Making Adjustments

Well, we've had a quite a week here! On Monday, I started watching a little boy, Baby T. He's such a sweetheart, and it's fun to have an infant around again! Exhausting, but fun. :)

Amy has been...ok, as far as her treatment of Baby T goes (no, hitting, pushing, or anything harsh), but she's having a really hard time getting used to her mommy being needed by someone else. If I'm holding him, she tries to squeeze onto my lap and wants me to read a book. If he's playing on the floor, she puts herself in between me and Baby T, making sure that she's the one closest to me. She's really hard to deal with if I need to leave the house in the afternoon after baby T goes home, and is resisting at bedtime.

Besides taking care of Baby T, I've been working on a project for a former employer in the evenings...some extra office work he needs done. So, 4 nights out of the week, I'm leaving before the bedtime routine begins so that I can get a couple hours in without getting home too late. George says it's not going well after I leave.

As much as I know I can't coddle her, and how much this extra income means to our family, and our future, I'm really struggling with Mommy Guilt. Where I would have been firm before, I find myself wanting to give in.

I know her reactions are normal, and I know mine are too, but I also know that she'll adjust, and in the meantime...I still have to be the mommy who maintains a level of firmness that I know will be beneficial down the road. God, give me the strength to be a good mommy, even if that sometimes means having to be resistant to the guilt.

It's just hard to see her trying to process the "why" of the new situation, while not having the reasoning to understand it.

I'm going to start watching another 14-month-old on Monday...(we'll call her S. She and Amy are 4 days apart!), and she and Amy seemed to mesh when we met her and her mom yesterday. I'm hoping it will help Amy to have another kiddo her age to interact with, and not just Baby T to compete with. We'll see.

In other news, George will have to go to Minneapolis (again) in a couple weeks, this time for some additional training for his job. Since his company is merging with another, there have been a lot of adjustments, and we haven't been totally convinced that he'd be keeping his job after the end of the year, despite reassurances to the contrary.
So, as much as I hate that he'll be gone for three days, I'm encouraged, because it seems like it'd be silly to spend all that money flying all the techs around the country up to Minneapolis, putting them up, and training them if they were going to lose their jobs.
So, hopefully that's a good sign.

That's it from here! Have a great weekend! I, for one, am looking forward to sleeping in!