what the?!*?

This about sums up my week.

super cute Sunday

He saw this hat at the store and exclaimed "Dada's! Dada's!". Naturally, I had to get it for him and he LOVES to wear it!

Guess who learned how to open the fridge?

back on track

After a grueling week of no napping, I am happy to report we are back on track! We (and E) were exhausted and had no more tricks up our sleeves or patience to sit in his dark room and wait for him to fall asleep. Rocking him proved only to make things worse because he refused to lay down after sunggling and would wake up immediately if we tried to move him into bed. This was NOT a case of a sick baby needing comfort but a battle to stay awake at all costs!

Finally my husband uttered those words I couldn't..."we will have to let him cry it out". And within 30 minutes of crying, he was asleep for the night. Luckily he was so tired he didn't have the energy to keep it up - and he didn't get out of his bed or bang at the door, which helped me hold my breath and wait for him to settle. Then the next day at naptime, he only cried for 20 minutes. That night at bedtime he cried for 5 minutes and ever since, he's our sweet angel lying down at bedtime. Thank goodness! My sanity has returned!

home alone

What a week. I can't remember a work week/home week that felt this crazy in a LONG time.

I know I'm not the only one, but saying it's "hard" to work and be a mom is an understatement. As my husband would say, "'hard' is wearing in a new pair of boots". Saying this was a hard week just isn't strong enough.

I'm sure you know (since I love to blog about it) that I'm the director of an amazing nature preschool. It's new and growing exponentially. Working part-time may leave some people with the impression that there's somehow less work to do. Not so. It just means that I have to miraculously do all the tasks that I would be doing full-time, crunched into a part-time schedule. I am a perfectionist when it comes to the quality of my program, so it kills me when I think I could be doing something better but can't. Managing staff, teaching, communicating with families, touring prospective new ones, and evaluating our practices - these are all tasks I take very seriously. The littlest bump in the road knocks my apple cart completely off track! This week I felt like I was struggling to keep it all together.

Of course, personal stuff always affects my opinion of the big picture. Our nanny was out one day, so I needed to piece my schedule together, missing time I hadn't planned on missing. I had an extra early meeting at work one day which threw me off. We had our windows replaced this week, which meant E had to be out of the house - and as a result he DIDN'T NAP EVEN ONCE. (Do I need to spell out the implications of no nap, mommies?) And this crazy home schedule threw E off even to the point of weird waking times, but the icing on the cake was his refusal to go to bed at all on Thursday night! I'm talking two hours of sheer torture people. Add to this my excitement (yet stress) of being commissioned to paint three new paintings on a tight deadline with no time to do it...and viola! STRESS!!!

After that little rant (thanks for listening) enter our Godsend, my Mother-In-Law.

I've heard all kinds of stories about the relationships people have with their MIL, many not so nice. But mine? She's amazing and she's absolutely smitten with our son. She's always ready to talk me down from the ledge and this week was no different. She happily picked E up from work last night so that I could have a reprieve and paint.

Yes, I feel guilty for not spending time with E after working all day on Friday. But given his sleeping craziness, I'm hoping this little visit will reset things for him and help get us back on track. Besides, I'm happy that he is developing such a loving relationship with his Gram and Pop. So, despite her joking threat of feeding him Popeye's chicken (you know I'm vegetarian, right?), off he went.

This is my long way of saying I'm home alone and recovering from a crazy week. Now, if you'll excuse me I have cup of coffee and some paint waiting for me.

This is just the initial stage of the painting. I thought I'd take some photos as it develops so you can see the process.

Stage 2...

Stage 3 and still painting...

Again, just the initial stages of the painting. On this last image you can see the medium is still wet.