Trials & Lessons learned

Monday my mommy and working worlds collided again as I had a small, but important task that needed to be completed for my job. To set the scene, M woke up randomly every two hours last night and I was operating on little sleep to begin with after the early flight home. Add to that, my bro had my car and needed to be driven around in the morning after I dropped B off, but before I had time to do any work.

I had vaguely thought my small task could be accomplished while B was at MDO as surely M would sleep some of the time or enjoy her sling. This, however, was one of those days with an infant where she just would not cooperate. She cried at some level pretty much from the time I dropped Able off in South OKC around 10:30 until about 8pm with occasional 20-30 minute breaks for naps and when we occasionally could distract her with other things. This wasn't crazy screaming crying or anything, but it was persistent and she was having none of playing on the floor, napping alone, or being in slings. For those that haven't experience hours of crying it is very trying on the psyche and pretty much impossible for me to work, think, or take good care of the other kid. Brent, luckily, came home at 3:30 as it was his "early day" (really a late day as he goes back and has dorm duty from 8-10pm). I was able to take an hour and a half to do a decent job at this important work task (impacts my pay for the next two years) and catch a break from M's unhappiness. After that we took turns trying to figure out her issues and watch B while making dinner and heading them towards bed. I swear if I didn't know better I'd say M is teething as we were both covered in drool and facing this random fussiness, but shy of three months is just really too early for that, right? Otherwise, she has no apparent issues - no fever, eating well, no injuries, tried everything we could think of... who knows, maybe just growing as is eating more than usual. For those wondering, B seemed to handle the crying much better than I and was generally pretty cooperative throughout.

In any case, the take away from today is that I do, in fact, need child care for M once I head back to work as working with her here isn't going to work until she is a bit older. Luckily, I "think" we have found a provider that has a 1/2 time space for her come the beginning of December. Better still it is a person that has watched Janna's daughter for several years so M would get to be with her semi-cousins and a provider that we know has a good history with our family which is wonderful. We have a visit and more discussions in a week or so, but I'm pretty optimistic and more sure it is the right choice until she is more than a year old as I don't think the working will work with her here. Right now, the logical thing would be for me to be sleeping as both kids are currently asleep. However, sometimes at the end of a tiring, tough day a little "me time" is as important as sleep, but hopefully I'll get enough of both so I'm ready to face whatever challenges and joy tomorrow brings.

Ps... speaking of trials, I'm happy to report that potty training is back on and we're getting closer to where we were when M was born. Thank heavens!