Interesting

Interesting how I've completely changed what I do every day and still can't manage to update this. The frustrating thing is that I'm horrible at keeping a real journal, too. I'm hoping to fix this and post on here more. I think the first thing I have to do is accept that I shouldn't try to "catch up" because it's been nearly a year and a half since I've told you what I've been up to, and nearly a year since my last attempt to catch you up!

So - I worked the rest of my year as a teacher. There are so many things I would want to say about that, and I wish I'd kept better records while I was teaching, but some of it would never have been public anyway and the rest of it, well, I talked to people in person and on FB, so you probably heard about it a little bit. If not, feel free to ask me sometime about my stories! I really enjoyed teaching my students. I loved the math. But, it was very very difficult and ended with me having my son, Josiah James Wright, 2 weeks before the school year ended. I learned a whole lot of 'stuff' and it was quite eye opening. My sister, Amy, and her husband, Sean, were a huge support for me, since he is a teacher and Amy homeschools. They had a lot of pointers for me.

Daryn started his job working as a contractor for CSC the day after Josiah was born. (Yes, that was super hard!) He'd been a contractor before but had left to work on school. He's still working on school, but things are working out better now. Just a few months into this contract, CSC hired him on full time (he was full time before, but didn't get employee benefits - like PTO). He's been impressing his boss right and left and we're currently hoping for a raise after yearly reviews are finished.

Rebekah is flourishing! Looking back at what I wrote in October '10, I see that I said I LOVED how she talks all the time. Ha! I want to say I still love it, but it does make things difficult sometimes. She's adorable and is constantly amazing me. I'm pretty sure I keep a decent record on FB of all the funny things she's said, and I actually spent hours one day combing through FB to collect all my old day-to-day comments, thinking it would be a great way to make a bit of a makeshift journal. Not sure if that's gonna work out for me... I actually did something similar back in High school with old IM transcripts. I have hundreds of them saved and think of it as my journal - though I know it's much easier to read a journal than those transcripts! Hence my efforts to get back into putting up posts!

So, Rebekah welcomed Josiah rather excitedly. There have only been a few small occasions that she expressed unhappiness with having a brother, but not much. I was intrigued that it took her a couple days to WANT to hold him, but after that she was VERY lovey with him - and even climbed into his crib to read him stories once or twice. :)

Josiah is amazing. He's smart and has a sense of humor and he's only 11 months old! He was very clingy when he was young, and actually still has some trouble sleeping without me, but I'm a rather attached parent so I brought that on myself. I know everyone says that CIO is inevitable, but I didn't really do it with Bekah and I won't with Josiah, either. Josiah's been learning to walk this last month and has started to initiate walking more by himself now. He loves to have a little walker toy, and will push a chair around the kitchen. The only problem is that he will get VERY angry when he can't push an object the way he wants to! He's been crawling basically since he was 5 months old (scooting then, but army crawling for sure by 6 months). His first teeth didn't come in until he was about 8 months old - which was a big change for me since Rebekah got her first at 4 months and had a full mouth at 11 months. Josiah is only just now getting his 3rd tooth! That makes feeding interesting, but after getting very frustrated I've taken some advice from other moms and relaxed a little and let him explore food options of what we have at the dinner table. Most of it can be cut up into a manageable size for him - I'm impressed at how well baby gums really can break things up!

With Daryn working and me staying at home life has improved greatly. The end of 2010 and beginning of 2011 were very difficult for us as a family, and how well things have been this last year have really been a testament to us that this is how we should conduct our lives. When I decided not to continue my teaching position, Daryn had not yet secured his job with CSC, but we did it because we knew it was the right thing to do. It was the day after my "please let me work another year" letter to the district was due (that I did not hand in) that Daryn got the call saying he was being offered a job. Blessings! It was pretty awesome that it came that quickly, too!

Now that I'm home, I'm learning a lot about being a SAHM! I did a semester of Joy School with Rebekah and 2 of her friends. It went okay, and Rebekah loved it, but 3 kids wasn't really enough and there weren't others in the area who wanted to participate. My friend, Carrie (Cairn's mom), was doing preschool on the other side of town - a co-op like Joy School - but 1) I didn't have a car for some of that time (fall of 2011) and 2) I was TOTALLY sick of lesson planning and was never the crafty type to do little kids activities anyway. I'm thoroughly impressed with what Carrie has done with Cairn at this preschool co-op, and a little sad I didn't participate, but Carrie is always one of those moms I'm thoroughly impressed by. I just have to be grateful she's my friend and if I want to do things like her get off my lazy butt and do them!

As for Preschool for Rebekah, we have some work books now, and we're thinking about enrolling her in a preschool. It looks to be more than we're willing to pay, though, so I will try to do better at sitting down with her and working in our little work books. I'm also thinking about enrolling her in dance or gymnastics or something. There's no "thinking about" putting her in soccer - that's pretty much a done deal. :)

I'm not currently playing soccer. I picked it back up for a season or two after Josiah was born, but then my sister and her husband stopped playing, and while I love soccer, it's not as fun without family there. Plus, the games were pretty far. Kati recommended I try to find something else to help me keep in shape if I wasn't going to play anymore, so I invited my friends Joyce and Michelle (same friends I did Joy School with) to go on walks with me M-F mornings. That has been great! We don't manage to go out every day, and sometimes we go a week without going out, but I've enjoyed the exercise, the increased social interaction, and we've been going places instead of just around the neighborhood, so I don't feel terribly confined to my home. We walk anywhere between 1 and 3 miles a day, with the 3 milers being round trips to the Library or the mall. I also participate in a play group sometimes with moms from my old ward/stake. It's nice to have options.

The most difficult part of staying home has been taking over the meal planning and making. I kind of hate it. Daryn likes to cook, and I don't. I mildly enjoy baking, but that's about it. BUT, we're doing our best to be responsible and get out of debt etc and that requires a careful budget. The easiest way to cut back our expenditures was to stop eating out, so we're doing our best to limit that. Daryn still cooks on the weekends, and sometimes during the week, but I am slowly taking over more nights as the weeks progress. Yes, I know it's been nearly a year, but just pretend this is my first year being the cook (it is) and think about how I can make FANTASTIC hamburger helper, but I am instead  trying to make real meals! The last time I was in charge of cooking, we didn't have children, AND we basically had different kinds of hamburger helper, suddenly salads, or Daryn would cook b/c we were inviting friends over and he loves to cook for company. So now, here we are 5 years later and I'm trying to learn how to cook while caring for my 2 children. I actually called my mom a few months ago to ask how to boil eggs. She told me I was pathetic - and I am! But I'm getting better. One day I'll even take charge of ALL the cooking. :) And by then hopefully it will be great. :)

So, how about all of you? How are things going? What's the challenge you are focused on right now? How are you currently working to improve yourself?