It seems to me that no matter how much I don’t want to go back to work and leave my son, that’s the one thing I will have to be doing shortly. Ben is growing so fast, though I don’t always notice it, since I see him every day, but he already can’t wear his preemie footie clothing because he is too long for them. His little legs always have to stay bunched up while he wears them, and since he’s supposed to be stretching his legs out, I can’t put him in them. He still fits the preemie onies that he has, and slowly fitting his newborn clothes.

As the day draws closer to Feb. 6, I cannot help but feel upset and sad. I don’t want to leave Ben, and unless something drastic changes, I will have to return to work. Money is already becoming tight, so returning to work will help that. meilleur site achat viagra I actually miss walking and getting some exercise in, so that will be a plus, and my job wasn’t bad. I don’t mind working. Actually, to tell the truth, not working is driving me crazy. But, I will continue to look for an at home job, so I can be with my son and still work. At the moment, I am looking into tutoring. I love math and English, so why not use what I am good at to help other people. I can’t help people from Kindergarten to people in college. I’m not exactly sure how to get started, but I will make it through somehow.

If I knew how to make money writing on my blog, I would do that as well. I have also been working on a story about Egypt. That is when Ben lets me stop reading about Egypt. 🙂 Traveling to Egypt might help with the story, but getting it started feels great. Who knows, I might finish it, and then wait to get it published until I actually get to see Egypt and fix it up a bit. I want to take Ben to see all the places we have been reading about, to travel the Nile, to see Tut’s tomb, see Ramesses II’s mummy, and so much more! Someday, I will make it to all these different places, it will just take time and faith.

(NOTE – This is part 4/4 of our family’s trip diary detailing our vacation to Orlando, FL taken a year ago now.  This last installment is quite late, but better late than never, I think!)

Friday, January 21 – Today our house seemed quite empty as our travel companions left and it was just Hubby, me and the kids.  We did enjoy a day of family time, beginning with breakfast at…  Sizzler.  Actually, I don’t remember where we ate breakfast.  To be honest, I put the Florida trip diary aside for the past few months and now I don’t remember where we ate breakfast.  I don’t remember all of the details of the day, but I have enough treasured vacation memories to know that it was an excellent day spent with my family.  We drove over to Downtown Disney to try something different for a change – we had never been there.  Downtown Disney has so much to see that we just walked around for a few hours and were entertained without having to spend money.  My personal favorite was the amazing Lego store where one can buy just about any type of Lego a heart desires.  You can buy the flat building platforms, bricks in any color of the rainbow, minifigs, and there was even a sort of Lego buffet – you can fill a container with all different types of pieces, any kinds you want: basic building blocks, doors, windows, steering wheels, joints, hinges, you name it.  There were stations with samples to play with, and I had to exercise some self-control to let the kids play instead of sitting there myself for hours on end.  Because this is Florida, there were Lego things to see outside too – little stations with ramps where you can build Lego vehicles and race them, as well as full scale Lego models of people, the London Bridge, and even a large Loch Ness monster in the lake:

It’s really a good thing for my family’s budget that there is not a Lego store within 100 miles of our house; I could go nuts in there!

We also went to the Rainforest Cafe and a few other stores and restaurants where they had really cool decor for the kids to see.  There was a restaurant with huge dinosaurs where we stopped to use the bathroom, and the kids even enjoyed the Little Miss Match shop (a company that sells socks in sets of 3 and none of them match.  The store has socks and lots of other stuff that little girls love to accessorize with).  It began to rain, so we got on a boat to cross the lagoon to get to the bus.  If you are on vacation in the Orlando area and you find yourself with an extra day or some downtime, then I recommend taking a spin on the Disney transportation – especially if you are over-budget on your trip because it’s all free.  A fair warning that Disney property is so large that riding the buses, boats and monorails can take up a significant part of your day, but it is a fun and FREE way to see the sights of Disney.  So we took a bus to the Grand Floridian hotel to catch the monorail, just for fun.  Parking at Downtown Disney is free, so we got on Disney grounds without even having to pay parking!  We did have to spend a good 45 minutes on the bus though, but by now it was pouring, so we didn’t mind too much.  Besides, Hubby surprised me on the bus when he presented me with a Severus Snape minifig that he had picked up as a surprise without me seeing when we were at the Lego store!!  I could not even tell him that Snape is my favorite Harry Potter character because he would have wanted to know why – I didn’t want to spoil the last Harry Potter movie for him when it wasn’t out yet at that time.

At the Grand Floridian, I had to take some kids to the bathroom, and while I was in there, Hubby got a last minute great deal on a character dinner for us!  So we enjoyed dinner with Cinderella, her prince, her step-sisters and her step-mother.  The food was wonderful, and the kids loved meeting the characters as they walked around to greet tables.  After that, we made our way back to our car, and we were exhausted…  I think we called it a night – I’m not really sure; it’s taken me so long to finish this trip diary that my memory has faded.  All I know is it was a really great day, and a super way to end a wonderful vacation – SO WISH we could go back this year!

Saturday, January 22, 2011 – On this day I know we began to make our way back to Ohio, but I don’t remember the details.  I think we had told the kids we were going to do some souvenir shopping, but we ran out of time and just wanted to hit the road.  Then we had an idea – there are Cracker Barrel restaurants lined up along the expressway all the way home, so we found one on the GPS and got there just before it closed.  Cracker Barrels have little stores in them, and the one we stopped at (in Georgia) had a great sale going on.  The kids were able to shop and had fun getting some great deals – it was a nice way to add a little more fun to our trip.  We arrived home very early Sunday morning, if I’m not mistaken, and probably slept all day and unpacked.  SUPER trip that made awesome memories – can’t wait to do it again someday, I hope!!

Or three strikes and you’re out, but I prefer the title saying better.  It is midway through the year of my third stint at being an AWANA leader.  Some time ago, when I was still subbing, I was asked by family to break off a bit from the kids.  After all, I was doing drama and serving in 4th and 5th grade on the weekends then working all week in K-8 classrooms.  Not wanting to get rid of the weekend service, I dropped AWANA after the year was over.

This year things have been a little different but very much the same.  Originally, 3rd-4th grade were known as Pals (boys) and Chums (girls) while 5th (normally 6th too, but at our church 6th grade is junior high and they don’t do AWANA) were known as Pioneers (boys) and Guards (girls).  I believe it was during time #2 that the switch was made to T in T: Truth in Training for all three grades, boys and girls.  One year I worked with Sparks (K-2) but the rest of the time has been with 3rd-5th grade.  Would you believe the kindergarten Sparkies from that year are in 8th grade now?  Time does fly.  Other differences this year include keeping points for my team- kind of a pain with over 15 boys, mostly 3rd and 4th grade though I do have one or two 5th-graders- and game time is no longer the normal circle games, though at the beginning of the year we did do them.  Now we switch off between double-kickball (two balls, two kickers, one set of bases) and dodge-ball.

Last night was crazy hat night.  Every week has some sort of theme with varying levels of participation- last week was ugly sweater night and few participated.  Wristwatch night also seemed to be on the light side.  Hat night must have been easier as there was much participation.  Conservative, childless me didn’t have a hat anywhere near crazy status and I didn’t have time to think about it anyway since I arrived home from work after six and had to be at the church at 6:30.  There were of course Dr. Seuss hats among the fare, a mohawk hat, a creative lad wearing two Civil War hats representing both Union and Confederate sides, and another one wearing stacked baseball hats.  I am slightly chuffed to say the winner came from my own team, though of course I had nothing to do with it myself.  Cole wore the same hat he always wears to AWANA- he usually leaves it on all night except for prayer- but over that he had on a full Air Force pilot helmet, meaning not just the helmet but the breathing apparatus as well.  Technically not a hat, but it did go on  the head, so…  He informed me one of his relatives was in the Air Force.  If he went to this church on the weekend (he attends a different church- he came as another’s friend one week and signed up after that) he would fit right in at camp this summer and the winter retreat the following January- next year will be the military theme once again.

Anyway, speaking of winter retreat, *this* year’s retreat is tomorrow night and it is now after 11PM.  Time to hit the sack so I will have at least some rest for it.  And perhaps a blog post afterward.  Please pray for us this weekend- 24 hours from Friday 7PM to Saturday 7PM.

Weekday mornings (except for Mondays) I go to my “sister”‘s house at 7:45 to watch the youngest kids she sits with while she takes the older ones to school.  One of the younger ones is an extremely cool little dude named Dane who goes to pre-school later in the morning.  The kid is just a ball of fire!  Every time he is there he asks Charnel… “Where is Jamiah?!” There was a spider in the laundry room the other day and he asked if she was going to call and have me come and take care of it.  Over Christmas break, Dane and his mother came into the grocery while I was working and upon entering he exclaimed, “THERE’S THAT GUY!”

Wednesday morning after coming back from pre-school, he was absolutely not himself.  The poor guy had a tummy ache and a temp of 102º 🙁 Charnel called his father and he was on his way.  Until he arrived, Dane sat on my lap, cuddled with me, and we watched The Flintstones which drew a few chuckles but he really did feel warm.  Shortly after, Dane’s Dad arrived and took my newest little pal home.  This morning they were both sick!  Get well soon, little buddy 😀

I just put my son down in his bed and my arms suddenly feel empty. Ben isn’t quite a month old yet and I hate the thought of leaving him to go back to work. I just love being here when he wakes up, the feel of him in my arms, hearing the sounds he makes in his sleep, feeding him and suddenly having my cat, Padme, curl up on my lap next to him… the list is just endless. Sure, there are some things I don’t enjoy all the time, but nothing is perfect. There isn’t a part of life that is perfect for anyone. If someone tells you anything different, they are most likely lying to you.

I only have a few short weeks left before I have to go back to work and I know that they are going to fly by. How does one expect me to be able to get up and know that I have to leave my son with someone else and be able to concentrate on my job? Not be able to look at his adorable little face for eight hours? I don’t even have set hours and that is going to kill me! Maybe it would be better for me if I knew that I would work a set schedule, but at Goodwill, I work different hours every day and every week. Working at Goodwill isn’t a bad thing, it’s not the job that I hate, it’s the thought of leaving Ben.

I love the thought of being able to stay here all day, with a work schedule that I set, and know that Ben is only an arm’s reach away. Being here when he learns to roll over, to crawl, here his first attempts to talk…

At least of this kind.  The grocery was the place to be Saturday afternoon around 3:30.  A seven-year old young man and his mother came in and grabbed a cart.  As they are usual customers, I know how rambunctious the young lad can be.  My co-worker even politely warned him to settle down a teeny bit.  As I was working on my list of things to do I could hear the little one running up and down the aisles pushing the cart.  A sort time later, I hear someone shout “OH, MY GOD! OH, MY GOD!  I NEED HELP!”  By the time I got over to aisle 4 (of 4), my co-worker had the two of them up by the window.  I found an overturned cart and blood trailing up and down the aisle.  What really got me was the absence of a loud crash to announce the accident.

So I got the phone, called 9-1-1, and had the ambulance there in short order.  The child’s finger was cut down to the bone.  Understandably, he was quite inconsolable.  After getting off the phone with the dispatcher, I call the manager who told us to make out a report and get the party’s information for our records.  Since I knew the two of them, the report could wait until the situation was under control.

After the paramedics transported the little guy to the hospital, I set about cleaning up the area.  Amazingly, there was a glass jar of spaghetti sauce that was unharmed. I then grabbed a pair of gloves and bleached water and scrubbed the trail of blood.  The cart itself had no evidence of the mishap.  Strange…

Yesterday, the boy’s father stopped in and proclaimed me a “hero” (SHEESH! and I wasn’t even wearing my Superman t-shirt ;)).  Honestly, I was more interested in the welfare of his son.  Apparently, he had broken his finger and had to go to the surgeon to have it taken care of.

And who said that life in a two traffic light town was dull?

Well, sort of.  Also a celebration that my blog is working again!  Anyway, just a video I laughed to today- apparently crows like winter sports too…

Call it a New Year’s resolution if you like, but I am embarking on a new, exciting creative venture.  Details will be coming as they progress.  Let’s just say that I am planning to put my gifts to good use here in the near future.  As I have been pondering how best to use these gifts, I have been brainstorming  A LOT but am having a bit of an issue with actually turning these ideas into something concrete and worthwhile.

On my other ongoing pursuit, my voice lessons continue to prosper.  As I expected, one of the hardest pieces (ok… THE MOST difficult) is one that is quite deceptive.  Literally beating my head over it 😉 Rather reminiscent of that little School House Rock show I was involved in a few years ago.  Songs you grew up with but when you are faced with performing them, they present quite a challenge.  However, whoever said that I did anything easy? I’m always up for a challenge.

Otherwise, everything else seems to be passing for whatever is normal for my family.  No one has been checked into the “Hilton” since New Year’s Eve and he Jeff was released Monday in time to watch the Buckeyes flounder.  Now thanks to some great decisions made by a previous coach and members of the team past and present, OSU will not be eligible for post-season football for another year.

Hope everyone has rung in 2012 safely, healthy, and lovingly.

Quite an eventful day, really!  I checked out Facebook around 9 to see that my oldest brother had been in the B-town Hilton (more commonly known as the Hospital) for the past 4 hours and Mom had caught whatever has been making its way around for the past week (glad I am only battling a stuffy nose).  Dad was in true for as of late by dragging a bunch of his treasures out from their trove and piling them out around the house.  I see that he has finally started to put his carport together.  We’ll see if he can get it together before the snow hits.

While at work, I got a call asking if I could sit with Jeff’s kids while their mother worked 3rd shift.  I thought that I could beat Joshua at Harry Potter Scene It but he was too busy in the recesses of his fortress of solitude so I spent the evening watching DIck Clark’s 40th ball drop.  The entire evening event featured a countdown of the 40 top musical performances over the years (I guess they did not say 40 “Best”).  Seeing J-Lo prancing around in a skimpy 1 piece was not my idea of Best MUSICAL performance but, I did not get a vote.  Noah, bless his heart, tried so hard to stay awake for the ball drop but with about 15 minutes to the event he was off to lala land. Fifteen minutes later when that new unfit for anyone’s eyes and ears group rook the stage, it was time for the little ones to bid good night.

I thought I was done for the night and could relax.  I was mistaken.  About 2AM,  I heard the heavenly choirs announce that “Noah threw up in Daddy’s bed!” Up the stairs, strip the bed and Noah and toss one in the washer and the other in the shower.  I believe that I put each where they needed to go because at 7, I heard another deluge.  And at 8, Rachel returned to take command.

What a way to end the year!  HAHAHAHA!  The night could be turned into a modern day Marx Brothers feature which I was hoping to find on the box last night, but…Hope you all had a safe, fun, and eventful start of the new year!

I was thinking that I should get in one more blog post before the New Year.  I was going to write a general update about my beautiful family, but before I got to writing it, I found myself thinking of Harvey.

Let’s begin at December 26, 2011.  My husband and the kids surprised me with a wonderful Christmas gift:  they had all saved and planned for months to buy us a zoo membership.  Our family loves zoos and has had a membership to the local zoo (whichever zoo happened to be local at the time)  for as long as Hubby and I have been married.  I remember that our most recent zoo membership expired on April 1st of last year – I remember this because I made sure to visit on April 1st for what would be our last visit to the zoo for many months.  For budget reasons, it didn’t make a lot of sense for us to renew the membership because I was expecting our 5th child in October – what pregnant lady wants to take her 4 kids to the zoo in the summer?  Not this one.  So we let the membership lapse.  I missed our visits to the zoo, but at the same time, plagued by pregnancy related nausea and fatigue, followed by post-cesarean surgery recovery and the joys (and trials) of caring for a new baby brother to 4 other kids, I didn’t really miss our visits to the zoo…

But then my family surprised me with that membership.  Now that I’m healed from the surgery.  Now that the baby has stayed with the babysitter a few times and actually liked it.  Now that I can take my home-schooled kids to the zoo any time I feel like taking a field trip!

This past week was a great one!  Hubby was able to flex his work schedule to spend a lot of time with the family, and we all enjoyed the break, which included visiting the Toledo Zoo.  In our travels to zoos over the years, we saw many amazing things and learned many amazing things.  Among them:  zoos are GREAT to visit in the winter!  Many animals are so much more active in the cold weather, and there are many less people, allowing visiting families opportunities not normally offered (Example: my kids made bird feeders as a craft at the zoo and loved it!!).

Being winter, some of the exhibits were closed.  Other animal environments were rearranged from the last time we had been there, so we couldn’t quite keep tabs on our familiar favorites.  We did notice that the Great Apes area was rearranged.  There was a sign saying that the Great Apes area was going to be closed for the Lights Before Christmas event, but we saw the gorillas and orangutans, so we didn’t think much of it.  Until we didn’t see Harvey the Chimp.   When I got home, I looked in the Toledo Zoo’s newsroom online  and saw that Harvey had passed away in August.  It was sad for me; Harvey’s exhibit was one of my favorite stops at the zoo.  He was an elderly chimp who loved little kids, and here is a video I have of him playing with my kids.  I can’t be too sad though; Harvey died in his sleep, at the healthy chimp age of 52 – DOUBLE the average life expectancy of a chimp in captivity.

My other favorite exhibit at the zoo, the orangutan family, was also rearranged – during our visit we saw only the mom and daughter – what happened to Boomer (my favorite zoo animal until Harvey stole the title), the patriarch of the orangs?  Such things are commonplace in zoos, and I’m thankful that I once again have a membership that gives me insight to studying the wonderful creatures inhabiting the zoo.  As much as I mourn my old favorites, I will be looking forward to watching the new additions as well:  baby Lucas the elephant, the new baby tigers soon to be exhibited, and the new addition soon to be announced to the public due any day!  Yes, I have inside info!  One thing I love doing while visiting the zoo is talking to the volunteers, and one was beside herself with the awesome news of an impending birth!  So much so that she couldn’t keep it to herself, even if she was supposed to!  Would I do the same if I was a zoo volunteer?  Dunno…  but in the meantime, a HUGE THANK YOU GOES OUT TO HUBBY AND THE KIDS!!!  I’ve already enjoyed my zoo membership more than you would have ever hoped for when you planned and saved!!  LOVE YOU GUYS!!!

I wish everyone reading this a very happy and safe New Year!

Here are tribute videos to Harvey the chimp – watch how he played with my kids!  We will miss him!