lifepassedby.com » daycare

Back in the saddle

kasper — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 04:32:50 +0000

Finally back to my very dusty corner of the web! The long absence from this site started with a little boy (who shall remain nameless) who no longer wanted to sleep in his crib. I must admit I tend to take the path of least resistance whenever possible. So instead of simply putting my son in his crib and walking away I would let him fall asleep on my chest while watching tv, then transport him up to his bed. This worked very well for a while, though it didn’t leave me with much time to myself. It eventually got to the point where I couldn’t even get him into his crib after being asleep. Somehow the little darling seemed to sense that he was being put in his crib and would immediately wake up, jump up and start screaming. It was almost like he was terrified of his crib. This progressed to me sleeping with him in my bed. As you may well have guessed this left NO time to blog, knit or shower for that matter. This went on all summer. It’s only been in the last month that I finally dismantled his unused crib and put his mattress on the floor. He still doesn’t sleep on it (I think because it’s plastic and makes a fairly loud crinkly noise when he moves), so I’ve set up a thick comforter on the floor. Finally with a consistent bedtime routine and some perseverance, I’ve managed to get him to sleep in his own room… for most of the night. From time to time he still gets up in the middle of the night and crawls into bed with us, but I feel like we’ve come a long way and am proud that he mostly sleeps on his own.
I returned to work full time in mid-August. It was a strange adjustment but I quickly fell right back into things and soon felt like I’d never left. In mid-October I got an email from an old colleague out of the blue, offering me a promotion. I stewed over the offer for a LONG time, and finally decided though the job sounded tailor made for me and was fantastic, the much longer commute would leave my son in daycare for 10-11 hours which I couldn’t deal with. With a heavy heart I turned down the promotion, but it just got me thinking that there were other opportunities for me out there. In the last month and a half I’ve had the opportunity to try my hand at a different position within the school. Our guidance secretary Dawn, is out on stress leave and Jenn, the VP secretary moved into her desk. We were going to get a supply to cover Jenn’s desk, but I suggested that I take it to get a bit more experience with different job duties. It’s a refreshing change, since I used to be on reception and therefore chained to the phone. Now I don’t answer any phones (okay, except mine), I can have a conversation with a co-worker without checking to see who’s at the counter, and I can move around without anyone hollering for me to get back to my desk. The best part about this job is that I’ve managed to automate our staff attendance coverage using excel and some handy formulas. It’s so fantastic to be able to use my brain and computer skills instead of the same old, same old on my old desk. I guess the only thing about the new (temporary) position, is that I start at 07:30 which basically means that I should’ve been in bed oh, like 2 hours ago…

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Gearing up

kasper — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 14:29:07 +0000

Yes, I’m gearing up for the end of the year (school year) madness. Even though I’m not back at work yet, I still have a bunch of stuff to do. Like tomorrow night is my school’s grad. Even though I haven’t been there for over a year, I promised the students that I would be back to announce the grads as they walk across the stage. This has always been my thing, and I really enjoy doing it. Besides they always seem to have a problem finding someone who can say some of the names. For instance Sathananthalingam is just the last name of one of our students. Her first name is still 12 characters long. I don’t seem to have much difficulty in saying these names so I’m always called upon when there’s a long name like that to pronounce. Then on Thursday is our end of the year staff breakfast. Even though I went last year, I think I’m going to beg off this year. I don’t really want to sit through all the goodbyes of staff I don’t really care about or know. Besides I anticipate it being difficult keeping a little guy who is *almost* walking still for like 4 hours. It’ll probably be more trouble than it’s worth and frankly I don’t care that much.

My mum was down for a couple of days and we had a really nice visit. This was the first time she stayed for more than one night. We decided the last time she was here that it didn’t make much sense to just stay for one night because it was all so rushed. We really didn’t do much. We managed to get out for a long walk and admire other people’s front gardens. It gave me all sorts of ideas for mine. And we had my brother and his wife over for dinner Saturday night. They left around 21:00 and my mum, dad, hubby and I stayed up till 23:00 talking about baby D and his birth. Even though it wasn’t that long ago (14 months) there were a couple things I had actually forgotten. I love reminiscing! Yesterday we went to church together and then came home and finally hung up some pictures I’ve been meaning to get on my walls. I will still have to get some more pictures as I have a humongous wall in my family room that could use some lovin’.

This time next Monday I will be at work. I am trying desperately not to think about it for fear that I will lose my mind. It’s only for 2 weeks; 9 days in fact so I’m sure I can do that. The worst will be when baby D goes into daycare and it’s a full time arrangement. If hubby was staying home with baby D the whole time as we had planned I probably wouldn’t be as nervous, but my Dad will be watching him for 3 days. I’m sure it doesn’t sound like a big deal, but he’s old-school German and tends to have his own way of doing things and criticizing mine. I guess I’m just afraid that he’ll be letting baby D scream himself to sleep or feeding him large chunks of stuff that he might choke on or possibly being too rough on him. I’ll just have to keep thinking happy thoughts that everything will go fine or I’m going to make myself sick thinking about it.

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One winter’s day

kasper — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 03:53:42 +0000

Yesterday was one of those lazy days where it’s so hard to get off the couch. Monday for us is the equivalent of Sunday because hubby has Sunday/Monday off. At noon my Dad called and asked us to go out for lunch. I agreed but told him that we’d be ready around one since hubby still needed to get a shower. My Dad was surprised that we’d need so much time since he also needed to shower before leaving the house, but that’s the slow man I married. I knew that it might take a bit of arm twisting to get hubby to agree to lunch. As expected, he wasn’t impressed and even said “How rude, you can’t make plans for me!” at which point I laughed and jumped in his lap mocking him. He knew he wasn’t going to win this fight so off he went to get a shower. In the time it took for hubby to do whatever it is he does pre-shower, then shower, I managed to get myself dressed and baby D changed, dressed and fed. When it was all said and done we didn’t get out the door till after 1:30! The clichÃ© about women taking forever to get ready really applies to the man of the house around here. After throwing restaurant names around a bit we finally decided to go to East Side Mario’s.

During lunch I couldn’t help but watch baby D. I’m so thankful that he’s so good. He just sat there in his carrier happily playing with a toy and eventually even fell asleep. I really do realize how lucky I am that he’s as good as he is. I certainly can’t expect that a second child would be so good (but I can still hope). He really isn’t a problem while we’re out. I’ve even had people comment on how good he is. Like when we were out with the real estate agents before we bought the house. We would be out looking at houses for between 2-4 hours and he wouldn’t cry or anything. We’d drag him from house to house and most of the time he’d just fall asleep. My little angel!

So after lunch we went to check out a daycare center. Their ad boasted security cards for parents and teachers with a knowledge of sign language so I had to have a look at it. When we got there I was almost ready to give up on the place as I didn’t see a playground. That is until I looked up. The center is on the second floor of a plaza and the playground is up there too. Talk about security! I really like that idea. So hubby and I went inside after a mom held the door for us on her way out. Once inside and heading up the stairs I felt like we shouldn’t be there, and then remembered the passcards. Luckily a staff member escorting 2 little girls up the stairs came along and I apologized for getting in without buzzing first but was looking for some information. We were ushered in to meet the director who was very nice and took us on a tour around the center. The place looked really good and all the staff seemed really nice and friendly. We talked a bit more in her office after the tour and she nicely stifled her laugh as I told her when I wanted daycare for. Worst case scenario I need daycare for mid-March for an infant. Yes I know I’m an idiot! I’ve had nightmares ever since baby D was born about leaving him and going back to work. I really want to stay home with him, so looking for daycare goes against what I want. Now of course I’ve left it so long that I’m basically screwed. In fact the daycare is already booking infants for February 2009! Man did I miss the boat! There is a possibility of getting a toddler spot in August, so I guess we’ll just have to try to do everything possible to get there. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

Here’s where we are right now. My maternity ends mid-April, so I’m expected to go back to work on April 14th. Because I work for the school board and they’ve cut us down from 12 months to 10 months/4 weeks (the entire school year, minus holidays, plus 2 weeks after school ends and 2 weeks before school starts) we now claim unemployment during the summer when we’re off. Therefore to get paid this summer I would have to count 600 hours back from the start of my summer which brings me to the week before March break to go back to work. What I’m really hoping for is to extend my unemployment, which apparently I can do with a doctor’s note stating that I am anxious about going back to work (no lie there!) or am still nursing (also true). If I do manage to extend my leave, then that would take me to the middle of July and I would have no money coming in for a month until I start work again mid-August. It would be tight to say the least, but we do have a bit of savings that we could use and hopefully hubby will either be at a better job or will be able to get enough overtime to get us through.

I was supposed to go to my baby sign language class this morning, but the weather was so yucky I decided not to. The class is about 25 minutes away on a good day and with the weather as snowy as it was it probably would’ve taken me close to an hour one way. Since the class is only 45 minutes long I didn’t see any point in spending that much time in traffic dealing with the commute. So instead me and the little guy took his new (to us anyway, it’s used) sled out for a test drive. Friends can see some pics on Flickr.

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