The Year We Were All Sick

I'm so thankful for my wonderful family and the fact they are so close to us. Starting Christmas Eve, I came down with a nasty bronchitis and fever, and was sick during three Christmas gatherings and one birthday party (Robert's cousin Maria) over the next three days. I would never have made it without my family's help, and especially Robert. He's been such a trooper with N while I've been ill. I'm still not recovered...on my second day of the Z-pack and inhaler for the wheezing in my chest. Then, of course, Nicklas comes down with a cough and fever two days later, and today we found out he's got double ear infections. I guess it's saying something that we've never had ear infections before and he's almost 17 months old, but I'm surprised since I had so many as a kid. Thank goodness for antibiotics. Somehow, when you're sick you still have to be the mommy and it's hard to make a toddler understand that YOU NEED REST. When the lady at the clinic told me I needed to take off work for 5 days and rest, I laughed at her.

Anyway, here's some cute pics from Christmas this year...

N sitting in his new push buggy car...a big hit, I must say.

Although the best presents will always be the boxes that others' gifts came it.

Can we open more presents so I can have the wrapping paper?? Please??

Luke sitting with Jonas and Heath and Leanne's house. He's so grown up!

What did I say about boxes? Dad made a "house" for Luke and Nicklas from a box at work, including a window with shutters and a door. They routinely would stuff their favorite toys or sippies inside and then crawl in to picnic together. So much fun.

I'm disappointed that N and I have been so sick this week, since Jonas and family are moving this weekend and we won't see them for a long time. I love you guys so much!

I know it's been awhile...

My blogger engine has run out of steam, and I'll catch up eventually. Here's a little holiday treat for all of you...



Merry Christmas!
Love,
Jen, Robert and Nicklas

Homecoming with the Redcoats 2009

Uga VII and the Turner family

Today we got up extra early and traveled to Athens for UGA's Homecoming. Robert marched this year while I sat out with Nicklas and a bum shoulder. We had a blast! We spent the days with friends and taking lots and lots of pictures.

Playing football while tailgating

N passed out and missed pregame and the first quarter of the game. Which meant I got to watch it! After they scored their third touchdown the yelling woke him up and all was lost from there on out...
On a side note, I enjoyed holding him while he slept. He hasn't done that in months and months. Although he's alot heavier now and my arm almost fell off...totally worth it!

Waiting for the pregame show. I really like this picture, it was a total accident.

Listening to the Redcoats at the Dawg Walk.
NOTE: Sorry these pictures are out of order, it drives me crazy. It's too hard to upload them correctly and then I can't figure out how to rearrange them while using Robert's laptop. I feel the need to apologize.

Thoughts on Being a Working Mom

Not as opposed to being a stay-at-home "non-working" mom, because there is no such thing, but being a mom and having a job outside the home has it's own challenges. So many, I'd say, most of my mom-friends are SAHM or WAHM (work-at-home moms) that I almost feel as though I'm in the minority. Census bureau stats have shown a 15% increase in the number of stay at home moms over the last ten years (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/10/08/60minutes/main648240.shtml).

I have a full-time job working for a large hospital system as a radiologic technologist. Basically, I take x-rays, among my other talents. I love my job; I work four days a week, from 9a to 6p with every Thursday off, no weekends and no holidays. It's great, but it wasn't always that way. When N was first born I worked as a PRN tech, meaning I worked the hours that the hospital had available, and they weren't always the glamorous day-shift hours. I spent alot of his first nine months working late evenings, night shifts, weekends, Thanksgiving and Christmas days, etc etc. But this also meant that alot of times I didn't have work, so I spent that time enjoying my infant son. And since he breastfed the first nine months of his life, it worked really well at the time. I did the whole "pumping" thing and kept up nursing until he weaned himself by May. Now he's older and we have a set schedule, it's working well now too. He spends two days in school at a great at-home daycare and two days with my mom.

Do I have to work outside of the home? No. We lived on just Robert's salary or just my salary for four out of the six years we've been married...one of us always seemed to be in school. We could do it again. Would I like to stay home with N all day everyday? Sure, but I'd go crazy! I often find that I'm more exhausted at the end of my off-days than if I went to work. I love what I do and I feel like the precious time I spend with my son at the beginning and end of every work day is so special I can't measure it. No, my house wouldn't be any cleaner, my child wouldn't be any smarter and my scrapbooks wouldn't get done faster if I stayed at home.

When I first starting taking N to school he was a year old. I cried and cried, thinking I was abandoning him and letting some stranger raise him. I dreaded the day to come when he would run to his teacher instead of me, and when one of the others kids called her "mommy" I almost called the whole thing off. But I decided I can't control everything about every minute of his time everyday, so I let it go. And boy, how he has blossomed. He's so much more social, he loves to read even more, and he's speaking more and more new words everyday.

Does God have this planned out for us? You bet. Even when I didn't know it at the time, I look back on N's first 15 months and marvel at how well everything has worked out for us. He's such a joy and we've been so blessed, in so many ways. I don't know if I will always do what I'm doing now, I'd like to even get into teaching eventually. When we have more children I will keep doing what I'm doing b/c I know God will provide for us.

Psalms 46:1...
¹ God is our refuge and strength,
an ever-present help in trouble.

Happy Halloween!

My little x-ray!

Fun Fall Days of Festivals and Farms

Yesterday we took Nicklas to our church's fall festival, where we had jump-around blow-up things (not sure of their technical names), a chili-tasting event, car/tractor show and hayrides. N absolutely loved the bouncy things...and since we got there pretty early he got to play around safely before all the other (bigger) kids showed up. Robert climbed in and slid down the slide with N several times. There's one thing about having kids...you get to act like one again and nobody judges you.

Wheeeeeeeee! Do it again Daddy!

Now I want to go by myself!

Can you see me?

Trying to figure out the "jumping" thing....which was mostly a "falling down" thing.

Hey mom, watch this!

Getting ready for our first hayride of the day.

Going around the church grounds and around the lake.

N's first tractor experience...note Nana's arm in the background. The seat was very high up!

Don't worry, I'll drive.

My buddy the pumpkin.

After naptime we headed out to Washington Farms to see the farm animals, walk the cornmaze and pick out our pumpkins. (I know, busy day). Nicklas had so much fun with the animals, we had to literally tear him away from every enclosure so we could make it through everything in time to make it to dinner.

That donkey won't come over here...

.....there he is!!

Goats!

N loved to pet the rabbits, I think they were his favorite. He didn't want to leave when we moved to the next animals.

He actually tried to climb into this enclosure so he could touch the bunnies.

They had a giant box of dried corn, kind of like a sand box. N had a great time throwing corn all over and getting it stuck in his clothes, shoes, etc. I found more in his onesie when we got home.

Throwing corn. At least he didn't try to eat it!

Our second hayride of the day. This one took us out to the corn maze.

Which way to go?
They had clues along the way to help us out.

Corn is a lot taller up close than I thought it would be. They actually have this maze open after dark. I don't think you'd ever catch me in there after sundown. I was nervous enough as it was.

Watch out for the mud! We were all three covered by the time we got out of there (with some help from the farm staff. I got a little panicky).

Riding back to the pumpkin patch to get our pumpkins and head home.

We stopped at a local pizzaria to have dinner on the way home. All in all, it was a very long but very fun day!

Bedtimes

Before we had children, I vowed that I would not be a parent who kept her kids out at all hours and complained later that I couldn't get them to sleep consistently. Therefore, we established a good sleep routine with N early on. Now don't get me wrong, not every night works this well, and it took a loooooooooong time to get him on this routine, including many many nights of holding him, rocking him, and listening to him scream every time we laid him down for the night.

We take a bath most every night, since I find it helps in the wind-down procedure. After dinner we play for awhile and then by 6:45 or so, we hit the tub. He's generally rubbing his eyes by this point, since most days he's taking only one nap, so by 6:30 it's cranky city. We stay in the tub for awhile, playing and generally having a good time.

After bath it's PJ time! I just found these new footie pajamas (my favorite) and I bought them thinking, "their 18 months, he'll grow into them". I barely got them zipped up! I can't believe he's already wearing 18 month clothes! We play for 5-10 minutes in PJ's, then it's clean-up time. I make N "help" me pick up all his toys...I figure it's good practice for later when he'll help clean up all by himself. Then we read a book (or point at the pictures, mostly) and brush our teeth. We've been brushing teeth since he broke the second one on the bottom. Now we have seven total...gotta protect them while we can!

The downside...the kid is used to being in bed by 7:30. Which means, staying out late is a rare occasion for mom and dad. If we need to go somewhere, it's usually just one of us or we hire a sitter. But here's a bonus...no, absolutely no fussing at night. N goes right to sleep or entertains himself quietly until he poops out. Even when we're away from home the "routine" generally works very well and we have few arguments at night. I find that it's a welcome sacrifice that we're stuck at home so early to have a kiddo who's ready and willing for bed every night. Consistency is the key!