2015 - Week 34

Off and running on another week. Week 37. Here in Minnesota, the state fair starts later this week…which marks the unofficial end of summer. I can’t believe it…State Fair coming, back to school coming – fall is right around the corner, ya’ll!

After dropping the girls off at daycare, I was off to work. A little but on pins and needles, wondering what would come of the big issue from Friday (the coughing/yelling/interviews that took place). Our supervisor was back today, and I thought for sure we’d be in for something. But, so far, nothing has come up. I sure wonder what’s going to happen though! The rest of the day was a pretty standard Monday. You know how awesome those are! After work, I picked the big girls up. It was a Rainy day, and it’s cooling down a little – which is not a horrible thing. The girls’ little BFF Bella was over to play for a while…which has been a pretty fairly daily occurrence during the week this summer. For the most part – it’s no big deal. She, Amelia and Olivia are old enough to play on their own, play in the yard, go downstairs, entertain themselves. So, it doesn’t take much effort on our part. But some nights, the extra chaos of having a friend over can be a little overwhelming. However, she wasn’t in daycare or school over the summer, so it pulled at my only-child heartstrings a little bit. At the end of the day, we figured it’s not a big deal, and summer will fly by anyway, so there was no sense in depriving them of hanging out together. Now, she leaves for California, on vacation, tomorrow, then when she gets back from there, she’s going camping for a few days…then, she’ll be back in daycare, and THEN school starts, so tonight was pretty much the end of their summer hang out. I know it will still happen once school starts up, some nights – but soon enough, the snow will be flying and it’s not as easy to hang out anymore. Kind of crazy to think about! After some play time, we finally had dinner, relaxed, and settled in for the night.

Bedtime snuggles!

Tuesday was a pretty standard day. When I checked Eliza into the infant room today, I got the officially letter in her file…she will officially begin transitioning to the toddler room next week. I can’t believe it!!! Oh man, it makes me want to cry. It still seems impossible to me, that there’s no way she could be ready. But, but the time she transitions to the room full time, she’ll be 16 months old. I think she will love it, and it will be a whole different experience for her, but it just does not seem possible that my little baby is really a toddler! Ms. Judy, the toddler room “teacher” is so excited though, which warms by heart. She was Amelia’s first teacher when the big girls started going there, and Amelia just LOVED her to pieces. Growing up, it’s not easy! I ended up having a really productive day at work today. I’ve been so distracted, and just mentally checked out at work lately, so it felt really good to refocus, and plow through some work for a change. Hopefully I can get myself back in check now. It rained, and rained, and rained all day today, so soccer was canceled for the night. On one hand, it sucks to miss out – but at the same time, it’s nice to get a little break once in a while. So, I stopped at the grocery store quick after work for a few things, picked the girls up from daycare, and we settled in at home. Christian was home a little earlier than usual, and made us some yummy, delicious taquitos for dinner. SOOOOOO good! Eliza was super tired tonight, which made putting her to bed pretty easy. The big girls watched some videos and it was a rare, but welcomed, quiet night around the house.

Wednesday, our standard kind of week continued. We did have a busy morning…on top of the usual morning chaos, Eliza needed a restock in daycare supplies (diapers and wipes) and I had to load up some potluck stuff for a work lunch, so I was all thrown off, right from the start. The rest of the day went well though. And, a potluck for lunch always makes the day that much better! The drive home tonight was so crazy…it was raining for a few blocks, no rain for a few, downpour for a few, sunshine for a few, the entire way home. So weird!! The highway was already backed up where I usually get on, so I skipped it and took my “snow day alternate route” home instead. It took me about 40 minutes to get from work to daycare, which is the fastest my drive home has been in months! It’s been taking me about an hour, all summer long, which is just in sane (it’s really a 25 minute drive). I mean, construction season usually slows things down, but there has literally been ZERO construction going on this summer on my route. Traffic, it’s just insane. I picked the girls up, and we settled in at home. We checked out the gardens, and things continue to be quite fascinating. Everything is actually coming in really well this summer. We have a 2^nd pumpkin growing, and suddenly quite a few cantaloupes have started! So fun. But, for some reason, our jalapeños are coming in red suddenly. I read that could mean they aren’t getting enough water, so hopefully that’s it. Very exciting stuff! Once Christian arrived home, we had dinner and settled in for the night.

We have another pumpkin growing. AAAAAND, cantaloupe!

On Thursday, I had a rough start to the day. So, here’s the deal. I’m late to work. EVERY.DAMN.DAY. I know this, I cannot control this. It does not matter what time I get up, what time I leave the house – SOMETHING will happen to make me late. Luckily, schedules where I work are fairly flexible, so it’s really not a big deal. I do not take a lunch break, or my morning or afternoon breaks. I eat lunch at my desk, while I work, and my “breaks” are basically the couple minutes I skim through facebook on my phone throughout the day. I used to do this because I pumped at work…now, I do it because I’m late, so I make up for that time, with my break time, so that I can still leave on time. I mean, this is very obvious to anybody and everybody in our office. Meanwhile, we have people that supposedly start at 6:00AM, or before, that I know for a fact are late every single day. We have people who basically work whatever hours they want…like day by day they just get in at whatever time they get in, and work their 8 hours – so there’s no standard. Well, today, after I arrived, I got an e-mail from my supervisor that just pushed me over the edge – especially since she still has yet to deal with last week’s incident. I am supposed to start at 7:00, and I’m usually about 15 minutes late. Every great once in a while, I’m a little later, like 7:20ish. At that point, I usually just take 30 minutes of vacation and be done with it (even though I still don’t take a lunch or breaks). The e-mail this morning was a “friendly reminder” that I need to call in if I’m going to be 20 minutes late or more. With all of the other BS that goes on in the office, and everybody else’s random schedules, I was seriously pissed off. Why 20 minutes? Why isn’t it just late period? What makes that 20 minute mark so important? To me, it was just her way of pointing out that I’m late. And, instead of just talking to me about it, or even taking the lack of lunch/breaks into consideration on her own, she throws it in my face. I mean, I have myself and three young kids to get up, ready and out the door in the morning, I have the worst drive of the office, and my professionalism is extremely important to me, so it’s already hard enough on me that I’m late as it is. At the end of the day, sure, calling in isn’t a huge deal – but calling in is just one more thing that I can’t bring myself to deal with when I’m already stressed, rushing and overwhelmed in the morning. I was so livid – I had this whole e-mail typed up, throwing everybody else in the office under the bus, and making sure that the everybody was being held to the same scrutiny (which, they are definitely not). I’m telling you – with how much I have HATED being back at work, and how desperately I’ve been wanting to quit and stay home, it took everything in me not to walk out right then and there. It was just one of those “final nails in the coffin” moments for me. So, I went over to my friend Brad’s office, and vented to him, and he talked me down. I finally pulled myself together, deleted my e-mail, and just got to work. There’s nothing I can do about it – it’s not possible for me to quit, I have no other options, so I need to just suck it up, focus on my work, and worry about myself. Ugh – that was a mouthful – but man did I need to vent all of that frustration!!

After that chaos, and an overall pretty hectic day (preparing for my Friday off tomorrow), I stopped home after work – let the dog out, grabbed some snacks and the girls’ soccer gear, and made my way to daycare. The girls changed while I picked Eliza up, and Christian met us in the parking lot. This was officially the end of Eliza last full week in the infant room. Next week, she’ll start spending part of the day in toddler’s, to see how she does and how she adapts, and I’m pretty anxious to see how everything goes. Crazy! Amelia and I were off to her game, my first with her of the season, while Christian took Olivia to practice. My mom came to watch her too, which was helpful when Eliza started getting pretty fussy (though, I think part of the reason she was getting fussy to begin with is because my mom was there – so she wanted to get out of her stroller and get the extra attention). Amelia was doing SO well tonight, I’m so proud. She was actually REALLY playing and getting into the game, trying really hard. She is learning to dribble the ball pretty well – but, the big thing we need to work on, when she gets the ball she just kind of aimlessly runs with it, with no regard for where the goal is. Gotta get her to focus on that, and keep her eye on where she’s going, otherwise I was really impressed with her! By the time we all met up at home afterwards, we had to have a quick dinner, give the girls a bath and head off to bed. Soccer nights sure fly by!

Amelia's Soccer Game

Friday was my Friday off, YES!!!!!!!!! SOOOOOO needed after yesterday’s horrible day. I dropped the big girls off at daycare before Christian left for work, and then settled in back at home. Eliza slept in, for quite a while actually, so I had breakfast all by myself, did some blogging. RELAXED! What a perfect start to the day. We hung out, had some breakfast, played for a while. Just a usual Friday morning with my lovemuffin. It rained on and off all day – but we ventured out to pick up a couple things at the store, and I grabbed some lunch on the way home. Eliza ended up falling asleep while eating her lunch – poor thing, that’s when you know they are EXHAUSTED!!! So, she went off for her nap, and I settled in for a lazy afternoon. Christian was off work early today…he stopped home, showered, and was off to the doctor. I finally made him make an appointment for a check-up/physical. I don’t think he’s had one the entire 14 years we’ve been together. I mean, seriously. In addition to that, and TMI but whatever, he was tasked with discussing the whole vasectomy procedure with the doctor. I’ve come to the decision that I’ve spent a great deal of my adult life on birth control already, I’ve gone through three pregnancies (and everything that comes with them), one C-Section and two births – I’ve paid my dues to this family! Even though I’d LOVE to have another baby, I know that we cannot afford to do that – kids are expensive you know – and it’s important to me that we always be able to provide more than the bare necessities for our children. Not to mention future cars, graduations, college, weddings, etc. So, it was time for us to start making some permanent decisions. And, I finally talked Christian into agreeing to “take one for the team”. Well, the appointment took quite a turn. Overall, his physical went well. While discussing the vasectomy, the doctor pointed out the scarring from a surgery he had on his ears a while back (well, he actually had several over the years), and noted that he does not appear to scar well. And, while he’d have to talk to a specialist about it more, that could be an issue when it comes to having a vasectomy. While it’s not a definite “no” yet, it was a little frustrating to hear. Outside of that, we got some unnerving news though. Christian has had this “lump” on his chest for a while. It’s really hard, and has gotten bigger over time. Of course, the doctor checked it out, and determined there is definitely something there that has to be checked out. So, he has a follow-up appointment at another clinic next week, likely for a mammogram or some x-rays, to get a better look at what could be going on. So, needless to say, that will pretty much be our concern and stress over the coming weeks, until we find out what’s really going on, and what is going to be done about it. Scary stuff!! And, needless to say, all of the vasectomy talk has been sidelined until all of this is taken care of. Before he arrived home, once Eliza was up from her long nap, I picked the big girls up from daycare, grabbed some dinner for all of us, and we met up at home and settled in for the night. What a stressful day it turned out to be!

Relaxing on her couch, watching some videos.

Well, somebody was SUPER tired today, fell asleep eating

Saturday was a bit of a long day. Christian was off to work, as usual. We’re on a break from swim classes right now, so thankfully we don’t have to rush to get ready and out of the door…but, Saturday morning soccer will be starting soon enough. I woke up with a little headache, which of course just got worse as the day went on. We had some breakfast, and hung out for the morning. The big girls kept Eliza pretty distracted and entertained for me most of the day, which was a huge relief.  While Eliza took a nice long nap, the other two played outside for a while, watched some videos, and ultimately gave me some time to rest. When Christian arrived from home, he kept the girls pretty distracted outside, while I showered, maxed out on IBU and rested as much as I could. It was chilly, but the big girls swam for a while. CRAZY! They rode bikes and scooters and ran around, playing outside. We had dinner, and I slowly started to feel better…never 100%, but much better than rock bottom, that’s for sure. Some storms rolled in right before bed…luckily, storms don’t seem to bother any of our kids or animals, so we hit the jackpot there. Knock on wood!  Christian and I watched some Netflix for a while, before I finally had to call it a day, and get some sleep.

Sunday was a pretty busy day. I still wasn’t feeling all there, and was SO behind on my chores around the house. We ended up loading up the kids and heading to Perkins for breakfast. So yummy!! After eating, we stopped at Walmart for a few groceries, a gift and a couple other necessities, before heading home. Eliza took a nice nap, while I worked on some laundry and the big girls played outside with Christian for a while. Then, it was time to get everybody ready, load up the van, and head off to my friend Melissa’s little girls’ birthday party. With my weekend headache and all of the stuff I had to do, I almost had to cancel on going, but I toughed it out. Melissa doesn’t throw birthday parties every year, and little Payton was diagnosed with Diabetes this year, so it was a big year for her. Plus, I rarely get a chance to hang out with Melissa, AND they recently moved, so it was a nice opportunity to see her and check out their new place. Luckily, I’ve gotten to know her family and a lot of her other friends over the years, so going to parties for her kids isn’t awkward or uncomfortable at all – which is always a plus. We had some food, the kids played and had a blast with all of the other kids. Meanwhile, Christian was at home cleaning up the garage and cutting the grass. The usual for him. As the party ended, we loaded back up in the van and made our way home for the night. We had a light dinner, watched some TV, and sent the kids off to bed for the night. And, FINALLY, “Fear the Walking Dead” premiered tonight, so Christian and I settled in for that. We don’t have cable, but we were able to stream the show to the TV, through the computer, using our friends’ xfinity log-in, so that we could watch it. Of course, I’m guessing because of the popularity of the debut, the computer kept skipping and stalling and it was SO frustrating, but we got through it. It’s definitely MUCH different than “The Walking Dead” – it’s all about when people started turning and how the world kind of falls apart. It will have a much different and slower pace than TWD, but I’m super excited for it. I can’t wait to see how everything falls apart and the world just kind of ends. Intense! I was off to bed as soon as the show ended – with my headache, I couldn’t possibly last any longer. Heading into a full week of work was not exciting either! Oy!

Breakfast with the family.

Until Next Week! XOXO