A Day Care Update, and other stuff.

Brooklyn had her first full week at Lil' Lambs Day Care today. She has now spent 2 half days and 7 full days there. I have to say that I am truly amazed at how well she is doing! My little girl is taking great strides in the sleeping and eating department. Before day care, she slept with us (well, "slept" isn't really the right word, it was more like she took naps throughout the night), took sporadic naps and barely ate solids. NOW, she goes to bed promptly at 7pm, without crying when I put her in her crib, she takes a solid, long nap from 12:30 - 3:00pm, and she eats everything in sight! She has become a voracious eater! I can't believe it!

I no longer dread bedtime like I used to and I have a couple hours at night to myself to do things I want and need to do...like write this blog! She has become attached to her sock monkey and will fall asleep hugging him. It's so cute. I had wanted her to find a bear or doll that she could cuddle with and  sleep with and she finally does! She will let me lay her down in her crib, without a peep and hold her monkey in one arm and her bottle with the other hand. Now I just have to figure out how to keep a blanket on her. She tosses and turns so much that she won't keep a blanket on and she always feels clod in the morning. I do put socks on her feet and she sleeps in pants and a shirt but I should probably get her some footed PJs soon. We like to keep the A/C pretty low at nights. Lately I have been super hot in my sleep and I wake up feeling like it's burning up in our room and when I go check the temp it's 73! But, I digress...

I'm very content with our wonderful little day care and am so happy that Brooklyn is doing so well with it. She will go full-time this week and next and after that, she will cut back to two days a week and my parents will keep her on Mondays and Thursdays.  I wanted to get her in for two good weeks to get used to it so that when she cuts to part-time, it won't feel like something new all over again.

On the work front for me, it has been quite a frustrating week. Our school built a new science building an is in a 3 year remodeling process that started last school year. They got quite a bit done over the summer but there is still a ton of construction going on at our campus and it limits where you can get into the building. They also took away a pretty big chunk of our parking spaces at the front of the school, so unless I get there really early and get one of those spaces, I'll be parking in the way back of the school and walking 10 minutes to get to my classroom. I guess the brisk walk in the mornings won't be bad for me as I'm trying to put exercise back into my life and daily routine. (my goal is to work out 4 times a week!) It took me a while to get my room put together. In fact, I was up there today, on a Saturday, finishing it up. I moved rooms this year so I had to bring all my stuff (which was very disorganized in my old room) into my new room. If you know me, I'm just not an organizer/decorator so it took me a while to figure out what to do with my room. I've got it "acceptable" for the first week of school but will be adding things to it as the first few weeks go along. I'm also going to involve my students because they are so creative and have great ideas that I would never think of. I just can't believe that my summer is over and I'm going back to work next week...WITH THE KIDS!! Everything is new and I'm starting everything all over again! At least this year I get to teach a new level of Spanish. I'll be teaching 4 periods of Spanish 1 and 2 periods of Spanish 2. That will break things up a bit and give me some variety, which I need.

I'm still a little disappointed at the things I didn't get done this summer that I wanted to. My house is still pretty cluttered which I planned to fix this summer. I still plan on having a garage sale sometime in the fall when things cool down. I have a bunch of stuff I just need to get rid of so I'm going to have to break down and have one, as dreadful as it sounds to me at this point.

Waylon is doing an amazing job as a GM. He is kicking butt with sales and his team has grown considerably. He still works crazy hours (70-80 hrs a week) but when we pay off our last debt, hopefully in the spring, it's going to have been SO worth it! At that point, I've told him he is free to quit that job, if he wants, and find something a little less taxing. I would also like to look into either working part-time at that point, or, finding a day care to work at where I can take Brooklyn and still get to see her everyday. It's really killing me to go back to work right now and not get to spend these long days with her so I really want to find something where I can remedy that situation. If we still need a full-time income from me, then I'll look into a day care, if not, I'll try to find something more "fun" for myself that I will enjoy rather than what pays the most for the least amount of hours. I really think I would still want to work part-time just to have my "me" time and feel like I'm still bringing in some "bacon" for our family. We are praying about these plans of ours and seeking what God wants for our family though, so next year may be unlike anything I can imagine! I'm very excited and hopeful for the possibilities! Until then, I'm praying to have a great year at school and that it will be a year for trying new things with my students and a very positive year. Having a bad attitude about it will do me no good, so I'm going to try and keep a positive attitude!

I'm working on my next post already. I think you all will get a kick out of it!

Toodles!