Getting So Big!

In the past two weeks, some major growing up has been happening in our household! Two weeks ago, Kaydriana went potty in her potty chair. The next weekend, she went poo in her potty chair! We don’t do too much, “training” during the week since our weekdays are chaotic and daycare is aiding in those efforts. But come the weekend, she is in her big girl panties!

Lake has been getting up on all fours and rocks back and forth. Usually he only accomplishes launching himself forward on his face or pushing himself backwards.

He has also been sitting by himself. On Tuesday, Tim texted me to say that Lake had been sitting up for 15 minutes! He’s now practicing moving from a sitting position back to his tummy, but mostly he falls on his face. He started to army crawl last weekend.

It appears that Lake has developed eczema. It looked pretty inflamed and dry. I’ve been putting anti-itch cream and lotion on his arm and there is a little patch on his face.

So between his teething and I’m assuming, itching, he’s been a bit difficult in the middle of the night the past week or so. He finally did better last night. He woke up a few times, but only twice did I go in to check on him and he went back to sleep. The other time he cried for a few moments and then fell back asleep.

This Sunday, Kaydriana will have her first “performance”. She is singing, “Joy to the World”, and “Away in the Manger” with her other little toddler buddies with the church nursery. We’ve been practicing a lot. I can’t wait to see if she will sing loud, (like we’ve practiced) if she’ll just stand there like a deer in headlights, or if she’ll cry and run off stage. Either way, she should look stinkin’ cute!!

I’m still working 11-12 hour days. Our sales and orders were up 156% compared to last year and we had no way of knowing that was going to happen. We hired 80 seasonal employees and we should have hired closer to 140! Our phone on hold goal is 1 minute, and we were experiencing over an hour long hold times. So while I understand that the management staff needs to work 60 hour weeks, it’s almost killing me.

I know that I don’t deserve any special treatment, but I am the only person in management (including supervisors) who has a little baby and a toddler, and to add to my sob story, a husband that works nights! So my 60 hours is probably a bit tougher than everyone else’s 60 hours. Yup, I’m pretty much, “whoa is me.” At least I own it ;)

But, there are a few things that I’m trying to remind myself: this is just going to last a few more weeks, (even though my holiday season is already ruined)  I have a LOT to be grateful for, and that my joy will be full as I live in His presence. The theme for these past two holiday seasons has been JOY so I was delighted to run into this verse last night:

"You have made known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand" (Psalm 16:11).

So while I have emotional break downs about twice a week where I’m overwhelmed with life (work, household stuff, lack of sleep and time, my relationships), the fog usually lifts and I can refocus and survive another day, another week, another month, in our current situation.