A day in the life....

I feel like this year really flew by. I am not talking about just moved at a faster pace than any other year, I am talking about closed eyes for one second during the middle of October 2011 and opening them to find that the month is now August of 12. (You know your old when you try and write the year and habitually say, "0-12" instead of just "12." Im officially "O-LD"). Its hard for me to grasp that in just a few years, i went from being single in the big city of Dallas to a married family of three (four if you include the dog, but after several bouts of stormy weather, he has been disowned for the time being.) in the suburbs. I often think back about those days and try and figure out what i did with all my time, especially now when i spend most of my time trying to figure out how to get more time, especially when it comes to the asleep time. If i really want to make my present self jealous of my past self, then i will remember all the way back to the college years of perpetual time. Endless time. Abundance of time. All the time in the (small and oh so unrealistic) world. Now days my schedule looks like the following:

5:15 am - Baby wakes up ready to take on the world and some much needed nursing. Me, not so much.

5:30am- After a record breaking nursing session because Reed feels like i tried to starve him by not feeding him through the night, I make some coffee for myself. 6 cups.

5:45am- Pry Reed away and try and get a shower. Not as easy as one would think.

5:47am- After worlds shortest shower, I have to get back in after forgetting to rinse out the shampoo

5:55am- Grab another cup of coffee.

6:00am- Get dressed, put on make-up, dry and curl hair (which really means half-way dry then throw in a bun), basically do everything in my power to look half-way presentable for work. I sure do set high bars for myself.

6:20am- Wrangle the baby into some clothes, pack his backpack full of last night's prep work, pack my work bag, load the car, and try and convince Reed to "get nicely" into his carseat. Reality: He is screeming and i am singing "you are my sunshine" on top of my lungs to distract him.

6:30am - Rush to the interstate just to sit in traffic for the next 40 minutes.

6:31am- Begin singing about every farmer, animal, light fixture, etc for the next 38 minutes to soothe a very angry back seat passenger.

7:30 am- Arrive at daycare and spend the next thirty minute trying to convince Reed that daycare is equivalent to Disney world. His teacher looks at me like I am insane. I might be.

8:00am - Finally make it in to work and start unloading files from my desk so that i can even see my computer screen. E-mails, meetings, behavior plans, staff schedules, revisions, and coffee make up the first two hours of the day.

9:15am- Break to pump milk for tomorrow's bottles. Nothing like being topless at your place of employment to really get the adrenaline pumping. No locks on the door to the pumping room really can make you more jittery then any amount of coffee could.

10:00am- Back to work and slip in a short phone call to daycare to check on the bambino.

11:00am- Realize I didn't eat breakfast and forgot my lunch although Reed made it to daycare with what his teacher informs me is a gourmet meal. I end up finding half a package of crackers and a piece of retirement cake in the break room. Score!

11:30am- Home visits, school visits, and more paperwork. Then more paperwork, And more paper work, followed by paperwork. I send a e-mail urging the building to go green. No response.

12:30pm- Break to pump again. Prop chair against the door this time and laugh at myself for not thinking of this solution earlier...as in 5 months earlier. Head back to the office.

3:00pm- Realize the day has slipped by and i didn't have enough time to get everything done. Shocking. Pump one last time and start in on the last bit of work for the day.

4:45pm- Leave the office looking exactly like it was when i got there, which is messy and overwhelming. Head to the day care to grab the wee one. As i walk in, i hear "reunited" play in my head and i feel like one of those slow motion commericals where the people are running to each other with their arms out ready to embrace one another. That is just how my mind works, except Reed is crawling towards me crying in relief that i came back to get him, and i look disheveled and like i got hit by a truck.  Heartwarming reunion for the next 10 minutes.

5:00pm- Reed and I say our goodbyes to his teacher and hit the interstate home. Another 40 minutes. The only time in our lives that passes slowly is the time spent in traffic. My Dallas acquired road rage wants to rear its ugly head, but i just sing "you are my sunshine" for the millionth time instead.

5:45pm- We arrive home and nurse, catch up on the husband's wild and crazy kindergarten stories, grab a drink and start debating on dinner. We always have good intentions to try all these new recipes and we end up with a random assortment of whatever is in the fridge and pantry, because we are both too tired to go grocery shopping. Reed gets 2nd gourmet meal. Hux conveniently helped himself to the garbage, so he gets to watch.

6:30pm.- After dinner, It is time for bath, jam jams, and father- son play time while I try to clean the kitchen. It somewhat reminds me of what my desk looked like from this morning. Messy and overwhelming.

7:30pm- The baby nurses for the last time of the night, while he tries to rally one more good "I am not tired and should get to stay up a little longer" smile before i snuggle him into his bed. I also throw in 5 paci's just for good measure.

7:45pm- Get the house picked up, pack Reed's breakfast, lunch, bottles, and snacks while trying to mentally calculate what needs to go on tomorrow. Give up on the mental math because it sounds like this: 6 reports + 3 behavior plans= 5 penguins on a summer day. Math makes no sense so i sit down and have a beer with the husband.

7:50pm- Realize that i have not watered the plants in three days and all the clean clothes are dirty. Water the laundry and clean the plants. At this point, that is about my mental capacity.

8:30pm- Finish the rest of the chores and finally sit down to finish the beer i had opened. Blue Moon is my absolute favorite.

9:00pm Decide that sleep is more important then finishing the laundry so i head to bed.

It may be a crazy life, but of all the life that i have lived (which has been 28 years of it), it is by far some of the best! Wouldn't change it for the world!

                                                                        Yum! Dinner

                                                         Bath time for Mr. Howse

                                                 Toad in a hole/ Blue Moon. Dinner of champs!

                                                    Play time after a grueling day of playing

Until Later,

C

Cha-Cha Changes

I don't do well with change. I am not horrible at it, but it is not my particular cup of tea. This week is a whopper of a change that affects not only myself, but my husband and my baby boy.

I am not doing well with it. Really. I am not.

Let me give a little back story for clarification on my impending panic attack. When I was pregnant with Reed, I was doing some part-time work in Dallas and had the luxury of parking my very pregnant rear on the couch or in the bed the rest of the time that i was not working. It was a lot of travel, but a great job and I loved it. Once Reed arrived, I soon realized how impossible the job had become with the one simple addition of an infant. After one very long and crowded work trip post baby, I had to cut the cord.

(excuse the pun)

I was offered a contract position that allowed the best of both worlds in the ever challenging baby/work juggling department. I also had the luxury of family watching Reed while i did the little bit of work i was being contracted to do. It was a fabulous situation. A little phrase about having cake and eating the cake comes to mind. I was set.

Phone rings. Changes calling. I wish i could have hung up.

One of those fabulous and endlessly helpful family members who watched Reed once a week was being transferred alongside her equally fabulous husband who just so happens to be in the United States Air Force.

Bummer.

My well-oiled baby/work balancing machine came to a screeching halt.

I decided that the transfer was a sign saying it was time to head back to the ole grind more then just the two days a week i was already grinding out. I never envisioned myself as the SAHM kinda of gal, but i will admit that one should not knock it until one tries it. It is a pretty great gig that i have loved for the ten months that i have been able to claim the title.

Change.

Like i said at the beginning of this small little rant of mine, i don't do well with change. Tomorrow will be full of it and i catch myself tensing in anticipation of it all. A new Kindergarten class full of giddy and exuberant children for my husband to teach, a brand new "school" for my handsome little guy, and a full time schedule for myself.

Change just seems to be beating the ever resistant daylights out of me.

Back in the Saddle

Ok. Please take pity on my poor, blog-neglecting soul. It has been close to a year since my last blog post. I think i am about two and a half months from it being one year since my last post and I swear to you i have a good and reasonable reason from the, um, silence. His name is Reed and he doesn't appreciate sleep the way you or I appreciate sleep, in fact, he doesn't want much to do with sleep at all. Hence, the crickets chirping, power outage style silence on the blog-es-phere. I must say that not sleeping through the night for what feels like 4 years, but has actually spanned about 10 months, will certainly take the "i need to blog about my day and scream at the computer while trying to crop photos," drive right out of you. What truly has blown my mind is how fast the past 10 months has gone. Not necessarily the night time hours, but the day to day happenings of our lives has really flown! Why am i back must you ask? That momentous occasion that every new mommy dreams of as they nurse their bouncing, bubbly baby for the 4th time in one night. The all night sleeping phase of baby-hood. Reed finally reached this milestone after 10 months of marathon night time eating, and started sleeping through the night this past week. So after a few nights of all night slumber, i have rebooted this bad boy (and myself) back up and fully anticipate to make regular and timely posts. Well, maybe i should rephrase that as semi-regular and in no way timely posts. I mean i do have a teething 10 month-er.

This cutie patootie is worth every late night and early morning and everything in between. He is certainly growing fast!

Until the next,

C