Two weeks back at work

So, I was nervous to head back to school. It was nice hanging out at home with Gracie and my mom, going to exercise together and play with my nephews when they came over. The boys both fawn over Gracie and it’s so cute to see! But a girl’s gotta work.

So I headed back Jan. 6. Everyone was very warm and welcoming and happy to have me back. The first day was a work day and our boss had sent us an email that the morning would be “teambuilding” and “prepare to get messy.” I figured it was going to be some collaborative thing involving teams and shaving cream or something. Instead, we got to paint! He invited someone from a painting studio to guide us! Only thing missing was the wine. I told him later that it was like he had planned the activity just for me, because it was the perfect way to start back. I also got to visit with teachers and get my mind back in the game, and it was a nice easy transition. My sub had made me copies for my newcomers and told me where the other classes ended up and by the end of Monday, I felt prepared.

And then the kids came Tuesday. I have great kids. They’re sweet and excited. My first period “homeroom” class (we call it Academic Enrichment) are a group of sixth graders that seem to enjoy whatever I give them! Or at least go along with it. One of the activities we do is a community-building thing where we toss a ball to each other and take turns answering a thought-provoking question like “When is a time you have felt rejected?” After the first couple of times doing it, the kids have asked every day since if we can do the “ball throwing thing.” Which is adorable because try asking a group of eighth graders to stand in a circle and be serious about answering a question about themselves!

I’m starting to get my “sea legs” under me where I’m getting used to getting up at 6 a.m. and getting home at 5 p.m., and not seeing my baby all day…! :( I value the weekends all the more now where I can spend all day with her. She has been waking up once during the night since I started back to work. This means I might get up with her at 2 or 3 a.m., and then go back to sleep for a couple hours. If I sleep! Sometimes my mind starts racing, knowing I have to get up soon.

However, over the last two nights, I’ve added a tablespoon of rice cereal to her bottle, and she slept through the night until about 7 or 8 a.m.! So this week, we both might be getting more sleep! I worry about my mom watching her all the time, wondering if she’s doing OK. However, mom says she LOVES it and I shouldn’t feel at all guilty. Which is just nice because mom is amazing and so giving. And she loves this time spending so much time with her granddaughter.

Last week, Mom texted me as I was about to leave work and said, “Look, Gracie is starting to reach for things!” And I shot back, “Stop her until I get home!” That’s the annoying thing, missing milestones. We’ve had a talk - Gracie and I - about how she’s not allowed to say her first word or start crawling or walking until I’m there. She tracks toys with her eyes but it’s not been until recently that she actually reaches for things and interacts with them. Yesterday, she actually moved a toy ring to her mouth! Which I found exciting.

Oh, also, everyone in my family is getting into the Keto/fasting thing. I find it great and horrifying. We’re all cutting down on carbs and sugar but also, I don’t want to be one of THOSE people that always orders bunless burgers in restaurants! But also, it’s good, because it’s healthy. 

Getting ready to go back to work!

I visited school again on Wednesday and brought the staff homemade marshmallows and went around visiting teachers and finding out where my substitute teacher left off with the kids. 

The words still bouncing around my head are my principal saying to me with a teasing smile, “Are you ready to come back? Your vacation is over!” Thanks, man. Thanks. I have two weeks left. Let me enjoy them! But yes. Then. Back to work. It’s always hard for me to get back into the right mindset after a long break. I sometimes get depressed. So I’m already coming up with ideas of what to do with the kids this semester to prepare myself mentally. Grading again and… getting kids to listen to me… and teaching. I can do this, I can do this. Plus time managing so I can spend time with Gracie at home and still get enough sleep! Deep breaths.

It was also important to make myself talk to the sub about what to start with in the spring semester. Because that also helps with the mental preparedness. She has left me in a really great place with my all my classes, especially my newcomer group. She knew exactly what curriculum to use and how to get going with them, and it seems like she worked the students hard and kept up with recoding grades in our online system. A couple of my students saw me while I was visiting another teacher and said, “Our teacher says you’re strict? Are you strict?” Apparently, the three weeks I spent with them at the beginning of the school year is long forgotten. “YES,” I said. “SO STRICT.”

Maternity Leave

The first few weeks of maternity leave were TOUGH because I didn’t feel well, I was sleeping on a couch sitting up because of c-section stitches, and I was getting up several times a night to feed Gracie or try to pump. It’s a blur of surviving and getting to know my new baby. I had this overwhelming sense of impeding doom/fear/excitement/worry/trepidation. I had thoughts of: life is so brief and my parents will die some day and I love them so much and they’re so supportive so how will I bear it and will they get to see Gracie grow up? And will I be alone forever? Will I have to do it on my own forever and will Gracie have siblings? And is Gracie going to survive or will I wake up one night and she’s not breathing? And it would be nice to go on family vacations with a husband! Etc., Etc. Thoughts exacerbated by hormonal upheaval and sleepless nights.

I survived all that by praying quite a bit and coming to the conclusion to live in the moment and enjoy what life is giving me now and not worry about the future and everything that could possibly go wrong. And God sure has blessed me so I thank him for that and am just enjoying where my life has taken me. A year ago I had just started taking steps to TRY to have a baby. And look! WHAT? I have one! And she’s the most marvelous thing I’ve ever made.

After about six weeks, I was basically completely healed and I felt GOOD again for the first time in like a year! I wasn’t pregnant anymore and I was suddenly realizing how AWESOME that was. I could eat uncured meat and drink alcohol again! And I could move around without every muscle in my back and hip aching for days. Since I wasn’t working yet, I had time to do things!

So I restarted a blog, and I designed a children’s book for Gracie. I’m going to read it to her as soon as she is able to comprehend things and tell her the story of her birth. I don’t want it to be a surprise that I spring on her one day, I want her to know how she came to be from the very beginning. So the story has simple language when she’s a baby, accompanied by my crude illustrations, and then along the sides or bottom, it has the complete story full of details, which is basically what I wrote here in this blog.

Also, I looked in a mirror and was like, “Enough is enough!” so I responded to a Facebook ad for a kickboxing challenge in Fort Collins. The challenge went for six weeks and this is the last week. I was supposed to lose 25 pounds or six percent body fat. I’ve lost about 12 pounds so far so I may not make it by Friday. However, I feel good that I’ve taken the stepping stone of exercising and getting in shape again. And that I made SOME progress.

Now it’s December and I have just a few weeks until Jan. 6, when I return to school. THAT will take some getting used to again! This has been a glorious time of bonding with my adorable daughter and spending time with family. I have to get my head back in the game of commuting to work and making a difference in middle schoolers’ lives and not being able to take mid-day naps! While still possibly attending to Gracie in the middle of the night!

Front and back page of my book for Gracie:

A few inside pages:

Kickboxing:

Starting the holidays!

Gracie is 14 weeks old, and just turned 3 months! Her sleeping has settled into a routine for the moment. She goes to bed around 7-8 p.m. and sleeps eight hours before she starts making noises to be fed around 3:30-5 a.m. After that feeding, she sleeps another three to four hours until 7:30-8:30 a.m. Mom used to take her for part of the night when she woke up multiple times a night, but now it’s all me. I feel like I get a pretty good night sleep, as long as I go to bed by 9 p.m.! I continue to be blessed by Mom and Dad being willing to get her up sometimes, or watch her while I run to the store, etc. 

Gracie seems to love getting changed and hanging out on her changing table while I change her diaper and dress her. She only gets mad about it in the middle of the night when she’s hungry. A few nights ago, she slept for 11 straight hours and I woke up a few times, petrified and checked on her like three different times.

She talks at me a lot right after she wakes up, cooing and making “o” faces and being absolutely adorable. That lasts about 30 minutes and then it’s a downhill spiral to her next nap. :). 

Emmet likes to include her in everything going on. Like when we played a game the boys invented where one person was Santa while the others pretended to sleep upstairs, and then “Santa” would loudly proclaim he was leaving, and all the “kids” would race downstairs to find out what toys Santa had left them. When I got there, Emmet was all, “So when Gracie is Santa, someone will have to hold her,” automatically including her in the proceedings like it was obvious she would be playing. Both boys also like to get super close, touching her face and hands until she gets annoyed.

During Thanksgiving week, we went with Danielle’s family, Mom and Dad and Nathan to Steamboat Springs for a few days before Thanksgiving Day. It was nice to hang out with the family! Benjamin and Emmet immediately got absorbed into the condo we rented, and we didn’t hear from them for hours as they played in the various rooms. We took two cars; Danielle and Ben’s large Flex Ford, and Nathan’s Tesla. Gracie and I got to ride in the Tesla and it was amazing, although Gracie was fussy most of the way. 

We cooked meals in the condo and swam two different evenings at the hot springs. I got a 6-9 month swimming suit for Gracie at my baby shower, and it fit okay over her size 3 swim diaper, which was the smallest size I could find (she just turned three months and has just started wearing size 2 diapers). Gracie is tolerant of water and accepted being in the hot springs, which was a moderate temperature for all the kids (like bath water). She seemed to accept the experience but not particularly love it. 

Nathan always seems to have an interesting experience on road trips with his Tesla. On the second night we were there, he plugged his car into a handy plugin that was next to his parking space (in a garage door wall). The next morning, he came out to find the plug had been yanked out of both the wall and the plugin port of his car. The cord was missing and the port was damaged, so that it was unable to be charged again. The Tesla recorded some video showing the cord lying in the middle of the road and a snow plow running over it. Our theory is that a black bear (which we saw the night before!) may have messed with the plug and pulled it out of the wall, leaving it in the street, and then the plow yanked it out of the car, damaging the port.

Wednesday morning, with about 78 percent power, Nathan, Mom, and Dad drove straight to a service center in Denver, about 3.5 hours away. They made it with 17 percent power left!

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving Dinner on Thursday at my sister’s mother-in-law’s house. There was a table filled with appetizers, and three differently-prepared turkeys! I made my signature mashed potatoes and chocolate mousse pie.