Nathan's 15 Month Check-up (and my not-so-days-off)

We had Nathan's 15 month check-up nearly two weeks ago and I haven't yet had the time or mental capacity to sit down and write about it. But I'll do so now because my "days off" (will explain the quotation marks later) end tomorrow at 12:45.

Developmentally, he's absolutely perfect. In fact, he amazed our pediatrician with his vocabulary and his recent development of saying three word sentences. In the past month, he's gone from saying, "What's that?" to "What's that thing?" or "What's that do?". He's learned how to say Aiden's name (AAIII....den!) and has begun trying to say his own name - he calls himself "Na Na" or "Bab" (Baby). He'll also ask for "mednits" (medicine) when he's extremely stuffy or has a headache. He calls all sandwiches "gill cheese" (grilled cheese). He calls his shoes "shee", and diapers "di-poo" (sort of fitting!). He's doing quite well with asking for what he wants and being very vocal and specific about what he needs.

He received one shot in his arm and he didn't even wince. No tears! It was great!

As far as measurements go, he's a petite little boy.
His weight is: 21.14 (14th perc). He was 20.8 (16th perc) at his one year check.
His height is: 31 1/2 inches (61st perc). He was 29 inches (24th perc) at one year.
His head circ is: 47 1/2 cm (59th perc). He was 47 cm (68th perc) at one year.

As you can see, he's shot up in height percentile-wise, but dropped in weight. The pediatrician wasn't too concerned (I am super tiny, after all), but wanted us to switch him to whole milk instead of the 2% we've all been drinking. I guess I just got used to giving my kids 2% milk. Aiden was such a chubster when he was little, giving him the extra milk fat and calories wasn't an issue.

I did mention to our pediatrician that we were losing our health insurance at the end of the month because of John's lay-off and he was so great about it. He said that there were many ways they could work with us on this. One way would be to put off his next checkup until two years if we still didn't have insurance by 18 months. He isn't concerned with anything he's seeing and he didn't feel like there was anything to be missed by skipping a checkup. He said we could also just schedule the shots for 18 months, but not have the doctor visit. That way, he stays on schedule for immunizations (a very small charge), but we don't have to foot the bill for a doctor visit (again, mostly skipping the checkup). He said that they are willing to work with us during this time of unemployment, as he doesn't want us to go anywhere else. Obviously, there's the concern of a sudden illness, so I am planning on getting the boys on OHP so we have some sort of coverage in case of an emergency.

And that's the check-up! He's a wonderful, opinionated little boy and we love him more than we could ever express. I do think he's begun the terrible two's already....he's suddenly throwing screaming tantrums when he gets mad at anyone. How fun! Although we did have trouble not laughing when he yelled at John the other day. He's so tiny, the outburst was just ridiculous.

I can already tell that he's developing a great bond with his daddy while daddy is the one at home. You can see that he certainly is happy to see me once I get home though! My time at home has been very little lately, especially this week. I have been working 32-35 hour weeks, but am scheduled for 39 this week. My two days off (Tuesday and Wednesday) didn't feel very relaxing though.

I was called for jury duty on Tuesday, so I was up at 6:30am (I am very much NOT a morning person!) in order to report to the court at 7:45am. I was picked to go up for jury selection in the very first round of picks (which was nice, since that meant I didn't have to sit there for very long....only an hour and a half). Jury selection went from 10:30 to 11:30, when I was picked for the jury for a fairly simple DUI case. After only 10 minutes of deliberating, we found the accused not guilty and I was home by 4:30. But John had class that evening, so I came home (very tired, as it was my first day off in 7 days and I'd been up for a while), made dinner, gave the boys a bath and got them in bed by myself, then did quite a bit of housework before finally falling into bed around midnight.

I was able to sleep in today (Wednesday) for a bit, but then spent most of the afternoon parent helping in Aiden's class. A lot of moms find it to be relaxing and great fun, but as I've mentioned before, Aiden doesn't like me being there and getting in on "his" class. And I just end up doing lots of cleaning. So when I'm really just wanting some time at home with my family, it's not very enjoyable. But I got to spend this evening at home and John and I even cooked dinner together (pan fried pork chops with caramelized onions, homemade sour cream mashed potatoes, homemade biscuits, corn, and warm apple sauce for pork chop dipping). So the boys are in bed, I was able to sit and watch one of my favorite movies (French Kiss with Meg Ryan and Kevin Kline), and now I'm blogging into the night with a 1 pound bag of M&Ms. So today was definitely the most relaxing day I've had in about eight days, even though it wasn't spent doing entirely what I would have preferred to do.

I close the store tomorrow and then open for the next two days, but I'm hoping to get Sunday off from work. And if I do, that day will be spent entirely with my husband and two little boys. Relaxing.

Aiden

I'm being taken down the "how much can you handle?" path lately. I know I haven't been great at giving things up to God much for the past few months, but is this really the way to get me to do it?

We had a parent-teacher conference at Aiden's school on Wednesday. All was going well and she said he was great, until we got to the "concerns" portion at the end. She is concerned about his communication style. It's a little more repetitive and less conversational than she'd like to see. Such as, if she were to ask him, "Do you like the green car or the blue car?", he would just repeat the question back to her and not give her an answer. Almost like he's unable to process the question. She suggested that we see an early intervention specialist who will do an evaluation here at our home and then make a recommendation as to whether to begin some sort of therapy (speech or otherwise) or to just let it go and assume he'll grow out of it.

I wasn't sure what to make of it all, so I called our pediatrician to find out his opinion. He suggested going ahead with the specialist. The scary part was hearing him say that it's the sort of thing they see in autistic children. He did mention that we know he's not really autistic because he's fine in all other areas of development, but it's just something to evaluate and see if there's anything to be really concerned about.

Even with his teacher AND his pediatrician saying he's absolutely fine in all other areas and NO, he is NOT mentally challenged in any way.....that it's probably just a little mental processing issue that can be resolved quickly, I'm still having a really hard time with this. This is my child that we're talking about. I don't want anything to be wrong, no matter how small. I know it's better to get it evaluated now, rather than wait and have him end up with processing issues later on. But I can't keep myself from wondering if I did something wrong. I don't want him to struggle with anything. I want it all to be perfect and for him to have the normal childhood scrapes and colds and nothing else. I'm struggling with this, big time. Even though we were told that up to 20% of children have to go into early intervention and there's nothing to get worried over, I'm still struggling. This isn't supposed to happen to Aiden.

If anyone has any experience with early intervention stuff, I'd appreciate hearing all about it. I plan on calling on Monday to set up the evaluation. I don't know how long it will take for it to actually take place, but I'll let you all know when it does and how it goes. Please keep us in prayer. I'm feeling overwhelmed with adjusting to 40 hour work weeks, my apparent inability to keep up with housework, the lack of employment opportunities for John, Nathan and his never-ending colds, and now Aiden's communication issue. Some days, I'd prefer to stay in bed.

Dilemma over!

Time was spent deep in thought and sorting out my feelings and asking God what to do. I really like when God's response come in the form of a question and when it happens for me, it always seems to come out of nowhere. In this case, I was cleaning the bathroom and mulling over the dilemma a bit when this question pops into my head: "Is this your dream job?". And I did not have to mull over my answer: "No, it is not". Since that question was posed and I gave my answer, I've been feeling more at peace with not taking the assistant manager position. I feel that I have time to get there if I want to. And it is most certainly not my dream job. If it were, that would be another thing entirely. I would not pass it up if that were the case.

For now, I am content with working the full-time hours given to me while John is out of work. As soon as he finds work, I will be more than happy to go back down to part-time. I miss my boys and I want that time with them while they're still little. I have plenty of time to advance myself in my work, but they won't be this age forever. And there's my decision, folks.

A small dilemma

I was told something by my manager that has gotten me thinking. I've been at this job for just under three months now and what she told me wasn't really expected so early on. She mentioned to me that it was completely up to me if I would like to begin training for the assistant manager position. As much as I would LOVE to say yes, there are some big issues - Aiden and Nathan. I would have to work full time hours (a minimum of 32 hours a week) and John isn't going to be unemployed forever. What would I do with them? I could try to set up childcare with the lady from church who has been watching them occasionally, but then there's the issues of Aiden getting to and from school....it just doesn't seem like it would work.

Here's the thing: I really want it. I like this job and I know I'd be good at it. And I know it's just retail, but it would look great on a resume to say that I made assistant manager in three months. So there's a part of me that wants it very badly. But then I feel so selfish. The kids are so little and they really do miss me. And once John went back to work, I can't really imagine myself dumping them off with a babysitter for most of the week. I know working moms do it all the time, but I'm extremely prone to guilt and I don't think it would end up well.

So while it sounds good now, while John is home with them, it probably wouldn't sound good once he's back at work. However, there's still the little nagging part of me that wants to go for it. I have missed working and I enjoy my job (except for the occasional rude customer!). I'll probably kick myself a bit for not taking the opportunity. But I know I'd be kicking myself even harder if I completely miss out on my kids being this age. I just don't think I can do it. But how to get rid of the little selfish voice inside?

Fun Night with Mommy

I worked a short 11:45 - 3:45 shift today (slightly unusual scheduling, but fine with me!), which meant I was home for dinner and bedtime this evening. John had class, so he left about a half hour after I got home. Since we had about two diapers left for Nathan, I decided a trip to Target was in order. We wandered around for a bit, while Nathan would say, "All done....down?" every two minutes. He likes to get out of the cart and walk. :^) But I had Aiden and a cart of diapers, so I couldn't let him do that and he was quite upset with me. I finally realized that it was 6pm, so I asked Aiden if pizza sounded good for dinner and when he said that he would like that very much, we grabbed a pizza from the freezer section and headed home. I figured since I'm working so much and we rarely get time together anymore without daddy (that sounds worse than I mean it to be!), I would make it "Fun Night with Mommy" tonight. During our wanderings around Target, we happened into the children's books and I let the boys each pick out a new book. Aiden got Curious George and the Firefighters, while Nathan got yet another Sandra Boynton book (we love her books!!) called Fifteen Animals. If you are a Boynton fan and haven't read this one, it's quite cute and I highly recommend it.

We got home and had our cheese pizza with veggies on the side. As dinner was winding down, I started asking Aiden some basic questions to see what answer he would give me. He's been enjoying making up silly answers to things we know he knows and I thought I'd humor him for a while. So I asked, "Aiden, who is that?" while pointing to Nathan. Aiden responds, "That's a brother". I said, "Yes, but what's his name?". Without hesitation, "His name is baby".
I asked him what my name was and he promptly responded, "Your name is mommy. Daddy is John".
I then asked him if he knew how old he is. He points his little nose up into the air and announces, "I'm one hundred and three years old!". He won't be quite so eager to tack on one hundred years once he gets a little older.

After dinner, we sat in the living room and set up some train tracks. At one point, the remote controlled train jumped the track and went racing across the living room after the cat. We all had a good laugh over that, but I think the cat was slightly traumatized. We ended playing past bedtime without much notice until Nathan began rubbing his eyes. He was very happy to get into his room to get ready for bed! We read their new books and quite a few more and then I tucked them into bed. I then got about an hour to myself before John came home from class.

I really enjoy evenings like that, especially since I don't get them much anymore. I have the day off tomorrow, so I get a little more time with them, until we drop them off with grandpa for the night. John and I are finally celebrating our anniversary (three weeks later...), as we have tickets to see my favorite comedian who is FINALLY performing here in Portland at the Schnitzer Concert Hall. I am very excited! I am a little nervous, since tomorrow night will be Nathan's first overnight trip, but I'm sure he'll do just fine. I forgot to blog about the fact that he weaned a few weeks ago. It wasn't really intentional. I got home from work one evening and realized that he hadn't nursed in nearly a week. So I didn't offer it anymore and he never asked for it. Oh well. I don't think there was much left to get anyway!

So there's all about our first "Fun Night with Mommy". I would very much like it to be a weekly thing, but I guess we'll have to see how things go.

Not the usual routine

Today was supposed to be the boring routine of me opening the store, working into the afternoon, getting home in time for John to head off to class, and putting the kids to bed all by myself. Then the ever so lovely 30-60 minutes to chat with my husband before I have to be in bed so I can open the store again in the morning. I'd love to see him more than an hour a day, but hey, at least one of us is employed.

But our evening turned out to be a little more eventful than planned. First, John didn't feel very well, so he stayed home (and I secretly rejoice over more time with my spouse!). Then the lady from church who watches the boys occasionally called and asked if we were available to watch her little boy for a few hours this evening while her and her husband went to a talk/lecture at John's old high school. Sure, why not? So Nathan and Aiden got a playmate for the evening! I also decided to be adventurous and attempt to make Irish Soda Bread. It turned out alright, but the recipe I used was much too salty for my taste. John likes it though.

At one point during the evening, John and I hear Aiden telling his friend, "Mommy drinks and Daddy drinks....". WHAT?!? I'm sure he meant we drink water and juice and milk like everyone else, but that's REALLY not what it sounded like he was saying. We had a good laugh about it and hoped that the kid wouldn't go home and announce this to his parents. We might get some sort of reputation!

So we got a little change from the ordinary tonight. Having a 3rd child around probably didn't help my sore feet any, but the boys certainly had fun.

An Easter Recap

Sadly, I didn't really take any pictures. I just never got around to it. But our Easter was enjoyable and I was very happy to have the day off!

We woke the boys up before they were ready to be awake, so that resulted in crabby little ones. Nathan deals with getting prodded awake alright, but Aiden isn't much of a morning person. I had set their clothes out the night before to make the morning go a little smoother and that would have worked fine if I'd set out the correct socks for Aiden. I bought him new sandals from work and wasn't aware that his normal sport socks were too thick to wear with them (yeah, I know...socks with sandals. But they're closed toe sandals and he was wearing long pants, so it was fine). He lost it. I tried to get him to not wear any socks with the sandals, but he didn't want to do that. After 15 minutes (and now we were late for brunch at church), I found some of Nathan's socks and put those on him. They were thin enough to fit with the sandals and he settled down. Sort of. He then refused to put his sandals on. So he was carried out to the car screaming. We put his sandals on him in the car and finally started on our way to church. He cried off and on the whole way.

Once we got to church, he wanted to bolt from me and got angry when I made him stand next to me in line for brunch. But once we sat down and he got some food in his tummy, he was fine. There was no children's church and he's too old for the nursery (although most times, there are only two kids in there so the attendants -especially auntie Laura!- don't mind), so he got to sit with us in the service. That went over fairly well, but he had to be taken out twice.

After church, we went to great grandma and grandpa's for some candy hunting and a wonderful Easter dinner. Because of work, I hadn't seen everyone in quite a while, so it was nice to finally visit for a bit. We ate some pie, watched a little baseball, and chatted until it was time to head home. Thankfully the boys weren't too sugared out, but they did stay up a little later than normal.

I was extremely thankful to have the day to spend at church and with my family. It was good to relax a little after such a long week.

Busy, busy

Well, you wouldn't know that the economy is down by the way things were at work today. We blew past our daily sales goal by $500, which is unusual. We were constantly busy, mostly everyone getting shoes for Easter. Today was also my first day being the one in charge for most of the day, which was very strange for me. I'm not used to training anyone, but she's pretty self-sufficient so it was fine. I work in the middle of day tomorrow, but I have Easter Sunday off and I'm so excited! I haven't had a Sunday off in a while, so I'm looking forward to relaxing a bit. Especially after a nearly 40 hour week. Believe me, the paychecks are nice to look at, but my feet sure hurt!

To make a busy day even better, I ended up with food poisoning last night. I had stopped vomiting by 5am and had gotten a little sleep, so I went to work. I knew that I didn't have much of a choice as my manager had promised her daughter that she'd be at her play this evening. I was the only person available who is authorized to close. I felt a little woozy until about 5pm when I took a trip over to Target for some crackers and Gatorade. That helped me get through the evening, although I was feeling quite tired by closing.

There's not much news on the job front for John. His old boss called today to check in. He did tell John that he really wanted to hire him back as soon as things got better. I appreciate that he likes John that much, but without a time frame to focus on, there's not much that the sentiment can give us.
John had a meeting with an advisor at school yesterday. He's about 5 classes away from graduating. I will be thrilled when he's finally done. And then I can get started! :^) Because I don't have enough to do already, right?

There's always that ONE day

As I've previously mentioned, I've been staying pretty happy lately through all the changes and disappointments. I'm progressing well at work and today was my first day to open the store on my own. It was a little strange to be there for many hours all by myself (don't worry, I wear a panic device in case something happens) and since I didn't have time for breakfast, I was getting quite hungry right around the time the other girl was supposed to show up. About 5 minutes before her scheduled start time, she calls to let me know that she got into a car accident on her way there and it was going to be a while. She was fine, but her car was totaled (the same thing happened to my manager's husband last Friday....John says our store is cursed). So she ended up being about an hour late, but I was just happy that she wasn't hurt and I still ended up with a very filling lunch break.

The sun brings out many, many customers and I helped a LOT of people today. Payless is extremely concerned with giving every person that walks in the door customized service. We ask a lot of questions, give lots of suggestions, and generally "befriend" the customer. That also means that we cater to basically their every whim and fancy. Normally people are really great and they don't ask too much of us. But today was one of those days that brought out everyone who had the greatest sense of entitlement I've ever come across.

To pick out one of the best ones, we had these two ladies who were shopping with a little 3 year old girl. After helping them with every single little thing they wanted, I gathered that one was the grandma and the other was the great aunt. They were in the store for a good half hour and tried on half the shoes in four different aisles. The only issue was that they wouldn't put a single thing back. They would try the shoes on and then just leave them on the floor. Most people have the decency to at least attempt to clean up after themselves. As they were finally leaving (after not buying anything), the 3 year old says, "Shouldn't we clean up our mess?". The grandma responds, "Why? We don't work here.". I was appalled! There is a serious problem when a 3 year old has better manners than a grown woman.

After dealing with quite a few people like that today, I'm feeling pretty disgusted with humanity right now. I usually come home feeling like I accomplished a productive day at work, but today I came home irritable and wanting to give quite a few "adults" some lessons in decent behavior.

I work another 8 hour shift tomorrow, but the weather isn't supposed to be quite as good, so maybe the horrible people won't want to go shopping. Ugh.

Finally, I'm home

I just finished an open to close shift after working a 34 hour week. I guess since tomorrow is technically my weekend, I just finished a 43 hour week. I'm exhausted beyond description and my legs hurt like never before. About 15 minutes before we closed the store, I ended up with a foot cramp so bad that it contorted some of the muscles in my foot, causing some of my toes to slightly twist. It was so painful that I had to run to the back room to keep from crying on the sales floor. But even with the intense foot and leg pain, and the exhaustion, I feel pretty happy. I love the excitement that I feel when I get to spend a day (or even an evening) with my kids. It's a little sad that I feel that excitement because I'm rarely getting to see them, but at least I'm enjoying my time at home.

Aiden has become quite an expert at using the word "No". Ask him any question....any question at all and the answer will be "no". He has some rain boots that look like cows and when we went to the post office the other day, someone asked him, "Do you like cows?" and he said, "No". They then asked, "What do cows say?". He answered, "No". If we ask him if he'd like a cookie, he'll say, "No". It's driving me nuts.
Nathan started doing yesterday as well. He learns quickly. I asked him if he was sleepy, which normally gets a response such as him laying his head down on my lap. But this time the response was, "No". We were quiet for a few moments and he began chanting, "Na na na na....NO!". Oh joy.

Aiden is also getting quite silly and has been making up jokes. The other day, John used the word, "Loco". Aiden asked what "loco" was and John told him that it was a Spanish word. Aiden wanted some clarification and asked, "Spinach?". John repeated, "Spanish". Aiden gave it another attempt with, "Spinish". John figured that was as good as he was going to get from a 3 year old, so he didn't carry it on any further. Aiden then began giggling and said, "I want a loco salad!". He thought he was pretty darn clever with his little play on words.

Well, my brain is at the end of it's day, so I'm going to give up and go take a very hot bath to try to relieve some of these muscle cramps that keep happening. And then I will go to bed, feeling quite happy that I get to sleep in tomorrow and that I don't have to set a foot inside that shoe store.

And so go the days off

I was supposed to have three days off this week (Tues, Wed, and Thurs), which I was looking forward to, even though I really want as many hours as possible. I had Tuesday off, and it was great, and then I spent Wednesday afternoon parent-helping in Aiden's class. I turned on my phone after I was done to find a message from a co-worker, letting me know that they really needed me that evening and could I also cover a 5-9 shift for Thursday? I felt a little disappointed about my sudden lack of days off, but once I found out why the shifts needed to be covered, I was quite happy to help out. The new girl that was hired about two weeks ago came into work yesterday quite upset. When my co-worker (the one who left me the message) asked if she was ok, the new girl told her that she'd been diagnosed with cancer after a routine exam that morning. She was too upset to work, so she went home and they called me to see if I could come in. She has to go meet with some doctors today and that's why I'm covering her shift today as well. She's only 18 and apparently it's what nearly every woman in her family has died from, so she's obviously feeling very upset over it. If you could keep her in your prayers, I'm sure she'd appreciate it.

I feel strange over this whole thing though - a few days ago, I was thinking that it would be great if something would get switched around so I could get full-time hours. This is NOT what I was hoping for! How was I to know that this would happen? I still feel oddly guilty. Especially when I am thanking the Lord for the extra hours I've been able to acquire this week. I went from 10 scheduled hours to 34 hours. Goodness knows we need it now, but I feel so badly for her and her family.

The plan was for her to inform our manager of it this morning, I should find out what the plan is for next week's schedule once I go in this evening. I'm anxious to know what my weeks are going to look like for a while. I'm finding it easier than expected to be the one bringing in the paycheck. And the extra time with my husband isn't so bad either.

Insomnia

It's 1am and I'm wide awake. Hello stress-induced insomnia. John, as always, got right into bed and began snoring. That's partially why I'm awake. The snoring has never lulled me to sleep. I have ear plugs, but they don't seem to help tonight. I must be too aware of the snoring for the ear plugs to help. So instead of trying to fight the insomnia and attempt to sleep, I thought I might get some things off my mind here first.

One of the things about the whole unemployment issue is the lack of health insurance. Obviously, Nathan has had that double ear infection that has taken us back and forth to the pediatrician's office. Thankfully, it seems to have cleared up with the latest round of stronger antibiotics. The kids, of course, qualify for Oregon Health Plan with no problem. I just need to sign them up.
I was curious how long John's health insurance through work was going to last, so he called his (ex) boss today to find out. Technically, it's supposed to end at the end of whatever month your employment ends, but they felt like that didn't give us enough time to get something else lined up and offered to pay for an extra month of insurance for us. I am extremely grateful for that. That gets us through Nathan's 15 month checkup and immunizations in April with our current pediatrician. I don't know if he accepts OHP (probably not), and I really didn't want to have to someone new for a last minute checkup.

Today was my first trip to the grocery store since he got laid off (yes, I realize it's only been five days), but I was hoping to hold out as long as possible. The problem is that we were out of some essential items, so I had to go. But I took my time and tried to get the best price possible on everything we needed. In the end, I paid just $35 for this grocery store trip. I was pretty pleased.

I had been due for a haircut for quite some time, but now that we're trying to save on everything, I decided to cut my own hair tonight. If you are familiar with my current hair style, you know that most of the cutting is focused in the back, making it a little difficult to do myself. But with some careful use of mirrors, I was able to do a decent job of it. It might not be perfect, but it will get me through for a while.

John had his first class of the term tonight and I had the day off, which meant I got to cook and have a sit-down dinner with my children for the first time in a while. It was very enjoyable. The boys took a bath after dinner and I sat by the side of the tub and we had a great time playing with their little bathtime pirate ship. John came home right before I was going to get them in bed, so they were able to have both of us here for bedtime. I think this was the first evening in quite a while where both dinner time and bath time was so stress-free and pleasant. I miss the boys sometimes.

Yesterday was our four year anniversary and I worked all day, so it went by without much of a celebration. We do have tickets for a comedy show in downtown Portland on April 17th, which we purchased a month or so back, and we figured that would be a belated anniversary date night. That made the day going past without much recognition a little easier to stomach. We have decided that once John is settled in a new job and things have gotten back to normal, we desperately need to take a weekend away. I think I'll be all too ready for a vacation by then.

Well, I've only killed about 20 minutes, but maybe I can give going to sleep another go-around now. I am stressed and my sleep has definitely been affected, but I'm happy to say that I've been feeling confident about making it through this time. I feel strong and focused on working as much as I can to just barrel through until John can find work. I do have this lingering fear that I'll burn myself out too quickly, so prayer for that would be appreciated. Right now, it's one day (or night) at a time.