During My One Week Course

This week officially started my second-to-last quarter of b-school. Since I only took 4 courses (as opposed to 5) last quarter, I decided to take a one-week course before Q3 started. It's a little intense trying to cram a whole quarter's worth of learning into a single week, but somehow I survived. What's more, the class--The Consulting Process--was actually valuable given my new chosen profession. This "real" quarter isn't going to be much less intense, however. My classes include:

• Mergers and Acquisitions
• Small-Enterprise Finance
• Financial Statement Analysis and Corporate Valuation
• Intro to Real Estate Finance and Development
• General Managers Taking Action

In short, the next 9 weeks are going to be busy, but fun.

While I was worrying about school this week, here are some of the other things that were going on at home.

Let's start with Max. His neck is really getting strong and he does well sitting in the Exer-Saucer, swing, or doing "tummy time." He is improving his coo-ing skills. He's getting better at responding back when you "talk" to him. One of the most adorable exchanges of his life so far occurred Friday night when Megan and he went back and forth for about 5-7 minutes. Megan would make a sound and Max would immediately try to imitate it--even to sticking out his tongue. Further, he's figured out the thumb-sucking thing pretty well by now.

Continuing with the music brainwashing, his shirt says, "I'm with the band " (thanks to Jen for the cute onesie!).

Last week, I may have given the impression that Kaitlyn is becoming quite a handful. So this week, rather than relate the details of her 4 "accidents " where she didn't make it to the bathroom on time, or her writing on Megan's Stampin' Up cards that Megan had made, or her finding and consuming Alison's candy, I thought I'd focus on how adorable Kaitlyn is and why we're so glad she's in our family.

Kaitlyn loves dresses. She loves skirts. She loves anything "girly" (except getting her hair done). On Thursday night Kaitlyn was playing at the top of the stairs and yelled down to me, "Dad! I'm a princess, and I need you to dance with me on the stairs in my palace!"

At other random moments, she's blurted out, "Dad, I'm a princess" to inform me, in case I wasn't already aware. She also walks around taking bows and doing curtsies (as you can somewhat see below).

She's also continued to develop her mad photography skills. Behold this shot of Max, taken at a distance of about 4 inches from his face. I like the way the eyes stand out.

However, one story about Kaitlyn's mischief bears some telling. (Besides, it's partly about Megan too!) We bought a case of juice boxes to put in Ali's school lunches. When we're not looking Kaitlyn will get into it. When Megan catches her, she'll say, "I was getting this one out for Dad for later." Well, Megan had about enough of Kaitlyn getting into the case, so she told me she was going to do something about it. It was time to take some security precautions. This is what she came up with--

BEFORE:

AFTER:

I think I'll just take the case and try to find some room on the fridge for it.

The highlight of Megan's week was buying a new soft and fuzzy robe at Old Navy at the bargain price of $8.00. When she's relaxing before bed, it looks like she's just back from the day spa. However, when I asked about getting a picture for the blog she said, "Are you kidding? The robe adds 10-pounds, the camera adds 10-pounds, and all of a sudden I'm a contestant on The Biggest Loser!"

She also started training this week for a mini-marathon she plans on running on April 19th, and so far, she's totally rocking it. (See how supportive I am.)

Alison continues to amaze me with her learning. We bought her some dry erase markers for her white board, and each day since then she's made her schedule, or checklist, for the day.

She writes the date at the top and then draws a box next to each line item so she can place a checkmark in each one when she completes it. In case you can't read words in the picture above, her list says:

• Go to school.
• Trets (treats) box.
• Go houm (home).
• Do what I'm doing rite (right) now.
• ?
• ?
• TV
• Dinre (Dinner)
• Game night
• Sleep

Aah...the complicated life of a 5-year old.

She's also been looking forward to the 100th day of school. On Friday when I picked her up from the bus stop, she told me that she was excited about the 100th day of school coming up. I asked her what day of school it was and she replied that it was the 89th day of school. I asked her how many more days it would be until the 100th day. She paused. Then the answered with confidence: Eleven! Wow.

She does love numbers. And sports. This week while she was playing pretend basketball in the hall, she yelled to me, with excitement, "Dad! (while still bouncing the ball) I have 366 points. Help me remember that!"

So, here it goes: Ali, you have 366 points.