Baby Mardis: Maternity Leave is over

Sorry for the delay in this post, life is busy and I haven't had any pictures to post because I don't have a card reader. Back in august or so our home computer died, but it's okay it had a long life, it was 10 years old. I think chris reformatted it six different times. So I have to use Chris' computer, but he's usually on it working whenever I think about it. I will be purchasing a card reader soon.

I have been at work now for two weeks. Our schedules have changed drastically to accommodate the early hour we must leave the house, any time between 6:15 and 6:40. Caleb is the first or second kid to arrive at daycare. The ladies there are so nice, one of them even calls Caleb her boyfriend. It makes me laugh, since she is about my grandmother's age. It took a bit of time but Caleb seems to be adjusting to daycare and finally taking good naps there. When I miss him or worry about him I can look at him on the webcam. Of course this is a difficult feat since he is so small and doesn't move much, but I can usually find him.

I am enjoying being back at work, interacting with my teacher friends, my students, and using a part of my brain that has been hibernating. However last thursday I had a class I had to go to at night and I only got to see Caleb for 30 minutes that day (not counting car travel time). I would have skipped the class all together if Chris hadn't been pushing me out the door. They are really strict on seat hours for the class and if I miss any more time than I did when he was born then I have to start the class all over again in two years. So days like that stink. Otherwise I rush out the door in the afternoons and treasure the time I have with little man. Once he goes to sleep I go to work on cooking, cleaning, laundry, grading, planning and spending time with my hubby. I have a new found respect for working moms, well for moms in general. There is so much to do, and a lot of it has to be done everyday.

So my house is by no means the cleanest place, especially since i started working, but my achiles heal is the kitchen. It drives me nuts when the kitchen is a mess. I ignore it for a day or two and realize that i am miserable because of it. Which typically means I sacrifice sleep in order to have a clean kitchen. The annoying part about having a clean kitchen is that I "dirty" it at least once a day, every day. I am trying to cook dinner at home every night, for three reasons. One it is cheaper, two its healthier (since the only baby weight I have lost is the water I was carrying around) and three then Chris and I can have left overs for lunch (also cheaper and healthier).

This post is a bit random in the flow but I am typing while I have time. Caleb is rolling around on a mat smiling up at me and cooing. He is now very proficient at rolling over. We have been hardcore believers in swaddling. Initially we used swaddling blankets, but little man flails those arms and un-swaddled himself in minutes. It wasn't until we remembered someone had given us a velcro swaddle blanket that we saw the magic of swaddling. He would be so fussy and within a minute of being swaddled he would fall asleep and sleep for a few hours. After a few mishaps of peeing on the swaddleme blanket in the middle of the night we knew we needed more than one, however we found that Caleb was too strong for the cotton blankets. He needed the flannel blanket, stronger fabric less give but still soft. As Caleb has grown we noticed we needed another size, which they don't sell in the stores in the flannel but is available on line. I kept meaning to purchase one but never got around to it. So we got cleaver and extended the velcro arms with some Velcro from the store. A decent temporary fix but not a permanent one. Remember I said Caleb has become quite proficient at flipping over. About a week ago I noticed every time Caleb woke up in the middle of the night or in the morning (no he is not sleeping through the night yet but i decided that was something we would tackle after i returned to work) he was always on his stomach. So I gave it a try putting him down to sleep at night un-swaddled, and within seconds of being placed in the crib he rolled over and squinched up his legs onto his knees. Which is now his preferred sleeping position. One of these days I'll get a picture, it is so cute.

Thanks for listening to my random thoughts, here are some pics.