Crappy Evening

Just wanted to vent...

This evening was one of the worst in a long time! All was fine during the day...great weather, Christopher was in a good mood, I was in a good mood. Then, I left for church.

As I was driving down the road, I got pulled over for speeding. Thankfully, the cop let me off with a verbal warning, but it still sucked and scared me to death! It's only the 2nd time in my life that I've ever been pulled over. The last time was before Shad and I got married, so about 7 years ago. I got a verbal warning that time, too.

Then, I had a crappy night working in the nursery. We ended up having a couple of extra kids than normal. We typically only have a 15 month old (very good but very busy) and an almost-12 month old (very high maintenance and cries frequently) with a 17 month old (perfect angel but definitely a boy) coming in halfway through. This time, though, we ended up with a 5 month old and a 3 or 4 month old, too. I was holding the 3/4 month old and noticed he was gassy...or what I thought was gas. I lifted the baby up to set him on the floor and noticed that it was not gas at all, but POOP, which GOT ALL OVER MY SHIRT, SHORTS AND LEGS!!!!! I just wanted to cry! It was SO nasty! Thank goodness I'm a mother already or I would've TOTALLY puked! Since I've been there, done that, I didn't even gag, although my co-worker was (she's been in childcare for a long time, but isn't a mother herself). She was nice enough to take care of the baby while I cleaned myself up. Needless to say, as soon as we got done and I picked up Christopher, we went straight home where I removed my nasty clothes, pre-treated them and threw them in the laundry! Thankfully, after going through the wash, my shorts didn't stain (they're khaki, so I was worried about them)!

I'm really hoping that tomorrow will be better, although it's going to be another busy one. After being at church most of the day for school, I have to go back to work the nursery for a Life Group's bible study in the evening. I'm afraid Christopher's going to get burned out from being there too much, so I'm leaving him home with Shad. Shad and Christopher need some time together. They haven't seen much of each other the last few days since Shad's been working some overtime and then we had church tonight. I'll be home in time to put Christopher to bed.

Off to bed to end this crappy day!

Potty Training???

I guess I can say that we've sorta started potty training! :-/ We have both a seat that sits atop our regular toilet and a training potty for Christopher to use. However, I'm encouraging the regular toilet more often so as to not have to deal with a transition (not to mention the fact that I see more "accidents" happening on his training potty since he's a boy and the angle has to be just right). I started setting Christopher on the big potty about a month or two ago, but only tried a few times. I never really did much other than set him on it. Over the last week, I've sat him on it at least once a day. He seems very curious, but hasn't actually done anything. He can say "potty," "pee pee" and "wee wee." He's constantly following Shad and me to the bathroom when we go and says, "Potty!" He even followed a little girl to the bathroom at church on Sunday night while saying, "Potty!", which had the teacher quite impressed. I'm still not pushing anything by any means since he's not even 2 yet. I just ask him, "Do you need to go potty?" I then take him to the bathroom, set him on the toilet, give him a minute or two until he says, "All done!" and then take him off. At this point, he mainly likes to play with the little "boy guard" and himself. LOL! I don't expect anything to happen anytime soon. That being said, I'm sure a lot of it is timing on my part. If I just so happen to time it right and he does actually go, I'm going to be giving LOTS of praises!

Another sign that makes me think Christopher's close to being ready to be potty trained is that he can tell me when he's dirty. As soon as he'd pooped in his diaper this morning before school (just as we were walking out the door, of course), he held his rear end and ran right to his bedroom. There was no mistaking what THAT meant! I'm sure him telling me BEFORE he has to go will take a good while longer, so I'm not even thinking that far ahead yet. I'll just slowly work on getting him to pee in the potty for now.

The First Week of Preschool

Christopher and I survived our first week of school! The first day (Tuesday) went very smoothly. Christopher waltzed right into his class like an old pro. It's his normal Sunday School room, so he's very familiar with it. As for naptime, I was told that he was the FIRST to go to sleep! All my worries were for nothing! LOL! However, he only slept for about an hour (compared to his normal 2-3 hours). He acted like he needed another one after we got home. I put him in his crib, but he only played for about an hour and then was ready to get up. He was fine the rest of the evening, though.

In my class (2-year olds), we only had 2 crying children to deal with and that only lasted about the first 20-25 minutes. The only other time we had any issues was at naptime and that only involved 2 girls. One didn't want to go lay down, but once she was on her mat, she was fine and went to sleep pretty quickly. The other girl started crying as soon as I tried to get her to lay down and continued to cry for the next 20-30 minutes. I just sat beside her and rubbed her back and she eventually went to sleep.

On Thursday, Christopher cried when I left him, but that was only because I messed up. I let him go into his classroom to kill time until our devotion (which we try to hold a few minutes before kids are due to arrive). He came looking for me, so since I was finished in my classroom, I went and sat in his room while he played. Well, another little girl playing in there decided to go look for her mom who went down the hall for a minute. Since we don't let the kids wander the hallways alone and she was PERSISTANT, I went with her. By the time I headed back to Christopher's classroom, though, parents started to arrive (earlier than they were supposed to). Therefore, I had to get back to my classroom and didn't get to say goodbye to Christopher. He watched me walk out, so that really upset him. I felt so bad and just wanted to go in to calm him down, but knew me leaving again would only make matters worse. Once he's distracted, he typically calmes down. Plus, I figured if I was needed, his teacher (Ms. Brenda) would page me. I never heard anymore about it, so he must've calmed down fairly quickly.

For his nap that day, I was told that he was the LAST to go to sleep this time. LOL! Thankfully, he never did fuss. He just rolled all over the floor and couldn't go to sleep. Ms. Brenda told me that she even tried to rock him, but he only layed there talking and pointing out all the other kids who were sleeping. He eventually fell asleep on the floor (off his mat, of course) and ended up sleeping for a little over an hour. I had to wake him up after all the kids in my class left.

Both of the nights after his long and busy days he slept GREAT! In fact, Thursday night, he ended up sleeping 12-1/2 hours STRAIGHT!!! I don't think he's EVER done that! Since he typically needs about 13 hours of sleep per day (nighttime and naps), he only needed about a 30-45 minute nap on Friday. We went down to Tullahoma to see Mom, Mindy and Cheryl, so that came in very handy. He did perfectly fine until just before we went to leave. He got about a 45 minute nap on the way home.

Our homework this weekend is putting together his photo album titled, "All About Me." I've been taking pictures of relatives and friends and now just need to figure out which ones to print and how I'm going to arrange them. I also need to include pictures/magazine clippings/etc. of his favorite toys (books and balls), tv characters (Elmo) and anything else that he really likes. I might even get a picture of spaghetti since that seems to be his favorite meal! LOL!

I've taken on another endeavor...helping teach a MOPS class at another local church. I've already filled out paperwork and am due to start this Friday (Sept. 14). I've been told that I'm needed in the 4 & 5 year old class. Thankfully, it's only 2 days a month...every 2nd and 4th Friday, for 3 hours in the morning. It's not a whole lot of extra money, but every little bit helps.

In addition to that, work at my own church nursery is picking up. I do the New Member's Class each month, we've got a Parents' Night Out coming up in addition to some Bible study nights. I'm not sure yet if I'll be able to work them all and need to discuss it with Shad first. Tomorrow, my schedule includes our regular church routine in the morning, go home to change clothes, I'll go back to church to work the nursery for the New Member's Class for approximately 2 hours (if any kids show up), go home for a few hours and then go back to church for the evening activites, which include my Discovery U class the first hour and then back down to the nursery for the second hour. Tomorrow is going to be a busy day for me!

Shad is on his way home from the Vols game in Knoxville. They played Southern Mississippi and won 39-19. Unfortunately, it didn't start until 6:00 pm central time (too late to have Christopher out) and it was on pay-per-view, so I didn't get to see it at all. He's not due to arrive home until about 2:00 or 3:00 am. He is SO going to be dragging his butt in the morning! I've already told him that I don't want to hear him complain when he has to get up for church at 7:00 am! I won't have ANY sympathy for him since he got to go while I was stuck at home!

Since we couldn't go, Christopher and I stayed home and were BORED. I thought we'd be getting together with a friend and her son, but my friend ended up having to work. We did manage to make a trip to Wal-Mart, though, where I had a ditzy moment. After shopping, I decided to get dinner at McDonald's. I placed the order, went to get our drinks and LEFT WITHOUT THE FOOD! Doh! I realized it as I was driving off (before leaving the parking lot), so turned around to go back. The manager was there waiting for me with my food. LOL!

I guess I'll stop rambling now. It's bedtime and Christopher just started crying. The tv probably woke him up. Oops!