Where oh where have I been?

Let's see....I started working full time. Yup. It isn't fabulous but it is necessary for now. There is an end in sight once Little Man comes home in 18 months or 2 years or whatever it may be. For now I will adjust. We will adjust.

I work full time as a bank teller. I know you are jealous... It isn't the worst thing in the world but definitely not something I am super passionate about. I do though really enjoy the people I work with and that is the main reason I took the job was because of the people. It is hard to stand on your feet for 8 plus hours a day but I bought some new shoes today which should help :)

So what else is new...I have zero free time since my job is 8-6 hours most days and Kiya starting next week will be going to daycare 4 days a week. She is thriving. This change in schedule so far hasn't been an issue. She is doing better than great. Her daycare teachers just love how her big personality is really starting to shine and just how much she loves to sing. She even went pee pee on the potty at daycare twice in one day. We are nowhere near being fully potty trained but she is definitely starting to really get it.

Kiya is talking more and more in actual sentences. It is too cute. She can be quite bossy with these sentences but still nice to hear. She is loving sleeping in her big girl bed and is getting better about staying in bed. Apparently she does great at naptime for grandma and grandpa and we get about 2 times a night before she just crashes. We haven't had too many more 2am-4am periods where she decides to sing, play, etc. So maybe it was night terrors, teething or just a phase who knows, I just hope whatever it was stays away.

We also hired our first babysitter. I was really nervous but I didn't need to be. Kiya did great. She clicked instantly with the babysitter and they had a great time together. It was a huge relief. The played with stickers and crayons and had a lot of fun.

So as for blogging....may not happen hardly at all during the week but I will try. I miss it but we are all still adjusting to our new lifestyle.

What's in the future...well Kiya was supposed to have her 2 year pictures tomorrow but we are under a blizzard warning so that may or may not happen. We hope at the very least to put her sleigh from last Christmas to good use. No worries we will take pictures :)

Where to start.....

If you read my last post, you will note that I was talking about everything happens for a reason and life throwing curve balls at me. Wow....boy when it rains it pours.

I am officially unemployed. Yeah kind of came out of nowhere. I mean I knew in the next 12 months sometime I would lose my job but this happened very suddenly. We had a plumbing emergency at the store last Friday night that didn't get fixed until Saturday and well due to the damage we couldn't open for business. I spoke directly with the CEO on Monday and he assured me that the damage would be fixed and we would reopen for business later in the week. Well on Wednesday he called to tell me that they decided not to reopen the store. WHAT????

So Thursday I get a call from the controller and confirm I do get my 30 days severance pay but they are retroactively cancelling my health insurance, effective last Saturday. CRAP! We had prescriptions called in for my husband that weren't filled until Monday/Tuesday of this week. I picked them up and had to pay to co-pays but now fear that we will get slammed for the rest. His meds aren't cheap. We could be facing a bill of over $1000. UGGHHHH. We could pay for COBRA for 30 days which in essence will cost us an arm and a leg and then some. Can we say nightmare?

So I have spent the better part of the last couple of days looking for a job and figuring out our health insurance. I think we have insurance figured out. It is manageable, we just need to see if hubby gets approved with his pre-exsisting condition.

As for a job, I was finishing up some details for the coffee shop and had to stop at the bank. I have been in this bank at least twice a week for the last 3 plus years and we bank there as well so I know a lot of the staff. Well, the Service Manager came over and told me she just posted a full time job with benefits if I was interested and that I should go online and apply. I did just that. Fingers crossed I hear something soon!

It would be more stable hours, with a few Saturdays but doable. We would need to make some adjustments in our childcare but we could figure it out.

And so it goes....I just keep telling myself there must be a reason this is all happening. I definitely don't understand it but I am working through it. In the meantime I am enjoying some quiet time at home with the dogs. (We don't want to pull Kiya out of daycare because as soon as I get a job we will need it again and we don't want to lose our spot to one of the many families on the wait list. )

What lies ahead

I as a general rule try not to think too far in advance, I used to and that wasn't so healthy for me. This time though I kind of need to think ahead. There is a lot of stuff swirling around and I honestly am not sure how it will all play out.

Work: Any regular readers of this blog (do I have those?) know that I HATE my job. I didn't want to go back after my maternity leave, etc etc. However, I do get paid pretty well and we have health insurance through my work. I have flexible hours and can make my own schedule, yeah I know I shouldn't complain. Well, on Friday I was informed that at any time in the next 14-16 months, I will be out of a job and thus lose our health insurance. I can't really go in to details. All I know is I could be out of work in 3 months or 16 months...kind of hard to plan for that.

Here is what makes it even more interesting...

Adoption: We have been waiting almost 7 months for our son. We expect to be waiting at least another 12-14 months or so could be longer than that. The plan was after we travelled to bring him home, I would no longer work outside the home. I would be a SAHM as the cost of daycare would be more than I would bring home at my current job.

Health insurance: I am CLUELESS about how to obtain private health insurance. We have some obstacles facing us in that department. I don't really know how the new healthcare laws will affect us. They in theory would make it easier for us but I am not sure the pieces we are concerned about will be in effect in time to benefit us. We have some pre-exsisting condition issues for my hubby and for Kiya. That could pose a very expensive problem.

So what to do? That is a very good question. I feel like we have limited options.

Ride it out: This is my ideal choice. We find no sub leasers for the business and can just ride out the lease. This gets me VERY close to being united with my son at which time I was going to stop working anyway.

Find a new job: I could start the job search process. ICK! I am not excited about that prospect and I know in my head that I will likely be at that job for maybe 2 years. I am checking a few ideal places for some ideal jobs to see if they may pop up between now and then but for now I am not committed to job searching.

Find health insurance: The ideal here would be for my husband's company to offer health insurance. If you see pigs flying, then that might actually happen. Otherwise not likely. So on to private insurance...UGHHH. I was dreading dealing with that a year and half from now but so soon.

The worst part is I have no idea when I could lose my job. I know it will be gone by October of 2011 but it could be gone much sooner than that. How do you plan for this? I have no idea. Right now I am in denial that I will have to get another job. I am holding on to the riding it out option and our adoption not taking more than another 14 months or so for referral anyway. Am I crazy, maybe? Could it work this way? Yes. Could it all come crashing down on me in the next 3 months? Yup.

Wish me luck. The road ahead is looking a little bumpy.

Adjusting...

Well we are about 1 week into our new routine and so far so good. Kiya is just such a fabulous little girl and her personality is shining through more and more each day. We have come to realize that she lately wants to be very independent. She likes to hold onto a spoon and help feed herself. She likes to push the bottle out of her mouth with her hands, because she can. She likes to blow bubbles in her bottle and smile at you and my personal favorite is the blowing food out of her mouth. Tons of fun to change clothes multiple times in a day.

I have survived my first week back at work. Daddy is doing a good job of getting up in the morning and even combing Kiya's hair. Kiya is having fun with grandma and grandpa and at daycare.

The toughest part about going back to work is missing my baby girl. We had a routine. It was our thing. She seems fine while this Mama misses how things were. I think it would help if I was busy at work all day or if I actually liked what I do but since neither of those things are true it makes it harder.

We have our afternoons which is great but she is such the morning baby. So smiley and funny in the mornings and tends to be a little crabby in the afternoons and then silly again before bedtime. She just loves to laugh. It is really cute.

So when people ask me how things are going now that I am back to work full time-- I am adjusting.

PS--I am blogging from work that is how bored I am....

I LOVE BEING A MOM!

It's true, I do. It really hit me yesterday when we were at the Brewer's game and I was walking around with Peanut in the Ergo. She didn't want me to sit in our seats much so we walked, we stood and we mostly watched the game on TV. All the while I couldn't imagine doing anything else.

Sure I wasn't sitting with my husband in our seats down the 3rd base line but I was with my daughter and we were bonding. I love being a Mom. I was pretty sure I would and it just feels right. Better than right, it is perfect. A dream come true.

I am facing the reality of having to go back to work in 2 weeks and I am NOT looking forward to it. I am deeply going to miss our days together. Sometimes we hang out at home and other days we hit Target or go for a walk. It is going to be different come August 10th and I hate that. The one plus is that I don't work standard 9- 5 hours so I should be able to be home most days by 1pm.

I think it is probably a good thing that I am not going to be the one to drop Peanut off at Grandma and Grandpa's or at daycare. I wouldn't leave. I want to stay with her. You can be for sure that I will be hurrying home from work so we can hang out again at least for a little bit before nap time.

Just when we were finally settling in to our new schedules things are going to change. Peanut is very adaptable, her Mom not so much. We will manage and it will get easier but those first few days back are going to be very tough. I can look forward to hiring a cleaning service though so I don't have to spend my time after work cleaning the house and can better spend it with Peanut.

Peanut pictures coming soon as baby girl is almost 8 months old :)