Back to Work, Enough with Self Pity

I've technically got two weeks of happenings to cover since I was lame and bummed out last Sunday and didn't write anything except for "Poor me. I have to go back to work." I will try to bore you with my self pity this week. :)

We put Grant in the bathtub with Landon for the first time last week, and well, he hasn't been back in there since. Don't get me wrong, we're still bathing the child, but he's back in the kitchen sink. Although, as you can see below, he doesn't look too comfortable in the sink. Don't ya love the do?! He wasn't just uncomfortable in the tub though....he HATED it. Probably because his older brother wasn't really doing his part of supporting him. Above is a picture we snapped before the screaming...and I do mean screaming, commenced.

So I guess I didn't write about our fantastic trip to the ER last Wednesday (before I went back to work). Landon who was running a 101 temp, and anytime that happens we have to have him checked out, just in case he has a blood infection caused by his port. Well, we were in the ER at 5:00 and got home at 10:30. I pretty much expected that. I did not, however, expect that the staff there would have no flippin' clue what they were doing. I had to HELP the DOCTOR give Landon a throat culture because he wasn't sure how to manage holding the light, the tongue depressor and the swab. He kept sticking the swab in his mouth, but not deep enough. Landon would gag lightly and move his head back and the doctor would take the swab out and try the same thing again. After about 7 attempts, I finally suggested that we lay him down, I held the light, and encouraged the doctor to "just stick it back there and do it." YIKES. That just set the tone for the entire trip. The nurse had no idea how to get the needle in his port. Thank goodness for a parent of one of my first graders who was walking by and heard all the fuss. She used to work oncology, so she came in and accessed it no problem. UGH. What made it worse was that by the time we had been in the ER for two hours he didn't even HAVE a fever anymore. So, needless to say, everything checked out fine. My confidence in medical care at Memorial, however, suffered greatly. LOVE this picture of him with his best pal, Yellow Blanket.

Monday was our big day. I left Grant for the first time. It wasn't nearly as hard as it was to leave Landon for the first time. I know he's in great hands. I still was a little sad though. He's getting so big so fast already. I think I've mentioned that I don't think I'm cut out to be a full time stay at home mom. But after spending one day at work, I was sad to remember how busy our days and nights are and how fast I know time will fly. It just doesn't seem like there's enough time to sit on the couch and coo with Grant as much as I want to. But that's life. If I had all the time in the world, I probably wouldn't sit enough and do it, so no need dwelling on it.

After Chad left with the boys to do the drop off Monday morning, I headed to school, where everything in my room was left as organized as possible by my wonderful sub. BUT after standing there for about 5 minutes and looking at all the piles of stuff with post its stacked all over my desk and my tables, I felt sick to my stomach wondering how I was going to get everything organized. I then walked down to the teacher work room to put away my lunch and was greeted by my friends who were all concerned how my morning went. Uh....I didn't make it out of there without tears. After stomaching through my first and most of the second day at school, I had my summative evaluation meeting with my principal. I was really happy with the evaluation part, but wasn't so happy at the end to hear the RIF talk. (for people not sure what that is....Reduction In Force, aka we don't have the money to pay you, so we might have to let you go). With the state in the mess it's in, I knew I was probably going to get a pink slip this year. I wasn't really that worried though. My rationale was that they have to have classroom teachers so I was going to be fine. After all the talking this week about what cuts are going to be made though, I'm a little concerned. Yeah, they do have to have classroom teachers, but they don't have to have gifted, art, all day kindergarten, pre-k, etc, and all those teachers are tenured so that means they have to go somewhere....hopefully NOT to room 109 where I taught first grade this year, but they could. I'm not REALLY worried. I think I'm PROBABLY okay, but I'm definitely not as confident about it as I was last week.

Turning a corner here into light and happy news: I bought a new creamer that's a skinny vanilla latte flavor and it is DE-LISH. I haven't left the house without coffee now since Monday morning. I'm not a big TV watcher, but hooray for NBC's premiere week. LOVED Parenthood. I always love the Office, and we're also enjoying The Marriage Ref. My team threw me a welcome back breakfast on Monday. VERY sweet and thoughtful. And two of my sweeties at school brought me yellow tulips and a bracelet this week. Abby is saying "Aunt Meeeeegan" now which totally made my week. And my loving brother adopted a new puppy (Zelda) and bought Cardinal season tickets! SWEET!!!

LANDON'S CRACK UP MOMENTS OF THE WEEK

Monday night, Landon and I were playing CandyLand in the kitchen while Chad watched 24. Landon was all gung ho about watching 24 with Daddy, which we do not allow, since someone gets shot or is blown up every 20 seconds. After about 4 or 5 times of him asking to go in the living room, and me saying no, we were playing CandyLand, he says (very seriously):

"Mom, you can be my best girl, but I am done with this game."

That night we were saying his bed time prayer together and Grant was hanging out with us in his race car bed too. We say "Now I lay me..." and then I make him say thank you for at least one thing. He "couldn't think of anything" so I say "how about someone you saw today." Still nothing...."how about someone you spent the day with for the first time at Vella's." He looks down at Grant, looks up at the sky, folds his hands, takes a deep breath and says, "Dear God, thank you for the pukey guy." OH. MY.

On Wednesday, Uncle Stallion cut Landon's hair, which had needed cut for at least a month now. He went to school on Thursday and told his teachers that he "looked like a monkey" with his new haircut. I took a picture of him with Curious George....I guess I can kinda see it. The quote even made one of his teacher's facebook posts of the day. Here he is with his scrapbook page for his star of the week book from school.

Here is a whole plethora of videos for you.....Landon's bible verse I couldn't get on last time....some Wii footage, his "speed skating" that he learned from the Olympics, and some Grant coos.