December 15, 2011

Bonus Day!

When in the womb, Brex had a pattern where for a couple days he'd barely move and I'd freak out that something had gone terribly wrong, and then he'd have an active day where I wished he'd calm down. I know, I know, never happy, right? He's continued that pattern. Three days ago he would NOT nap. Today? Awake for an hour, nap. Over and over. Then he was still happy to sleep for the night (so far). Tomorrow is my hernia surgery, so I'm hoping we both get a good night's rest.

That's not the bonus though.

When the mail came, we received a huge box of local, Texas citrus, pears and chocolates. From our realtor and his wife! I think his wife sort of adopted us since we moved here and had the baby right away with no family in the area. We're so humbled by their generosity. Looks like we'll have dinner guests in January!

That's still not the bonus.

On Monday, Brex and I wandered down the street to the daycare I'd mentioned in the previous post. It's small, but all the kids looked really happy. They kept crawling into the laps of the woman who runs the place and her helper. The assistant stayed late just cause she wanted a chance to hold Brex. Let's call the director Blondie. I actually met her last fall at a neighborhood barbque and wrote her off as a total flake. Yet watching her loving, gentle approach with the kids and how content the children seemed in her care, I decided that maybe she talked my ear off because she's with kids all day? Anyway, Jrex is going to go down there with Brex tomorrow after we get home from the hospital. I need him to weigh in on which version of Blondie he sees: flake or nurturer.

Beyond all that, part of my hope for my weekend in bed is to spend some time journaling and praying about the bigger picture in terms of career/babyland/part-time/freelance/etc/etc. I need to know that I know I'm supposed to do what's next. I don't want to spend Brex's life second-guessing whichever option we pursue. Jrex is being very patient with me thrashing around trying to figure it out. I was reminded today by a dear, trusted friend that each marriage has to be interdependent. That each spouse stands alone before God before deferring to each other. I need to check in there first before forcing Jrex to be the fall-guy for whatever decision we make.

Not the bonus (obviously).

We've had major contractor drama around getting estimates for roof work. Back and forth since August! In the end, my Dad recommended that we get a clean estimate from a roofer we select (every other one was recommended by either our realtor, our insurance guy or our contractor). I followed his advice and ended up selecting the roofers who'd done our neighbor's house. I called them yesterday to find out when they were going to do the roof. They asked if they could drop off material this morning and then do the work on Friday and Saturday. Sure!

The doorbell rang today at 6:45 AM! Yikes. After the guy dropped off the materials (Class 4, hail resistant shingles. Yee-ha for Texas weather!), a bunch of Hispanic guys started to gather. Next thing we knew, they were working on the roof. As they started working, Muttola bugged me to go out. Well, obviously the back yard was out of the question, so I bundled up the baby and set forth to the park.

When I walked back in the door, the phone rang.

"OTRgirl? Congratulations! This is J with the roofing company. You just won a free garage roof!"

I was confused, "I thought we didn't include the garage in the job?"

J laughed ruefully, "We didn't. I stopped by to check in with the crew just now and they'd already started tearing up the garage roof by mistake. I didn't want you to look out of the house and see that and get worried."

"Will there still be enough material to do the porch roof?"

"Yup. Merry Christmas!"

Bonus!

4 comments:

Mizasiwa said...

Gotta love it when you get cool free renovations because of a mistake the contractor made!! Merry Christmas indeed!!
Good luck with your op! will be thinking and praying for you this weekend

Julia said...

Yee! Haw!
:)

Lil'Sis said...

Whoot on the garage roof, what a great roofer guy!

Hope all goes swimmingly with the surgery and all get rest.

Interesting thoughts on Blondie, I found I did a similar thing with a person I met and was so off in my assumption, she just works with infants all day and is a big talker when with adults:)

On the sleeping/awake days, I was always confounded and worried, "why don't i have a good routine, how will it work, what am I doing wrong?" and then it just sort of happened when I stopped trying to make it happen. Kids are amazing creatures, the patience mine have taught me with myself over the years has been a true gift.

Much love to you all!

Rachel said...

Great bonus!

The day care sounds good. I think a certain amount of second-guessing comes with the territory. I say this as someone who's been on both sides of the SAHM/ working mom fence. Even though I'm very content now, some days I have to make tough choices regarding work/ my child.

That said, for me, part-time is ideal. I do think it's very hard to make it work with two very demanding jobs, unless you have family around to help out, or hire some kind of live-in help. On the other hand, I also think it's good to keep a toe or two in the world of work, because (as you said earlier) it can be hard to re-enter the workforce if you don't. Maybe you could do some freelance/ consulting work?