School Days

Well it's been another busy week for team Gaze. How do I manage to stay so busy as a stay at home mom and how in the world am I going to manage it when I go back to work on yes, next Monday? Well the depression has set in. On the plus, I won't be at home all day to mess up the house. That's part of the problem.

We've been working this week on endless home projects. Grandpa Jerry and Grandma Babs came down and Jerry installed our bathroom sink, which he custom designed and built for us. It's gorgeous! I'm so excited not to have to brush my teeth in the bathtub! It was all well worth the wait. We're finally getting around to our landscaping projects as well, although after all of this rain, when you look out the window the weeds have grown up so much they almost look like grass. The chickens, however, have come home to roost (figuratively) in the outdoor laundry area that the previous owner built. The rains proved it completely unsustainable--our washer and dryer got wet and now the doors are moldy. If you ever have seen this setup, you wouldn't be surprised, but it gives us the impetus to finally do something about it.

We decided that it would be a good idea to transition Audrey into daycare gradually, so this week she has been going for 3 hours in the mornings. So far so good. The first morning her teacher Judi and I went to visit. She might visit Audrey there so she wanted to introduce herself. We played on the floor and talked to Audrey and the other babies and I went through the motions of signing in, putting her bottles in the fridge, putting her sheet in her crib etc.
Today when I picked her up one of her caregivers said "she sure does like that bottle..she was upset when we didn't give it to her fast enough...she gobbled the whole thing down...most babies her age only take 3 to 4 ounces (she takes 7). I can just imagine her screaming like she always does when I'm 5 seconds later than she'd like me to be in feeding her. That's my strong-willed little angel!

I know now how some parents feel when they are leaving their kindergartners with me on the first day of school. It's so hard to leave your most precious thing in life in the hands of someone you don't know. It requires so much trust and faith. I do want her to develop trusting relationships with a variety of people who might do things differently and to not have a crazy overbearing mother breathing down her neck all of the time, so I guess this is how it starts. I did my research too, so I should feel okay about this. It's just going to take some getting used to.

She's getting new glasses too. But she just got new ones, right? Although we tried to love the first set, they were just so easy for her to grab and pull off and the sides were pushing down on her ears. She fussed every time I put them on her and it was a constant struggle to keep them on. I finally had had enough. We went back to the optometrist and we're going to try a new pair. They're not as cute--cute is no longer an issue, but hopefully they'll fit.