Thursday, September 20, 2012

Pack Rat

I will pose a question: When do you realize that it's time to start selling off your kid's junk?

The Wifey is a pack rat. She keeps everything of the Baby's. I am still pulling out clothes from her preemie size days. Which, the Baby could probably still wear. But we have swings and pack N plays galore, just gathering dust in the garage. I said, "My love, let us sell these items!" And then she went off.

The Wifey talked about how we might need those because we still haven't decided if we would have another child or not and those items would be very expensive to replace. Mainly because we have an awesome grandmother who purchased them in the first place. And we wouldn't get that much money in the first place.

But those items take up so much room in the house and the garage. And they just keep accumulating. It's never ending. I wouldn't mind selling it all. The Baby's favorite toy right now is a little orange plastic football. Out of all the hundreds and hundreds of toys she has, she chooses an orange plastic football.

Maybe we'll compromise and actually sell some items but right now it's just piling up. I've come to the realization that we need to sell things a long time ago - I just wish the Wifey would do the same.

Friday, September 14, 2012

Toddler Harvard

So far the new job has been pretty good. I work a respectable 7-4 shift but I could easily leave earlier if I needed to, mainly because I work through my lunch. The other day I was told by the Wifey that Baby wasn't feeling too well - she was in fact throwing up and just out of it. Luckily she wasn't at childcare but I knew I had the option of leaving early. Everyone at work is understanding. We even had one guy work from home because his wife was sick. I found that a little strange since his wife is a nurse but whatever.

It's also extremely convenient that the mother in law is so close to us and readily available. We are very grateful that she has no qualms about watching the Baby since neither the Wifey and I can take off. So even though it seemed liked the Baby only had a 12 hour bug, we wanted to keep her home instead of possibly getting the other kids sick. So the mother in law offered to watch the Baby one more day.

That was very kind of her to do that but I know she was just doing what was best for the Baby. It makes me look back at my own mom and how she would watch my niece and nephew 5 days a week and still had a job. And she never complained; I know that really helped my sister.

We even checked the daycare here at my office since it would be extremely convenient for me to pick up and drop off the Baby. But they are subsidized by another company and it's just hard to budget for a daycare that is almost a third of the family income. It's like a Toddler Harvard.

But hopefully our schedules will get better so the Baby won't have to be in daycare or we can find a daycare that we can truly love - here's to hoping.

Thursday, September 6, 2012

The Routine

Now that I am finally back from the black hole that is Iowa, the family has to get our routine together. Previously I was working a nice little schedule of 4am to noon but that really put a strain on the evenings as the Wifey wouldn't even get him until 8pm.

So now with my new job, I have more flexibility in my schedule which has quickly prompted the Wifey to make me in charge of dinners and such. But the tough part is tailoring our schedule with Baby's routine.

As soon as I pick her up from daycare, she goes straight to the fridge (she's definitely my child) and demands juice and a snack. And she will continue to snack up until the Wifey gets home so she's not really hungry for dinner. But she knows she has to eat with us and she will always grab her plate and head to her little table and sit and eat. We usually sit in the living room and eat and instead of the Baby sitting with us, she's over at her table picking at her food.

And then when we go to bed, we watch a little television before she falls asleep. I will usually turn to her and tell her "I'm going to turn the tv off now, okay?" And she will either start whining but most of the time she will say "okay. goodnight daddy, I love you" and then go to bed.

But hopefully we can get the routine down soon.