Making adjustments

Ellie turns 3 months old tomorrow.  That, in and of itself, is an adjustment.  She's such a fun little baby girl.  Definitely still very temperamental but hey, at least you never have to guess what she's thinking!  I'm not sure exactly how big she is now but at 2 months she was in the 92nd percentile for weight (13 lb 1 oz) and 96th for length (24+")--these are about the same percentages as her birth percentages, so she's staying on the same track.  I think she's getting it from Melkamu's side of the family.  Naturally, to maintain this rate of growth, she eats all the time still.  She slept through the night on one glorious occasion last week but other than that, she wakes up twice a night or more to nurse.  I don't actually expect her to sleep through the night regularly anytime soon.  During the day, she nurses once almost every hour.  She might go 90 minutes between nursings but somewhere within the 3:00 hour, the 4:00 hour, the 5:00 hour, the...anyway, she's probably eating. 

I'm teaching two online classes and a face-to-face lab class this summer.  It's a huge amount of work but so far it's going OK and I'm keeping up.

The biggest adjustment for us has been Jason's work.  As you know, his job ended in February and he's been looking for a new one ever since.  He got called by a legal temp agency about 2 weeks ago to do a job for most of the summer, which was great...

...except that the job is in South Carolina.  We live in Atlanta.  Atlanta is not in South Carolina.  Atlanta is too far from South Carolina to commute.

This poses several challenges.  First, a normal summer schedule at my college is two classes--the summer semester is only half the length of a normal semester, so there's twice as much work each week as in a normal spring or fall semester.  I took on a third class because Jason wasn't working and it would help us financially.  However, I also arranged these classes so that I could still be home with the kids in case Jason got a job (silly me expected that if he got a job, it would be here).  Hence, I leave to teach my lab two nights a week at 7:30 p.m., when the boys go to bed, and do my online classes whenever I have a free minute, and most other evenings.

So basically, it's worked out like this:  I am currently working 50% more than full-time, while also home full-time with the kids, one of whom is a newborn who doesn't sleep through the night and won't take a bottle.  (Don't ask me how it works to be a full-time SAHM and a full-time WOHM/WAHM at the same time.  There is no answer.)  Jason is renting a room in a house in South Carolina and came home last weekend, but won't be able to come home again for several more weeks because he's expected to work on the weekends.  Which means I am also doing everything around the house that I'd normally do plus everything he normally does.  Like mowing our lawn.  Have you seen our lawn?  It's like mowing a black-diamond ski slope in 95F temperatures.

I miss Jason and his lawn-mowing prowess.

The kids are bearing up as much as possible.  Melkamu says "I miss Daddy" at least 10 times a day.  Patrick will be doing something and say "I have to remember to tell Daddy about this when we talk to him."  We're doing all we can to keep up and keep the house together.

And we really, really miss Jason.  It was such a nice surprise to have him come home last weekend--we didn't know he'd be able to but they apparently got their first weekend off--but know that he won't be able to do it often.  He won't be home for Father's Day weekend, and our 12th anniversary is the next day.  That's particularly hard, knowing he won't be here to celebrate his first Father's Day as a dad of three.

We'll adjust as much as we can, and hope that he's home as soon as possible.