And Now For Something Completely Different

I remember this from Elijah... as soon as he passed out of the newborn crying jags, he started teething. Julius has hardly slept at all today. He chomped on my fingers for about an hour, then I gave him a pacifeeder full of frozen peach slices. Cold sticky goodness. That made him happy. He still won't sleep, but he's nursing now. I think with a nice full belly he will finally pass out. His eyes are heavy-lidded, but he's making little baby noises and alternating between chewing violently on his fingers and nursing. As long as we are laying down together like this, he's happy. He just cooed at me with a "you're my best friend, mom" smile. The dishes are languishing. Lee's at work.



It's about time for school to start, and also for me to get back to work. I'm only going to work three short shifts a week - less than twenty hours - but it still smarts. I don't want to share my kids - selfish, I know. I don't want to be away from them and I don't want them away from me. Three shifts won't hurt homeschooling or housework, and will only slightly affect breastfeeding. But it's still okay to be a little sad, right??



Boo and I are both very terribly excited for our respective schools to start. Boo has his desk set up and a spinner chock full of crayons, markers, pencils, and erasers. We have all the books we need for kindergarten and even writing paper and a nice whiteboard with beginner sized lines on it for writing. That's Boo's favorite toy right now. He is watching the letter factory DVD over and over, copying the alphabet and making it neater and neater. He has already memorized the Lord's prayer and is teaching himself Math facts. He's going to be a great student. Technically we haven't started school yet... haha.



Olivia almost has all her letter sounds down now, and can count to ten. She is going to follow right in her Boo's footsteps. She is also very close to memorizing the Lord's prayer. Olivia is my kinetic learner and entertains me by laying on the floor with her feet in the air "Look, Mommy, I'm the letter L!!".



I'm taking three easy web classes this semester - one on html/CSS/JAVASCRIPT, one on Photoshop (I'm pretty familiar, lol) and one on Flash, Dreamweaver, and something else. Very very, exciting.



And now for something completely different - my dear husband has made the tough decision of not continuing his history degree. He has been in his "cave" all summer, dealing with a lot in his mind and not talking about it. I believe he was dealing with a) being really, really poor, b) the complete misery and dead-endness of his job (which he has been at for almost three years) and c) the possibility that a bachelor's degree in history may not actually solve those problems. Lee has a very good friend who he really hits it off with, and his friend has a bachelor's in Philosophy. They work together. 'Nuff said. So Lee has transferred his HACC credits to ITT in Harrisburg. He is now pursuing a degree in either Computer Networking or Computer Programming, depending on how the first semester goes. It was actually quite sudden for me - on Monday he decided to call ITT, Wednesday he had a meeting with an admissions person and some sort of entrance exam, Thursday he became a an official student.

I've never been a man or a father, but I imagine it is painful to give up your dream degree for one that will support your family - to trade in Indiana Jones for Dilbert. Not that Lee isn't excited about studying computers. He has also spent this summer realizing how much he enjoys computers and how good he is becoming at solving computer problems - believe it or not, I actually defer to him now! But I think my readers will understand what I mean. I hope everyone will understand how exuberantly proud I am of him for this mature and practical decision and not be rude to him about the change, like a certain great-grandmother who shall remain nameless.

The $200/week we will save by him not driving to and from Lancaster every day is also a big plus.

If you think of it, say a prayer for Lee, that God would continues to guide him in wisdom and grow him in strength. And say a prayer for me, that I won't be jealous when Lee takes two whole courses in the Linux operating system.....

p.s. In retrospect, this blog rings a little sad - let me also say how cool it is that Lee pulled this off - I never thought he'd be able to get accepted and transferred so quickly, but he's just amazing! And he's super psyched about taking computer courses. He's having fun poring through the course catalog, etc. This is gonna be really fun for us!