And he's off!

Yet another month has flown by in Lausanne.  It is hard to believe that Little Marshmallow was born 4 weeks ago today.  I hadn’t intended to take such a long pause from blogging, but I guess time flies when you’re raising a newborn.

The other big change that has occurred since I last posted is that Marshmallow has started IMD.  All in all, I would say the first few weeks have gone smoothly. While the work is picking up, at least from the partner perspective, the first month has been less intensive than I expected.  Marshmallow kicked off his school year with two days of orientation, starting precisely a week after Little Marshmallow (LM) was born.  The orientation schedule was fairly relaxed, so Marshmallow was able to come home at a few points throughout the day. 

Big and Little Marshmallow on the way home from orientation

I was also pleased to see that IMD hosted orientation events for partners.  When I saw them on the schedule, I did not think I would be able to attend, since LM was so little, and I was still recovering from surgery.  However, since Marshmallow was able to come home and help me get myself and LM to campus, I was able to attend the first partner orientation event, as well as a partner session with Ralph Boscheck, a long-time professor and the new program director at IMD. 

I really appreciate that IMD made an effort to include partners from the start.  The various orientation events gave me a chance to become familiar with campus, meet some of Marshmallow’s classmates, and even hear from the program leaders themselves about the expectations for the MBAs.  I felt much more a part of the MBA experience after the orientation events. 

I also appreciate that IMD has eased the MBAs into the program.  I would venture to say that it made it a lot easier on us partners!  The first full week of class, Marshmallow was home around 5:30pm every night or at least nearly every night.  He did have one event that went late on a Friday, but this meant that he did not have anything scheduled for Saturday, so we got a full weekend at home with him.  The second week of class things picked up a bit more – he was able to come home most nights, but we saw less of him as he had lots of preparations for class! 

Unfortunately, this week things have really kicked into high gear, and he gets home around 10pm each night.  He’ll also have a late night tonight, and will be gone all day tomorrow for the infamous “outdoor” events that are shrouded in secrecy.  As much as I miss him, I can’t complain because I expected the schedule to be like this from the beginning, so I am very glad to have gotten a few bonus weeks with him.  I have also been pleasantly surprised that he is able to come home for nearly 30 minutes each day during lunch.

I hope that soon his schedule will be more similar to what it was during the first two weeks, but that may be pretty optimistic!