All over the place....

Hey Girlies! I hope everyone is doing just fine! I know that Jodi and Mandy are still on vacation in Gatlinburg – lucky ducks. I wish I was on vacation! I could sure use one…but then, I bet we all could!

I have been on an emotional roller-coaster for the past few days…but more on that later! Let me update you on my world! I will start with the kiddos – their lives are more interesting!

Isaac
Well, my baby boy is doing great! He started 2nd Grade last week. Yep…that is right…2nd Grade! Where, oh where has the time gone? I took his first day off of work so that we could all take him to school that morning and then I could be there to pick him up. He didn’t really want us to walk him to school and he certainly didn’t want me to take pictures, but I did both! We found his classroom and his locker and we met his teacher. He got all settled in his chair and looked up at me with his big brown eyes. I asked him if he was ready for Mommy and Daddy to leave or if he wanted us to stay. Well, he said with his words that he wanted us to leave, but his eyes were saying something else. So…of course I started crying. So then he really wanted us to leave. LOL So, we left and Scott was teasing me about crying. Next year will be even worse since Faith Anne will be starting too! So….I picked him up that day and the drama of the first week began. I had heard some horror stories about his teacher – how mean and strict she is. Well, she sent home a contract for us to sign as parents and Isaac had to sign it too. I am scared of her! LOL The first week was rough….Isaac said that she was yelling at some of the other kids and she almost sent him to the office for asking someone to hold the door when they were going outside on their walk. He almost missed his recess because I (mommy) forgot to sign his homework. It was a rough week. Friday night, I was talking to Laura W and had pretty much decided to pull him out of her class. I was going to give her this week and talk to her at the Open House. So…fast forward through the weekend….more traumatic stuff happened (I will tell about that in a minute), so I was just an emotional wreck worried about all of this. So, on Tuesday when I went to pick him up from school…I was talking to a friend of mine who is a kindergarten teacher at his school and she has a daughter in Isaac’s class. She told me that Isaac will be fine and that she purposely put her daughter in this teacher’s class because she is a great teacher. I guess her strategy is to kinda “scare” the kids the first week to make sure they know who is in charge and that they respect her. From what Isaac has said and from what she told me at the Open House, that boot camp is over and things are more normal in the classroom. So, after talking to my friend and after she talked to Isaac, we both felt better. Then the Open House was that night and I waited around to talk to the teacher when there were no other parents around. We had a really good conversation and I actually think that I like her. She just had nothing but great things to say about Isaac and how he is the brightest kid in the class and very respectful and well-behaved. I told her that he was scared of her and she apologized for that but assured me that things would only get better from her on out. I told her that he is a very sensitive kid and what you can say to one kid would crush my kid’s heart. It was a very good conversation and I left there feeling so much better about that entire situation. He says that he likes her now and that he likes being in her class. So, we will see how the year transpires, but after a rocky start….things are looking up for 2nd Grade!

He is doing great in football too. They won their first two games and then tied this past weekend. He isn’t very aggressive on the field, but he is having fun and that is what really matters! I can’t believe that he is going to be 7 in two weeks. Wow. Time really does fly!

Faith Anne
Little Miss Faith Anne is on vacation right now with her Mimi and Papaw, YaYa and Jim (Jodi) and their two little girls. Apparently they are having a great time. She is too busy to really talk to me, that little stinker! Here I am on the verge of tears because I miss my little girl and she doesn’t even want to talk to me on the phone because she is having too much fun! This will be the last year that she can do this because next fall she will start kindergarten! She had to miss her preschool orientation and her first day of school, but I figured that it wasn’t a big deal since we know what to expect this year anyways. So…next week she will start back to school.

I haven’t gotten her into dance yet…I will probably look into that next week too. I need to take her to a dance studio or something because the rec center schedule doesn’t work for us with our football schedule. So much to do, so little time!

Gracie
Gracie is doing great and enjoying the extra attention she is receiving this week since Sissy is gone. But she misses her Sissy! She walks around the house trying to figure out where she is! She is at such a fun age, although challenging. But it is fun because she is talking non-stop and it is starting to make sense! You can really decipher a lot of what she is saying. She is a pistol and hits her brother and sister a lot….or bites. The other day she bit Faithy on the back really hard, so I bit her back. We are still struggling with keeping her in her own bed at night. If I lay down with her until she goes to sleep, she is fine…but if we just try to lay her down, she gets up about a billion times. That and she is very attached to her “pew” (purse) and “ball” (pacifier). I think she might be my biggest challenge yet when we have to take the ball away from her.

So…the big traumatic news in our life is that my Aunt Barbara, the one who has watched my kids for the past nearly 7 years, is not going to be watching them for us anymore. She is taking a full-time job in the daycare at their church. She called me and told me on Friday night….I was out to dinner with Laura W and I just started crying! I was so worried about Isaac and his school situation…and then this news….I kinda lost it. We were really busy on Saturday and Sunday, so I didn’t have a lot of time to think about it then…but on Monday and Tuesday, I cried off and on all day. The thing that makes me so sad is that I have never had to worry about my kids. I knew that they were with someone who loved them and was taking very good care of them. I just love the influence that my Aunt has had on their lives. I am sad that Gracie will miss out on that the most. I mean…Isaac was with her for 5 years….Faith Anne was with her for 4….but Gracie was only with her for 2. SO. All of that being said, I totally understand that my Aunt needs the full-time money, but I am just sad for my kids….and we don’t really know what we are going to do! My parents will still watch the kids 2 days a week….we just have to figure out the other 3. There is a chance that a good friend of mine from church is going to be quitting her job and staying at home in December in January….so that might be a solution. I think we are going to try to find someone for at least Fridays right now and make it work with our flexible work schedules on Mondays and Wednesdays…but we have to find someone for Fridays because Scott has meetings at work on those days. If we can make that work for a while, then we will save some money and hopefully this other opportunity will fall into place so we can leave the kids with someone we know and love and trust. If that doesn’t work out, we are back to square one and don’t really know what we will do. We have been spending about $450 a month in childcare and preschool for the girls….if we have to take them to a daycare, that will go up to about $1100 a month! Wowzers. I know that we have been getting off really cheap and we will for sure be paying more than what we paid my aunt….but nearly $700 more a month?!?!? Why do I even work?

SO….please keep us in your prayers. I know that this is a dilemma that every working mom has to face….but this is really our first time facing it! This is very new and unchartered territory for us. And Scott doesn’t get how I feel about this. He doesn’t get why I am so upset. I tried to explain to him that there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t feel guilty about being at work…about being away from my kids. And when I am at work all day, there isn’t a minute that goes by that I am not worrying about work but also worrying about my kids. I guess that Dads can shut that off, but Moms can’t! They are a part of me and they are always on my mind and in my prayers.

Well, I guess that brings you up to speed on the drama in our lives right now. Thanks for your prayers….God is so good.

In other news, I will keep this short because I know this is running long…but we had a wonderful holiday weekend. We jammed as much into it as we could… but saw a lot of family and had a really great time. My Dad’s family from Oklahoma came in town and it was great to see them all….and then we went to Somerset, Kentucky for my Mom’s family reunion and had a wonderful time there. I am just continually amazed at how Awesome God is and how blessed I am. I need to keep that in perspective when I let all these “problems” get to me. In the big scheme of things, I am so very blessed.

Love you all….Hopefully we will hear full vacation updates from Jodi and Mandy!