There's something to be said for people skills. Really. I think you can
get places in life without people skills, but you either don't get there
very quickly or you don't stay there for very long.

It bothers me when people in positions of power take advantage. It bothers
me when they value their status more than the people with whom they work.
There are a lot of people like that here at my work, and I greatly dislike
having to work with them.

One of the reasons I left the classroom was that I was tired of the power
game. I know it happens everywhere, in every job. But in a field where
everyone is supposed to be so focused on helping children, it just seems
that much more offensive.

There are politics and power games at the university level, to be sure. But
it just seemed easier to avoid there. Being here, at the district level
(and particularly the district office), it's pervasive and unavoidable.
Essentially, people are full of crap.

I really enjoy my job most days. But, if nothing else, this job has
cemented the fact that the district office and K-12 administration are not
the place for me on a permanent basis.

It was an exciting weekend in Ethan's world. On Saturday we made a trip to
Target where we made our first ever purchase of baby food. I thought long
and hard about making my own, but I decided the free time I have at home is
too minimal to spend time doing what others can do for me. So purchase we
did. I didn't pay the extra 20 cents a package for organic either. What a
bad mom!

Carrots were up first on Saturday night. Haven't gotten up the courage to
taste them myself, but it smelled a lot like tomato soup. Ethan
contemplated the carrots momentarily before deciding they were acceptable
and chowing down the rest of what I offered. He now gets impatient if the
spoon isn't getting to his mouth fast enough. Something tells me we won't
have much trouble with him being a picky eater. His daycare teachers were
delighted to see the carrots this morning. They've been dying to give him
something other than bottles and rice cereal. Per doctor's orders, we'll
try the next vegetable on Thursday. Either squash or sweet potatoes. We'll
see what strikes our fancy.

Sunday we hit the pumpkin patch. We've been trying to go for awhile, but
Andy and I were too sick. Andy's parents were supposed to go with us, but
after spending all of last week taking care of us, Andy's Dad got sick.
It's been awhile since I've felt so guilty.

It was hotter than hot yesterday when we arrived at the pumpkin patch. We
plopped Ethan on a bale of hay, snapped a couple of pictures, grabbed some
pumpkins, and high-tailed it out of there. We carved the pumpkins last
night while Ethan watched. He was less than entertained by the process, but
he loved the pumpkins. Andy carved a scary skull and I improvised with a
big "e" on Ethan's pumpkin. They're works of art, I tell you.

Pictures will have to come later. We're finally getting healthy and are
just trying to catch up with everything. We're looking forward to Ethan's
first Halloween. He's going to be a big, green, polka-dotted dragon. Wrar.

There are a couple of pairs of sisters at my work. One pair can always be
seen (and heard!) eating lunch together in the break room. One half of the
other pair works in the same office I do, and can often be heard telling
people to give her sister a hard time.

Emily and I have worked together a couple of times. In college, we were
both student workers in the Education Department. After college, when I was
first teaching, Emily was a substitute teacher in the same district and
would frequently sub at my school. She even did a long-term sub position at
my grade level one year. When I first started working at the university
again, Emily was there also, and we both worked in the Education Department
again.

Growing up, Emily and I attended the same school a couple of times. When I
was in fourth and fifth grade, I used to walk her to school and drop her off
at her classroom. When she was in second grade, right after we moved, she
cried every morning. I used to tell her "tears in the trash can!" before we
left for school because it broke my heart to see her cry. But every year
after that she was a brave girl. Some years we spent a lot of time
together, other years we had our own friends. But we were always known as
sisters (sometimes even twins), and the "Hunter girls" were always together.

I think we've adjusted to Emily living in Arizona. At least most days. We
talk almost every afternoon during our commutes home from work, and she
comes to California every chance she gets. But days like today, when I hear
Mada telling someone to put her sister in her place, I miss my Emily so much
it hurts. And I want to go back to the times when we were in school
together or working together and soak up all that togetherness and closeness
and hold onto it for days like today.

I knew my work-related priorities had changed the first day I came back to
work. Actually, that's misleading. Things work-related are no longer
priorities, plain and simple. I still do my work and accomplish the tasks
that are assigned to me. But if it came down to choosing between finishing
an assignment before a deadline, being here on time for a meeting, staying
late to finish something up, or going home to my son...well, there's no
choosing. It's all Ethan, all the way. Or at least I say it is.

This morning I rushed to get Ethan and myself ready so we could leave early
so I could be to work early for a 9:00 meeting on a day when I know I have
to stay until 5:30 (for the record, my hours are 9-4:30). I dropped Ethan
off at daycare and rushed out the door, only to sit in traffic on the
freeway for 45 minutes. I dashed into my office at 8:55 and grabbed my
materials for the meeting, only to discover that the person I was supposed
to meet with had cancelled and no one told me. All of this on the day after
I was away from Ethan from 8:30-5:00 for work, and then from 6:15 until
beyond his bedtime for teaching. And on the day after I was up late, slept
horribly, and had to get up and start all over again.

To be sure, there are moments when I question what I am doing. Is this
really the reality I want to face for the rest of Ethan's childhood? Am I
saying my priorities are in order, but not acting them out in that order? I
know he gets great care at daycare. But I miss him like crazy. And every
time I agree to come in a few minutes early, or stay a few minutes late, I
feel like I'm doing him a disservice and allowing that boundary between job
and the rest of my life to blur just a little bit more.

I don't question myself every day, but the days I do, like today, leave me
unbearably sad, frustrated, and hurt. I miss Ethan, I miss Andy, and it's
far too long between weekends.

Read in a paper by one of our BTSA participants...

"This year as a matter of fact I had a student who was Jojoba Witness..."

Because it's just so fun, how could you not?

1. YOUR ROCK STAR NAME: (first pet & current car)
Susie Passat

2.YOUR GANGSTA NAME: (fave ice cream flavor, favorite cookie)
Chocolate Peanut Butter Oreo (I'd probably go by "CP Bo" for short...)

3. YOUR "FLY Guy/Girl" NAME: (first initial of first name, first three letters of your last name)
D-dec

4. YOUR DETECTIVE NAME: (favorite color, favorite animal),
Blue Tiger

5. YOUR SOAP OPERA NAME: (middle name, city where you were born),
Carrie Frederick

6. YOUR STAR WARS NAME: (the first 3 letters of your last name, first 2 letters of your first),
Decje (Big money for anyone who can pronounce that...)

7. SUPERHERO NAME: ("The" + 2nd favorite color, favorite drink),
The Yellow Frappucino (went with my favorite drink of the moment, it changes often)

8. NASCAR NAME: (the first names of your grandfathers)
John Alfred

9. STRIPPER NAME: ( the name of your favorite perfume/cologne/scent, favorite candy),
Happy Peanut Butter Cup (Yeah, I don't think anyone would pay me for a lap dance with a name like that...)

10.WITNESS PROTECTION NAME: (mother's & father's middle names )
Faye Cady

And a few more…

11. TV WEATHER ANCHOR NAME: (Your 5th grade teacher's last name, a major city thats starts with the same letter),
(Holy cow, I completely forget my fifth grade teacher's last name. How awful. We'll go with fourth grade, and I'm probably butchering the spelling...and Montreal is a city, right? Wow I'm on a roll.)
McGuigen Montreal

12. SPY NAME: (your favorite season/holiday, flower).
Summer Rose (Now THIS sounds like a stripper name...)

13. CARTOON NAME: (favorite fruit, article of clothing you're wearing right now + "ie" or "y")
Kiwi Khakie

14. HIPPY NAME: (What you ate for breakfast, your favorite tree)
Granola Jacaranda


I want more!!!

Birthdays are fabulous things. I am currently surrounded by not one, but
two beautiful bouquets of fresh flowers. Leslee presented me with a
colorful bouquet this morning, and then I received a delivery of the most
beautiful red, long-stemmed roses I've ever seen from my Andy and my Ethan.
I'm feeling very loved and florist-like. And I've got some excellent
aromatherapy going on here...

Today, Andy and I have been married five years. It sounds a little unbelievable to me. I look back on who we were when we first met, when we started dating (and stopped, and started, and stopped, and started...), and when we celebrated our wedding, and those people are vaguely familiar. There are pieces of those people inside of us today. But as a whole, we are incredibly different people.

I've written and deleted and written and deleted, and words cannot do today justice. So I turn to pictures. After all, they're worth thousands of words, aren't they?

July 27, 2002 ~ Needs no explanation.


May 20, 2006 ~ Emily's wedding. I spend a lot of time looking at this picture and thinking about how we had no idea how life was going to change in just a few short months.


August 8, 2006 ~ This was vacation in Pismo Beach. This was Tuesday, and the doctor had confirmed my pregnancy just the day before. We floated through that vacation on a cloud of joy, happiness, nausea and disbelief.


April 10, 2007 ~ Another day that needs no explanation.


I am routinely overwhelmed by my life in the best way possible. It catches me off guard when I least expect, and it hits me with all the power of the strongest winds. I am blessed. I am happy. I am in love.

Happy anniversary, my Andy. I love you.

Ethan didn't nap well yesterday during the day, which has become a new trend. He'll take little catnaps of 30-45 minutes and then usually one good nap for a couple of hours. Yesterday he didn't get his one good nap. He was a bit fussier than usual by the time last evening rolled around. I fed him at 9:30 and put him to bed around 10:00 and he slept until almost 6:30 this morning. I actually woke up at 5:45 and went to be sure he was still breathing (that was the first time I've done that)!

I'm thinking it was just a fluke because he slept so little during the day yesterday, but he's still been good about going for about 6-7 hours or so at night before he wakes up to be fed again.

He hasn't rolled anymore, but I think he will soon. He kicks his legs around so much and wiggles, but just doesn't get anywhere. It's alright, he hates being on his tummy so much, I'm sure if he rolled on to it he'd freak. We get a maximum of five mintues on his tummy before he cries. We do lots of little tummy time sessions.

He still hasn't laughed yet, but he smiles like a fool. And he figured out the raspberry/motorboat noise, so he does that all the time. He's getting really good about staying sitting up when he's propped.

Love, love, love my boy!

Merriam-Webster's Dictionary says that we can use an before an h- word that begins with an unstressed syllable. Thus, we might say an hisTORical moment, but we would say a HIStory book. Many writers would call that an affectation and prefer that we say a historical, but apparently, this choice is a matter of personal taste.

Did you know that?

It drives me crazy when people say "an historical" because it just sounds funny. I was looking this up for my dissertation in which I say "a historical perspective" and very much did not want to say "an historical perspective."

The teaser...from Ethan's first 4th of July...



( Read more... )

Thanks to Julie and Lauren for yesterday's feedback. I went and visited another center today and it was like night and day compared to yesterday. It was such a better place and I'm so excited about that. Better toys, better building, better play area, better teachers, better tuition policy, better everything. I'm going to call a couple more home daycares to see if anyone has any openings (just so we've considered everything), but I think this morning's center might be the place for Ethan.

Such a relief!

I just got home from visiting a local daycare center with Ethan. Again, I have mixed feelings about what I saw. It's so hard essentially choosing a replacement for myself, a psuedo parent for my child. My standards are so incredibly high, and that's making this a difficult process.

Today I visited a tiny little daycare center (I think their max is 50 kids, compared to 150 at most centers in the area). There were five or six kids in the infant room, most already crawling. The kids looked happy, but at least two of them had runny noses. The two teachers (they have a 4:1 ratio) seemed nice, but one was missing one of her front teeth. I'm not one to judge, but she just looked kind of scary. She had been there only three months, and the other had only been there for 4 weeks. The room was so tiny, I felt like I was going to step on a kid. There isn't a whole lot of room for 8 kids. The older kids' rooms are bigger. The toys (which they sanitize every day) looked old and worn out. The whole center looked old and worn out.

Ultimately, I'm sure Ethan would be fine there. I really liked the director, and they all fawned over my Ethan. I think they would take good care of him and treat him well. The place looked safe enough (the front door has a code you have to enter to open it and each parent gets a differen code). I certainly don't think they would harm him. I don't know that they follow the "curriculum" that the KinderCare website touts so proudly for the infant program, but really there's only so much you can do with five infants on five different eating/sleeping schedules.

My thoughts are all over the place. If the director was the teacher instead of the director, I think I'd do it. But the teachers just didn't impress me. And I worry that Ethan would get sick a lot, which is probably going to be the case at any center. I don't know. I think I'm going to look at one of the other KinderCare places in a more affluent area (the center today is in a lower-income area) and see how it compares. And I still need to try to find at least one more home daycare to visit.

I hate this.

Ethan
He's getting so big and he smiles and talks all the time. He's turning out to be a pretty happy baby and really only cries if he's tired or hungry. He loves ceiling fans and his crib mobile and his toys. We've discovered books and I love reading to him. He's still not such a fan of tummy time, but we force him to do it anyway. It's hard to believe he's just a week and a half shy of three months old. Where does the time go??

School
Last night was the first session of my Last Class Ever. Five more sessions to go and I'm DONE with my coursework. I can't tell you how excited this makes me. It's another interesting class, too...lifespan development. Talk about relevant to my life right now!

The dissertation is going not so well, considering I just met with my chair yesterday and changed my research questions AGAIN. But it's okay. I have to rewrite my first chapter, the only chapter I had close to done. But we eliminated a research question which gave me more focus and lessened the amount of work I'll end up doing. And my other committee member has given me great feedback and is really excited about my topic, which can only be a good sign. I haven't heard back from the third committee member yet, but hopefully she'll be just as pleased. I defend my proposal (chapters 1-3) on August 3rd, which means I have to have it submitted to my committee by July 23rd. Wish me luck with that...

Andy
He got officially promoted at work today. So, so proud of my husband. And he's still the world's best daddy to our Ethan. Currently we're excited because his mom and Joe are coming to visit on Saturday. It'll be the first time they've met Ethan. They're staying for a week, which Andy is taking as vacation from work, and we're going to have So Much Fun!!

The rest of life...
My new moms' support group officially ended, but we've continued getting together on our own. We went to Color Me Mine on Tuesday with the babies and painted pottery, and then we went to lunch after. It was a lot of fun. They're a neat group, and I think we're all glad to have met friends with kids. We made quite a spectacle at Corner Bakery with our six babies and six mommies and strollers and carriers and whatnot. :) We're already planning a gigantic First Friends First Birthday Party for next spring!

I think I'm finally feeling well-adjusted to life as a mommy. I don't get that panicky "oh he's crying and won't stop and I don't know what's wrong" feeling anymore. I can usually sort out what he needs. I'm getting some decent sleep (usually about 6 hours a night) and that helps a lot. The smiling and talking melts my heart and every time I look into Ethan's big blue eyes I say a little prayer of thanks to God for my miracle.

So while life is still occasionally stressful and full of work, I am immensely happy and content. Life is good.

First Friends is what we named our little moms' group. At our last meeting we took a group picture of the babies. Can you find Ethan?? :)

Today was Ethan's 2-month visit to Dr. C. The highlights...

Ethan's Stats:

Length: 23 1/4 inches (50th percentile)
Weight: 13 lbs, 12 oz (90th percentile)
Head Circumference: 16 1/2 inches (65th percentile)
Shots Received: 5 (polio, DTap combo, HIB, Hep B, & pneumococcal)
Minutes Spent Crying After Shots: 1-2
Apparent After Effects of Shots: none yet (love those chunky monkey thighs!)

Mom's Stats:

Number of Days Spent Dreading Today's Appointment: lots
Number of Tears Shed During Shot Administration: none (so proud of this!)
Number of Eyes Open During Shot Administration: none
Number of Hearts Broken At the Sight of Ethan's Chunky Monkey Thighs Covered in Bandaids: one


Dr. C said Ethan is demonstrating "superb development" and everything looks good. He said he's a good-sized baby (yeah) with Dumbo ears (one sticks out a little), a puppy nose that may cause him to drown when it rains (it's quite upturned), and funny toes (they're all the same length). All of that was said with a great deal of affection and respect, of course.

We really love Dr. C and will be so sad when he retires. But thanks to my moms' group, we've got some leads on some suitable replacements.

Keep your fingers crossed that he continues to handle the immunizations well. We're not clear for a couple of days, but I'm hoping since nothing's shown up yet, he'll continue to be okay. Andy and I are both tremendously proud of how well our little guy handled everything today. He's a trooper!!! And we love him, funny toes, upturned nose, dumbo ears and all!

I miss my sister. She was here with us for two weeks, caring for Ethan while I went back to work. We had to take her to the airport tonight, and I've been so sad since she left. I don't think I have (or ever can) express to her how thankful I am for all she did for us while she was here. And I don't think I can ever express how very much I miss her and wish she would come back to California.

I'm trying hard to cheer up for Andy's sake because it's his first Father's Day. He's as amazing of a father as Emily is a sister and Ethan is a son. I'm very lucky. It's been a quiet Father's Day, but I hope a good one. He got his present (a new barbecue) yesterday. We made him waffles for breakfast today.

And now yet another transition...being at home with Ethan again, no Emily, feeling the pressure of trying to get lots of school work done. I'm hoping I'm more productive this time around than I was while on maternity leave. Shaking my sadness over Emily leaving would make things much easier. :)

Look how she loves him...









And I love him too...

Yesterday was my first day back at work. I was fine until I got home. Then it was a blur of an evening with a confusing visit to a potential day care, too many dirty dishes to count, looming school work, and an overwhelming desire to do nothing but sit and hold Ethan while he slept.

It was an all too real glimpse of my future, and it left me feeling quite disconcerted. The going to work part was easy. I knew Ethan was at home with his incredibly capable Aunt Emily and Dad. But I know it's going to be a thousand times more difficult when I'm taking him to day care. And the thought of spending my evenings trying to keep up with the house and school work and having only a few precious hours with my son is not at all appealing.

It was the smallest thing, really, that broke me. When I got home from work, Ethan was sleeping. We ate and then Andy packed him into his car seat so we could go meet the potential day care lady. When we got there, she immediately asked if she could take him out of the car seat and hold him, which we told her was fine. And then I realized she was getting to hold my son first, when I hadn't seen him all day. And it was like this little peek at what's to come...someone else holding him and cuddling him and feeding him and responding to his needs and doing all the things I should be doing. It doesn't bother me when he's with family, but the idea of a virtual stranger doing all of that for my son, and knowing that I can't, kills me. The idea of someone other than me loving him all day makes me so jealous I can't see straight.

I know this is how it has to be and that I will come to terms with it. But I'm not looking forward to it, and last night's visit (more on that later) was not reassuring in terms of finding someone I can trust to watch Ethan. I can get through the next 8 days. Emily is amazing with Ethan. And then I'm going to spend the whole summer soaking up every precious moment with my son before I have to go back to work in August and hand him over to someone else...

My super cooperative son let me take all of five pictures before he got fussy. But these are some good ones, taken on his one month "birthday." Except for the first one. That's an older one taken by Aunt Vivian, and it's one of my favorites. It looks like he's happy, but he's SO not.