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Wed. 2-9-59
Dear Mother & Daddy,
For the last week and a half, I've been learning the social worker game. It sure beats counting rolls of film. It's a little tough on Jim, since he has to get up so early, but we're all a little tired from adjusting to our new schedule. She was a little confused at first, but her schedule is beginning to agree with her. She really likes being with all those kids, but she's still awfully glad to see us at the end of the day. It's teaching her to play with her toys, instead of just pushing them around. She's only there four days out of the week for about 10 hrs., so we get plenty of time with her. As soon as I get organized with my caseload, I'll be in the field two days a week & able to spend my lunch hour with her on those days.
She has two teeth as of last Sat. She can use them artfully, on whatever falls within her grasp, accidentally or on purpose. She can say mamamam and dadadada now, & generally talk up a storm. Her falls are growing less frequent as she becomes steadier on her feet. Other vital statistics are that she
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now weighs 20 fat rosy pounds.
Though they still swim on her, she's wearing those blanket nighties you sent. We've had no trouble at all with her waking up in the middle night. She sleeps all over the crib now, in some pretty weird positions.
We're wheeling & dealing in anticipation of buying this place. I think I mentioned our bargain garbage disposal. We're getting dealers' price on cork tile flooring & building materials. We've lined up a pre-historic living-room set with a heavy hardwood frame so that we can have it covered with top grade naugahide over sponge rubber. Something like that won't sag under kid-pounding. All that is scheduled to happen after we buy the place. Right now, I have a date with a paint brush to make She's potty-chair look like a throne. She's about ready to learn what it's for. First things first!
Sat. My day of rest. Not really though, since there are a million things to do that I can't do during the week. It would be 100% worse, if Jim didn't do so much during the week.
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Last Sat. night, we went to a Club Inaugural dinner & really made a fun night of it. We got to see a lot of people that we have only seen once a year for the last couple of years. Since it was such a long night, (we got home at 4:00 AM.), it would have been quite a shock to the system to keep on drinking for 8 or 9 hours, so I started ordering Calso water everytime someone insisted on buying me a drink. It's not bad stuff, not as refreshing as I expected. It tastes a little like alka-seltzer, but it sure beats booze for aftereffects. I almost felt human the next morning.
Sure do like my job. Every day I learn a lot more. Because of chintzy tax-payers, they can't afford a formal training program, so my education is a little haphazard, but all first hand. All those awful gaps in my formal education are showing up. I'd sure like to spend a year at New York University someday. It seems out of the question right now, but our well planned present should allow us a generous future. Also, our plans might change.
We're in the process of drawing up plans for the headboard we've been talking about for almost 2 years.
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Ours is going to be comfortable as a backrest, as well as practical. We have some friends who built their own and installed in it a system of micro-switches that controlled every light in the house & outside it. They also built most of their house. We'd like something like that, but the re-wiring might be too extensive to make it worthwhile.
Tonight we're going up to the shop with another couple to work on a go-cart. Do you know what that is? They're those little bugs they race on super-market parking lots. It's been quite a popular sport down South for 3 or 4 years, but it's just begun to catch on up here. They go all of 35 m.p.h., so skill is a big factor. It's a real poor-man's sport, & one of the few remaining types of true amateur racing. Jim is full of design ideas he wants to try out. For a while, there the house was covered with little drawings of go-cart anatomy.
She weighs more than 10 mo. old cousin Peggy, now, though Peg. is taller. She's figure resembles that of a Sumo wrestler. She's really well-padded.
Back to my errand list.
Love, Marcia
