Two totally random and seperate thoughts!

The other night I decided to try and give C couscous (very small almost stick rice)! She loved it! So did her hair, the floor, and her high chair!! Couscous is not a toddler food. It went everywhere. So I thought I would share with you the end result. Needless to say my daughter definatly had to have a bath that night.

It looks like she has bugs in her hair! I promise it is just couscous. Also, look what she left on her plate, greenbeans! Even toddlers don't want to eat their veggies.

Okay so that was a couple of days ago. Well today we (my husband and me) were packing for our big move in (hopefully) a week. We got down everything out of our attic and packed it up. It was a huge chore. While we were doing this, I came across all of C's baby clothes that she has outgrown. Now, I know every mother does this but I took out the little onesis and held them up and felt a pang of sadness. Not that I miss the sleepless nights or the constant feedings, but I do miss the little tiny (non-mobile) baby that I used to cuddle. So I thought I would share just how far we have come.

C Two days old

C Three months old

C 6 months old

C 10 months

C 12 months

C 15 months

It is amazing to me how fast she has grown and how far we have come. In one week we will move out of our house that we became a family in and move into a house that we will hopefully be in when all of the children leave the nest.

Finally, I am entering the home stretch! I will graduate on Saturday. Its hard to believe that I have spent six years in college. I should be very educated by now! This week at least will be laid back. I do not have to teach all week, just sit around and watch for three days.

It sounds strange but I am not ready to graduate! I am sure you are thinking I am crazy because I have spent six years in college already, but I am just not ready to be out in the world! When I was in graduate school, I was able to be home with my daughter. C only spent one month her first whole year of life in daycare. Since turning one, I have had observations/student teaching and she has been in daycare full time for almost 5 months. I miss my daughter! By working I have missed very important moments in her life. I missed her really walking ( I saw her first steps, but the day she took off, she was at daycare), her learning to say "Uh Oh", and her trying to give up her passy (okay maybe I am glad I do not have to deal with that). They may seem small to someone who is not a mom and may not understand, but to me they are monumental.

I will have this summer off with C, but then, assuming I get a job, I will have to put her back in daycare. I just feel like when I go to apply/interview for a job, I will be excited, but I will have a heavy heart. I did not realize the impact that becoming a parent has on someone. Don't get me wrong, I may be insane after a summer with my now toddler!

The debate in my head still rages on on whether or not I want to stay home. We can afford for me to day home, but life would be a lot easier if I went to work for all of us, especially future children.

Okay I think I am done rambling on about my personal battle. I should go back to watching the children (make that teenagers) that are presently in my care. Once upon a time they were, and probably still are someones baby.

The wonderful Job market!

I know it has been a while since I have posted, but it has been a crazy few weeks. Not only are M and I in the process of trying to sell our house and buy another, but I am trying to finish up student teaching and graduate in a week.

So since I will be graduating shortly with a teaching degree, I have hit the job market looking, for what I thought would be an easy position to find. However, things never work out like you plan. I just found out that the parish I will be living in and therefore want to teach in is under a hiring freeze!! Well that is not good news for me! I don't need a job, but I want to teach this year. So I have been wresling with the idea of staying at home or trying to find a job, not in the teaching profession. Now don't get me wrong I will still be applying to the parish, but I am just not as hopeful that I will find a job. It funny how you think that your career, especially teaching, could not be affected by this wonderful economy we are in, and then you find out that it is. What to do, what to do.. Don't get me wrong I would love to stay home with my daughter, but I want work experience, and I would like to put this expensive education to some use!


On a side note, we have bought a house, as long as we can jump through all the hoops before closing so we can actually get it. Buying a house is extremely stressful!! On top of all this this week, my daughter got sick with double ear infections. Sometimes it feels as if life never just gives you a break!

I just wish I had not opened my mouth!

Have you ever had one of those days were you wish you could just start over and do things differently? Well I did today! My neighbors are horrible people, to put it nicely. For the past year that they have lived next to us they have been nothing but mean to us and our pets and then will turn around and try and act all nice. One time they called the police because our lab walked through their yard!! We had a cat before they moved in that was pretty much a stray and just roamed the neighborhood, but we feed it so we called it our own. No one seemed to have a problem with the cat, except our neighbors. One day they threated to "take care" of the cat if we did not keep it out of their yard. Well there was no way to keep a stray cat who has always roamed a street out of one yard. So one weekend we went out of town to return to a missing cat. Wonder what happened there?

Needless to say we decided to get a cat, not a stray. This cat was an inside, outside cat that never, and I repeat NEVER left our house or our property. Again one weekend we went out of town, and because our neigbors ( different, very nice neighbors) were feeding our dog and cat, so we left the cat outside to make it easier for them. Magically, again we came home to a missing cat!!!

So, you would think by now that we have learned that with our cat killing neighbors we can not have a cat, and we decided not to get one. Until, months and I mean months later our 15 month old daughter decided that she was in love with cats. So for easter we got her a cat. Since we knew the reputation of our neighbors, we have made the cat a complete inside cat. The cat is either in our house or in our storage shed during the day ( with food, water, and a litter box of course).

The cat has been doing this locked up routine for over a month now and is getting restless, she keeps trying to escape. Well today she did escape! And that is were the trouble began. It was early this morning when I went outside to get something from the storage shed and the cat darted out. Oh crap I thought because I saw the neighbors outside. But I was still in my pjs, my husband was in the shower, and my 15 month old was trying to follow me outside. So, I tried to catch the cat, which was not happening, then I tried calling the cat, still not working. The whole time this is happening my neighbor is watching me, so she knows I am trying. Then I saw it, the cat darted out of our yard and around into their carport and back down into our yard. The neighbor pops off with " you better keep that cat off my property or I am going to call the pound" . I respond with " I am trying. I am in my pjs. I have a one year old". To which she responds " I don't care blah blah blah".

This is where it went down hill. I completely lost it. I am usually a very nice person, but I could not take it. It is a cat!! Not a tiger! So I said some very choice words, that I really should not have said in front of my child. The scream match started and then threating started, on both parts I might add! The part that made me the maddest was the fact that this past week she had been sitting outside when me and C were playing outside and started talking to me. I had not talked to this woman in three or four months. She was asking all about our house, which we are selling, and C. I talked to her for like 15 mins. She even asked how the new cat was adjusting staying inside or in the storage shed. Now the first time it is out she is threating it!

Well after a heat few minutes, I went inside mad as he..! I told my husband who then decided to go talk to them himself. He was much calmer than me but of course my hothead followed outside to exchange some more choice words with our neighbors.

Now you have to understand this about our neighbors, they take any excuse they can get to call the cops and try to play victim, so thirty minutes after returning inside and trying to calm down, we have cops on our doorstep. For those of you who know me, you know that I would never do anything serious enough to need to have cops called to my house. The cop seemed to understand where we were coming from and even stated " you prevent cats from running around" "it is a cat". We ended up discussing my husbands new job with him and were we are planning to move with him.

Still, I keep beating myself up, because I should have just walked away. What a display I put on right in front of my daughter, and who knows what our other neighbors think of us now. I dunno was I wrong? Part of me thinks I am but then I think how wrong they are. Needless to say I am very thankful that we will only be living here another month because I do not think I could handle living by these people anymore. Anyway thats why I wish I could just start the day over. Not that I am not glad that I finally told them how I felt, but it was not the right way and I said things I should not have. I wish I had not opened the storage shed this morning, and I also wish I had not opened my month. Just because I yelled back at her does not make me a bigger or better person.