12 12 12

Back to work for me and Hans.

I’m mentally bracing myself for this week. Hans starts residency on July 1st (that’s tomorrow!) with a month of 12 hour shifts, 5 days a week. So that’s not too bad: a 60 hour work week with a day off here and there. Except when a patient comes in at the end of his shift and his 12 hour shift turns into a 14 hour shift. And except when he has to work 5 12s in a row and then needs at least one day to recuperate. Easy for me to understand, but not easy for the girls to let him sleep instead of playing with them.

I have two different challenges: free time for me and small boat projects.

In addition to the two hours in the middle of the day I usually get when both the girls nap, I’m trying to carve out some time while the girls are both awake to relax. Hans’s 12 hour shifts are also 12 hour shifts for me. Matilda wakes up at 5:45 every morning. Freja goes to bed around 8pm. The other day they both played in portable bathtubs on the back deck and I sat in the shade and read my book. On Friday morning while Matilda was napping, Freja and I sat on the back deck and ate peach cobbler and drank cappuccinos. Not too shabby. Right now Freja is napping and Matilda is just waking up. I hear her in the vee-berth, but she’s happy and singing and talking, so I’ll let her play alone for a few more minutes.

A few small projects need to get done to modify our liveaboard life to living in the hot Florida sun.

Transportation: I just bought a used bike trailer off craigslist so I can tow the girls behind the bike instead of taking the bus. Riding the bike will be hot, but walking and then waiting for the bus in full sun is hotter. We’ll go on our inaugural trip this morning.

Projects: These are all things I can do by myself, but it’s hard to get stuff done on the boat and take care of the girls at the same time. The minute I start working on something, Matilda invariably falls and starts crying or Freja desperately needs to change her t-shirt or get a drink of water.

• Screens for the hatches. In preparation for the trip down the ICW, we put no-see-um netting over the big hatches. It turned out to successfully keep out the no-see-ums and any breeze. Since I’m happy to keep the a/c turned off, we need some bigger gauge screening to keep the flies and mosquitos out.
• Fans for the hatches. The tandem project is to mount box fans inside the hatches so we can get even more breeze, but a bug-free breeze.
• Shade. We have a small tarp over the foredeck, shading the vee-berth, but I’d like to get a much bigger tarp to shade the entire foredeck and potentially keep it dry so we can keep the hatches open during rain.
• Dinghy. Pull the dinghy up out of the water, clean, deflate tubes.

Nothing really big, but necessary. The biggest challenge is having Hans back at work instead of on vacation like he has been for the past couple months. I have to get used to solo parenting again, during the days at least. It’s nice to get the girls on a schedule and they appreciate routine, but, like most parents, the days are looong but the weeks, months, and years are short.