Time to Catch Up!

Sorry I haven't updated in a while. I've been keeping super busy! Here's how my schedule basically looks:

Monday - my only consistenly free day in the week
Tuesday - preschool from 8:30-2:30
Wednesday - work church nursery for a women's bible study in the morning from 9-12, back to church in the evening to work the nursery for evening activites
Thursday - preschool from 8:30 - 2:30
Every 2nd and 4th Friday - work childcare for MOPS from 8:45-11:45.
Saturday - UT Vols football games
Sunday - church in the morning and evening (work the nursery for evening activities)

Of course, the rest of the time, I'm dealing with Christopher and then family time in the evenings.

Today is the 1 year anniversary of Brinkley's death. :( I thought I'd have a more difficult time than I actually did. It's been a lot harder for me with the anniversary approaching. Last night was hard and I cried some, but I kept pretty busy today, so didn't have much time to dwell. I've been having some thoughts lately of getting another dog. Christopher's proven that he would do really good with one. Plus, I still want him to grow up with a dog. It's mainly Shad who's still dragging his feet. I do still have some fear of something happening to that dog, so am not pushing the subject now.

Like I mentioned above in the schedule, we keep busy on Saturdays with the UT Vols football games. I decided to go to the one yesterday against South Carolina even though it was a late game (6:45 pm central kick-off). I would normally stay home because of Christopher. However, we decided to spend the night at my dad's. He and my stepmother babysat Christopher while Shad, Richard and I went to the game. Boy, was it worth going to!!!!! We ended up winning 27-24 in overtime!!! We really didn't deserve to win since we played like crap, but a win is a win...especially against Spurrier!!! Next week is homecoming against Louisianna-Lafayette. However, my dad and stepmother won't be available to babysit, so I'm staying home. I was already thinking about skipping it since it's only homecoming and we've got 2 more weeks of home games right after that plus 1 more week before the end of the season. I'll have plenty more opportunities to go again.

Friday was Shad's 32nd birthday. He's been dreading birthdays for the last couple of years and this one was no exception. To top it off, he had a crappy day at work. It started off by him spilling coffee on his computer, which proceeded to display fireworks! Thankfully for him, though, the on-site repairman was able to fix it. Hopefully, it's still working when he goes in on Monday! We've sorta been celebrating (his birthday) over the last week or so. Last Friday (October 19), we took advantage of our church's Kids Night Out and dropped Christopher off for a couple of hours while Shad and I had a date night. We went to dinner at Fuji's (a Japanese hibatchi restaurant) and then to browse the brand new outdoor mall, The Avenue. On his actual birthday, we just did our usual Pizza Night at home since we went out the week before. I gave him two out of three of his gifts: a round of golf and an oversized blanket (to use while watching tv). Unfortunately, the blanket wasn't really any bigger than the ones we already have, so we're returning it to Old Time Pottery. I'll let him pick something else out instead. His third birthday gift, a pair of Bolle sunglasses, have been ordered and should arrive sometime this week. We didn't really do much celebrating on Saturday like we'd planned. We were originally going to tailgate in the park before the game, but since Shad didn't want to do the cooking (he's the only one who knows how to use a grill) and because of the drop in temperatures (not horrible, but a little chilly), he chose to eat at Moe's on the strip by the stadium instead. It was really yummy! We still had some time to chill and ended up hanging out at Moe's for quite a while and watched Georgia beat Florida. That helped UT out tremendously!

Well, it's bedtime, so time to end for now. I'll try to post some pictures sometime soon.

Left Behind

I feel blah today. Not physically, just emotionally. This is the second Saturday this football season that I've been left behind while Shad went to the Vols game in Knoxville. He took Jeff with him and met Richard in Lebanon. Last I spoke to them, they'd just finished eating at Moe's and were about to head to the stadium.

I don't like the late games at all. If there are anymore, I'm just going to suck it up and let Christopher spend the night at my mom's. He'll just have to miss church the next day and my mom and Cheryl will have to promise not to smoke around him. He'll be okay, though. Christopher needs that time with my mom, Cheryl and Mindy. He gets so much time with Richard and it's not fair to my mom that she doesn't get that opportunity.

In 2 weeks, we play Georgia in Knoxville. Of course, we don't know the time yet. I can't stand that they wait until the WEEK OF to announce the time! That totally goes against The Planner in me!

I put Christopher down for a nap around 1:30 and he'll probably sleep until about 4:30. We were supposed to meet a friend at the park after the guys left this morning, but that fell through. I do need to make a trip to Wal-Mart and will probably do that after Christopher wakes up. My friend, Sebrina, is working tonight at Arby's so I told her that we'd probably swing by there for dinner. She's a manager and told me to let her know I'm there before I place my order so she can give me a discount. That's so nice of her! Every little bit helps!

School's going well. Christopher's doing GREAT and is the "old pro" in his class. Out of 6 of them total, he's the only one who's a member of our church. There is another little boy a couple months younger than Christopher who comes occasionally, but his parents aren't members. He's the one who's having the most difficulty. In fact, his mother even comes to get him before naptime since "that would just be too traumatic for him." Before I'd had the little boy in the nursery a few months ago (when I still worked down there on Sunday mornings), the mother had NEVER left him with anyone else. Yes, he's the couple's first child.

He's a perfect example of why I started leaving Christopher in the church nursery from an early age. Christopher got his first taste at 8 weeks old. In the beginning, it was only for 2 hours on Sunday mornings and he's always been left with people that I completely trust, so that made it easier on me. A few months ago, I went ahead and moved him into the 2-3 year old class on Wednesday and Sunday nights since he was getting into too much trouble in the baby room (0-2 year olds are in one room with the 2-3 year olds in another). Therefore, that had him being left with someone else for about 5 hours a week, but he transitioned very well. He now spends those 5 hours in the church nursery, plus 10 hours a week at preschool and 6 hours a month in the MOPS nursery...a total of about 16.5 hours a week. However, I can now see how much good it's done him to be left on occasion. He's so much more independedent than his peers who aren't left with anyone other tham Mama, Daddy or a relative. When I drop him off in the nursery, he typically waltzes right in like he owns the place, starts playing and doesn't even notice when I leave. That makes things SO much easier on me than having to pry him off of me while he's screaming like it's the end of the world!

I finally finished Christopher's "About Me" photo album and turned it into his teacher on Tuesday. I think I did a pretty good job. I even included a picture of Shad's mom, Sandy, and one of Brinkley. I put them on the "Memorial" page. His teacher, Ms. Brenda, started doing a "Star of the Week" this past week. Each week, they'll focus on the "star's" photo album. I wish I could be a fly on the wall in that class on more than one occasion.

The assistant teacher, Ms. Tracey, is leaving after Tuesday. She's pregnant and due in December and is taking an early maternity leave. It's mainly a result of the hardship she's dealing with after finding out that her baby probably doesn't have a left ventricle to the heart. She did say, though, that even if everything was perfect with the baby, she'd still probably leave early as it's getting so much more difficult for her to work with the children.

My class is doing well. We only have a couple of criers and one of those has missed 3 days already. It's only going to be that much more difficult on her when she returns (if she returns) this week. We have Fall Break the following week (Oct. 1-5). Naptime is primarily her most difficult time. If she'd just come regularly, she'd more than likely get used to things within a month. At least, that's the experience of Teresa, the teacher I work with.

Well, Christopher should be waking up soon, so I'd better go make sure that I'm ready to run our errands so I just have to worry about him.

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!