Workin' Man

Ahh....working with Conley. Where do I start?

Don't let the concept fool you. It's a wonderful opportunity, yes. BUT it is HARD. I knew it would be, but I also knew (KNOW) that it is worth it in many ways.

Here's the equation...

Sweet baby boy + teething + mama with things to accomplish in order to earn a paycheck = STRESSFUL

Here's this week, as "typical" as it can get...

Monday: Started out bright and early by dropping him off at the babysitter at 8:30. I hurried to the office to get as much accomplished in 4 hours as possible. Success. Got organized and felt ready to start the week. Picked the boy up at the babysitters and headed to one of my houses in Woodbury. Slept in the car, slept for a while at the house. Had a meeting--slept through it. Drove to 2nd house--slept in car. Dad picked him up there at 5:30 and mom continued working til about 7.

Tuesday: Full day at the office starting with a meeting at 9. Was awake and distracting most of the time. Then had a speaker which I was supposed to attend, but was unable to due to distraction of very warm baby with no pants on. :) Instead, we sat in the back of the office and he entertained a resident who was visiting. Attempted to get him to take a nap while also trying to check emails and make attempts at some sort of productivity. Fail. Broke out the Tylenol. Sucess. Slept for about an hour as I wrapped up a little paperwork and he slept through 1/2 a budget meeting. Woke up and proceeded to be distracting. Fed him a bottle (this wasn't the first bottle of the week, promise.). Went to "Work Book Club" meeting and he slept again. Woke up during it and was crabby and needed to be walked around. Tried to talk with one of the people I'm training in while jiggling baby. Pretty successful. Crabby until any-person-who-smiles-at-him walks by. THEN, he turns into this adorable and happy little boy who giggles like crazy. Repeat. Any-person-who-smiles-at-him says, "What a happy boy" and "What a good boy" and I roll my eyes. He spits up on me which signifies that we need to go home. It's about 5:00.

Wednesday: Had a 9:00 meeting with the owner of the company. Conley slept in the car and at the office UNTIL the meeting started. Then, he decided he wasn't very happy. I made all attempts to keep him happy until, thankfully, the meeting was over. We then attempted a little bit of work before heading to "PD FUN DAY" at a local park. Of course, he fell asleep in the car on the way TO the park and slept for a little bit there. During this time, I kept thinking, "YOu're not supposed to sleep at the park. You're supposed to sleep at the office!". He woke up shortly after and was one crabby boy. I tried to walk him around the park, swing, stroll him around, etc. to no avail. Again, I broke out the Tylenol and that seemed to help (eventually, after we left the park, of course). I called Ryan on the way out of the park with crying baby in the background and proceeded to cry myself. We were planning on going back to the office, but then I couldn't figure out why I would do such a thing, and we headed home to work instead. THIS is the fabulous part of the job...the ability to do things like that! So, he napped a bit til Ryan got home and I ran out the door to another staff meeting. <>

Thursday: 9am meeting-- stood most of the time to keep Con-man quiet, gave him his bottle, and kept his car seat rocking in order to keep him sleeping. Headed to one of my houses where he slept initially. I had his car seat out on the washing machine in the laundry room, and one of the residents walked in there, walked back out and said, "Can someone please take the baby off the washing machine?!". Funny stuff. Slept on and off and then we were homeward bound about 4 or 5.

Friday: WE STAYED HOME! Woop-woop! He slept in til about 8:00 which was FABULOUS. We worked upstairs for a bit (which wasn't so fabulous), but then he took a good afternoon nap in the comfort of his own crib and I spent the day doing some email inbox spring cleaning, making phone calls, etc.

Now that I have reflected on the week, I can't remember why I had so many times that I wanted to pull my hair out. Seriously-- it was probably the worst week yet and I threatened Ryan that we would be starting FT Daycare soon, but now that the weekend is over, I'm ready to go back to the "routine of non-routine" tomorrow. He has almost a full day of daycare tomorrow, then he'll be with me the rest of the week.

AND NOW that I just re-read what I wrote (since I actually started this post yesterday morning and finished today), I need to clarify a couple of things...
*I'm not drugging my son with Tylenol. He really does seem to be teething! ;)
* I LOVE the little guy like crazy, but I know that any mom can understand the moments that you want to pull your hair out. Riiiiight?

That's that. We've had a VERY low-key weekend and Conley has been rocking the sleeping! He woke up 2 times on Friday-Saturday (Ryan's night to get up) and 3 times last night (my time to get up)....BUT he slept til 8:00 and 8:30 respectively AND he's taken some great naps. This is what happens when his mom isn't carting him around all day. My plan for the week is to start trying to put him on some sort of a schedule so we can make this working thing go a little smoother. Wish us luck! :)

Grow, grow, grow

My baby really looks more like a toddler.

exhibit A


When did THIS happen? Some mornings I seriously look at him and think that while he slept (sporadically) through the night, he changed a little...and believe me, I get to see what he looks like at least every 3 hours during the night! SIGH.

We've hit a couple of major milestones in the past couple of days. Conley is OFFICIALLY SITTING UP UNASSISTED!

SEE???


I was telling Ryan yesterday that I thought it was pretty early for him to be sitting up already. We got out the "What to Expect..." book and Ryan was reading off what he could/should be accomplishing at the end of Month 4. We were giving nods and "uh-huhs" until we came to the fact that they MIGHT be able to roll over at the end of 4 months and we said NOPE. Can't do that one. Not even a few minutes later, as if to say "Heck yeah, I can!", Conley rolled over from his bell on to this back. No lie. He's stubborn like that and wanted to prove us wrong. :) I'm sure we won't see a repeat of this amazing feat again for awhile, but he sure timed his first successful roll appropriately.

Other than that, we are also apparently teething. Do you see a common factor in the following pictures???



Yup. The boy ALWAYS. HAS. HIS. HANDS. IN. HIS. MOUTH.
And we're crabby. With rosy cheeks. and some serious appreciation for the frozen teething ring. We'll see!

I briefly mentioned sleep, but for real, he's still getting us up a MINIMUM of 2 times and USUALLY that is more like every 2-3 hours. No lie. The problem, however, is that he has no schedule or routine which is my fault. More to come..."Working with Conley" deserves it's own post. :)

Happy Saturday--more to come!

Daycare

Today was D-day. Day 1 of daycare! Phew--glad it's over!

It went really well though. I managed to keep the tears in my car on the drive to and from daycare, and didn't cry in the house when I dropped him off. He was there for 5 hours and I only called once. Our daycare lady, Tanya, texted me a picture of him once too which was super nice. He was pretty well-behaved there, except for some major meltdown cries, which were apparently gas-related. And he slept. A lot. Then, I picked him up and we headed back to the office together for a few hours.

I'm really happy with the family we went with. She's so amazingly flexible--she will take him for an hour or as long as we want and is also willing to help out in the evenings. She only charges $4 an hour and has 3 of her own kids (ages 3, 5, and 7) who provide Conley with the ultimate in entertainment. That's it. Him and her kids. It's a perfect situation I think, and the flexibility is amazing.

Perfect, except that mama isn't with him the whole time, which makes it "almost" perfect.

What a much more productive 5 hours I had though! Jeepers! :)

On a side note--Conley is sitting up for about 25-30 seconds before tipping. What a big man.

3 months

I never did an update of Con-man at 3 months so here it goes...

He's holding up his head like a champ
Moving like crazy--squirm, squirm, squirm
Wearing mostly 6mo+ outfits
Wearing size 3 diapers
Sleeping 3 hours in a row at night on average
Super smiley with lots of giggles
Screams bloody murder when 5:00 rolls around
Is starting to like his car seat more (it looks like an amusement park...I have so many toys rigged up!)
Likes story time--me and Conley laying on the floor with the book in the air :)
Is becoming moody about bath time...it's hit or miss
Loves his play mat and is getting good at grabbing his toys
Putting in 40 hour weeks with mom :)
Noisy, noisy, noisy-- screeches, screams, giggles, cries, etc.

So much more, but I already typed up his 3-month letter, so we're good.

Here's some pics and I updated the carseat pic to the left. We removed his fleece liner and he actually looks smaller this month because of it. Don't be deceived. :)

First FT Week

Well, our first FT week is over. Conley did amazingly most days, but since he is a baby and all, he also had some difficult moments. Overall though, it went well. I basically just worked my schedule around him every day that I could and went home to work when he let me know he'd had enough. He is pretty popular around the office though--turns on the charm big time when someone else talks to him. Very funny.

I had one meeting yesterday with 5 kids present--and only 7 adults. Yup, that's the way we roll at my company!

We are, however, going to meet with a daycare option tomorrow. She is a referral of the person I was going to go with and sounds SUPER flexible (and cheap!). She's a home-schooling SAHM, so I think it sounds pretty good so far.

Nothing will sound perfect when it comes to leaving my baby boy with someone else, but I have to figure something out!

All in all, SOO glad it's Saturday. I will be working a bit today, but I have to take advantage of the daddy-baby time to actually be efficient! :)