Happy Birthday, Josiah! Part 2

Here is a run down of the last year, mostly focusing on my fantastic baby boy: Josiah James! :)

June 2011

Since a large part of my family was in Phoenix for my sister Brittany's HS Graduation, we had Josiah's baby blessing in Phoenix in the CG ward. I didn't manage to actually take pictures of him in his blessing outfit until a couple weeks later. My mom made his outfit, and it's the same material as my wedding dress and Rebekah's blessing dress. I love it!

July 2011:

Above: Josiah and Myles. Josiah is 2 days older!

Our picture from our family reunion up in Utah - Ammon got home from his mission!

August 2011:

Poor Josiah had cradle cap SO bad that I basically scalped him. All that gorgeous black hair, gone!

 But he's sill sooo smiley! :)

Like father like son!

September 2011:

Gwen and Sy with Grandma Pike

October 2011:

Just a few examples of how much Josiah and Pebbles love each other! 

 Halloween!

Josiah went as "Dad" :) Bald head and a full beard! Too bad he drooled so much the beard didn't stay long!

November 2011:

Eric Herman concert

December 2011:

Christmas at the Pikes in Utah!

January 2012:

February 2012: Visiting Brittany at NAU

March 2012: Zoo, Renee's wedding, fohawk, bath time!

April:

The following are pictures of Josiah's first real goose egg. He learned to climb on the train table, then he stood up and walked off the edge and hit his head on the rocking chair. I went to catch him, but to no avail. He has not climbed on the train table since, though!

May! (Yeah! All caught up!)

Heidi with Josiah and Myles at AZ Mills. We had such a great visit!

Josiah's birthday party on  Saturday, May 5th. We had a FANTASTIC turn-out! :) And Daryn's Nana made the adorable clown cake. (We had it up in Phoenix so that more family could come.)

 At Nana's playing in her new water toy!

Happy Birthday, Josiah!

It's been a year since Josiah James Wright joined our family, and what a year it has been! I didn't really blog that last year, so I'm going to write about it all now, as best as I can.

7 lbs 15 oz, 20 inches

4:54 am Tuesday, May 10th, 2011


I'm a little surprised. I can't find where I might have typed up his birth story! So now I wonder if I really did it at all. That time was quite a blur, but between e-mails and facebook posts I want to go back and reconstruct.


Well it turns out that I can't find any e-mails about Josiah's birth. :( I think they were on my work e-mail that got disabled within a week of me finishing at the school. I didn't have a chance to save any contact information from students or anything. I was super sad, especially because one mom was supposed to send me a picture of me with the cake that she brought in for 6th hour to have a little party for me before I left! But good old facebook sure had a lot to say, so I've put together a good amount of what was going on the week I had Josiah. :)

Saturday, May 7th I was nesting to the extreme! I had a list of things a mile long that I wanted to get done with most of it being school related. Here was my Saturday according to Facebook:



Grades tests, Grade other tests, Grade in class activities, Grade Projects, Grade other projects, sweep, mop, vacuum, put away clothes, clean bathroom top to bottom, dust, pay bills, re-arrange bedroom, set up baby things, pack birth center bag, DO NOT GO INTO LABOR. Let's see how many I can check off today!write thank you cards, get Bekah a swim suit and hair ties, get car fixed up, eat, shower... just wanted to add a few I might actually get done!

 The problem is that we get caught up on all of that house stuff, and then I focus on school work and we get behind again. About a month ago I was caught up on EVERYTHING, and then I was in Phoenix 2 weekends in a row, so now I'm behind on the house and school work, and I only have 4 days of work left! I'm a little nervous because we are short on subs at work, so if I go into labor this weekend my friends at work will have even more work on their plates, and I would feel so bad for them!

Soooo - My AWESOME friend Carrie came and helped. Between the 3 of us, we cleaned drawers, cleaned the kitchen, cleaned the bathroom, reorganized the kids' (crazy to put that ' AFTER the s!) room, unpacked my trunk (it's been sitting full for a week), shoveled up the backyard, sorted through boxes and piles from the bedroom, put all the clothes away, and I did not go into labor!

And then my Sunday, May 8th 2011 was Mother's Day. Carrie had helped Rebekah make me a beautiful "pot" of paper flowers and a couple of cookies in the bouquet. It was super cute! 

My posts from that day said:

Today Daryn and I will sit and grade grade grade to counter the super physically active Saturday. He's going to make me waffles for breakfast - not because they're my favorite, but because we bought a special bottle of BLUEBERRY syrup the last time we were at the store, and we want to use it!

May 8, 2011 at 7:03am 

May 9, 2011 at 12:21am · 

·         Graded all the tests and some of the projects. Updating gradebook and then going to bed! Sooooo close, guys. Sooooooo close!

Notice the timestamp on that second one - I'd been staying up 'til midnight pretty much every day that last week, trying to get work done. One of my comments from earlier that week was that I'd been working 12-13 hour days, trying to get things ready for my kids at school while I was gone. I had it all set up in time, though! Not all the grading was done, but it was super close. I really did enjoy teaching those kids, and I wanted them to be super prepared for their final - for some of them it would determine if they passed or failed my class! So for the 2 weeks I was out, they had a packet of every concept we'd covered the entire year with easy to difficult examples of everything. I left an answer key with the sub, so they could check their work the next day, too. I was so proud of that packet!


And then there was Monday, May 9th:

May 9, 2011 at 6:06am · 

·         Hmmm... even if these contractions continue (which if they follow Rebekah's pattern, they'll be gone in the hour) I really do have a few things to straighten out at work, so I will be going, regardless. If I'm still having them later today, you will know because I'll be back here able to connect to FB again, which I can not do at school. Josiah, I'm excited to meet you, but I need a few more days!

W/ Bekah, I had contractions pretty strongly for an hour every day the week before she was born. But, at the same time, my department has a shortage of teachers right now and they are begging me not to leave early (last day is Thursday) so doesn't that make the odds of me going into actual labor now more likely?

May 9, 2011 at 10:09pm

 So, clearly, no Josiah yet. Still having contractions, though. If I still feel like this in the morning, I won't be going to work no matter what. I can't focus through the pain anymore, but they've still been inconsistent I'm gonna try and relax and start keeping track of timing again. I haven't for the last few hours b/c I was at the school leaving sticky notes all over my piles of papers....

May 10, 2011 at 1:45am · 

·         Going to the birthing center! ♥

Also, how the heck did I do this the first time? Ouch.

And this is where the details get foggy! Basically, I went to work that day just like every other day. My contractions were still pretty far apart but they were rather distracting! I'm pretty sure that's the day I let them do their re-take test from any one chapter from the semester to try and help bring their grade up. It was a department idea that all the math teachers used, since we were trying to show our administration that we were focused on UNDERSTANDING, and not grades. If they can pass it now, who cares that it's 3 months later? Right...? I have super mixed feelings, but that's not the point of this blog entry! :) So - back to labor.

My kids could tell I was distracted, but I didn't tell them I was having contractions.  I said a couple of things that might have tipped off some of the more observant students, though. At lunch, I had to go to another building to give a SpEd teacher some papers, and oh boy was that difficult! Sitting, I was fine. Walking - a whole different ball game! I encountered one of our Vice Principals on my way to the SpEd office and she asked if she needed to call an ambulance, because she was NOT going to let me have my baby on campus! I laughed and reassured her I would be long gone before that happened. I'm not sure she believed me, but she moved on.


After school, Daryn and I met at Carrie's to pick up Rebekah and get a few things done. I don't remember why we met there, but it worked out. We left his truck at their house, picked up Rebekah and went shopping. I bought my bikini top that I could wear while laboring in the Birth Center tub, and we went to dinner at Claim Jumpers - our last 3 person family meal! Daryn agreed to go back to the school with me so I could get more work done. We went to pick up the truck, and happened upon Carrie and her family taking an evening walk. We stayed at their house a little longer and asked if they could help us out. So it ended up that Daryn stayed with Grant at the house with the girls, and Carrie came with me to my classroom to help sort/clean while I finished leaving sticky notes with instructions everywhere. Poor Carrie filed Soooooo many papers for me! I'm just terrible at getting them into the file! They were all piled and collated, waiting to be stuck in a drawer. We spent several hours there, and when we got back to Carrie's we headed home almost immediately. I didn't feel that my contractions were steady enough to warrant going to the birth center just then, or I would have, because Carrie's is much closer than our house! The drive back to my house was probably the most difficult because I had to drive a car, since we had both vehicles there. Ugh. Seriously it was awful!

Back at home by ten, according to the post up there. At 11 I called the midwife and told her about my contractions. They were about 6 minutes apart, maybe? But I figured that since this was my second, it would go faster. She wanted me to try lying down and relaxing, so I did. I guess I slept for a while. Daryn stayed up playing video games and wrote down when I woke and whined about having a contraction. Eventually I couldn't sleep any more, so I decided it was time to go. Apparently that happened just before 2am. :) I sent a quick e-mail to the school, letting them know I was officially taking my maternity leave early 3 days early and we called our moms. My mom wasn't coming until the next Monday, and his mom had guests arriving in town that night, so she didn't make it down until the next day. We dropped Rebekah off at Carrie's house and went to the Birth Center. That car ride was also horrible. It felt like Daryn hit every red light! I know he didn't, but I did NOT want to be sitting. I needed to stand or lie down or something.


At the center, I picked the room with the biggest tub - it was shaped like a triangle, instead of a rectangle. :) Seriously, being able to be in a tub to labor was fantastic! I kind of wish I'd gone sooner, because that would have felt sooooo nice! But I know they encourage us to be in our own home as much as possible. I'm pretty sure I was at least a 6 if not an 8 when we got there. I'm actually leaning more towards the 8 because I remember thinking "I really should have just come in the first time I called, instead of trying to sleep! I could barely stand being in the car, and if I'd waited any longer Daryn would have either had to force me in the car or let me have the baby at home!" Pretty sure he would have forced me in the car. Poor guy.


So - tub. Awesome. I actually managed to sleep most of the time I was in the tub. When I had a contraction, I would wake a little and grip Daryn's hand crazy hard (he was seated in a chair next to the tub) until the contraction passed and then I'd go back to sleep.

Annnnnnd - this is where it gets a little yuck, so skip ahead (if you haven't already) if you don't want nasty details about bodily functions!

I loved the tub, but I felt like I had to poop. So I was on the toilet for a little while, and being all wet I got cold really fast. The water in the tub had cooled, and it had to be 98+ degrees when the baby comes, so they started warming it back up and it felt so hot when I tried to get back in! Since I'd gotten so cold from being out of the tub, it was really hard to get back in. Plus, I couldn't relieve myself properly and I was really concerned about it happening in the tub while I was giving birth. On top of that, I had this small pain at the very end of my spine and I didn't want to sit at an angle anymore. I wanted to lie down flat, but I couldn't really do that in the tub (even though I could recline very nicely). So, even though I'd had this dream of doing a water birth since before I had Rebekah, I ended up on the bed in the room, and didn't have Josiah in a water birth. But oh man, just having that tub for laboring was incredible!


Maybe next time I'll manage to stay in the tub for the birth.

Safe now! :)

So I was on the bed when I had Josiah. Daryn was with me the whole time, and the midwife and her nurse were great. There was another mother in the room next to me, so the midwife and nurse took turns checking in on me. In fact, I think there was a mother at TMC, too, which made for a busy night! I feel a little sad that I don't remember exactly which midwife and nurse helped me through things. I'm terrible with names, and even worse when I'm distracted! :( I know Olga was there at some point, but I'm pretty sure it was someone else most of the time.

Which brings us back to where we started: 

Josiah James Wright

7 lbs 15 oz, 20 inches

4:54 am Tuesday, May 10th, 2011

That morning, Daryn left the center for a little bit to get some food and take Josiah's hat home for Pebbles to smell before we actually brought the baby home. While he was there, he checked his e-mail and found that he started work the next day! Jeanette picked Rebekah up from Carrie's and brought her and Nana to the birth center to see Josiah. She also brought down the bassinet that we used with Rebekah (it was made for Jeanette's oldest - Heather) and boxes of baby things we'd been storing at her house. We checked out of the birthing center less than 12 hours after Josiah was born, and I spent the rest of the day lying in bed while Daryn went out with his mom, Nana and Rebekah. Jeanette bought Bekah a new swim suit (one of the things I hadn't gotten checked off the list) and after they brought Daryn and Bekah home, they headed home themselves. My friend Joyce brought us dinner that night.

May 10, 2011 at 6:53pm · 

·         Ooooook - Josiah James Wright was born at 4:54am, 7lbs 15oz, 20 inches. He has lots of BLACK hair all over - including long sideburns, and hairy shoulders! I will post pictures and a birth story later.

 Feeling a little overwhelmed - Daryn found out today that he finally starts working tomorrow. We're going to ask our sitter to keep watching Bekah this week while Daryn is at work. I am exhausted! My mommy can't get here until Monday night.

We had to contact Carrie and ask that she babysit the rest of the week, since Daryn had to start work, and I was left in the house with my new baby. The next day my sister stopped by and washed my dishes for me and gave me a meal that could sit in the freezer until I needed it. She's so smart! She figured that my ward would bring me meals, and this way I would have an extra for "whenever." :) I was actually feeling pretty crummy that day and had 2 heating pads to help me feel better. I was basically on the couch all day (felt confined in the bedroom) and hardly moved at all. Fortunately, Daryn's laptop fit on the edge of my lap, even though Josiah took up the majority of the lap. :)

May 11, 2011 at 11:53am · 

·         Thank you for all the well wishes! :) And thanks Joyce Wasson for dinner last night, and Kati Pike Carbonneau for lunch and washing my dishes today. I feel so loved!

Chaz McElhaney It blows my mind that you're home already!

May 11, 2011 at 12:31pm

Elizabeth Wright Haha, me too, kinda. Rebekah was a bit jaundice, so we were there for 2 days - Josiah wasn't even 12 hours old when I got home! But, since Josiah and I are healthy, there's no reason we can't recuperate in our own home instead of lying around the birth center. They did give some very good instructions that I need to REST, and not jump back in to everything. So far, I'm doing just that! :)

May 11, 2011 at 12:42pm

‎:) I wouldn't have minded staying longer just relaxing at the birthing center, but they don't keep anyone for more than 12-18 hours max. Keep in mind, though, they also don't do epidurals etc. Anyone with a high enough risk factor, or who wants an epidural or the like, goes to the hospital down the road and stays there. You can get one of the midwives at the center to attend hospital births, too, so they make accommodations for pretty much every woman's preference.
I will say, though, given the choice between having the water birth available to me, or having a day or two after the birth to stay in the hospital? I'll take the water birth! I LOVED the time I spent in the tub. I was so relaxed that I slept in between all my contractions, and as soon as the contraction stopped I was out within seconds. I didn't actually end up giving birth in the tub, but it's because I wanted to lay down more than the tub could allow for, and that was only for basically the last 20-40 minutes of labor.

May 11, 2011 at 12:51pm

Renee Ramsey do they come do the newborn screens at the house? or do you do them late at the doctor's? or not at all?

May 11, 2011 at 4:54pm · Like

Elizabeth Wright The midwife does a home visit 2 days later, including a hearing test. It's not as accurate as the one they do at the hospital, but it just means there's a higher chance of needing a second test. If they can pass the midwife's test, they're definitely good on hearing. I do need to schedule a visit with my pediatrician, though. Speaking of which, I forgot to call them today... Hm.

May 11, 2011 at 5:04pm · Like

Seriously, I hurt so much! I don't think it hurt as much as contractions had - or maybe it did, isn't it amazing how women are programmed to forget how much labor hurts? But I think this hurt was worse because it was more constant than contractions, which come and go. Then I found out why I hurt so much when a midwife came to do my postpartum check up that Thursday: (they also did Josiah's newborn screening that day, including the heel prick)

May 12, 2011 at 4:50pm · 

·         Found out I was actually allowed to take 2x as much ibuprofen as I was taking... and now I can actually move around the house! :) Probably did too much today, but I am a lot happier than I was yesterday.

Also Thursday, I had several friends come and see me, since I was feeling a lot better (yay drugs!) and told Facebook that I was ready for company. Here's a picture of Rebekah and her friends admiring Josiah:

Look at how much Bekah loves him! :) So adorable.

Friday May 13th I took Josiah to the Pediatrician. That was not fun. Here is what I thought of it at the time.

May 13, 2011 at 4:15pm · 

·         Josiah is jaundice... :/ more dr appts for a few days.

Yeah, I think that my pediatrician could improve her bedside manner a bit. She kind of stressed me out, b/c she basically said, "If he hasn't improved by Monday he'll have to go to the hospital." So I don't think the @ home lights are an option. Well, I was stressed by that and realizing all the paperwork I need to do to get Josiah on insurance that will only last 2 months, and that Daryn needs to get paperwork so we can get on his insurance, or look at if we'll qualify - or at least if the kids will qualify - for state insurance.

Amy Pike Anderson 

those first two months can be the most expensive and stressful. It is just one of those things to do :)You wont really know if the lights were and option unless you ask/beg/plead :) the nice thing is that they have lights from beneath now. I am not kidding about the fluids nurse nurse nurse. Pump it into him! The fluids help get that BR processed! A lot of babies get a bit J before mom's milk comes in. If that is the case nursing him more will help stimulate it. I wish you well. Being in the hospital has its advantages. I napped a lot, read a lot, nursed him a lot, took off to eat a meal once :) and had to stand my ground for what I wanted for my little guy. If your going to be informed or they will do it by procedure (not bad but it may not be ideal for you i.e. sugar water). Procedures can bend and morph if things go in the right way. Add prayer to the mix at the beginning middle and end then you will know what to do and have the strength to do it. Really, it wont turn out bad.

May 13, 2011 at 6:50pm 

I love Amy! She's so fantastic and always gives me great advice! Seriously, though, my Ped wanted me to come in first thing Monday morning to get another bilirubin test, then come to her office (in the same area, several miles away from my house) that afternoon to read the test results. THEN that Wednesday she wanted me back for his 1 week check up, which couldn't be done any sooner than one week. I was still not feeling great at this point, and I'd have to do the Monday appointments without any help, and Rebekah in tow. I was SO STRESSED and felt like I was on the verge of tears for much of that first week.

The next day was my niece's baptism up in Phoenix. I debated on going, but I was seriously so sick of my house, so we went. I had a long conversation with my SIL Aprilynne and she insisted that I stay in Phoenix with her until my mom flew in Monday night. It mean missing those appointments with the Ped, but April promised she knew how to check for jaundice, and we'd make sure Josiah sunbathed all weekend. If we ever felt something was going wrong, we could take him in ASAP.

So I listened to yet another wise woman in my life and my stress levels went WAY DOWN. ^_^ I am so happy to have so many wonderful women in my life who take care of me! (You know, in addition to my fantastic husband who got a job and supported my desire to stay home with our babies.) Also, just so you know, Josiah's jaundice totally cleared up. I also found out that some people believe that a side effect of allowing the umbilical cord to pump all the blood into the baby (and turn white) before cutting it is increased jaundice. But there are also supposed to be really great benefits to giving the baby SO much more cord blood into their body, so I think we're good. I will be interesting to observe with the next child, I think.

From there, I came home with my mom and that week of having her was awesome. I LOVE when my mom comes to visit. She took such good care of me. :) And she got us hooked on Netflix for Rebekah. :P

I made one more trip back up to Phoenix at the end of that week, and stayed right up until the evening before my last day of work/first day back from having a baby (May 25).

So May 26th started my official journey into being a real SAHM. And I love it!

Happy birthday, Josiah. Thanks for being my little boy.

Learning - All about a Rebekah

I've toyed with the idea of Homeschooling my children on and off. As previously mentioned, I did a program called Joy School - a Mom co-op preschool - with some friends and their children. It didn't work out, but that's okay! I learned from it. I had another option and turned it down because it seemed like more work than I was willing to take on at the time. Since then I've priced places, and had places price me (ie we don't qualify for any of the 'free' programs in our area because Daryn is awesome and makes good money). I bought Rebekah some work books for Christmas, and my MIL Jeanette gave us some more for Easter.

At first, Rebekah wasn't very interested. She wouldn't even follow a dotted line! But... I still haven't decided if that was because she just didn't want to follow the line, or she wasn't sure what I meant (because I know she's capable of drawing a straight line). It's irrelevant now, since she's getting pretty great with her work. We practiced some of the "follow the dotted line" worksheets a couple of times before I had her move on.

Then she decided she knew better than me what she was supposed to do on each page and mostly just wanted to color. This wouldn't have been too bad, except that most of her coloring is still scribbling, so I didn't want the page completely scribbled on. We took a break from the books for a few months, since I figured she wasn't really ready.

NOW, though, with the new books from my MIL, Rebekah has a renewed interest in school (she really calls it that) and she even did an entire booklet (like, 30 pages!) in less than 24 hours. Granted, it was the "Colors" book, and she's known her colors for a while, but it was just right to get her interested in other activities. The colors book started with a page dedicated to a color and it went through red, blue, yellow, green, purple, orange, black, brown, gray, pink and white.



If you look at the pictures she colored, you can see that Rebekah isn't terribly concerned about coloring inside the lines. I asked her if she would try to stay in the lines, and she told me that she didn't know how, but when I tried to show her she shut down and didn't want to watch. I was a little concerned about this - I couldn't tell if she just didn't care or if she really couldn't or if she didn't understand, but then I saw her "coloring" a picture on the computer using the finger pad to control the crayon and she did very well at filling in the entire picture and only going outside the lines a little bit, so it's not a concept problem - more just an issue focus and physical development, which will come in time. In fact, when she CARES and is focused, she does pretty well!

Something I absolutely love about Rebekah is her sense of humor. On the pages where 2 colors were being addressed, Rebekah purposefully switched the colors, and wouldn't stop sticking the book in my face until I laughed at it and told her how silly she was for switching the colors. I think I managed to convince her to do it "right" on ONE page like that. That's okay though, because it's clear she understands the concept AND she's still asserting her independence and that's certainly not something I want to squash!

The progression of skills was really great, and I loved that it had a place for Bekah to trace the letters. I showed her how and she took to it very well! I was surprised and pleased - it means I can work more on letters with her!

Way better than before, isn't it?! :)

That last picture is from the "counting" workbook. I'm not super worried about her ability to write, but I know that giving her opportunities to try will only be beneficial. We're working on recognizing the numbers 1-10, so I decided to make flash cards for her. One side has the number, and the other has that number of little apples, so if she doesn't have the number memorized we flip the card over and count the apples to help identify the number. While I was at it I made a card of capital letters and lower case. I might have her match upper and lower case as well as have her identify different letters. Sometimes she watches a few Leap Frog movies that go over letters (upper and lower case) and a few of them go over their sounds, too, so there are endless possibilities in the future of those cards! Depending on how well they work for her, I might have them laminated. I think I'm going to buy a box to start filing away things like these to use with my other kids. :)

I love Rebekah so much. As much as this post is about how much SHE is learning right now, you can imagine that I'm learning a lot too. With academics going smoothly right now, Rebekah is certainly challenging me emotionally right now. My sister, Amy, seems to have fabulous timing when it comes to posting things on Facebook, and this one actually came to my mind today:

http://abundantlifechildren.com/2012/04/18/honoring-the-emotional-child/

See, lately Rebekah has been having meltdowns like Cuh-RAZY. ANY tiny disappointment is the end of the world for her and she bursts into tears and yells and often collapses into a heap onto the floor. Other times she'll be literally hopping mad (and still have tears and screaming). Depending on the time of day, my personal mood, and the importance (or lack thereof) of the event upsetting her, I might just giver her what she wants, try to bribe her with something else or flick her mouth (for yelling at me) and send her to her room. With the room thing, sometimes she falls asleep (we're in the middle of napping/not napping) or scream for a while before quieting down - at which point I go talk to her - or sometimes she starts playing with her toys and gets distracted.

So at lunch today, I only had the heels of bread left with which to make a sandwich. Rebekah did NOT like that and started yelling at me about it, so I flicked her in the mouth for yelling, at which point she screamed more, so I turned off her TV show and put her in her bedroom. She yelled and screamed about how I was a bad mommy for at least 30 minutes. Every time I had decided she'd calmed down and I could go in and talk to her, she'd start yelling at me again, so eventually I knocked on the door (she stopped yelling immediately) and asked if I could come in her room. She said yes, and I came in and said hi, and told her I loved her. Then I told her that I could tell she was unhappy about the sandwich I made her, and that I had turned off her show, and I was sorry for making her so sad. Then I explained to her that I was sad that she was yelling at me and telling me I was a bad mommy, and could she please apologize. She did, and gave me a big hug. I told her that I didn't have any more bread for the sandwiches, but if she would eat the one I made -even though it wasn't the best sandwich - I would turn her show back on. It was all very sweet and polite and we haven't had any more issues today. :)

What I need to work on is consistency. I know that sometimes I can't forsee that she'll make a big deal about something (at which point, I might capitulate because I don't feel the fight is worth it) BUT she she throws a tantrum, I have to make sure I don't give in at that point because she needs to know that tantrums are NOT okay, and they don't give you what you want. Putting her in her room until she's ready to talk nicely is working for me, and I need to commit to that, and not try to bribe or distract her.

Now that I put Josiah down for his nap, Rebekah is asking that we do more school work, so I'll be off! But, I'm sure you'd love to see my darling daughter's face an not just her school work:

This is back from February, but I guess I don't have too many great photos of her smiling right now! I need to fix that...

More about why Daryn is Awesome :)

Just wanted to note that Daryn has been doing an awesome job with going to school and work. He hasn't done any in the last 2 weeks, but there are times he also works extra doing the books for a business in town. These last two weeks he's been gone on Saturdays for church activities.

Daryn is 1st Counselor in the Young Men's presidency (for those who aren't Mormon - he's 2nd in charge of the church program for the 12-18 year old boys). Every Tuesday night he spends 1.5 hours at the church working with the boys. Much of the Young Men's program is tied together with Boy Scouts, and so Daryn helps them to earn their merit badges and things. Two Saturdays ago, the General Young Men's President (head of the world wide Young Mens Organization), President Beck came and spoke in Tucson, so Daryn went to that. This last Saturday he volunteered to teach the First Aide section for Eleven-year-old Scouts up on Mt. Lemmon. It was a day long activity where the boys focused on advancing their ranks up to (I think) 1st Class.

I am SO proud of all the work that Daryn does for us, and for other people. He is constantly giving service, and I love that my husband is such a great example for my children to see.

(Even if it does mean he's not at home as much as I'd like!)

Schedules

Right now, schedules are a little crazy at our house - mostly for Daryn, but it has its impact on me as well. Remember, I'm a math major and have a bit of an obsession for explaining things so this will probably be boring for most of you, but it has a huge impact on my life right now, so it's going into this 'journal' of sorts! :P

Daryn is working on finishing some classes for school. There's one class in particular that was giving him a lot of trouble as an online class (online classes are so difficult sometimes!) so after MUCH deliberation we decided that he needed to take the class in person. Well, the catch is that they (NAU distance) only offer this class in person in Phoenix!

This made it a little difficult.

First, the class was offered only on Wednesdays - at noon or 7pm. Daryn has a full time job, and to work around his schedule he would have had to drive straight to Phoenix after work on Wednesdays (praying for light/no traffic the whole way) and then drive home at night getting very little sleep before going to work the next morning. No good!

So he sent in a request to have a schedule change. This was the tricky part, because even though there are some co-workers of Daryn's who work on a 4-10's schedule, one of the bosses didn't like it and is trying to get everyone on a 5 day work week. Daryn went in and requested 4-10's, with Wednesday off, so that he could take this class. Fortunately, Wednesday is the day with the lightest workload, and Daryn's boss is quite impressed with his work, so they approved the request. :)

Daryn's schedule gets a little complicated because his company serves a lot of people outside of Arizona. Because of this, work times change with Daylight Savings. During the spring and summer, his shift starts at 6am, and in the fall and winter his shift starts at 7am. So his possible hours of being gone from home (including a 30-40 minute commute both ways) looks something like this:

Spring/Summer 8 hour shift: 5:30 am to 3:00 pm
Fall/Winter 8 hour shift: 6:30 am to 4:00 pm

Nice, right? Yes. I loved those shifts! The kids don't get up until around 7, so I don't even feel like Daryn's gone for 8 hours a day! The down side is with the early start time, he has to go to sleep relatively early, but we've managed to figure out a good bedtime routine for Rebekah and if we remember to start that routine on time, Daryn can go to bed right after that and then I stay up with Josiah until he's ready for bed.

But, then we changed to 10 hour shifts.

The 10 hour shift is something Daryn LOVES. He feels more productive with a 3rd day off every week. He had this when we were first married, and I loved it too. I might like it now if we actually got that 3rd day off together, but I don't know if we'll actually see that happen. Right now, Daryn's schedule looks like this:

Spring/Summer 10 hour shift: 5:30am to 5:00pm on M, T, R, F
Wednesdays: 10am to 10pm - Phoenix (including travel time)

Seeing as how Daryn tries to be in bed by 9pm the nights before work, and leaves before I get up in the morning, I see him for maybe 4 hours a day, on Mondays and Thursdays. Wednesdays I see him for maybe 2-3 hours in the morning, and 5 minutes at night as he comes home and goes straight to bed. Tuesdays aren't terrible; we usually stay up late after he gets home from working with the Young Men at church, so there's probably 5 or 6 hours of time together, depending on how late we're willing to stay up. Friday is the best night, unless I have Pack Meeting for Cub Scouts - which happens once a month. Sooooo.... I just don't see enough of my husband during the week! I'm sure there are others of you who feel my pain, and maybe I see mine more than some of you see yours, but this is not a lot of face time for me, seeing as how for a year he was home ALL the time! Add that to the fact that this job started up right when Josiah was born. I was barely getting a handle on taking care of one kid, now I have 2 AND I've taken over all the duties of being at home. It's been a big adjustment.

With Daryn driving to Phoenix every Wednesday, I've tried to join him now and again so as to visit my friends and not spend too much gas on drives to Phoenix on the weekends. That hasn't worked out very well, because certain events on  the weekends, and times where I or the children were sick. I had hoped to see a lot more of my friends. (Sorry ladies! :( )

And now we're suddenly down to the wire! Daryn is 2 weeks away from taking his final for this class, and he's going into it with a very good grade. I'm glad we decided to go this route, even though it's been difficult on my nerves! (Not just from being away from him too long, but also worrying any time it takes him super long to get home - hearing about wrecks on the freeway drive me crazy!)

I'm looking forward to seeing this time end. Daryn says his boss will put him back on 8 hour shifts after the class is over. I'm hoping for that to take a little bit of time, to see if 4-10s is something we'd like to have again in the future. Whatever happens, I'll be happy to increase the amount of time my hubby gets to be home!

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?