Back to Work

I have to write about this very important phase in our lives.  It has been very hard for me to leave my precious not quite 3 month old baby to go back to work although I know I was very lucky to stay out of work with him for over 9 weeks of his life.  After getting to stay home with my first baby for over a year, I did not know how I was going to handle being away from my baby that long.  I still don't know how I am doing it, but I am just taking it a day at a time.  I cuddle him from the time I walk in the door and can barely stand to put him down to even eat dinner at night. 

We knew that we wanted him to get to stay at home for as long as possible and not have to go to daycare, and we also knew that we wanted to get Evan in a good preschool.  Unfortunately, preschools are like regular schools and do not last all day.  So we needed to hire a nanny to watch the baby all day and to watch Evan after school.  Evan is staying home for the summer.  We were so nervous about advertising and hiring a stranger that we didn't know to watch our kids, but we don't  have family close enough to watch our precious little ones.  We prayed that God would direct us to a wonderful, loving, Christian person to care for them.  My wonderful friend at work, Christy, came to my rescue and offered her old nanny as a possibility.  She is a sweet, fun, older lady who has raised her own children and grandchildren and cared for Christy's children for the last few years.  We contacted her and had her come to visit us and discussed what we wanted.  She seemed to fit the bill to a T so we decided to give it a shot.  She worked a few days with me to learn how to care for the children and keep them on their routines.  Brody is on a very good feeding schedule that allows the nanny to easily feed him when I am not here.  He takes to bottle feeding easily as well as still nursing easily too.  She provides me with a daily itinerary for the kids that allows me to keep track of their feedings, naps, etc.

For Evan, I prepared a little summer curriculum for him to help him keep up with his learning.  He is mostly working on learning to read and write.  He has a letter of the day and does the following activities: 

• Does the letter page in his little workbook.  He picks out the pictures that start with the letter, and he has done so well.  He usually gets to color the pictures which he loves, and his coloring skills are so advanced for his age!

 
He worked on the letter F yesterday, and as you can see, he colored everything except the "eggs."   So smart and such a good colorer too!

• Practices writing the letter in capital and lowercase on his dry erase board with his new dry erase crayons.  I love these crayons.  They easily wipe off of the dry erase surface and are less likely to end up marking on my furniture than markers. 

His F's!

• Reads some sight words starting with the letter from his sight word flash cards. 

• Reads a book and points out words that start with the letter.  He can usually start to recognize some words when repeated throughout the story. 

• Does a craft for the letter. 

His F craft was tracing his feet and coloring them.  

He did the letter E his first day and made his eyeball.  Yep, Evan's eye is always watching us!

His first craft was a snake.  

Our little snake charmer!

So everything considered, I think the kids are doing just fine although Mommy is still pretty sad that she can't stay with them more.  Yeah, maybe Mommy is still a little hormonal!