The Perfect Jam

No, I don't mean like strawberry jam. More like "oh my freakin' goodness, how in the world did I get that stuck!!!"

Today, I stayed home to be with Jesalyn because she has been sick the past couple of days.  At about 2pm the weather started to get pretty bad.  As the tornado sirens started going off, I thought it would be a good idea to gather some things so we could hang out in the bathroom (Jarrod and I's bathroom is in the back part of the apt.)  I got the candles, a blanket, and some books for her to read.  I forget now what I was going to get, but I needed something out of the other bathroom (the one that everyone else uses.)  I go to open the door and it won't open.  It opened about 1mm and just stopped.  I do a little investigating, not much because remember the sirens are going off, and figure out that the bathroom drawer inside the bathroom had magically opened up, after I turned off the light and shut the door. So much so that it is blocking the door from opening.  I scratch my head and gather Jesalyn up as we ride out the storm to "Corduroy" the bear.   After the storm was over I come back out to get another look.  I seriously don't know how I'm going to get this door open.  "Take it off it's hinges" was my next thought.  Nope the hinges are inside the bathroom.  I let it go for the rest of the afternoon until Jarrod got home.  We got a wire hanger out and after about 15min of maneuvering, he somehow got the drawer to close and the door opened.  I took a picture afterwards to show just how crazy and impossible this was.

"Really?!?"

Paducah fun

It only took one weekend at Aunt Nell's (my sister) for Miss Jesalyn to tap into her diva side.  As I said last week, I believe my daughter is turning into a girly girl.  This, did not come from me.  I'm not saying I was a total tomboy growing up, but on a scale of 1 through 10, 10 being ultimate girly, I was maybe a 5.  My sister Janel, on the other hand was an 11 =)   This past weekend we took an impromptu  trip to visit her in Paducah.  Janel had made Jesalyn a tutu so we had to try it on.  Jesalyn loved it!  Janel got out some beads and a mini purse and it was over!! Jesalyn had a good 45 min play session while this momma took pictures

This is her balancing on one foot like mommy and daddy does when they are working out =)

 

Putting on her purse and pretending she was going "bye bye"

Gotta get a picture with mom!  =)

A.M. Workout

Here I am. 530 in the A. M. waiting for for my coffee to finish percolating so that I can have some energy to work out.  Ya'll, I am going to do be completely honest with you.  I have not done my workout in like 4 days.  This is pretty much horrible since your only suppose to have one day off a week.  We have 2 weeks left in the "program" and I don't know what happened to my body but it crashed on me.  I mean, just gave up!!!   My mom was here the entire last week (long story, don't ask) and I did so good getting the workouts in.  If I didn't get them done in the morning like normal, I did them at like 10:00 at night with Jarrod which was a pain, but I did it.  And then this past weekend it was like my bones, muscles, and head formed a union and went on strike.  I just could not get my butt up in the mornings and at night I fell asleep rocking Jesalyn.  My knees felt someone was taking a jackhammer to them everyday. I looked like a 90 year old woman with arthritis walking up my sisters stairs.  I told myself that while the cardio was good, my body needed a rest, with or without Shaun T's approval.  Jarrod, crazy as he is, has stayed right on track
. 
So, as am sipping on this coffee that just got done, I'm gonna try to work up some energy to have my rear handed to me long before the sun even rises.  Go easy on me Shaun, it's been a few days!!

Two Thousand and Eleven

The past couple of days I have been sitting back (mentally, because I sure don’t have time to sit down physically) and thinking about the last year.  2010 was probably one of the most difficult years for us as a family.  January 2010, Jarrod called and quit his job to stay home with Jesalyn. What a rough morning it was making that decision.  I’m sure a lot of people thought we were crazy downsizing to one income in the economy that we are in.  We even had a couple of people tell us this directly.  But, I just couldn’t bring myself to send her to daycare.  Something inside me kept telling me not too.  It was more than just the first time jitters moms getting on the first day of “giving up” her child to someone else for a day.  I fought it.  My head kept telling me that it was the logical thing to do.  Jarrod had a good job and there was just no way we could survive on my income alone.  The logical side of me had her going to daycare all the way up to the first day and then my “gut” kicked in, also known as my God Voice.”  Something just didn’t feel right.  I knew that we needed to put on our big girl/boy pants and have some faith that the Lord would provide for us, just like He always has.  I can honestly say that while I had my moments of “oh my goodness, are we going to make it another month??!” for the most part I did my best not to worry.  And you know what, we made it.  Here we are in 2011, Jarrod has a part time job and Jesalyn is in day care and loving it!  This time around, I was sad about sending her to daycare but I knew that she was ready. Not only that she was ready, but it would be good for her.  She would grow from it.   

To add to all the goodness that’s happening, we refinanced our auto loan and it cut our car payment in half and I had an interview today for a promotion.  I have totally given this possible job opportunity up to whatever might happen.  Since becoming a mom, I have slowly learned that this is the only way to be.  I use to stress and worry and you know where that got me?  Nowhere.  What is going to happen will happen regardless of whether or not I lose sleep.  When I stopped worrying, life went on and things always seemed to work out, and probably for the better.   When I worried, I became proactive trying to force things to happen.  Forcing things always seem to mess them up.  It’s not until you let go does everything fall into place.  I read a quote the other day that said it perfect:

“Only when you stop struggling, do you begin to float.” 

Teachers Report

Well, I knew the day would come.  The day one of Jesalyn's teachers would have to tell me what she did that day.  If you remember, I said once that I just knew I would get a note telling me that Jesalyn was disturbing the class by putting erasers up her nose.

Today I was picking her up from day care and the teacher says to me "oh my gosh, Jesalyn was cracking us up today!!"  Apparently, they sing a song about a baby bird that goes to sleep and gets really quite, and then the song goes on to sing how it wakes up and gets really really loud.  She said that when they got to the part about the bird waking up, Jesalyn would jump up, squish her face up into a tiny ball and clap her hands. She said the two teachers were laughing so hard at one point they had to stop the song to catch their breath.

 I just don't know where they would get that my daughter is funny.  I mean, it's so not like her  *wink wink*

Day Two

She must have been too excited to stand still because I couldn't get one good picture that wasn't all blurry.   She loves loves loves her backpack for daycare!

Mommy who??

So, we did it! All three of us.  We got through day one of daycare.  It was such a tough morning getting her ready.  I was holding back tears the entire time, but I had that smile plastered to my face so she would be excited about going.  The time came for us to leave the house, so we kissed daddy bye and took off.  I turned on some music (Adele 21 to be exact) so that she could get a quick jam session in as we drove to "school."  That girl loves her some music!  We pulled into the parking lot and I went around the car, got her out, got out her backpack and walked in determined not to cry not matter what happened in there. If mommy was okay, then Jesalyn would be okay.  I took her into her room and sat her on the ground so that she could look around and ya'll, she took off running.  She immediately found a baby and brought it over to show me. She looked around at all the toys and I could see the excited building up on her face.  "You mean, I can play with anything in the whole entire room?  You're not going to tell me not to pull on this, or get out of that?" I didn't want to drag the thing out (mostly for me,) so I told the teacher I would go ahead and sneak out.  I told Jesalyn to give me a hug.  She ran up to me and hugged me and when I sat her back down she ran and found some blocks to play with. I left the room, but peaked back through the window of the door (you can see in, but they can't see out) thinking that she would be looking up wondering where "mommom went."    She didn't even know I was gone!  I walked out to the car with a smile on my face and as soon as I turned the ignition I just sobbed.  I cried all the way to work. 

I knew she was fine and having fun, but I was so worried that at some point she would look around and realize that we weren't there and start crying.  It was probably one of my least productive days at work.   I tried not worry but that is so much easier said than done.   At about 12:00 I got an email at work. The subject line said "Greetings from Jesalyn!" I opened it up and I see this picture:

In the email it basically read.  Hi mom and dad! I'm having such a fun first day at daycare.  Love Jesalyn.

This immediately made me feel better. At least I knew at that point, she wasn't crying because I could actually see she was having fun.
Jarrod picked her up around two and the teacher said she hadn't cried all day long.  She was sweet and energetic and even took her nap on the cot with all the other kids. 
So, day one was a success.  Praying day 2 is as smooth!

Dada and Jesalyn getting ready for their big day!

Dada going to work, Jesalyn going to "school"