breaking up with mom

So, it's been a tough few days. When my niece was born, my parents offered to help out my sister and ended up watching Amaya quite a bit while Laurie worked. My mom was a preschool teacher for a long time, so once Amaya got a little older, my mom could take Amaya to preschool and teach at the same time. When Ben was born my mom started watching him as well. My dad died when Ben was a little over a year old, and suddenly most of my parents' income was gone.

When Evan was born my mom started watching him as well. It was a good situation for both of us; she needed the money, and we needed someone we trusted to watch the boys. My mom's place was about two miles from where I worked, so everything fit right into place.

Then things started getting tricky. I left my job at Irwin and spent some time looking for another job. I worked temp jobs for a while, all of which were intermittant and didn't pay a lot. Throughout this time she still needed the money, so we kept taking Ben and Evan up there, even when I couldn't really afford it. We moved to Irvington and were suddenly 30 minutes away instead of 15.

Anyway, fast forward to now. She's doing pretty well with both her daycare and piano lessons, and I am very happy for her. She deserves vacation time and other time off as we all do. The only problem is that when she takes time off, it's VERY hard to find someone to watch your kids for short periods of time - one day isn't a big deal, but ten in a row is hard to arrange. We had someone who was willing to watch them on short notice, but recently found out she moved.

My mom left for Tennessee last Sunday - for ten days. As of last Thursday I didn't have anyone lined up to watch Evan. I looked into daycare with the local churches but didn't find anything. So... Lauren and I discussed things and decided to go back to a place where we used to take the boys (one day a week). It's about half a mile from where I work, the prices are reasonable, the place is clean and the staff is amazing. I walked in last week and it was like we never left. It's a ministry-based daycare and has a lot of things Evan can really benefit from. So, yesterday was his first day at the new daycare.

He LOVED it! His cousin Sidney is in his class, and Evan was so excited to see him. I think Evan will really benefit from the structure and being around other kids his own age. This is not the part I'm worried about.

I had to tell my mom this weekend that we were starting Evan somewhere else. She, of course, had no idea. I tried to do it in person, but once there were other parents there and once I stopped in to visit but she wasn't home. I called her and told her after she got to TN, and she was just silent. I know she was in shock. I told her why we decided this, and she just said 'wow'.

I feel really badly, but what could I do? I held off from doing this as long as I can... we've been scrounging to find people for the past year or so when she leaves for her trips (we're talking 5-6 a year), and I'm over it.

I feel like I broke up with her. I didn't want to hurt her and I know I did, but there were too many issues. If the pattern persists, she will head to TN at Thanksgiving and Christmas. Lauren and I both have to work the days after both holidays... what do we do then?

I know the dust will settle soon - I just want us all to move past this and move on. I hate weird periods like this. I'm hoping things will feel comfortable again by the holidays. Who knows.

check it out!

So, as many of you may know, I suck at keeping up my website. I have no idea how to handle it and I cringe at the thought of paying someone to keep it up for me.

So as I was making dinner the other night, the thought popped into my head... why not start a blog for my photography? People like blogs, they're easy to manage and I KNOW HOW TO DO IT! And it's free! I amaze myself sometimes. :)

So... check me out!

www.mimitography.blogspot.com



:)

it's too early to blog.

Good morning.

Because I missed a day of work at the beginning of October, I spent the next week and a half making up the 8 hours I missed so I will still be eligible for my bonus. I'm not complaining! I started getting up about 30-60 minutes earlier than usual, so now I woke this morning BEFORE 6 on my own, even though it's Saturday. That is a little annoying, but it's quiet right now!

Now that we've gotten this stomach bug behind us, it looks like Lauren is working on bringing the flu into our home. He started feeling bad yesterday and I'm listening to him cough and hack... I can tell he's feeling worse this morning without even asking. If Lauren isn't my third son when he's feeling well, he definitely turns into my third son when he's sick.

Last weekend Lauren and Ben went camping - all four of us were supposed to go, but Evan came down with a fever and opted to stay in bed all day (that's how we know he's really sick). Evan woke up Sunday feeling better, so I took him to a pumpkin patch a few minutes away from here. We got to go on a hayride and pick out a pumpkin. They also had this huge pile of hay to play on (he could have stayed on that all day) and corn mazes. Evan and I had a nice little date. :)

Ben is doing really well in school, and he loves it! They finished learning all their letters last week, so this week if they could correctly name them all they got a "Letter Expert" certificate and a book to keep. Ben got his yesterday, and he is so proud. He carried it around all last night, and fell asleep with his new book. I'm so excited that he is excited to learn. He wants to work on letters and color and read ALL the time. He has never been focused like this. I'm so proud of him.

I'll post a few new pics of the boys. These may end up being Christmas card photos, but I have to share. I love my guys!

I heart Jim.

I found this on youtube. Unfortunately, whoever posted this disabled the 'embed' feature.

If you are an "Office" junkie like I am, enjoy this little montage of the pranks Jim has played on Dwight.

I know I'm too into the office... I have a crush on Jim, and also a weird little crush on Michael Scott.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLeI-V9h6EY

today, the glass is half full!

I don't really have anything at all to write. We're finally all healthy (for the moment, knock on wood) and my car is fixed (after taking it in a second time and $300 later)... things are back to ho hum. I'm way excited that it's fall. This is my absolute most favorite time of year. I love watching the leaves change and being able to open the windows and sleep in a chilly house. We had our first bon fire a few weeks ago, and we're going camping this weekend (there's a haunted village at the park!) - the weather should be gorgeous. I shot my last wedding for the year last weekend, so I'm looking forward to having long stretches of free weekends (especially since Lauren is working weekends now until after Christmas).

All in all, nothing exciting. I love my boys, I'm happy with my job, I'm not broke and it's gorgeous outside. Can't complain. :)

again.

It's 1:23 AM. Ben was sick last Friday night (ALL night) and i stayed up (ALL night) with him. Saturday was uneventful, then Evan and Lauren caught it Sunday, and I was up again ALL night Sunday with them. I went to work Monday, and have slowly caught up on sleep.

So here it is, Friday at 1:23 am, and Ben got sick about two hours ago. I tried negotiating with Lauren to get him to take this shift (I'm 3-0 now), but he broke a tooth yesterday and has a dentists appt tomorrow. I do have to work tomorrow. I have another month until I'm eligible for personal or vacation time, and if I have unpaid time off, I lose my quarterly bonus (which I am really looking forward to). I can't sleep if I know someone is sick, so I may just blog for a while. I'm catching up on my Ace of Cakes. It looks like I may have to miss work. Luckily my work schedule is pretty slow for tomorrow.

Seriously, is my sleep not as important as Lauren's? I'm sorry; I'm tired and cranky and just don't want to do this again. I'm not up for an all nighter again. I just want some sleep. I'm shooting a wedding on Saturday and Lauren is working Sunday, so I'm not going to have a lot of 'do nothing' time this weekend. Plus, we did about a trillion loads of laundry last weekend and none of it has been folded or put away yet. Also, I'd prefer not to be worn out at the beginning of the wedding... I'm always worn out by the end of the day anyway.

I'm so over this stomach flu.

The good news from today is that the car guys looked at my car today and there was a piece of plastic that had gotten lodged into something (I guess it was road debris). The auto guy removed it and the car is fine. $40. I was expecting $500-$1000. This is an unbelievable relief.

Argh. I can't wait for this to be over.