Daycare

C started daycare 3 weeks ago when Hubby G started his new job.  Before I go any further into the daycare situation, I must first say that our previous child care situation was heavenly.  Wonderful.  Couldn't have asked for anything better.  Hubby G would watch C in the mornings and my sister in law would watch him in the afternoons at our house.  It was amazingly convenient.

But with Hubby G starting the new job, his schedule changed and we felt that daycare would be our best choice.  Also, C is no longer a tiny infant and we thought that it would be in his best interest to be around other babies and take advantage of the learning environment that daycare could provide.

The crazy thing was that our turnaround time to actually find a daycare, take a tour, and enroll was CRAZY short.  Like a week.  Less than a week actually.

God was watching out for us though and we were actually able to get into what we determined to be the best daycare center in our area and even though they typically have a waiting list that is several months long, they had one opening in the room that Baby C needed to be in!  It was meant to be!

First day of daycare- couldn't sit still!

The first week of daycare was crazy.  I wasn't really worried about my little dude because this center is really nice and clean and well-staffed and I'm really happy with all of that.  Plus every room has web cams so that parents can login and see what their kids are up to at any time during the day.  It was crazy because Hubby G was out of town for training for the ENTIRE WEEK.  Adjusting to the new routine of daycare , working full time, plus getting all the household chores done all by myself was exhausting- it definitely made me appreciate all of the work that Hubby G does!

And luckily daycare initiation didn't hit for C until his second week when Hubby G was back and able to help me out.  And by daycare initiation I mean that C got his very first cold.  My opinion is that yeah, I hate to see my little guy sick, but kids are going to get sick no matter what at some point- daycare or no daycare.  I read somewhere that kids who are in daycare get sick less later in life because they're exposed to more germs earlier, so I'm not beating myself up over C picking up a cold.  

C had a runny/stuffy nose, drainage from his eyes, and a nasty cough.  I picked him up early one day when his daycare caregiver was concerned that he might have pink eye and so I brought him into the doctor.  Luckily the doctor checked him out and found that he did not have pink eye, his ears looked good, his nose looked good, and his lungs even sounded good despite a cough.  It was just a cold, but even so, we decided to hold him out of daycare the next day to let him snuggle his mamma and rest.

Mama, I'm sick! :( -Taken before we headed to the doctor to get him checked out.

C's still got a runny nose and the cough is on it's way out, but we can tell that he's feeling WAY better and more back to his usual self playing with toys and babbling like crazy.  We've survived his first cold!

Changes

Whew!

I promise I have not fallen off the face of the earth and I have really REALLY been itching to blog for the past week but my goodness readers, it has been a crazy house over here!

1. Hubby G started a new job. Yay! This is a good-for-our-family change but also required him to be out of town for the entire first week. Boo.

2. With Hubby G starting the new job, Baby C started daycare. C got his daycare initiation right away and is just now getting over a week-long cold.

Those changes, plus the cold (which I think he was very generous with and passed along to me as well), plus life and work in general have left ZERO time for anything else. I've barely even had time to look at my reader- the horror!!

Hopefully now things will settle down a bit and I'll get back on track!

Notes on Faith 2.0

For a little more background, please check out Notes on Faith 1.0

Getting to tag a long with Hubby G while he went through the RCIA program was a great experience for both of us. In addition to the opportunity to explore the Catholic faith together, we met a lot of other young couples in our parish.  It helped us to really feel like we were a part of the parish community.

One interesting detail that was looming in our minds as Hubby G went through the RCIA program- the day of his confirmation (the Easter vigil) was also my due date.  So I was actually praying that our little guy would be at least a day later than expected so that we would actually be able to celebrate Hubby G's confirmation.  And you know, actually be present for it!

God heard my prayers and despite the church being 1,000 degrees on the evening of the vigil, I did not go into labor and Baby C waited until the day after Easter to make his debut.

After we took a little time to get into the groove of being new parents, we had C's baptism at the end of August.  In combination with the baptism, Hubby G and I also got our marriage convalidated!  Basically that means we made it even more official Catholic-wise since we didn't have a Catholic wedding.  It worked out perfectly because the godparents that we chose for C had also been our maid of honor and best man in our wedding, so it was a nice little way to tie everything together.

Hubby G and I are really enjoying getting more involved in our parish.  Hubby G has joined the Knights of Columbus (he's a 3rd Degree Knight!), we helped to deliver a Christmas dinner and gifts to a family in need over the holidays, and I recently attended a brainstorming session for a Young Adult Ministry group.  To give you an idea of the fun things that are hopefully in store for this Young Adult group: they're planning a coffee social/discussion group and calling it "He Brews" har har har.  I love it!

It's interesting because our church is really active especially in a lot of youth ministry because of the area we live.  The Christian Reformed Church is HUGE in our area (no joke, there are at least 4 large reformed churches within 5 miles of our house) and because they have a lot of really engaging and active youth ministry programs, our Catholic church does the same in order to provide the same level of programming.  I don't necessarily want to say that our church has to do this to stay competitive, but to a degree that is completely true.  To me, it's just a great motivator to have phenomenal programming at our church, and that's definitely something I'm on board with!