Nicole's Day and Evening

About two weeks ago my babysitter’s husband, Ronny, had a heart attack. His recovery unfortunately did not mirror my father in law’s and last night he passed away. This has been terribly hard on the family as you can imagine. Nicole stayed with her grandma and grandpa for half a day on Tuesday and all day yesterday. I was hoping that being in her home environment that this arrangement would work well, but apparently she screamed, not cried, all afternoon. I'm shaking my head as I'm still unsure why, after about 2 months Nicole has still not warmed up to them. They couldn't love her more, but she’s very temperamental.

I suspect yesterday perhaps a few things played in:
1) I didn’t come to see her at lunch as I normally do
2) She misses her routine of being at Marsha’s
3) Our house isn’t as interesting as Marsha’s – no little kiddies running around to watch
4) She isn’t Grandma’s biggest fan. Many people have suggested scent as the issue… only thing that I can think of there is the smoke residue as she’s not around anyone else who smokes.

Well, as a result of being upset all day she wanted Jim or I in eyeshot all evening, got tired early, and slept ALL NIGHT (8:30pm – 7:00am). If today is a repeat of yesterday I think I’ll ask Lindsay to watch her until Marsha’s back in action…

On a fun note, when Nicole eats her last meal before bed I’ve started reading aloud to her. She’s getting sex-ed early though she doesn’t know it. I'm reading my novel, Love Slave (a book Lisa and Kendall gave me when Nicole was born), and we’re starting to hit the juicy parts. What’s the plot? According to the back of the book:

It is no act of love that Regan experiences the night she takes her sister's place in the marriage bed, a counterfeit bride to sate the lust of her twin's new husband. Come morning, her sister, carrying another man's child, resumes her place and Regan is spirited away to a nunnery.
But a more exotic fate awaits the fiery Celtic beauty: Regan is sold to a slave trader. It will be her destiny to come under the tutelage of Karim al Malina, master of the erotic arts, who will mold Regan -- now renamed Zaynab, the beautiful one -- into a Love Slave fit for a Moorish king, though the pair break the first rule of teacher and pupil . . . they fall in love.
But Zaynab is not Karim's to keep. She is given to the Caliph of Cordoba, who vows to love her . . . and pleasure her as no younger man can. Yet Regan still longs for her one true love, Karim al Malina, and vows that, somehow, their fates must be reunited . . . .

You know it’s a good life when your main source of income is to be an “erotic arts” teacher. Ha!