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I’m guessing that most families with two working parents settle into some sort of a routine. It took us a pretty long time of floundering, but I think we’ve finally found our groove.

Dave goes to work really early in the morning – like, crazy early. I think he leaves around 6 a.m.? Maybe earlier? I don’t really know because I’m always asleep. He gives me a kiss goodbye – on the forehead, because I’m usually sleeping with my mouth open, such a sexy little minx am I. And I try to wake up and say a proper goodbye, but it usually comes out like this:

Mmmrrph? Bye, haff a good d… *honk* *pshew*…

What can I say? I’m a heavy sleeper.

Anyway, Dave likes going to work early because he’s the first one there and he can get at least a solid couple hours’ worth of work done before everybody else gets there. Honestly, the extra productivity wouldn’t be worth the early wake-up call for me, but I’ve never been an early bird type.

Meanwhile, Catie and I usually get up around 7:30 on average. We snuggle on the couch and watch cartoons for a little while, then I get her dressed and we set off for daycare. I usually get her there around 9:15 a.m. Then I come back home and get to work.

The perk of Dave heading in so early, is that he can leave work around 3:30 or 4:00 in the afternoon, and pick Catie up from daycare on his way home. He helps me out with the childcare stuff in the evenings (dinner, bathtime), but then he goes to bed around 8 p.m. so he can get up early the next day. Catie doesn’t go to bed until about 9:00 p.m., so I usually handle bedtime on my own. I suppose this means that overall, I do more of the childcare “work” than he does (getting her dressed in the morning, the bedtime routine at night), but he makes up for it by getting up with her on the weekends and letting me sleep in, so that trade-off is fine with me. There was a point, sometime when Catie was 2 years old, that I thought I would never be able to sleep past 9 a.m. again, ever, for the rest of my life. I now often sleep until at least 10 on Saturdays. Which, for the record, is freaking awesome.

I suppose it wouldn’t work for some people – the fact that we all have different bedtimes and wake-up times – but it’s fine for us. Yes, I’m a little jealous of the people whose kids go to bed at 7 p.m. and sleep peacefully all night, and who get to hang out watching prime-time TV with their spouses. But that’s just not how we roll. And that’s ok, we make this work for us.

Still, there are some mornings when Catie wakes up, and she wants her Daddy. And I tell her that sorry babe, he’s already gone to work. She looks out the front window into the driveway, sees that his car is gone, and then she cries that she wants her Daddy. Talk about heart-breaking.

Dave had some insomnia last night so he slept late this morning. Catie was so excited that he was still here when she woke up, she climbed into our bed between us and snuggled up next to him with her head on his pillow. It was so sweet.

Dave got up to shower and get dressed for work, and I told Catie that if she wanted Daddy to take her to school instead of Mommy, she was going to have to hurry and get dressed in the next 5 minutes, or else Daddy was going to have to leave without her. And my normally sleepy-headed child who takes forever to get ready in the morning was dressed with her sneakers on and pigtails up in a heartbeat.

She went to daycare over an hour earlier than usual, and she was delighted to do so, because her Daddy was the one taking her. She kissed me good-bye, and with a “Love you, Mommy, have a good day!”, she was off. The house was completely empty and quiet by 8:00 a.m. That never happens. I actually got to exercise before starting work for the day. That’s a pretty rare occurrence too.

Since Dave was later than usual getting to work, he’s going to have to stay later this afternoon, so I’m going to be picking Catie up from daycare. I already can’t wait to see her. Sometimes a little change in the routine is just what we need.

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I haven’t blogged in a week, which is practically unheard of for me, so y’all will have to indulge me here and let me do one of these recappy things to cover what’s going on here at Chez PooBou.

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* Catie hasn’t had a single potty accident since last Friday (as in, April 23rd). That’s 9 days ago. I think, I mean I’m reasonably certain, that this means she’s… potty-trained? Like, we’re done? Quick, somebody knock on some wood for me!

She still wears a Pull-Up to bed, but she wakes up dry every morning, so we could probably ditch that as well. But she asks for the Pull-Up at bedtime, I think it makes her feel more secure. And that’s fine. We made a BIG DEAL out of putting her diaper pail in storage the other day (no more putting stinky poops in here! All your poops go in the potty now, right? Right! YAAYY!), and she was pretty excited about that.

And on the one hand, I feel like, wait, that’s it? We’re all done now? That was too easy! But then I have to slap myself and remember that we started this process a full freaking YEAR ago. So, no. It has not been easy. At all. But I think she’s got it down now. Finally. Praise the lord.

Also? She is so proud of herself, y’all. Last night we went to TGI Friday’s for dinner, and she introduced herself to the waitress. “Hi! I’m Catie W[last name]! I poop in the potty!” Dave and I almost died laughing. (And thankfully, the waitress seemed to think it was funny too, she didn’t look horrified.)

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* I’ve been exercising like a maniac lately. It’s bizarre because I’ve always hated working out, but now I’m finding that I actually look forward to it. The exercises for my knee that the sports medicine doctor gave me have really helped, and I’ve been able to really push myself to work out hard, which feels great. I’m doing the couch-to-5K (although I’m stuck on week three because no matter how hard I try, I cannot run for longer than 3 minutes without feeling like I’m going to fall over and die; I’ve tried to move up to week 4 on a few different occasions, and nope, sorry, my body cannot run for 5 minutes; hopefully I’ll get there someday?) and I’m doing “The 30-Day Shred” in there on alternate days.

Yesterday, just to mix it up, I did my “Weight Loss Yoga” DVD, which I haven’t done in ages (btw, that’s another “Biggest Loser” by-product, and I do not understand why I’m suckered into buying these things when I don’t actually watch the show!). And it was a great workout, so I definitely need to start working that one in more frequently.

So, yeah. I’m apparently becoming a workout nut. Bizarre. The diet part is trickier. I’ve lost about 5 pounds and I’m holding steady there. I know the foods I need to change in order to amp it up. I’m just having a hard time making myself walk away from the junk food. As usual.

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* My job is busy. Trying to balance working full-time along with taking care of the house and the kid and all of that? It’s kind of kicking my butt. I think there are probably a lot of areas in which I’m failing right now – like, say, in the housekeeping division. But hopefully I’m going to be getting some help on that front very soon, because there is just no way I can keep this whole house clean on top of parenting my kid and working 40 hours a week. And Dave works even longer hours than I do. So I think a housekeeper is definitely in our immediate future.

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* Spring means getting to hang outside more often, which probably accounts at least partially for my lack of blogging. Catie wants to spend every available moment playing outside with the neighborhood kids. And she’s too little to play outside by herself, so that’s where I am too.

Spring also means the return of Drum Night. The last Friday of every month, we go to see a band called Rhythmicity that plays at an outdoor mall near us. The kids love it.

(Catie & her cousin Elizabeth both liked the belly dancer, and I have to admit that she was pretty awesome. I admire anyone who can get up in front of a crowd and shake their stuff the way that she did.)

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So, yeah. If you don’t hear from me as much on the blog here, don’t worry about me. We’re all good.

In fact, I think we’re better than good.

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I’ve noticed a shift in the past few weeks since Catie has started full-time daycare. I mean, of course there’s an obvious shift in her. She comes home every day spouting some new random thing. A couple of weeks ago she was telling me about Obama and George Madison (I guess they were studying U.S. Presidents for President’s Day; she apparently confused George Washington & James Madison, but I like the mash-up of their names), and then this past week she pointed at her stuffed cow (which is supposed to look like the one from Mr. Brown Can Moo) and said, “That’s from Dr. Seuss. It’s his birfday. He’s 1-oh-2 old.” So I looked it up, and sure enough, that day was Dr. Seuss’s birthday. He would’ve been 106, not 102, but she was still damn close.

Wait, what was I talking about?

Oh right, changes in behavior.

No, some of the biggest changes are in me. I think I was probably like a lot of stay-at-home moms for a while, and I was guilty of often phoning it in with regards to childcare. During the day, the TV was usually tuned into a cartoon channel (regardless of whether or not she was watching it), I spent too much time goofing off on my computer, and we just didn’t do very much together for fun. The functional stuff, sure. Mealtimes, bedtimes, grocery shopping, whatever. But playing games and that type of thing? Those things tended to fall by the wayside. Often.

But now that she’s gone so much during the week, my time with her feels more precious. So this past weekend, we (FINALLY!) had some really gorgeous, sunny, semi-warm weather, and we took advantage of it by spending a lot of time outside.

I’m ashamed to admit it, but I am that mom who you see on her iPhone at the playground, usually playing Words with Friends or goofing around on Twitter while my kid runs around playing. But this weekend, I made the conscious effort to not do that. I checked my iPhone once, when she sat down to drink some juice, but the rest of the time, I played with her, instead of being a bystander.

And it’s probably no big surprise, but we’ve had a truly fantastic weekend. We went to three different playgrounds in two days, we played with some neighborhood kids, our lunches were backyard picnics, we drew pictures in the driveway with sidewalk chalk, we blew bubbles, and we had long talks about birds and airplanes and fire hydrants and a million other things that you see every day but never really notice. It’s been a blast.

Normally when Catie goes to sleep, I’m so exhausted that all I can feel is a wave of relief that she’s finally asleep, because it means that I can finally go to bed myself. This weekend, though? I felt sort of sad because I missed my sidekick.

It’s strange how something like a fun weekend goofing off with my kid can validate my gut instinct that going back to work full-time was absolutely the right thing for me to do. It was the kick to the head that I needed to make me realize exactly how fleeting these childhood years are, and just how much I don’t want to miss any of it.

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1. Working full-time is kicking my ass. Hence the lack of posting. It’s good, I like the job a lot, and the people I work with are all great. It’s just that transitions are hard. I’ll get into a groove with it one of these days.

2. I’m trying to decide if I’m going to blog about my job and explain what it is I’m doing now. I wouldn’t mention the company by name, and I have nothing bad to say about any of the people I work with, so it’s probably fine, I just tend to be a little paranoid about those types of things.

3. I’m still sick. I caught Catie’s last cold, and while she managed to recover completely in about three days, I’m going on two weeks and still feel like crud. It’s not cool. I mean, the excuse to take copious amounts of NyQuil is nice, but that’s really the only perk.

4. My ribs, which I hurt falling down the stairs nearly three weeks ago? Yeah, they still hurt. Combined with the cold, I’m kind of a big whiny mess.

5. It’s Thursday and I still haven’t watched Tuesday night’s LOST, because I’ve just been that busy. This is practically unheard of.

6. Dave needs a haircut because he’s starting to look like Hugh Jackman in Wolverine. I mean, not with the metal talons or psychotic gaze or anything. Just the ridiculous volume of hair. I’m hoping that by mentioning it on my blog, I’ll shame him into going to get a damn haircut already. (Hi, honey!)

7. New Catie tricks (which we can entirely attribute to daycare because lord knows I didn’t teach her this): she’s trying to wipe her own butt and she’s flushing the potty herself. I know this is like the most boring child development update ever (unless you’re my mom), but it’s a pretty big deal around here.

8. Here’s a picture of a cute happy toddler until I can figure out what else to write about that won’t bore y’all to tears.

Happy almost-weekend!

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The past few days, recapped:

1. On Saturday, we went to my cousin’s house for baby Austin’s first birthday! I can’t wait until Cat gets those pictures uploaded because man alive, that little boy was covered in frosting. It was a great party, and Catie always has so much fun playing with her cousins. There were many tears when it was time to leave.

2. On Sunday, Catie “helped” me clean the house, then we went grocery shopping together. Dave spent most of the day in bed because he just quit smoking and feels like hell. (Everyone, give him a big cheer: yay, Dave! You can do it! Hang in there!) He did manage to wake up in time for dinner, and we watched the Puppy Bowl because we are totally not a sports-type family. I mean, yay for the Saints and all that. New Orleans is my mom’s hometown and I do really love that city. But, watching a bunch of grown men slam into each other over a ball? Not my thing.

3. Catie didn’t get much of a nap on Sunday, so she was in bed by 8:15. (Hallelujah!) Dave was already asleep by then too. After I got Catie settled, I started to head downstairs, but I slipped on the first step & went crashing down the stairs. I only fell down about four steps, which is not that bad, but I slammed the left side of my back into the steps when I landed. I thought for a second that I had broken a rib, it hurt so bad, but I think I just bruised it. And I knocked the wind out of myself so hard that I couldn’t speak (because believe me, I tried to call for Dave, but I couldn’t).

When I finally regained my breath, I realized that I was probably ok and didn’t need to go to the ER, so I just scooted very gently down the rest of the stairs. I tweeted about it, and a couple of people told me to ice it. And when the Internet tells me to do something, well by golly, I do it. So I iced my back while I watched “Big Love”. (And incidentally, did any of y’all who watch it cry during last night’s episode? Or am I just a hormonal, injured, still-slightly-sick mess?) I don’t know if the ice helped or not, because my back still hurts like a son of a b**** today.

4. Today was Catie’s first day at her new daycare. We’ve been talking it up a lot for the past week, about how she’s going to have so! much! fun! there, and she was excited to go. Then we got there, and I could tell she was nervous. I got her all settled in with her stuff in her cubby, and she grabbed onto me and said, “I stay wif you.” I told her that I’d stay for a couple of minutes while we looked around the room. We introduced her to the other kids and the teacher, and we walked around, looking at all of the various toys and activities.

I spent a few minutes with her, then told her that I was going to go, but that I’d come back this afternoon. She said ok and gave me a kiss, but her shoulders were still hunched up the way that she does when she’s feeling anxious. I stopped at the door and turned around to wave bye-bye one last time; she gave me this tiny, tight “putting on my best brave face” smile and waved back. I barely made it to the car before I started crying. I’ve left her places before when she was crying for me, and that was awful. But this was harder in a way that I can’t quite explain.

5. I’m going to have to pick her up early, because there’s no way I’ll make until 5:00.

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Ok, let me sum up the past couple of weeks here:

1.) Holy crap, I have a three year-old!

And boy, it’s like some kind of switch went off in her head and she KNOWS that she’s three, and that she’s a big girl now. I can’t even really pinpoint the change I’ve seen in her recently, but it’s there and so strong.

She starts at her new daycare next week. We’ve been talking about it a lot, and we’re all very excited.

2.) SNOW!

I know that people in other parts of the country find it hilarious that we get 5 inches of snow & everything here shuts down, but… well, yeah. That’s how it works. I don’t even have any pics of us playing in the snow like last year, because Catie came down with a cold the day that the snow started, and then both Dave and I had to work all weekend. So that sucked. I wouldn’t have minded a cozy weekend inside, but this was kind of a stressful one. And poor Catie got cabin fever, so by the time Monday rolled around and Dave had to go to the store, she threw a screaming fit because she “HAVE TO GOOOOO WIF YOUUUUUU!!!” (And yes, he took her to the store with him. I’m pretty sure it was the highlight of her day.)

3.) Work, work, work.
Ok, so I started a new job, right? And I kind of casually mentioned back here that oh yeah, I also got asked by my old job to do a quick little freelance project for them. And I don’t know if I can accurately convey just how much this has kicked my butt, but OH HOLY MOTHER OF GOD, has it ever. The last time I worked a full-time job was when I was pregnant with Catie, so we’re talking 2006, right? To go from my little casual part-time here-and-there gigs to not only working a full-time job but then ALSO having to work in the evenings and weekends on this freelance project, not to mention being a parent to my kid, and trying to keep my house in order (which, HA! Haaaa!!! Y’all should see my house right now. I’m waiting for those snarky British ladies from “How Clean Is Your House” to show up at my front door and point out the dust bunnies lingering around all of the baseboards because I haven’t vacuumed since before my mom’s visit three weeks ago. And with 2 cats and a toddler? I NEED to vacuum more often than that, BELIEVE ME. And exhibit B: Catie’s toy box is currently empty because she has dumped every.single.toy. on the floor and I haven’t had the energy to either make her clean it up or to do it myself). So, yes, this is killing me, is what I’m saying.

But! The good news is that I finished up my freelance project last night, and the extra money is going to be really helpful this month since we’re still recovering financially from our Christmas trip to the UK. When I finished the last little bit of work that I had last night, I promptly burst into tears because I am just that tired and I was holding it in because I didn’t have the time to cry before that.

My plan was to go get a massage as soon as I finished this project, but wouldn’t you know it, I’ve caught Catie’s most recent cold, and there are not many things in life that are grosser than lying face-down on a massage table with a runny nose. So the massage will have to wait a while. *sad face*

Oh, and the new full-time job is going really well, so that’s great. I’m enjoying it a lot. But I told Dave that if my old job contacts me again about doing a “quick little project” for them, I don’t care how much they pay me per hour, I’m just going to take a hammer and bash myself in the head with it, because I think it’d be about the same on the pain scale.

Famous last words, right?

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I started my new job yesterday and so far I’m liking it a lot. I don’t really know what to say about it because I try not to talk about work on my blog too much. But I’m very happy. It’s good.

And of course, because things always work out like this, it was only last week (after I’d already accepted the new job) that my old job back in Seattle contacted me and asked if I could do a little freelancing project for them. I said yes, thinking, meh, it’ll probably take me two days, no big deal. And holy mother of pearl, this project is HUGE (nobody’s fault, just miscommunication about exactly what was involved) and so basically I’m now working on evenings and weekends in addition to my full-time job. Not cool, although the money sure will be nice when I get it finished.

Also, we’ve decided to change things up a little with the daycare situation. I’ve had some qualms about our in-home daycare situation since the time Nicole (daycare provider) emailed me to tell me that she thought Catie had Sensory Processing Disorder. Something about that was a red flag to me, so I’ve been watching Catie carefully, and here’s what I’ve noticed:
* Catie used to be excited to go to daycare, and now she cries when I tell her that she’s going to Miss Nicole’s house that day.
* Her behavior at Nicole’s house isn’t improving. She’s fine if she’s left to play by herself, but she shuts down & cries when Nicole tries to get her involved in an activity.
* She freaking loves the drop-in daycare down the street that she calls “daycare school,” and the lady who runs the place has told me repeatedly what a sweet, friendly little girl I have.

It’s become pretty clear that the in-home daycare is not the best fit for Catie. I’m not sure what it is, maybe it’s because there aren’t enough kids there (just Nicole’s own 2 kids and another baby who’s about a year old), maybe it’s because Nicole is too rigid and doesn’t really “get” Catie (who I fully admit is a pretty quirky kid), I honestly don’t know what it is. I was originally thinking about trying to get Catie to go to Nicole’s 3 days a week until preschool starts in the fall, but something about that decision just didn’t sit right with me.

So, rather than holding out and waiting for preschool to start, I’ve started looking for a full-time preschool/daycare that would work instead, where she could start now. Last week, my mom and I took Catie with us and toured a few different daycares. I found one that I think will be a really great fit for her. Of the three places we saw, it was the first place where Catie let go of my hand and ran off to play. She really seemed to like it there, and I got an overall good vibe from the place. So, we’ll see. I’m optimistic about it.

Oh, and did I mention that my baby girl is turning 3 tomorrow? I can’t really believe it. More updates on THAT milestone (with pics from her birthday party last weekend) tomorrow.

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