Good morning, America!

Or is it evening? Don't ask me; I have a 9 mo old baby trying to adjust to a twelve hour time change. Baby jet lag: a reason to bid on the western hemisphere. -- 4/5 of the Mobile Home Family has repatriated into the US, waiting for one forlorn family member to meet the requirements of his TED and join us in DC, where we will spend a year in training at FSI. Brian will be learning Albanian, and Kyle and I will be taking advantage of everything NoVa and DC have to offer: Trader Joe's, fresh air, glorious, tree filled parks, and huge, shady off leash dog parks. Most of our closest Manila friends are also in DC for training, and we will be rejoining with friends from A-100. I'm looking forward to it. -- I am not thrilled about leaving my part time job at CLO, and my full time yaya behind in Manila. I love spending so much time with my baby, but I am not used to never having a break from baby care. Elmo turns out to be a miracle worker. When I really need 15 minutes to eat, use the restroom, or just stare at the wall, Best of Elmo 2 comes to my rescue. Kyle has never been an easy sleeper, and add a huge time change and a lot of home hopping into the mix and you have a baby who won't sleep in a crib. So far every nap has either been in arms or in the stroller. He's in the stroller right now, which is allowing me to write this post. -- The next few months will be an interesting identity shift for me. Before we had Kyle, no one EVER asked me if I were a housewife. Now that there's a baby, suddenly I'm a homemaker, even if I'm working part time. I guess before I was just a lucky duck, traveling the world with Paycheck (as my friend Nick affectionately refers to our spouses), and our dogs. Fine, I accept my role as a 24-7 caregiver, and my salary is the money we are saving by not bringing our yaya with us to DC. It was my decision to not bring our nanny with us--without a job I simply couldn't justify the cost, and hopefully we will find a good caregiver in Albania so I can work. -- And he's up, so off I go.