back to the real world!

Posted on August 23, 2012 by mommyinthemidwest

I had a little over two weeks off between jobs but this past Monday, it was back to work. Truthfully, I didn’t mind. I was kinda tired of wearing the same three pairs of gym shorts and tank tops, spending my days painting and picking out ceiling fans. It was a nice change to blow dry my hair, put on make-up, and wear real people clothes when Monday rolled around.

So far? I LOVE this new place. Granted, I haven’t even remotely started doing my actual job yet. There will be lots of training and learning before I will feel just a little bit comfortable holding the reins. But this is a great company, with great benefits. The people are friendly and welcoming and I already feel right at home. I can’t tell you what a relief all of this is during such a crazy time in my life. I’ve met some new faces and had the pleasure of seeing some familiar ones from previous work with the agency. I can’t tell you how happy I am.

It’s weird – when I was working third shift, people were always telling me “I don’t know how you do it.” I thought, do what? I have to work for a living, this (my former) job allows me to be home with my kids on Fridays and not have to send them to the babysitter five days a week. Sure, that saved us a little money. But I didn’t get to see my kids in the morning. Ryan was getting them ready all by himself. I wasn’t there at night when they were sick, which made my stomach hurt and my heart ache. Now, even though they are going to our sitter five days a week, I feel like I see them more, not less. I definitely get to see Ryan more because I don’t have to leave as soon as the kids go to bed.

I don’t know how I did it either. I don’t know how my husband did it. He was home alone with two babies through their first year (and beyond) of not-so-wonderful sleep habits. You guys? I got a keeper. We still have a long way to go on the house and some big decisions to make, but things are only gonna get better.

Good stuff.

xo,
~C~

Dinnertime: what’s right or wrong?

Posted on August 8, 2012 by mommyinthemidwest

This has been on my mind for some time. We go through periods of time where the boys eat great and I don’t have to worry about it at all. Other times, I struggle with what to do.

Eating habits. What do you do? Do you try to coax your kids (toddlers) to eat what’s on their plate? I have mixed feelings about this. I have a habit of cleaning my plate just because the food is there and it shouldn’t go to waste. Not necessarily because I am so hungry that I need to eat everything in sight. I don’t know what my child’s stomach feels like so is it fair for me to push him to clean his plate if he’s not that hungry? Doesn’t that just set him up for the same bad habits I’ve fallen into, which have caused me to gain and struggle to maintain a healthy weight?

Sometimes we have a dessert that I am excited for him to taste. If he doesn’t eat his vegetables, should I withhold that treat? Sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t. I don’t want to set him up for resenting vegetables. If he is forced to eat them, won’t he soon start (if he already hasn’t) to rebel against them? I don’t want to set my kid up for failure. There are so many things to worry about as a parent that I never even dreamed of before.

Here’s a scenario that happens all too often at our house. I’ll fix dinner and Theo will refuse to eat or barely pick at his food. No dessert. We don’t force or high-pressure him to eat. Bedtime rolls around and conveniently, he’s suddenly hungry. Ryan says he shouldn’t get another chance to eat dinner because then he’s running us around like short order cooks. Valid point, but I can’t let him go to bed with his stomach growling. What if he really is hungry? At that point it’s been 7-8 hrs since his last meal and he really might need something. Normally, if I have saved his plate, he will eat it. Sometimes he asks for yogurt. I don’t ever allow crackers or cookies in that situation. The doctor actually suggested yogurt or cheese as a bedtime snack when he skips meals. I’m just torn.

Both Theo and Dexter are thin, hovering around the 20th percentile. It isn’t like a bedtime snack is going to push them over the line to obesity. But should I be teaching them a lesson by sticking to a hard and fast rule about when they are allowed to eat? I’ve read a million different things and theories.

What’s yours?

~C~

ready for change?

Posted on August 7, 2012 by mommyinthemidwest

Well, well, well. A few things have changed since I last wrote. Like, oh, you know, we got a new house and I got a new job.

What the what!

Yep, we closed on our house (seen here and here) a couple of weeks ago. Some issues came up (I’ll talk more about later, maybe) so we weren’t able to start in on our remodeling right away. Sunday we said to heck with it and decided to move forward.

And I wasn’t looking for a job. I worked in child welfare for 6 years and had no immediate plans of going anywhere else. But another social work job in the mental health field found it’s way to me and I couldn’t pass it up. No more night shift! I’m going back to living like normal people instead of vampires. Somebody say woot! I start in a couple of weeks. My new employer was kind enough to allow me some time to work on our house.

I have been so preoccupied and busy that I haven’t had much time to write. Not a lot has changed with the boys, other than growing taller and smarter and older every day. Theo sounds too old, saying things that he hears grown-ups say, like “last week I was at the store and I saw something and then I went to the car and probably saw everything everywhere…” and on and on and on. I just love listening to his stories about nothing at all. Dex is starting to try more and more words when prompted but I don’t feel like he says them independently as much as Theo did at about 15 months. Hard to remember these things!

SO… back to the HOUSE. I’m excited about the changes we’ve made so far with Ryan’s dad’s help. We’ve got lots of bright ideas and it seems like everything is top priority. Who knows when we’ll ever get it all done. Here are a couple of before/after photos so far.

Front door: