview of the activities of my 3 teams. I took long enough that I was given a 2-minute warning after a while. And then I had to cancel the EHR Team Meeting simply because I needed to work on other stuff. And then finally the Tech Council Meeting. Unlike the last couple of meetings I actually almost had a full complement for this meeting, which only meant that Marina and Eloisa and Dr Liao all attended. And so as it were, the last 2 meetings lasted barely a half hour. But today, it took all of 30 minutes just to talk about the stuff from the IS Team... which was the very first page of my presentation. It was clear I was going to need to cut myself off after a bit. The thing was that I was not anxious, nor did I feel any urgency. In fact, I was pretty calm and actually got to discuss lots of stuff and presented my information in such a way that engaged those that needed to participate. Well how about that. I ended up having a pretty good meeting anyway. And one that lasted the entire hour such as it were. And of course when I got done with it, came the big sigh of relief. One more month of the Tech Council Meeting all done and I think I can sort of chill for the rest of the week. And since I have time off most of next week, that means I am actually pretty much done until after THANKSGIVING. How about that?! I picked up Johnnie from school, and then we both picked up dinner at Panda Express. It was shaping to be another quiet evening. Until...

Johnnie was already done with dinner when we got a call from Lisa. She wanted to talk about tomorrow's Parent-Teacher conference although we had already planned that a while back. And then reluctantly, I asked her if she wanted us to go over to her house to see Silvia. She then told me Dexter was already on the way bringing pizza. Why can't she just have invited us to come for dinner early on? She is SO weird in that regard. And so we headed over to her house and finally we got to see Silvia and Gayane. It had been 3 years since I saw them, the summer I moved out of Maplewood and settled in to the apartment. And of course Johnnie is now much bigger and now there is Gayane. Lisa came home finally with Dexter in tow, because... why not? All he wanted to do was to hang out with Silvia as well. I had it in my mind that we were going to stick around until about 8;30, which would get us back into Johnnie's bedtime routine. And so the scene this evening was reminiscent of the last time they came over. For once there was food, and I can only imagine how bored Silvia had been all day waiting for Lisa to do something, which of course she doesn't really want to do. Still, Silvia talked about shopping which was not surprising considering she spends most of her time doing that anytime she visits. Hours and hours at Target, or Ross, or any other retail store. She talked about getting ProBiotics which is not so available in France. It was nice to see Gayane, who to me looked very much like Quentin. I can remember Johnnie was her age when we first brought him to France. And now look at the two of them?! Of course we all knew it would only be a matter of time before Lisa started to conk out on the couch. The difference also was now the dog has to be taken into account as she is grabbing at anything she can chew on, including the baby's pacifier LOL LOL. Anyway we all caught up a bit and then talked about getting together again on Friday night for a barbecue at Lisa's. And then Johnnie and i headed back. It was 8:30 and it was time for Johnnie to get ready for bed. It was clear that he was back to his usual self and Silvia commented that she was relieved that Johnnie eats as normal.  I guess everyone that sees what he eats around Lisa thinks that huh?! LOL. Tonight, though Johnnie was sad. He found out that Lisa went to the basketball game last night and he cried because he thought it wasn't fair that he wasn't included. Great Lisa. Break him again. I knew he was still emotional because he cried when I told Claire she couldn't sleep next to him on the couch. ??? Why would he be sad about that? Great. Now I have another mess to clean up...