This and That

- My kid’s new favorite thing to do is crawl over to the cat dishes and play with them. The cat always eats his food right away so luckily there’s none of that to go in his mouth but he still manages to stick the food dish in his mouth, tip the water over or (my favorite) sit down right in the middle of the water if I don’t catch him fast enough. If I see him near the dishes and say “No, not for Easton!” he crawls away, but he tests me on it about 934 trillion times a day. It drives me bonkers! If anyone has a tip on how to keep him out of the dishes, I’m all ears!

- I was the first of my friends to get married and the first to have a baby. The majority of them are still in a completely different phase of life than I am. While it’s kind of cool to be the first one to do things, it’s hard that I don’t have any other mom friends. I’ve started going to a weekly baby playgroup through our school district and a baby story time at the library so Easton and I can meet other moms and babies. Activities like that are SO out of my comfort zone but I’m trying to branch out and I’m actually enjoying it quite a bit.

- My sister graduates from cosmetology school on Friday and my mom, Easton and I are making the 5 hour drive there and back to celebrate. I haven’t had a chance to visit yet in the 2 years my sister has lived there so it’ll be fun to see her city and watch her graduate. That being said, I am NOT excited about being trapped in the car for 10 hours with a baby who hates being stuck in his car seat.

- Last night we were giving Easton his bath when all the sudden we realized he had pooped in the tub! That was definitely a new first. Joe and I thought it was pretty funny. I ended up breaking out the bleach and giving the tub a good scrub (which it probably needed anyway) so now it’s probably the cleanest it’s ever been.

Easton’s First Game

I’m not a huge sports fan, I never have been. I grew up in a family that LOVED sports but I never developed the same interest. Luckily for me, I married a man who feels about the same way. Neither of us cares to watch football, soccer or basketball, though we do both like the occasional baseball game. Baseball and softball were huge in my family and we usually went to at least one Minnesota Twins game every summer. To this day I really like going to baseball games. The beautiful green field, the excited fans, the overpriced hot dogs… there’s just something special about the atmosphere there.

Joe is fortunate to work for a company that has season tickets to the Twins. Every summer they give each employee a pair of tickets to one game. Our turn to go to a game finally came last Sunday and we were both really excited because it was our first time taking Easton to a game.We ended up with all 4 seats instead of the normal 2 so Joe’s friend and his fiancée joined us for the game.

I was a little nervous about how Easton would do, but he was great. He loved watching the people around us and spent most of the first 5 innings just observing. He sat in our laps, snacked on apple slices, sipped from our bottles of water and charmed the people around us. It wasn’t until about the 7th inning that he started getting antsy. At the top of the 9th inning, there was this incredible play where the centerfielder made a diving catch. Naturally, the crowd went nuts. Poor Easton wasn’t expecting the sudden burst of noise and activity and he jumped so high and then started bawling. I felt bad for the little guy, but his reaction was so funny that we couldn’t help but chuckle a bit. He calmed down pretty quickly after that and made it all the way to the end of the game.

We had a crazy moment halfway through the game. The area around us was fairly empty at that point and we saw a couple of cameramen wandering nearby. I have this horrible fear of ending up on the jumbotron so I always cringe when I see them coming. These 2 guys sat down in nearby seats and out of the corner of my eye I swore I saw one pointing right at us. Sure enough, moments later they came by and started talking to us. It turns out Joe and I were the “Powerball” winners of the game (though let’s be honest, they only picked us because we had a cute baby with us!). We got a prize pack with a water bottle, tshirt and $50 in lottery tickets inside. It was pretty awesome. Of course, my greatest fear came true and we had to smile and wave on the Jumbotron while holding up our prize pack and this big red “Powerball” ball. Eek. Oh well, I survived!

All in all it was a pretty successful game. Who knows, maybe having a little boy around will finally make me start enjoying sports after all!

A Change of Plans

Last week I was supposed to start my new career as a Special Ed teacher. That was the plan.

After a year and a half of grad school and 8 months of “maternity leave,” last week was going to be when I finally used my brand new license for the job I should’ve been doing all along. That was the plan.

I was supposed to get up at the crack of dawn to get Easton and myself ready for the day. I was going to drop him off at daycare for the first time, sad to have to leave him but thankful for the 8 months we had home together and ready to get back to work. That was the plan. That had been the plan since long before Easton ever existed.

But somehow, my plan changed.

When Joe and I first started talking about expanding our family two years ago, we wanted to make sure our timing worked out. I was set to finish grad school in December 2011, so we knew it would be best if our baby was born after I was done. The plan was for me to take the remainder of the school year off after the baby came, stay home for the summer and then find a new job to start up in September. We hoped for a January baby to maximize my time as a stay-at-home mom.

Our planning paid off and our little guy was due on January 9th, 2012 (of course, he had other plans and arrived 7 days later). I thought our 8 months together would give me just enough time to really bond with my babe but still get out of the house before I went crazy. Part of me secretly hoped I would be able to work part-time so I could still be home with the baby a lot, but I always assumed I would work in some capacity. After all, all the women in my life were working moms. My own mother worked, so did Joe’s mom. Many of my female relatives were working moms and nearly all of my friends’ moms growing up had full-time jobs. I always pictured myself following that same path.

But something changed. A few months after Easton was born, I started to feel so strongly that I needed to be home with him. The more I thought about it, the more I knew I wouldn’t be happy working full-time at this point in my life. I put off discussing my thoughts with Joe because I was afraid he would be resistant to the idea. After all, we’d been planning on me starting a job that fall for almost 2 years. When I finally brought up the topic, he was hesitant at first, but he came around pretty quickly.

I know staying home isn’t for everyone. I never thought it would be for me. But it turns out, this is exactly what I’m meant to be doing. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little jealous of the teachers who went back to school last week; I still can’t wait to teach special ed one day. But right now, it’s not the choice I made. And today, when I was supposed to be spending my day in a classroom but instead spent it reading, playing, giggling and chasing my son, I know I made the right choice.