What's Been Going On!

I can't believe it's been 2 years since I last wrote on this blog. So much has happened that I couldn't possibly begin to catch up. It seems like such a long time yet at the same time it seemed to have passed in the blink of an eye.

One of our biggest life changes happened about 6 months ago when I went back to work full time. Charla adjusted to this change relatively quickly and just today she began her last preschool year before kindergarten starts next September. I can't believe that milestone is just around the corner. It excites me and scares me at the same time. I'm excited for all the new challenges Charla will face. All the growing up she will accomplish. But I'm also scared about what entering the school system will mean for her. I have had both positive and negative experiences with public school and I really just want the best for my daughter. But right now I can put those thoughts off to the side and focus on the year ahead.

I'm amazed at how much Charla has come out of her shell over the last year. Before she was always more timid and wouldn't readily approach children her age. Lately though she seems to have gained a lot of confidence and easily joins in with the other kids on the playground. Due to her May birthday she will be one of the younger kids in her class. This means academically she has a bit of catching up to do. She has just begun to print her name but the letters are still all over and some are upside down. She can identify many uppercase letters but needs to work on the lowercase. She can count up to 14 without any mistakes but often skips a few numbers after that. She has just begun identifying the numbers 1 to 6 when we play games, such as Trouble.

I'm so proud of her though and I try to express that to her on a daily basis. She is such a friendly girl. Quick to open her heart to people and animals. She has a very good stand on what is right and wrong and I've been told that she is one of the most well-behaved children in her class. She can express herself very well and her sense of humor is in full bloom. Including all the age-appropriate bathroom humor. Her favorite joke today was "knock knock", "who's there?", "diaper", "diaper who?", "poopy diaper"! I can't help but laugh along with her.

The one downfall of my going back to work has been the amount of time I've lost. On one hand I loved spending all day, every day with Charla. On the other hand though, we were driving each other nuts. Still, losing out on 40 hours per week with my girl has taken its toll. I would love to say that I spend each moment I have with her doing quality things. The sad truth is though that I'm often so tired at night from working all day that our quality time involves curling up on the couch and watching some tv. Some days are obviously better than others, but the mommy guilt still kicks in pretty often. I've really had to choose what's more important to me, a clean house or some quality time with my family. The house loses more often than not!

This started out as a mom blog and, while I definitely plan on telling many Charla stories, I also want to use it as a place to vent some of my thoughts and feelings. Lately I've been feeling a bit run down. I'm not sure if it's from working or from parenting or just some run-of-the-mill blues, but I think it would do me good to type my thoughts out. Sometimes I get an "aha" moment while I'm thinking to myself. Yesterday was one of those "blah" days and after thinking about what could be wrong I came to the conclusion that I often get that way after visits with my family. I will talk more about this another day though. Right now it's late, I'm tired and I have a 10 hour day looming before me tomorrow. Thankfully after tomorrow I have Thursday off and I want to spend that day doing something fun both with Charla and for myself!