Time for a Much-Needed Update!

It's been a little over a month since my last posting, so I figured I was way overdue here. It's so hard to think back of what has happened the past month. Well, first off, busy season is OVER!! Boy, am I excited!! It got a little crazy, and lasted a couple weeks longer than expected, but it's done. Now I have actually been able to enjoy my 'part-time' status at work. The past month I've pretty much only been working 4 days a week for 30-35 hours, which is pretty nice. It allows me some bonus time with Austin on my extra day off and to be able to get some things done around the house.

Let me look back at my Outlook calendar for a refresher.....oh yeah, Jordan had surgery on his head. He had a cyst on the back of his head that was getting pretty big. After being referred to a specialist, they decided to put him under and do surgery to remove it. Don't worry, I won't post the pic here; it's pretty gross. But his head got all stitched up and his hair has almost grown back completely. And the tests came back on the cyst and everything came back normal, so nothing more to worry about, hopefully.

Easter was a blast with Austin this year, since he was a little older. I took off work the Friday before, so that I could attend his Easter egg hunt at school. I was worried he wouldn't grasp the concept of carrying the basket, picking up the plastic eggs, and placing them in his basket. Obviously, I underestimated our little man! He was a hunting-pro! Then Saturday we took Austin up to participate in the neighborhood Easter egg hunt in Woodcreek. Once again, he did great. It was a little crazy up there with too many kids, but it was fun nonetheless. We went to stay out at Jordan's parents house that night so that we could be there Easter morning. We ate a delicious lunch and then he hunted eggs with his two cousins. Finally, that afternoon, we hunted eggs for a FOURTH time at our house with my family. Needless to say, we had plenty of hunting for the holiday. :)

Mid-April, Jordan ventured to New Orleans for three days for his BFF Phil's bachelor party. I don't have many details, but I'm sure it was filled with lots of drinking, topless ladies, and plenty of debauchery. No worries, Austin and I had plenty of bonding time while Daddy was wasted in the Big Easy. ;) The next weekend was Phil and Lisa's wedding. It was held in the garden at a cute little bed & breakfast in Jefferson. Austin stayed with Mamaw & Papaw while Mommy & Daddy had some adult time. It was a great time hanging out with friends and relaxing.

Overall, it's been a busy month. We've begun the countdown to our big vacation; only 47 days!!! Austin officially has a passport and is ready to travel the world!! Got the plane tickets, cruise, and hotel booked; all we need is to pack up all of our crap for 8 days of fun!

Austin will be 18 months old in less than two weeks. I really can't believe how fast time has flown by. He's not a baby anymore, just a little boy. He loves to run everywhere, jabbers a mile a minute, and is a complete Mommy's boy. :) We bought him a big playset for the backyard a few weeks ago. What a task it was to put that thing together. But I'm so glad, because he absolutely loves playing on it! He's still being a great sleeper, too; on Saturdays when Jordan goes to work, I can usually get him to sleep til 9 or 9:30 which is AMAZING! I know the next kid we have we may not be so lucky with. I'm not sure if we've actually 'earned our stripes', as a co-worker referred to it as the other day, since he was such an easy baby from the get-go. But we'll just have to take our chances. ;) Til next time.........

15-Month Update

Busy season at work snatched me away from the blog for the last month, but I'm back. Not totally, but a chance to update on Austin's 15-month check-up. We took Austin to his 15 month checkup last month. He weighed in at 24 lbs. 4oz. (50th percentile) and measured 30" (20th percentile) tall. I can't remember the exact measurements of his head, but it was the 95th percentile!! So basically I have a short and stocky bobblehead for a son!! But he did take his two shots like a champ and only cried for a second.

He is absolutely EVERYWHERE, and loves to run anywhere! Since we've had a few nice weather days for a change lately, we've gone on a few wagon rides around the neighborhood, and have played with the neighbors in the cul-de-sac. And one of the greatest things that I'm so happy about, is that he loves brushing his teeth! Is this possible?! All I had to do was put some toothpaste on the brush and brush his front teeth for about 5 seconds, and he took over. He runs into the bathroom when I say it's time to brush. Maybe it's the Elmo toothbrush. :)


And we're finally counting down to our big vacation!! In 86 days, we will be flying to Miami and then leaving on our 7-day Caribbean cruise. I'm soooooo ready!!! And it's the week of my birthday, so that's pretty awesome. :)

Playroom Update!

I started on Austin’s playroom about a year ago when I was still on maternity leave and hadn’t really done much with it since. I finally decided to make it a priority last weekend and am super-excited about it. We decided to paint the back wall ‘guacamole’ color to go along with the whole jungle them. And then I made a giant tree over the windows. I got all ‘Handy Mandy’ with a jigsaw and sheet of plywood, cutting it out in the shape of the top of a tree. Then added padding and upholstered it, and mounting it above the window was interesting. Then I painted the tree trunk down the middle of the windows. We added a few touches here and there. We still have a few more things we want to do with it, but it’s coming along quite nicely. Austin definitely loves to play in his tent!

We have a Walker!

When I used to think about what my kid(s) would be like, I imagined they would be advanced, the first to do everything. Well……not so much. Austin began walking behind his toys and along the furniture right before 10 months. I thought for sure it wouldn’t be too much longer before he would finally let go and take off. We waited, and waited, and waited. Night after night we would try to make him stand up and walk a few steps between us. That stubborn kid just didn’t WANT to walk, that’s all there was to it. He would much rather crawl at a super-fast pace to get where he needed. I had resigned to the fact that he would be crawling to kindergarten. Then two weeks ago, we had stopped over at my mom’s new apartment one night after dinner to visit. We stood him up between us, and he just took off! Quickly I reached for my purse to grab my handy new FLIP HD video camera we got for Christmas (thanks, Mom!) to try to capture this moment. And I did!! He was so proud of himself and his newfound independence. When he walks around the house, he has the biggest smile on his face, and it makes me so happy! But now he is into EVERYTHING!! Last weekend, Katrina and I were working on the playroom (see next post) and I had the big ladder out. I turned around and he had already climbed up three rungs! He’s a brave little boy, with no fear whatsoever.

I have been saying for months now, that once Austin started walking, I would take him to Chuck E. Cheese. Well, once another snowstorm hit the Dallas area which closed school and work, I was desperate to get out the house. So, I took him to Chuck E. Cheese and had fun for 2 ½ hours on $10. Pretty cool. Well, the next night was when he started walking. I guess he turned it around on me and said ‘Mom, you take me to Chuck E. Cheese and THEN I’ll walk!’ Oh, that little stinker’s going to be some trouble!

Sick Little Boy!

January was a rough month for sickness in our house. One week he was sent home with a fever from school, and no other symptoms. I thought it was just from teething and even had him checked out at the doctor’s office. After going back two days later, he broke out into a rash. Come to find out he got ‘hand-foot-mouth disease’. I had no idea what this was and relied on my good friend Google to help me out. So back to school on Monday we go. He started running a low-grade fever mid-week, but I sent him anyways (Bad Mommy!). Well, the daycare called. With 102 degree fever, coughing, terrible runny nose, and goop coming out of his eyes, they wanted that kid out of there, in a nice way of course. Jordan ran him to the doctor, and he was diagnosed with RSV. YIKES!! Okay, this is serious; I’ve heard it can develop into pneumonia if not treated promptly. So, now we get to do breathing treatments every 4 hours. No fun at all! Poor little guy, just didn’t want to sit still for 10 minutes with that stupid thing. Eventually we found a method that works, which included lots of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, a cell phone, and Mom & Dad taking some hits off of the breathing treatment as well. After alternating days to stay home with him, we were finally given the thumbs up to go back to school. And he’s been well ever since, knock on wood. I’m a little late on getting him to his 15-month checkup, but I’m taking him next week.

Work, Work, Work, all day long.......

While on Christmas break, I had to make a tough decision. Knowing what the upcoming months at work could be like, I finally made the decision to go part-time at the first of January. I had already discussed it with my performance partner before Christmas and finally made it official upon my return from Christmas break. We had to literally list out all our bills to see if we could actually afford me taking a 25% paycut. Ughhh, it hurts to even type it. L In my profession, especially this time of year, they can only be so flexible. We are of course, providing a client service, so their needs ultimately come before ours, generally speaking. Going 75%, a few adjustments were made to my client load and it gave me more leverage to work from home in the evenings and on weekends, rather than being at the office until 10pm. It definitely has its days; some are crazier than others. I haven’t quite made my mind up yet, if taking a 25% paycut is worth still putting in 55 hours for the week. They say it evens out during the ‘non-busy times’, so I’ll reserve judgment until then. Since this is my first year as a manager and a new mom, I kinda have a double-whammy against me. It’s definitely been the toughest so far. New clients, new partners, new staff, new responsibilities, oh and that family of mine at home. I have been surprised at certain people who have been more supportive in my work/life balance initiative than I would have originally thought, so that’s nice.

Holiday Fun!

Okay, I have been TERRIBLE at updating this blog lately. Here it is almost March, and I haven’t even updated on Christmas yet, my apologies. Geez, it’s been so long since Christmas, I hope I can remember all the details. I was able to enjoy two whole weeks off work, which was really nice. My Nana (Austin’s GiGi) came in from NH to stay with us over the holidays as well. Between Nana, my sis who lives with us, and my Mom (who stayed with us for a few months during her divorce), we definitely had a FULL house to say the least. Oh poor Jordan, with 3 generations of women in the house. But we had a great time and enjoyed time with family.

After Nana came into town, the next night we ventured out to Prairie Lights to drive through the lights and hang out. Since it was the week of Christmas, it was a crazy wait out there to say the least, but totally worth it. Austin had a wonderful time, and good thing we packed a sandwich and snacks for him in the car. We spent Christmas Eve with Jordan’s family in Arlington. Due to the snow storm that hit Texas that day, we decided it best not to venture out to go to church (Lord, please forgive me.). We had a great time munching on delicious food, opening presents, and hanging out. Christmas morning was pretty relaxed at home. Austin wasn’t really into opening his gifts, really just more interested in the boxes, tissue paper, and packages. It was a pretty relaxing day; we went non-traditional with Christmas lunch this year: Mexican-style. We made chicken and beef fajitas, rice, beans, sopapilla cake, and homemade salsa. Pretty delicious!

The next day was Katrina’s birthday, which we celebrate by going to eat more Mexican food (Sorry, Nana!) and heading out to the local bar for some adult beverages and music afterwards. New Year’s Eve was pretty mellow as well. We stayed home, watched movies, and had some drinks. The next day we took Nana to do something we knew she would enjoy….gambling. We drove 1 ½ hours up to the Choctaw casino and gambled away a little bit of money. Then before I knew it, it was time to say goodbye to Nana, send Austin back to daycare, and head back to work for my first busy season as a mom. It’s crazy how fast two weeks off can fly by.