Going Back

I'm going back to work. I'm so very grateful for the 9 months that I've been able to spend every single day with my sweet Emily. Crazy adorable Noah is there too of course but for the most part he's in school and it's me hanging with Emily.  My feelings about this change are all over the place.

I'm excited to interact with grown ups again. I'm thrilled to have a reason to get up, take a shower, and put on actual clothes. I feel happy to be helping provide for my family. At the same time I'm very sad. I won't get to see her cute face for 9 hours! N-I-N-E hours! Noah wasn't away from me until he was 3. I hoped I would have that same amount of time with Emily but things don't always go as planned do they?

Noah will be fine. He'll have school and then go to after school care like he did when I used to work. He just gets extra playtime with his friends. He's assured me that he's happy about this. I've never left Emily for more than a few hours. I worry that she'll miss me. I worry that she won't like it at daycare. What if she needs me?????

I do find comfort in the fact that she will be going to the same place Noah went to. I already know the ladies who work there and they are great. I'm comfortable with them but still shes my BABY! I know she'll be well taken care of. I'm just going to miss her so much. She is my life right now. It's the Emily show. All day. Every day. No commercial breaks. What will I do?

God has blessed our situation immensely. Just when I was beginning to worry about getting bills paid and trying to make ends meet with my husbands new pay, things were finalized at my new job. I will actually be working for an old boss of mine. I'm so lucky that I didn't have to go out and find a position. This kind of fell into my lap.

I know big things are about to happen for me.

So yep, I'm trading my flip flops for heels and my yoga pants for dress slacks....
Wish me luck!

Let's play catch up.

First I want to say hello new followers and sorry I've been so absent old followers.

I feel like life right now is I-N-S-A-N-E.

We moved from Illinois to Louisiana about 3 weeks ago. That process was enough to make my brain explode. The movers were supposed to arrive around 9 and take about 4 hours to load our stuff. Everything was already packed. They arrived around 10 and left around 3. During the loading Emily had no bed to sleep in since I realized I could not possibly fit the pack and play in the car and had to let the movers take it with them. A screaming tired baby is good for no one. Thankfully my mom was there and she was able to rock Emily to sleep. Joey was already in LA...LUCKY! The movers leave and I breathe a sigh of relief. It's Done! Wait...now I have to clean the house....  After another 2 hours we finally get on the road. I'm so glad we already had a hotel booked an hour and a half away. There is no way we would have made it trying to drive more than that. We checked in and we were all asleep by 8:30. Even grumpy overtired Emily.

The trip was loooong. 13 hours of driving not including the stops. We stayed the night half way between Illinois and Louisiana. I have zero desire to be in a car for more than a few hours for a very long time. Noah is a great traveler. He never complains. In fact he watched The Lego Movie the ENTIRE trip lol. Thank goodness for headphones! Emily hates the car. Hates it. More than 30 minutes is just too much for her. By the time we arrived I was in great need of a long nap and possibly a sedative or two.

I am so glad we are back though. When we left Louisiana 2 years ago I couldn't wait to move back. There is a lot of stress with our current situation though. We can't buy a new home until our home in IL sells. For now we are staying with my mom. Joey has also taken a cut in pay to move here. He does seem to really enjoy his new job though which makes me very happy. Since he's taken a pay cut I need to go back to work.  that wasn't "the plan". I envisioned staying home with Emily as long as I did with Noah. I do find some comfort in already knowing the people who work at the daycare she'll be attending. Being away from her all day is going to be hard though. I'm excited about talking to adults all day and actually wearing real clothes. I know it'll get easier but I'm super nervous right now about it. As a mom you always think that no one can take care of your baby as well as you can.

I'm just ready to have a routine again. I'm ready for things to feel normal. I keep praying our house will sell quickly. I know once it does and we have our own home again things will be easier. We don't have any of our things. We thought our stuff would arrive a lot faster than it has. I probably would have mailed some things here had I known it would take so much longer than they said. I think this is the first time in our lives where I feel stressed financially. The move was expensive. Since we've only owned our home for 2 years and the housing market up there is awful selling our home is actually going to cost us money. We've been really lucky and have never had any real debt but that will all change. It's scary.

I just need to take deep breaths, pray, and really try to have faith that everything will work out. A few years from now hopefully we'll laugh at all the insanity that is going on right now.

9 months ~ Emily

With our crazy move, trying to sell the house, and Emily not feeling well I feel stressed and have been trying to find time to sit down and type this. I don't want it to be rushed but I feel it might be....

Every month I say I can't believe Emily is ___ months old. I still feel that way. Her birthday is creeping closer and closer. I can feel it. It's peeking around the corner baring it's angry teeth at me. I want it to stay away for now. I'm not ready for her to be one. She's already becoming less of a baby. She's not feeling well right now so she's full of snuggles and sleeps on my chest sometimes. It's like she's almost a newborn again. Normally she doesn't want to be snuggled. She will sit on your lap and play but all attempts to rock or snuggle her will be shot down immediately, unless shes SUPER tired. We spent a long morning at the doctors office due to her sickness. Poor Emily got her finger pricked and cried so much she fell asleep. She had a virus.

She still isn't crawling. She moves all over the place by rolling and pulling herself. Hopefully soon we'll see her crawl. I know she'll be much happier when she can get around a little better. I'm also quite positive that she'll attempt to follow me when I walk away from her. At the moment she just cries and watches me as I go. I canceled her 9 month checkup due to her being sick. I'll reschedule it once she is doing better.

She just started clapping her hands. It's either an extremely slow motion clap or a fast clap where she misses every time. Both are insanely cute. She protests loudly if something is taken from her. Noah is still able to get her to laugh and smile more than anyone else. She LOVES to eat. She would much rather eat real food than drink her bottle. She bounces happily while she eats. I still haven't found a food that she doesn't like. I hope she grows up a non picky eater! Her brother is so picky!

She is still wary of strangers but not as much as before the move. I think she met so many new people in the first few days that she might be getting over her stranger anxiety. My favorite person she has met would be her cousin Jacob. He wanted nothing to do with her. He would say OH NO THANK YOU any time I asked if he wanted to play with her. Now he will get close to her but not touch her. He will also talk to her sometimes. He does warn others not to get too close because she could bite...lol. As if she were a wild animal. It's so funny and cute.

Emily loves to swim in the pool. She is always smiling and kicking her feet. She loves to splash!

Hopefully things settle down more soon and Emily can get back on a good sleeping schedule. I know I'm exhausted!