I've said this before at other times in my life but it is true once again: time seems to be flying by and standing still all at once. I am so grateful that I am privileged enough that I could quit my job and not have to go back to work after 8 weeks of maternity leave. That would have meant that I would be back to work already! I can't imagine working right now. Isla is still so little and I am loving having her precious baby snuggles. I love being with her but at the same time, the weekdays are long as I try to balance caring for both girls and attending to mundane tasks like cleaning and laundry. In the moments where Isla is screaming due to gas pain and Emery has been whining all day due to lack of attention, boredom and/or feeling under the weather due to the neverending colds she keeps getting, I feel like I am going to go crazy. But even in those moments, it is still so much easier than things were post-partum with Emery because Eric is here. He's right there in his office if I ever need him to just take the baby for a moment or try to get Emery to do her works so I can shower. It makes things so much easier for me and I am SO grateful for it. I've been reflecting lately on how I don't want to miss things with my kids. They're only little like this for such a short time. I have the whole rest of my life to work and pursue my own pursuits. But at the same time, I'm not sure I would really be happy committing to being a SAHM full time. But this is definitely the closest I've come to really considering it. I've quit my job already, I could just not go back for a while. It would mean a complete lifestyle switch for our family. We would definitely need to find a cheap but worthwhile preschool for Emery. And I would need to "find my tribe" of other SAHM friends. Maybe join a workout group for moms. Start going to storytime regularly. Trade babysitting so I could help out at Levi's school. Things I wouldn't have time for if I'm working even part-time. I guess I'm just wondering if two weekdays a week is enough with my girls. Especially when one of those days is pretty well eaten up by laundry? When Levi was a baby, I had to start working. I had my PT license but hadn't started working as a PT at all. And at that time, Eric was struggling to find work so I especially needed to work. Then, when Emery was born, I had just gotten my foot in the door in pediatric PT and felt that I really needed to stick with it to build my resume in pediatrics so that I could hopefully one day have a job like the one I have (had) now. And with her, I was only working 2 days a week. Now, I love my job. It's what I want to do in PT. But do I want to do it now? Or I do I want to hit pause for a longer while and see what it's like for our family if I'm here more to experiment with healthy meals and make homemade gummies with Emery and do more crafts and stuff. It would mean a lifestyle change for us financially- especially because of the loss of health insurance for me and the kids that we currently get through my work. There's a lot to think and pray on.
Meanwhile, we are forging ahead as though I am going back to work in January. I did reapply for my job and put my available start date as January 17th. And we are looking for a nanny for Isla so that we can do a nanny share with the Gordons in our ward. Their daughter, Alice is 8 months old and they said the girls could be watched at their house. So we figure that would be better from a germs perspective and also allow Isla more one-on-one attention than she would get at a daycare. I just hope and pray we can find the right person to nanny for us!
Anyway, while all this pondering has been going on in my head and my heart, life keeps flying by. November seemed to pass in a blur and suddenly it was Isla's blessing day with my family in town to visit! I am sooo glad Katie and Kendall could come, even if it was only for two days, and meet baby Isla. I wish, as always, we lived closer together.
My parents got to stay with us through Thanksgiving. We enjoyed big family Thanksgiving dinner out at the ranch which was soo nice and also had fun decorating gingerbread houses and going to the McKinney tree lighting downtown.
Since Thanksgiving, our family has been busy doing the Christmas things! Decorating, advent calendar, shopping for gifts, making and dropping off treats for friends and neighbors, sending Christmas cards, etc. Eric took Levi and Emery to a live drive-by nativity last night that was apparently pretty cool. I tried to go with but it was Miss Isla's bedtime and she is not a fan of riding in the car so...Eric and I decided everyone would have a better time if I stayed home with her instead of subjecting all of us to constant screaming.
I wish that in the midst of all this, we could be as social as we want to be but in a cruel irony of trying to avoid germs and grappling with the effects of germs we already have, we have had to cancel or choose not to attend several things with friends. In November, Levi brought a cold home from school that all of us got (including poor baby Isla- thankfully it was mild for her!) but in Emery it caused a double ear infection which was resistant to the first round of antibiotics so we had to go with a second, different antibiotic. Then, Emery came down with a mild fever and hives all over her body which still have not fully cleared up over a week later. Now, Emery has ANOTHER cold and runny nose and I managed to develop what I'm pretty sure was mastitis which gave me an awful fever with chills and sweats and body aches and extreme fatigue for a couple days last week. Oh, and Eric's cough from the cold in November never really cleared up so he's still dealing with that. It's all very lame and I just wish that all my efforts for us to avoid getting sick would start working a little better! But even though we're struggling to stay healthy, life is still pretty darn good over here in the Martino house. I mean, check out these smiles:
