Monday, September 7, 2009

5 Months! I almost Forgot!

So there are two kinds of bloggers...those that diligently post every new event and happening and me, I always forget!

WAY back on August 26th Nora celebrated her 5th month! She really did have a GREAT month and we thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it.

School has been going great, Nora loves to be there and seems to really love her two teachers. I'm so glad she is there, even if it's just for the time being. MDO has really helped us get on a schedule and for that, they are forever in my graces. Nora loves! loves! loves! her some rice cereal, she also enjoys buggy rides and naps. All three are new since school started and I think all three have contributed to a happy baby.

No longer do we scream in the car, thank you! No longer do we wake up in the morning screaming, thank you! And, no longer does someone have to constantly be sitting with me to be happy, THANK YOU! She's so sweet in the mornings..cooing and babbling, I love to wake up to that sweet voice in my monitor. AND JUST WAIT...THERE'S MORE! Nora sleeps all night! We usually put her down around 7 or 7:30 pm after her bath and she sleeps until 5:30 or 6 am!!! WOOHOO! Life is good!

She is rolling over like a champ, back and forth , back and forth and is enjoying being on her tummy more these days too. Still no crawling and not too mobile but I'm sure our days are coming. She loves her exersaucer and her jumper and is very content to sit there ALONE and play and watch cartoons. She loves to laugh at her toys and babble at them, and squeal when she gets really excited. Duckie is her favorite but she's also got some toys she can play with on the floor now too like a V-tech ball & book that talk and light up, very exciting.

In addition she has found her feet and hands! She loves to lay on the floor and suck on her toes! I KNOW! She's crazy! I love to watch her while she stares at her hand, she looks at it just like someone checking out a new manicure, an action I'm sure she'll perfect later in life. According to the "books" she's reaching all of her milestones and surpasing many of them too. She's on her way to becoming a world famous interior designer, Rockette and Mrs. America!

She's almost completely out of 6 month clothes and in her 9 months outfits. I swear! She's a biggin'!!! I don't think we're going to get to wear some of her fall 9 month outfits! boo!

This month flew by really quickly, probably because we've been so busy with school and work - hopefully next month will be better since we won't be going back and forth from school and work! We also made a trip to Birmingham this past month to visit with family and host a baby shower for Mrs. Susan - Nora was a sweet heart at the shower! Our friends Rob & Luci brought their son Will to my shower for Nora and I loved having a baby there so I'm glad Nora could go and be so good!




Thursday, September 3, 2009

A Hardy Farewell

Today was my last day at work, you may be thinking, "I didn't know Lea Anne was leaving her job"? Well, no - I wasn't planning on it.

I wouldn't say I was fired, I definitely resigned on my free will (even though my resignation letter had been thoughtfully typed up for me). It just wasn't working out as far as my sweet baby is concerned. I was told it was either work Monday through Friday 8 to 5 or "resign" which I couldn't do because of Nora. Back up 9 months ago when it was time to register Nora for MDO at Whitesburg. We decided to sign her up for part time childcare because we couldn't afford full time. We figured we had a while to work it out but unfortunately we never found any other childcare options. And NOW, there are no spots for full time (which is typical and I'm not surprised).

When I went back to work at the end of May our family came up and stayed a week or two at a time and kept Nora. This was not an ideal situation but it worked for the summer (even though constant house guests made for a long eleven weeks). So when Nora's MDO opened at the beginning of August the family left and I started taking her with me in the mornings then I would leave and take her to school then pick her up and finally have her with me at work for an hour and a half in the afternoons. It was exhausting. But it was all I knew to do. On top of that her MDO isn't open on Mondays so we still had family in town on Sunday nights and Mondays, which really wasn't bad.

Well, what do they say? One bad apple. One of the housekeepers at the church has a little boy a month older than Nora and she had brought him with her to work a few times even though she technically does have childcare. But they told her she couldn't bring him and something to the affect of, "If Lea Anne can bring her baby, why can't I bring mine"? came into play. If I weren't a kind person I could answer that question for her but I'll leave it to this, pushing a vacuum and typing don't exactly require the same amount of childcare. That plus another event led to our Operations Manager telling me that I could absolutely not bring Nora to work with me anymore after this week...chirp...cry...chirp...cry...meltdown.

So this all happened Wednesday, so Wednesday night I worked on my resume and I had a meeting planned with my boss today. Well, when I went in to talk to him this morning I was under the assumption that I would work this week and next but they told me that they would pay me through the end of the month so I might as well just leave and use that time to look for a new job. Which, I really do appreciate. So that was it, today was my last day. It was very shocking, especially for my ministers who had NO idea this was going on and all my friends, who by the way I'm going to miss terribly.

In conclusion, I serve a Mighty God. A God that has never let me fall to the waist side, a God who has carried me through ever trial in life with great love and mercy. And with that kind of tract record I will not worry but only press on with grace and dignity. I feel very at peace and a bit relieved that all the hustle and bustle is done with. I'm going to try to find a position at a church that has a full time childcare and start putting Nora's name on waiting lists in the mean time. I think even if I did have Nora in full time childcare and I could go back to my old job, I wouldn't. As much as I love the people I worked with I feel like I need more flexibility. Nora is going to stay where she is for now - I love her teachers dearly and I don't want to move her but of course, we'll do what we have to.

We're keeping our heads up at the Hardy household and looking forward to our beach trip next week. Nora has exactly 1 million cute new outfits to wear.

I'll leave you with how we handle problems in our house: