I am pretty certain that I'm going to go part time starting in February. I'll be teaching one fewer classes and will make 1/6 less money but have full benefits, which shouldn't be a problem for us. The debate is about what to do next year. For the first two weeks back at work I seriously thought the only option that I'd be happy with would be to sell our house (it's going to be too small for us pretty soon anyway) and rent something cheaper for 3-5 years so that I can quit teaching for that time. Then once the kiddos are off to school (or preschool) I'd go back to teaching and we'd buy a house.
This week I started thinking about getting back to work in 3-5 years and trying to work my way back up to Calculus wherever I end up. Teaching wouldn't be the same for me if I couldn't teach Calculus. This got me thinking that maybe I should continue teaching 2-3classes while the babies grow up, not quit working completely. We would have to pay a portion of our health benefits but I think it would be very expensive to insure all of us through Dan's job anyway and the health benefits through my job are very good.
So I'm torn. I think that being part time in the Spring will help me decide. I'll also have to find out how expensive benefits would be if I taught fewer classes. I think talking to a real estate agent is a good idea, also. I don't even know if we could sell our house for enough to pay our mortgage, let alone get our down payment back. And it would be nice to know if the agent thought we'd be able to sell for more sometime in the near future or not. If we'd have to stay here for five more years before we could sell what we bought for, I'd know that we're not going to be able to make our money back because we can't live here that long with two kids. I know, I keep mentioning kids in plural. No, I don't have something to tell you. But we do hope to have a second in the not so distant future.
Alright, onto what you're here for. Nate is developing so quickly! And he seems to be growing before my eyes. I'm still producing less milk but today seemed like it was a bit better than any day in the last week. I've been sad about needing to give him a bottle before bed but the other night he started rubbing my arm while he was eating. I sat with my cheek on the top of his head and felt almost the same bond that I feel while he's breastfeeding. Today I was having a similar experience; he was rubbing my arm with one hand and holding onto my thumb with the other, I had my cheek on the top of his head. He fell asleep and I moved him to my shoulder, then all of a sudden he let out a huge burp! I had a difficult time containing the laugh that I wanted to let out.
Liana, our daycare provider, told me on Wednesday that she thinks Nate's teething. Today he was doing some weird things in what seemed to be desperation to get something into his mouth to chew on. He's been chewing on his thumb and anything else he can get into his mouth for a couple weeks. Wish me luck and little pain for Nate!
Nate has also taken on a huge interest in food lately. Today Dan picked up bagel sandwiches for us after my run this morning and we sat at the table together, Nate was sitting in my lap. Every single time I lifted either the sandwich or the Chai tea I got to my mouth, Nate followed it not just with his eyes but completely moved his head to follow the food into my mouth. That's one of the signs that he's ready for solids. He hasn't seemed hungrier though, which was the main thing that our doctor wants us to wait for. If the timing works out, I'm thinking that we'll introduce cereal in the morning over my three day Veteran's day weekend, do that for about 5 days, then introduce cereal before bed for about 5 days, and then Nate will get to have his first vegetable during the week of Thanksgiving! (Our doctor was very specific about how she wants us to introduce solids. I know people do it all different ways but I'm going to try to follow her advice.) I am very excited about introducing solids and need to get a high chair or booster seat. I'm planning on making his food and am really looking forward to that, too.
I really need to get serious about training for the half marathon on Super Bowl Sunday. I'm only running 3.5 miles once a week. Two weeks ago I was planning on adding a run on Wednesday or Thursday in the evening after Nate went to bed but the first week was when we had the heat wave (it was 85 at 8 pm) and last week I was waking up every three hours to pump so there was no way I was doing anything physical. I am also trying to get back into the swing of things with preparing meals. I have been making easy meals and a couple slow cooker meals but am still heating up a couple prepared or freezer meals from Trader Joe's per week. I'd like to cut those out to cut our grocery bill.
I've figured out that I can't keep up with pumping every three hours at night while working and have decided that I'll wake up at most once a night to pump. If my supply continues to diminish, we'll use the milk that we have in the freezer and then supplement with formula. My goal had been to breastfeed exclusively for 6 months but about a month and a half ago I decided that I'd like to try to do it longer than that. Now with the way my body is responding to going back to work, I'm hoping I can make it 6 months and am disappointed that I might not get to choose when I stop.
Alright, I'm pretty sleepy and need to get to bed. I wasn't able to blog last night because I was exhausted from waking up every three hours all week!
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