Reflections on working...again

Back to work it is...sigh. I started back at work on January 19th, so about 1.5 weeks in, I have some thoughts. To begin, working isn't the hard part. The hard parts are arranging daycare, planning in advance for things like dinner, clothes, bags, etc, making sure Avery is enjoying daycare (or at the very least, is not miserable), and trying to get everything done on time. Don't even get me started on the hardest part - getting out of bed every morning. 5:30am is just inhumane - especially for a now reformed night owl!

Anyway, enough complaining. All in all, things are going fairly well (the sound you don't hear is me knocking wood, on my head). Avery is doing pretty well at daycare, Greg and I are getting out of the house on time, and my new job is pretty cool so far. Hopefully that will continue, but at the very least, I am working with some really nice people. Greg has always managed to pick Avery up on time or early, so hopefully the impending snow won't throw a wrench into those works.

A little funny...my last week of mat leave we all came down with a vicious stomach bug. Avery got it first, then I did two days later, and then Greg two days later. Needless to say, this threw a wrench into all my plans for getting stuff done before I went back to work. On the upside, I did lose 5 pounds in about 3 days. Anyhoo, Avery had diarrhea and then became constipated. It seemed like she was in some pain at night when trying to sleep because she hadn't pooped in a while, so I gave her a little prunes for two mornings in a row. Well. Prunes work wonders on my kid. She had blowouts every day at daycare except for Friday, and kept coming home in totally different clothes than I had dressed her in in the morning. One day she had to have an impromptu bath in the sink there - apparently no one was impressed with that situation. I kept telling the daycare workers that this wasn't normal, and they kept grumbling at me. The ironic part of it was that I didn't have to change a poopy diaper for a week. Have to look at life's little pluses, right?

Our current dilemma is trying to decide whether we are going to switch Avery from the daycare centre she is currently in, to the home daycare where we have a spot in April if we want it. Greg and I are having real trouble making this decision. On the one hand, Avery seems to be doing pretty well at the centre and why should we rock the boat. On the other hand, the centre is a little chaotic, with lots of kids and several different teachers, and I worry she isn't getting a lot of individual attention. All things being equal, if we had had a spot available to us in each place in the beginning, I would have chosen the home daycare. I just had a really good feel about it when we visited. But now I don't know if the upheaval would really be worth it. Thoughts?

10 months old, a new start and catching up...

I started writing this post about 1.5 weeks ago and never finished it. I figured I might as well put it up now anyway, and then try hard to catch up with the rest of our lives. One of these days...

So Avery is now 10 months old...almost two weeks ago actually and I am only now getting around to writing about it. And it isn't as if I've been good about blogging otherwise. Oh well, I suspect it is only going to get worse because I am going back to work on Monday!!!! How the heck did that happen? I think I am still in denial. I suppose that will end fairly quickly. Using my brain again will be the real challenge! Not to mention getting up before 6 every morning. Avery started daycare this week, and we've been practicing getting up on time. It's going ok, though there isn't the pressure of drying my hair, putting on makeup and trying not to let her make my clothes messy before we leave. Watch me panic on Monday morning though, and this darn OCTranspo strike isn't going to help. But I know there are many many people far worse off than me!

Now that those important concerns are out of the way, how is Avery actually doing at daycare? Pretty good I think. She started on Monday and is going a little longer each day. She doesn't even notice when I leave and just starts playing with the various toys. She is a little quiet when I pick her up, but I hope that is just from all the stimulation and getting used to a new routine. Tomorrow she'll go for the whole day and hopefully it will all be fine! Getting her to nap and have her bottles properly there will take some time, but at least she is eating really well. Just like a good Herage/Pearce.

At the 10 month mark the little miss is crawling around very quickly, is constantly standing up with the assistance of everything, she's cruising and starting to transfer herself from one support to another. She is now saying "dada" regularly, though I think it sometime gets mixed up with "ta ta", which is what we say to her when we don't want her to touch something. I think she is also saying some form of "book" but it doesn't come out all that clearly.