Checking in

It's always been too long since I last posted. This time there are a few things to report on:

Today I completed my second week of work. I went back to work on Monday, June 7 and I'm on the 32 hours/week schedule right now until my 20 hour/week schedule gets approved, which will probably be another couple weeks - I can't wait! I'm in my same job and doing the same things I was doing before (working at a wastewater treatment plant in the Project Management group) and it has been very nice not having the stress associated with learning a new job. And I'm still only 5 minutes from home. Right now I work from 7 a.m. - 2 p.m. everyday. It's hard to be away from Connor for that long (I know, it's not THAT long) but my goal in going back to work is to keep up my skills as an engineer so that eventually when my kids are older and either in school full time or out of the house, I will be able to go back to work full time as an engineer. Sure the money is always nice, but retaining my engineering skills is what I'm most interested in. That's why I'm working on getting the 20 hours/week (the minimum at my office) schedule approved - being a full time mom is still my #1 priority.

As far as child care for Connor, Brad doesn't have to go in to work until 9 a.m. so he watches him for the first 2 hours in the morning until my little sister Ady gets to our house and watches him from 9 a.m. - 2 p.m. If Ady can't watch him a day here or there, I have wonderful friends who have offered to help out as well. My friends Becky and LeeElle have already watched him for me a few times. Thank you everyone for your help!! When I get on the 20 hour/week schedule, Ady will only have to watch him from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. - which is when Connor usually takes his morning nap so I'm glad I won't miss much of his awake time while I'm gone. It's been a fairly easy transition, all things considered. I really miss Connor while I'm at work though. I try to lose myself in my work, and the time seems to go by faster. I try to come home everyday for lunch (another reason why I love working so close) so I can see him and hang out with him for a little bit before going back for a couple more hours.

Work so far has been going well. My boss is glad to have me back (he told everyone in the office how excited he was that I was returning - what a great boss) and he didn't waste any time giving me work - I had only been there a week and I already had (and still have) 4 projects to work on, one of which is a $115M job! It has been fun getting back into engineering projects and I'm glad to be kept busy.

Connor is doing fantastic. He's now 7.5 months old and he is so happy (but that's a recent development - his first 3 months were great as well, but there were a few months in the middle that were VERY HARD). He is eating everything in sight (solid food, toys, your finger, you name it) and he is getting more and more fun, responsive, and playful all the time. He has two teeth on the bottom and he's teething again so we are looking for teeth to poke through on the top; but it will probably be several more weeks before we see any more. He loves to hold onto our fingers and run (quite literally) everywhere, and his newest favorite thing is to kick his ball all over the house. We could be raising a soccer player!

The past several weeks have been fun. For Memorial Day, we went down to my parents' house and bbq'ed, played at the park and in the pool, had our first cousin bath (Connor didn't have the best time) and just hung around. It was a fun weekend.





This was during nap time. Can you tell he's totally relaxed?





I just love this smile. The last one is a good shot of his 2 teeth.