There's No Place Like Home

The last time I posted, I mentioned that I was getting the hell out of here. While I continue to LOVE my job, I am discovering that the first few weeks of school are insanity. Last week I worked about six to eight hours more than I had to (no, I don't get overtime) and had the persistent feeling that I was drowning. Add to that a husband that has just changed shifts at work, leaving me feeling like I'm a single mom with a grumpy, unavailable roommate, and let's just say that things in our house have been stressful. Even Amelia seems to be impacted, as she has been starting some minor aggressive behavior-- towards Mommy only. Good. Times.

So clearly, life has been challenging lately. I know we will get past it and things will improve. My initial coping mechanism was to escape, so as I said, Amelia and I went on a little getaway a couple weeks ago. We went to a local waterpark/hotel with my friend, Anna, and her daughter, Bela. Amelia adores Bela, and will often follow in her footsteps (for better or worse-- let's just hope Bela doesn't rob a liquor store some day. I guarantee Amelia would be her co-conspirator.) I thought that if Bela enjoyed the water areas, Amelia surely would to.

Nope.

Amelia spent most of the time either sitting in my lap in the shallow end, uninterested in playing with any water toys, crying, or sitting next to Anna on the ledge of the pool. Much like an old lady. It was still fun in that we were able to spend time with good friends, but I wish that Amelia had enjoyed the main reason that we were there rather than having to work up courage to get within feet of the water.

Our lovely ladies, ready to head back home.

Last weekend, we packed up and attempted camping a second time. While it was fun overall and less anxiety producing for Amelia, the campground that we chose did not have nice boundaries like the first time we went camping. This led to a lot of me telling Amelia "No, don't go over there. No, don't get close to the road. Come back here, I can't see you when you are over there." Top that with some rain our first day, which made the majority of our site muddy (did I mention that we also have a large dog to watch and minimize the muddiness of?), and it just was not the grand picture of relaxation that I had painted in my head. As a result, we headed home after two days rather than staying the full three days that we had reserved.

Morning cartoons, camping style.

Molly enjoyed the camper-- please note that is MY bed, she was supposed to be sleeping on the lower section.

My little buckeye fan exploring a playground near the park.

This is not to say that I didn't enjoy the last two weekends, but I definitely have gained an appreciation for relaxing at home, where there are DVR'd cartoons for Amelia and boundaries that she is already familiar with. With working from home, I often think I need to physically get away to diffuse some stress, but clearly there are times where I am more at ease within the confines of our country home.

With that said, I have to say that this has been a nice weekend so far. We have enjoyed spending a lot of time at a local art festival, I made some treats for my husband's police department, and was able to make a nice dinner for him last night before his twelve hour shift. Apparently, all of this down time is making Amelia rather sleepy.

Zonked out at the art festival.

Here's hoping that all of my readers are having an equally relaxing weekend :)

Busy Bee

I have felt so crazy busy lately! I am easing into the role of high school counselor at the online school that I work for, but while doing that I'm still doing the data entry that I've been doing all school year. Add to that a toddler, exercise classes, a house to clean, my friend's upcoming wedding, various appointments, and the newest bundle of joy in our family, and you've got one hectic mama.

Mikey was a big helper during one of my conference calls this week.

Somehow I managed to squeeze in making it to the picture appointment that my mom had set up for Amelia. Here she is trying to rearrange the seats at the studio in order to make them a proper toddler jungle gym:

 See the intense look she makes when trying to accomplish something? Cracks me up every time.

I was also able to go help my cousin with Mr. Max a couple days this week and it was, of course, terrific. I love his baby cuddles and his round head covered in peach fuzz. I could just eat him up!

Amelia was my little helper and was generally very good. She had a bit of a rough time the second day, but right before we left the house, I discovered why-- her first molar has finally popped through. Well, most of it. There is still a bit of gum tissue that it needs to push through and it seems to be causing her a fair amount of pain. Generally she has no problems when teething except for a bit of difficulty sleeping or a little whining, but she had so much discomfort Tuesday night that we had to give her a dose of Motrin and a popsicle before bed. It did not, however, prevent her from practicing her chess moves while we were helping with the baby, which I think thoroughly pleased my husband since he is a big fan of chess.

My favorite, the 'cheese!' look :)

And that pretty much concludes my week! So glad tomorrow is Friday. I'm looking forward to trying out my new kayak Saturday afternoon and celebrating my friend's upcoming wedding at her bachelorette party that evening. Good times! :)

Wrapped Around Her Finger?

I think it's safe to say that life in her house is back to it's semi-sane nature. Jon and I are getting along better, I haven't cried hard enough to make my eyes puffy since this weekend, Amelia slept well last night... I'm sure this will last about two days.

Anyways, last week I had a training for work that required me to be in the office for a couple days. When I have a good babysitter at the ready, I sometimes enjoy the break in routine. Mostly I enjoy being able to eat my lunch without having to feed another little person. Lucky for us, I did have a friend who was happy to entertain my little monkey all day, so off I went to work. And then she started texting me pictures like this:

And this:

I know, right?!? How cute is she??? The next day produced equal cuteness:

Of course, being absolutely adorable can be rather tiresome:

You may notice how her face is all squished up in many of these pictures. This is because my friend tells Amelia, "Say cheese!" and she does with much gusto, and this produces the look that you see above. I think it's hilarious.

By the time my training was over, I was quite ready to be back to working from home. It's probably a good thing that I had some separation to make my heart grow fonder of her because she promptly swung into a pre terrible two's stage. Everything is either hysterically funny:

Or makes her absolutely miserable. Yesterday when she was tired, she crawled underneath the dining room table and started sobbing. I didn't take a video of that, so you'll just have to take my word for it. When I was toddlered out last night, she crawled all over me and demanded full attention, to which I replied "When do you think Daddy will be home from work?" This morning she was smacking my leg and begging to be up on my lap within thirty minutes of waking up. To which I replied:

"Don't you want to go play with your daddy?"

To which he replied: "Daddy has to leave for work in fifteen minutes!"

I clarified that it would be perfectly acceptable for her to help him get ready rather than play together. Whatever will get her out of my hair, husband.

At least she still has one of us finding her irresistible:

Poop and Manners Are Important

Yesterday was a little rough. I mean, granted, Amelia has had the flu and we think she has some additional teeth coming in. Unlike us, she cannot tell us specifically what is wrong when something hurts. All she can do is whine and fuss. I do my best to be patient, but honestly, it can be really frustrating at times, especially when I am by myself. When you add that I have not been able to get as much work done as I would like since I had the flu right before she did, things were challenging yesterday.

Jon and I did come up with a few options though:

1) Buy a pair of prosthetic arms so I can type with one pair and hold her with the other pair. We are thinking of looking on Craigs List.

2) Clone myself so one of us can work and the other one can play, rock, feed, nurse, and change Amelia. That sounded like a good idea until Jon suggested a third clone. I can't handle that much competition, even if it is from myself, although it also highlights how productive I generally am as a mommy-- enough that it should take three of me to get everything done.

3) Baby straightjacket, which would allow me to pin her arms down so I can hold her and she won't slam her hands down repeatedly on my keyboard. Don't wrinkle your nose at me, swaddlers do the same thing as a straightjacket. So, I guess what I need is a toddler swaddler.

I coped by taking deep breaths, eating Halloween candy, and listening to Brittany & Meredith Live podcasts. Suddenly, at 2:00 p.m. I smelled something. I looked at Amelia all the way across the room and decided that it could not possibly be her. She has never produced something so smelly that the odor wafted across large spaces.

Until yesterday.

After I cleaned her up, she was like a whole different baby, smiling, clapping, reading her books. An important life lesson taught by an 11 month old:

Everyone feels better after a good poop.

So, with that, I worked a bit longer and we headed to the gym. Afterwards, we stopped at the grocery store to pick up some odds and ends, which included cat food because OMG when our cat can see the bottom of his bowl he follows us around meowing driving me frickin' crazy and then poops on the bathroom floor out of spite. Which teaches another life lesson:

Poop can also be used as revenge.

After we grabbed everything we needed, which included sushi, roses, and chocolate covered pretzel ice cream for mommy because I earned it, damn it, we got in line to check out. Then it happened.

Amelia turned towards the cashier next to us, opened and shut her hand repeatedly, and said "Hi!".

My jaw dropped as everyone around us said Awww, smiling and waving back at her. She turned to the teenage boy bagging our groceries and said it again "Hi!" with her little open and shut wave. He looked like he could care less about this little baby and her cuteness and maybe considered ignoring her efforts at friendliness until I gave him my tight lipped smile that said 'You'd better wave back and say hi or I'm going to kick your pimply adolescent ass.' He waved back.

I can't pinpoint exactly what was so thrilling about this moment. Maybe it was that mommyhood has been a little more tiring than usual lately and this was a reminder of the good parts of parenthood. Maybe it was because her 'hi' was so distinct and intentional, another step towards toddlerhood as she nears her first birthday. I don't really know for sure. All I know is that I texted all my family, as if she had just taken her first steps.

Now, if we could just get her to stop picking her nose...

Keep 'Em Laughin'

Posting recently has been a little bit of a challenge for me. I'm still loving working from home, especially since my boss told me that I could work from the office just one afternoon a week rather than three days-- therefore avoiding the whole babysitter issue. It's great and makes me wonder how I survived four months of working a traditional job with the whole rush in the morning and struggling to keep up with household tasks in the evening.

Since I (generally) have time to keep up with the house during the week, you would think I would have time to write on the weekends. However, it's Fall, and therefore time for baking, drinking Octoberfest beer, and watching football. This past weekend I made some apple toffee bars and for dinner one night we had jalapeno popper grilled cheese sandwiches. Both were as good as they sound (thank you, Pinterest. If you'd like to see what else we will be stuffing our faces with in the near future, you can see my boards here.) We watched all my favorite college teams lose on Saturday and then I ran in a 5k on Sunday. Who has time to write?

Along with the time challenge comes my scattered mommy brain. It seems as though when I wasn't working, I could use my free time to come up some coherent themes/topics of mommyhood, or share my opinions on recent current events. But apparently concentrating all day, along with staring at a computer, drains me of any cohesive thoughts for a blog.

I'm not complaining. Just justifying my absence from the virtual writing world.

As I sat down this morning with a plan of writing a scattered list of various events in my life, I thought of these pictures:



Mom, I don't want to wear the hat.



No, seriously. Come closer and let me tell you how much I hate the hat.

Sigh. Fine, I'll wear the damn hat.

Puppy gym! Crawled right over her, poor dog.





Our daughter has been quite the little comedian lately as you can see. Our favorite gesture that she does right now, which I have yet to catch on camera, is her touchdown pose. It is just what it sounds like, her throwing her arms up as if your favorite football team just scored.

She also has had a third tooth come in this past week, and while my nipples are living in fear, she has been more interested in biting my shoulder. She leans in for what looks like a sweet little hug and then bites down on my shoulder with her little baby fang, which surprisingly hurts quite a bit for a nub of a tooth. I have a theory of parenting which entails saving your really dramatic/loud voice for when it is truly called for, and since she is only 11 months old, I reserve that voice for when she attempts to draw blood.

You would think I had smacked her if you could see her face. She pouts out that bottom lip and starts this pathetic little cry. All I say is "No! No biting, Amelia!" and you'd think I had torn apart her whole little world. I have to turn my head, for fear she will see me laughing and think this is a game.

If only discipline would be so easy during the years ahead. Ah, well, I'll just enjoy it for now.

How It's Going...

I regret that it's been a while since I posted anything, but with starting my new job this week, I've had little time to write anything. So, since no one has been able to read about my new endeavor on my blog, I've been getting a lot of texts, e-mail, phone calls and facebook posts asking me how it's going. I hate to give an overall review of a job so quickly because any workplace has it's annoyances and irritations. However, so far...

I love it.

My bosses are flexible. Everyone has been really helpful. There's no chasing children down the hallway, being cussed at by five year olds, and a couple days of week, I avoid the hectic pace of the morning routine-- make coffee, pack snacks/lunches for Amelia and I, get both of us dressed, make sure she has everything she needs for the day including diapers, extra clothes, sippy cup, toys, and other miscallaneous items, and then drag all that crap, plus my work laptop and purse out the door. Oh, and let Molly outside and feed her.

I'm kind of shocked that she's been fed consistently this week.

Really, the only bad thing that happened this week is that Amelia had a miserable time at her babysitter. In all likelihood, it was probably several things that collided to make her be a screaming, crying mess the whole time she was there. But the bottom line is, we had to pick her up early both days.

Some of you are shaking her heads, saying "Oh, Amanda, she will get used to it. You can't rescue her every time she gets upset."

I'm shaking my head back at you, saying "Oh, how you underestimate the stubborn nature of my daughter."

Let's just say that Amelia threw such a screaming fit that the sitter's neighbor complained about the 'noise'. And, she pretty much refused to eat. So, to save the sanity of everyone involved, we are on the hunt for a new sitter again. This produces a lot of stress and anxiety for me, but it also highlights how incredible my new job is... when I left early Tuesday, no one minded because I could finish the day at home. Then, on Friday, Jon took Amelia home at lunch but the internet at my work was SO SLOW. My entire day is spent on the computer, entering in student transcripts online. By 2:00 pm, I wanted to slam my laptop up against the wall. The principal wasn't in so the only 'boss' I could complain to was the superintendent. I walked halfway to her office twice and turned back around, thinking that complaining during my first week of work was probably a bad idea. But, considering that I could get twice as much work done at home, I took a deep breath and walked into her office.

I got halfway through my first sentence, and she said "Oh, yes, the internet is awful! If you want to finish the day at home, go ahead. As a matter of fact, you can work at home all next week, they are fixing such and such and I think it's going to take a while."

GRIN. I mean, after I walked out of her office, of course.

So, I have a whole week of being at home with my little love, finding her a new sitter, being productive, and avoiding the morning rush.

How's it going? It's awesome :)

An Answered Prayer

I'm super excited about my new job. I start Monday, and after meeting with the superintendent and principal today, I am even more overjoyed about this position. They seem to be very flexible and also are interested in me moving into a school counseling position next school year. This is great news because A) I'm spending thousands and thousands of dollars on my education, so I feel like I should be using it, B) I will have a significant pay increase and C) I will be able to work from home full time.

I cannot describe how happy I am about all of this. When I found out that my position was being cut at my old job, I was devastated. While yes, I would be able to spend time with my daughter, I loved my job and my co-workers. Beyond that, I constantly worried that we would have financial difficulties. Every article that appeared on Yahoo about the recession resonated with me, and I worried that at some point, maybe bad things would happen, like us foreclosing on our home. I'm an anxious person, so I get right down to it immediately and worry that the biggest disaster will happen. Not the best way to cope with a job loss.

After I moped, cried, and practically had multiple panic attacks about how things would play out financially, I prayed. And prayed. And prayed. Harder than I ever have in my life, except for maybe when we were trying to get pregnant. I don't talk a lot about my spirituality because I feel that it is a lot like my sex life. It's really no one's business. My husband is the opposite. There is no bigger joy for him than to debate religious philosophy. Sometimes it drives me nuts, but other times it comes in handy. Because, if ever there were a time that I needed someone to remind me about God and the miracles He works, it was now.

I'm not going to preach about going to church or why you should pray too. It irritates me when people push their religion on other people. But I do know this-- had I not lost my job, I would still be there. I would have missed my daughter figuring out how to stand up by herself today. I would have never taken the risk of trying to find a new opportunity that would allow me to be home more often. In my view, God created a way for this to happen. And, I'm ever so grateful.

This is not to say, of course, that I won't be griping about co-workers or the difficulties of working from home or any other of life's daily irritations within the next month or two. I'm only human. I get frustrated and annoyed. But for right now, I'm savoring what it feels like to have everything fall into place, to have faith, and to be grateful for what you are given.