Wander & Nest

The transitions continued in week 2 with a rough start to the week in terms of sleep, but by the weekend we found a better groove and everyone is feeling much better!

Mara started the week with her first cold, which is totally expected with a new daycare and cool weather. Luckily it was very minor and she was good within a couple of days. We did take her to urgent care (via bus!) just to be sure. Urgent care in Christchurch was very similar to the US on paper, except that there was almost no wait time! The nurses, doctors, and staff were all very nice and helpful. It’s good to know that it’s there and easy to access if we need it again. She didn’t need a mask but she really really wanted to wear one 😂

We kept her home on Monday and delayed her daycare transition by a day just to give her an extra day to recover from her cold. She was fine so we spent the day running some errands on the bus. The bus system is good! Of course I got on the wrong bus once, but we managed to get back on track, and we managed to cover lots of ground. Mara had fun running around the mall, making friends with mannequins, and finding another toddler play area.

Mara finished her daycare transition on Tuesday and officially started on Wednesday. The fact that she’s been a daycare kid since 5 months of age definitely made this transition easy. She’s absolutely loving it and sometimes doesn’t want to leave in the afternoon. The group is small and they do all kinds of activities… they made bread and cookies last week. How is that possible with 2-3 year olds?!? Must be magic.

I got to walk around campus a bit early this week. The University of Canterbury feels very similar to the university feel Wylie and I experienced at Illinois or Cal Poly. The campus is pretty good sized with huge engineering facilities, lots of new construction (mainly for engineering), tons of areas to walk, streams running through campus, food spots and corner shops sprinkled around, and of course chalk. Chalk everywhere! I love it ❤️

We had lots of rain last weekend so not the best time to explore. Plus after a busy and full week of work and daycare, we were ready to relax at home a bit.

We’re all starting to feel a bit more settled and of course the moment we do we’ll be ready for an adventure! Good thing we just secured a 1996 RAV4 to make that possible. Mara got a kiwi car seat too, she’s much more excited about it that she looks here.

In lieu of summer Fridays off work I’m doing winter Mondays, and today is my first real one with Mara now in daycare full time. So I’m off to try out a Pilates class!