HR approved my hours-per-week increase, so I basically gave myself a raise. :) I wasn't able to bring the girls to daycare another day per week since Audrey has a MWF buddy in her room, and they don't have a place for her. It's no biggie - I'll get my hours in by working 1-2 hrs a couple of nights each week after the girls are in bed. My workload has been so incredible that I start to get a little anxious just making a list of everything. But it'll get worked out soon enough, I keep telling myself, over and over and over... and in 12 weeks I'll be out of vacation and Jonna will be back, so I'll bump it back down to 20/week. Just in time for summer!
We're finally healthy here! I guess it was less than 2 weeks, but it sure is nice to be functioning again. I took the girls to Target one morning last week, and it didn't seem like it was that hard of a task, so I was laughing at how I wasn't able to muster the energy to do even that much a week before. We went to a women's basketball game while he wasn't feeling well, and he was really having a tough time making it through the day. I pointed out to him that he was as tired as I was back when Audrey was a newborn, and he had told me to just suck it up and be happy and go party with friends, and then I would feel better no matter how tired I was. I asked him if he felt better because I told him to suck it up and go do something social, and he agreed that it wasn't so simple. It was nice that he could understand how I felt, even if it was a year later. Before the game, I was getting the girls ready for a nap/rest, and all of a sudden I couldn't find Travis when I needed help with a blowout diaper. He had wandered off to sleep on their porch. I would never, never wander away from my kids when I was sick without first making sure that the person who would be with them was ready - no matter how sick I get. But I guess that's what alpha-moms get; I've trained him to be a beta-dad!! It's not really his fault, and he'd be a willing subject for me to fix that.
I sure am glad that my family has such nice easy names for Emily to use when learning to read. She loves it when we write her name and others on the magna-doodle and she sounds them out. I mean really, these are great names: Jenny, Julie, Sarah, Megan, Dave, Dan, Dad, Nancy, Sally, and of course Mom. The tougher ones are Audrey (what're the u and e for?) and Kristin (that's a lot of consonants). She especially likes it when I write her friend Lily's name underneath hers and she can compare how they look alike and how they sound alike. Fun stuff!
I'm really not sure what to do with myself right now. Both girls have been asleep for the past hour and a half. I biked in the basement, I folded laundry, I facebooked, I blogged... now what? Maybe I'll just move freely about the housefor a while -- just because I can!!!
Monday, February 21, 2011
Friday, February 11, 2011
Reproduction overload
So, congratulations are in order for several people. My cousin became a dad on Feb 8 when his son Jonathan Cole was born (named after his maternal grandparents, Johnsons and Coulsons - isn't that cool?) on Feb 8. My brother-in-law's sister became a mom when her daughter Liadan Elizabeth was born on Feb 9, and my co-worker left work yesterday to try delay labor since she was only 33 weeks along, but that apparently didn't work because Marshall and Miles were born this morning! Wow, babies!!
I started with a little sore throat on Wednesday, but I had a lot of work to do before I went to work on Thursday, so I stayed up late getting things figured out. Then I didn't sleep well, and got up early, and I felt HORRIBLE. My throat, even my neck, was incredibly sore. Tylenol helped a little, so I got through the workday, but Travis was feeling crummy and so was Audrey so the two of them stayed home and snuggled all day together. Emily has been skating through this all just fine. I think she napped yesterday at daycare, and she got about 30 min this afternoon on the couch here, so that can't hurt! I could barely function today, so poor Emily didn't have much to do since I just wanted to sit and Audrey just wanted a lap to be on.
Emily has decided to start working hard on her lower-case letters. She likes to take the cards from her Brown Bear game, that have a Purple Cat or a Red Bird, etc., written on them, and she says the words, then reads off the letters, and sounds out the word. She likes to dive into this kind of heavy-learning activity right after supper. She plays all day, but after we eat, then it's homework time. She gets all academic dives into problem solving mode. It seems to me that her brain might be tired at that point, and she might do better with studying during the day and playing at night, but really, what do I know about the developing brain?? It may be harder work for her to play than it is to do the kind of learning that seems like work to me. So, whatever, kiddo. I love to see all of it.
So, now that my coworker is officially on maternity leave, I'm wondering if I should tell HR to up my hours during her leave. I'm going to have a crazy workload and not only will I be working more than 20 hours a week anyway, I've got 4 days of vacation that I'll never be able to take! But if I have to pay for a whole extra day of daycare, I'd need to work at least 23 hours to come out ahead financially, at which point I might as well do 3 8- or 9-hour days. And suddenly I realize: YUCK. I mean, 3 whole days? at work??? bleh! But on the other hand, if I'm doing that work, I want to be paid for it and compensated for my unused vacation. Ugh. What do I do?
First thing's first - get rid of whatever this is I've got. I feel like my head is improperly attached to my neck, and staying conscious is a struggle. It's hard to convince my bright, perky, lovely girl to go to bed at 8:30 so I can go to bed soon after! This morning, I got Audrey dressed and brought her into Emily's room, where I laid out some clothes for her to put on. Then I saw her bed, and couldn't help myself - I climbed in, pulled up the covers, and didn't move for probably 20 minutes. The girls thought it was hilarious, so I was able to get a nice little rest in before I had to get moving again. It's pretty pathetic here these days!
I started with a little sore throat on Wednesday, but I had a lot of work to do before I went to work on Thursday, so I stayed up late getting things figured out. Then I didn't sleep well, and got up early, and I felt HORRIBLE. My throat, even my neck, was incredibly sore. Tylenol helped a little, so I got through the workday, but Travis was feeling crummy and so was Audrey so the two of them stayed home and snuggled all day together. Emily has been skating through this all just fine. I think she napped yesterday at daycare, and she got about 30 min this afternoon on the couch here, so that can't hurt! I could barely function today, so poor Emily didn't have much to do since I just wanted to sit and Audrey just wanted a lap to be on.
Emily has decided to start working hard on her lower-case letters. She likes to take the cards from her Brown Bear game, that have a Purple Cat or a Red Bird, etc., written on them, and she says the words, then reads off the letters, and sounds out the word. She likes to dive into this kind of heavy-learning activity right after supper. She plays all day, but after we eat, then it's homework time. She gets all academic dives into problem solving mode. It seems to me that her brain might be tired at that point, and she might do better with studying during the day and playing at night, but really, what do I know about the developing brain?? It may be harder work for her to play than it is to do the kind of learning that seems like work to me. So, whatever, kiddo. I love to see all of it.
So, now that my coworker is officially on maternity leave, I'm wondering if I should tell HR to up my hours during her leave. I'm going to have a crazy workload and not only will I be working more than 20 hours a week anyway, I've got 4 days of vacation that I'll never be able to take! But if I have to pay for a whole extra day of daycare, I'd need to work at least 23 hours to come out ahead financially, at which point I might as well do 3 8- or 9-hour days. And suddenly I realize: YUCK. I mean, 3 whole days? at work??? bleh! But on the other hand, if I'm doing that work, I want to be paid for it and compensated for my unused vacation. Ugh. What do I do?
First thing's first - get rid of whatever this is I've got. I feel like my head is improperly attached to my neck, and staying conscious is a struggle. It's hard to convince my bright, perky, lovely girl to go to bed at 8:30 so I can go to bed soon after! This morning, I got Audrey dressed and brought her into Emily's room, where I laid out some clothes for her to put on. Then I saw her bed, and couldn't help myself - I climbed in, pulled up the covers, and didn't move for probably 20 minutes. The girls thought it was hilarious, so I was able to get a nice little rest in before I had to get moving again. It's pretty pathetic here these days!
Monday, February 7, 2011
So excited about this baby!
No, not my baby - my little niece or nephew! This weekend was the baby shower for Kerri, and it was so much fun! Everything went great, and everyone had a good time. The only hitch was that Mommo didn't feel up to coming because her knees were hurting her, but she experienced it vicariously through Jenny's pictures and a few scraps of leftover food. Kerri's (and my) friends are so fun and clever, and had the most thoughtful gifts for her. This is one highly anticipated little person, I tell you.
After the shower, our family went to a Super Bowl party at another friend's house. There were quite a few other kids there, and Emily had a great time with them. At one point, four little kids were standing on barstools (assisted, of course) singing the ABC's at the tops of their lungs - so cute! It was also funny to see my enormous Audrey crawling next to a little girl who's 3 months younger, at least 3 inches shorter, and toddling around like crazy. Audrey's almost as fast as her, though, so I can see why she's not frustrated enough to try walking as a primary mode of transportation.
And of course, Saturday was BRR ride. It was 25 miles of wintertime joy on a bike! We stopped 5 times for beers and/or food, and it took us 5 hours. It wasn't really warm, but certainly the best day we've have recently. If you saw the size of the baked potato I had for lunch, there's no way that I had a net calorie burn on the day; it wasn't really about the exercise. All in all, very fun! Emily and Audrey stayed home with Grandma Sullivan, and I was really pleasantly surprised to see Audrey waving goodbye happily to me as I left. She might finally be starting to outgrow her intense cling-to-mom stage! A little, anyway. Emily and Grandma made the decorations for the cupcakes for Kerri's shower, and they turned out beautiful! It was such a help, too, not just in having the work done, but knowing that I could take the time away from shower prep to have a little fun.
It was a really great weekend. Today was all catch-up, and fortunately my girls were good sports about me working like crazy all day. They seem to be most happy when there's stuff going on, even if it's just me bustling about the house, so it worked out well. Compared to the past few days, tomorrow is looking like it'll be a day off for me - all I ahve to do is go to work!
After the shower, our family went to a Super Bowl party at another friend's house. There were quite a few other kids there, and Emily had a great time with them. At one point, four little kids were standing on barstools (assisted, of course) singing the ABC's at the tops of their lungs - so cute! It was also funny to see my enormous Audrey crawling next to a little girl who's 3 months younger, at least 3 inches shorter, and toddling around like crazy. Audrey's almost as fast as her, though, so I can see why she's not frustrated enough to try walking as a primary mode of transportation.
And of course, Saturday was BRR ride. It was 25 miles of wintertime joy on a bike! We stopped 5 times for beers and/or food, and it took us 5 hours. It wasn't really warm, but certainly the best day we've have recently. If you saw the size of the baked potato I had for lunch, there's no way that I had a net calorie burn on the day; it wasn't really about the exercise. All in all, very fun! Emily and Audrey stayed home with Grandma Sullivan, and I was really pleasantly surprised to see Audrey waving goodbye happily to me as I left. She might finally be starting to outgrow her intense cling-to-mom stage! A little, anyway. Emily and Grandma made the decorations for the cupcakes for Kerri's shower, and they turned out beautiful! It was such a help, too, not just in having the work done, but knowing that I could take the time away from shower prep to have a little fun.
It was a really great weekend. Today was all catch-up, and fortunately my girls were good sports about me working like crazy all day. They seem to be most happy when there's stuff going on, even if it's just me bustling about the house, so it worked out well. Compared to the past few days, tomorrow is looking like it'll be a day off for me - all I ahve to do is go to work!
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Sparkles
Audrey has had a hard time kicking this last round of colds that came through our house. Last week she was sent home from daycare with goopy eyes, although they were just the result of her head draining. All this week she's been waking up with her entire nose crusted up with boogers, and her eyelashes too, and fighting a low-grade fever. Yesterday, she spent the entire day on my lap, dozing, wanting to get down and play but then realizing she just couldn't, and then coming back for her blanket on my lap. It was pretty snuggley, so I really did enjoy a lot of it, but Emily was bored and Audrey was pretty miserable so it was a tough day. Last night, at 2 AM, she was up howling, and I was awake with her for probably 45 minutes while I debated giving her tylenol and then waited for it to kick in. I was thinking that Travis would probably have to stay home with her, take her to the doctor and then to Walgreen's, rock her in the chair all day while waiting for antibiotics to work. But at 7 AM, she had no fever and no crusty boogers. I optimistically got her dressed, and thought maybe she'd be all right for the morning with another dose of tylenol. Ugh, yes, I was that Mom. I was pretty disgusted with myself, too. Fortunately for me, though, she seems to have come out of it. She was her sparkley wonderful little self when I walked in the door tonight after work. Travis picked her up at normal time and she had had a good day after all!! The difference is just SO striking - her eyes are bright and she looks perky and happy. I'm so glad to have my little wiggleworm back! When I put her plate of tuna casserole in front of her tonight, she did a little penguin wiggle and dove right in. Love that girl!
Things have been super crazy at work for me. My co-worker, who is also part-time, will be starting her maternity leave here pretty soon. She's having twin boys, so it'll probably happen sooner than I am ready for. Fortunately, we had another person start in our group this week, so that will help the workload situation, but it's funny that one brand-new full time person isn't going to be able to fully take on yet the workload of a super-capable, bright, and dedicated part-time person. AND, I have a new manager. I think this will be all right, since I've made a great impression on him already and he thinks highly of me and the work I do, but without that it'd probably be not so great. He didn't really want to manage people, but he really did want to know what was going on in our group. I thought it would've made more sense for us to just have team meetings, but they made this arrangement, so, whatever. He travels a ton and seems confident in what our group is already doing, so I'll mostly just ignore him, like I tend to do with my managers. :) Oh, and he said they're trying to get a person in Zweibruecken, Germany to do our same job for the European division of IVS. Travis is pretty sure I should put my name in, but I'm chicken. This may sound like a specific and strange reason, but as much as I want to do something like that, I don't want to do it now because my grandparents are still alive and I very much want my children to get to know them. If I took them to Europe for 2 years and it happened to be the last 2 years of their lives, I really would be devastated. I've got many years to figure this out, and they're all in their 90's, so I think this is the right call for now. They'd probably take me for that job in 5 years anyway! I have had a couple of highly-visible successes lately that make me feel good, and today I realized my workload would be impressive for a full-time employee, so I can feel good about the job I'm doing there, too. Cool.
Can you believe this - it's been more than a month since Audrey took her first real steps, and she still only crawls! Walking is like a party trick to her, like twirling or somersaults would be to the rest of us. It totally cracks her up and sometimes is useful if she's sure she can make it from the couch to the table or something, but other than that she has no interest. What a funny girl. Her vocabulary is starting to grow, though, and I think it's more that I'm just doing a better job of listening for things. I think her "meh, meh" for her sippy cup is actually an attempt at "milk" more than her standard "maMAA". And I'm trying to teach her "up" so she doesn't just howl at my feet when she wants to be held. Her "nye-nye" for bedtime is ADORABLE, as is her "Nighttime, Daytime" which I think I've already blogged about. And she gives the best hugs - have I mentioned?? She snuggles her head onto my shoulder and pats her little hands on my back (or as far as she can reach). She will crawl to the door of the garage as soon as she hears the garage door open for either me or Dad coming home. She's just great.
And of course, my little Emily is busy doing things, too. She's been figuring out how letters can sound together to make words. She was working on a page that said dogs were saying, "RUFF, RUFF, RUFF," and she studied and studied that for probably 15 minutes. She has been a great helper to me too, getting ready for Kerri's baby shower this weekend. We made chocolate turtles on Monday afternoon, and she came shopping with me last night to pick up a few more things we needed. Tomorrow, we're going to make the cupcakes, and I might ask her to help decorate them with the sprinkles we bought (nothing thrills her like colored sugar!) when Grandma Sullivan watches her and Audrey on Saturday. Travis and I are going to do the BRR ride - a 24-mile bike ride in Perry that's more like a Ragbrai reunion. We're crazy, but the weather actually looks pretty decent, so it'll be a fun way to spend the day. Then we celebrate Baby Johannsen, and maybe hit up a super bowl party, and call it a weekend. whew! I was over at Dan and Kerri's last weekend, and spent a whole day helping them paint their upstairs and get it ready to be a nursery. So exciting! Baby season is beginning!
Things have been super crazy at work for me. My co-worker, who is also part-time, will be starting her maternity leave here pretty soon. She's having twin boys, so it'll probably happen sooner than I am ready for. Fortunately, we had another person start in our group this week, so that will help the workload situation, but it's funny that one brand-new full time person isn't going to be able to fully take on yet the workload of a super-capable, bright, and dedicated part-time person. AND, I have a new manager. I think this will be all right, since I've made a great impression on him already and he thinks highly of me and the work I do, but without that it'd probably be not so great. He didn't really want to manage people, but he really did want to know what was going on in our group. I thought it would've made more sense for us to just have team meetings, but they made this arrangement, so, whatever. He travels a ton and seems confident in what our group is already doing, so I'll mostly just ignore him, like I tend to do with my managers. :) Oh, and he said they're trying to get a person in Zweibruecken, Germany to do our same job for the European division of IVS. Travis is pretty sure I should put my name in, but I'm chicken. This may sound like a specific and strange reason, but as much as I want to do something like that, I don't want to do it now because my grandparents are still alive and I very much want my children to get to know them. If I took them to Europe for 2 years and it happened to be the last 2 years of their lives, I really would be devastated. I've got many years to figure this out, and they're all in their 90's, so I think this is the right call for now. They'd probably take me for that job in 5 years anyway! I have had a couple of highly-visible successes lately that make me feel good, and today I realized my workload would be impressive for a full-time employee, so I can feel good about the job I'm doing there, too. Cool.
Can you believe this - it's been more than a month since Audrey took her first real steps, and she still only crawls! Walking is like a party trick to her, like twirling or somersaults would be to the rest of us. It totally cracks her up and sometimes is useful if she's sure she can make it from the couch to the table or something, but other than that she has no interest. What a funny girl. Her vocabulary is starting to grow, though, and I think it's more that I'm just doing a better job of listening for things. I think her "meh, meh" for her sippy cup is actually an attempt at "milk" more than her standard "maMAA". And I'm trying to teach her "up" so she doesn't just howl at my feet when she wants to be held. Her "nye-nye" for bedtime is ADORABLE, as is her "Nighttime, Daytime" which I think I've already blogged about. And she gives the best hugs - have I mentioned?? She snuggles her head onto my shoulder and pats her little hands on my back (or as far as she can reach). She will crawl to the door of the garage as soon as she hears the garage door open for either me or Dad coming home. She's just great.
And of course, my little Emily is busy doing things, too. She's been figuring out how letters can sound together to make words. She was working on a page that said dogs were saying, "RUFF, RUFF, RUFF," and she studied and studied that for probably 15 minutes. She has been a great helper to me too, getting ready for Kerri's baby shower this weekend. We made chocolate turtles on Monday afternoon, and she came shopping with me last night to pick up a few more things we needed. Tomorrow, we're going to make the cupcakes, and I might ask her to help decorate them with the sprinkles we bought (nothing thrills her like colored sugar!) when Grandma Sullivan watches her and Audrey on Saturday. Travis and I are going to do the BRR ride - a 24-mile bike ride in Perry that's more like a Ragbrai reunion. We're crazy, but the weather actually looks pretty decent, so it'll be a fun way to spend the day. Then we celebrate Baby Johannsen, and maybe hit up a super bowl party, and call it a weekend. whew! I was over at Dan and Kerri's last weekend, and spent a whole day helping them paint their upstairs and get it ready to be a nursery. So exciting! Baby season is beginning!
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