. . . and another plan bites the dust.

Jeff isn't going to be a teacher anymore.

Surprised? Anyone?

He started assistant coaching baseball a few weeks ago and I sort of lost my mind about the schedule. Whether it was miscommunication or pure denial or something in-between, I do not know. But what I thought was going to be just games on friday early afternoons and maybe one occasional game during the week is actually games every tuesday, friday, and saturday with a thursday game thrown in here and there. Awesome.

That led to a discussion about coaching as a career in general and time spent away from our family and our kid's activities in the future because he'd be busy with other people's kids. At the same time, Jeff had started looking at the state requirements to get a biology or chemistry endorsement because P.E. teaching positions are few and far between.

So after working a graveyard shift about 2 weeks ago, Jeff came home having decided to go to Physical Therapy School. I am thrilled. He realized that the pre-requisites to get into a Physical Therapy program are very similar to a science endorsement so that's not a big deal. And the more he thought about coaching/teaching the less appealing it became as a career because of the sacrifices he'd have to make on the family level.

He'll apply to physical therapy programs in August and then will start somewhere Summer/Fall 2010. It's a 3 year doctorate program. We're going to cast the application net far and wide and see what happens. I'm excited for him. I know he will be a great physical therapist someday- he already helped my brother when other physical therapists couldn't- and that was just with what he learned in his exercise physiology courses. I also think that day to day he will be more challenged and get to work with people one on one. It was at a physical therapists office that I learned to walk again and regained use of my right arm after our car accident in 94 so I have a lot of respect for the work that they do.

So yay for more school. And yay for moving at least 2 more times in the next 4 years!

Home again.

Elea and I flew home from Omaha yesterday. A nice lady who was returning home after visiting her 10 month old grandson sat next to me in the terminal and then on the plane. That turned out to be a great help because she offered to fill up her bottle, and didn't mind it when Elea started to grab at her buttons, etc. I think people who are willing to risk sitting next to a baby on a plane should get double the good karma points. The flight was okay even though Elea only slept about a half hour. She seemed to enjoy the turbulence almost as much as she enjoyed tearing up the skymall magazine.

I was totally exhausted by the time the plane landed. And it felt like the bones on the front of my face were about to explode. How I have managed to catch 3 colds in 3 months I can't quite figure out. SO annoying. Jeff came to pick me up from the airport since his dad drove me down when we left. Before I could get to him by the baggage claim Elea threw up all over. I managed to catch most of it in my hand- again, thank goodness for the seasoned grandma who was willing to get the wet wipes out of my bag so that I could clean us up. Otherwise, I don't know how I would have held Elea in one arm, a handful of puke in the other, and gotten to the wet wipes in the backpack on my back. Probably I would have just sat down and cried for a few minutes. But I would be lying if I said that I wasn't proud of my increased tolerance for all things disgusting and mucus/vomit related-- 8 months ago, Elea wouldn't have been the only one throwing up. Needless to say when I finally made it to baggage claim I was very happy to see Jeff (and very relieved that I wasn't going to have to manuever getting my bag off the luggage carousel while holding Elea)!

Anyway, Elea was zonked by the time we got home and this morning when she woke up she was looking around sort of confused. But I pulled out her toys and she's managed to hurt herself twice on the drawers in the family room already so I think she's figured out that she is home. She's pulling herself up on anything she can get her hands on now- which she wasn't doing 10 days ago, so I am going to be baby proofing starting immediately. Whooppeee!

Visiting Omaha.

Jeff had baseball tournaments last weekend and this weekend so he sent me and Elea to Omaha to visit my sister. Smart move on his part because otherwise he'd have to deal with me complaining about him being gone so much coaching!

A week or so ago Elea cut her first tooth. And then the next day the one right next to it. They are the two bottom center teeth. They're coming in pretty fast- very cute. Too bad that she can't handle anything with any sort of texture or substance to it without throwing up all over otherwise she could actually use them.

Today was her first trip to the zoo. Unfortunately it wasn't my best "mommy" day because when we were leaving I realized that my camera battery was dead. Whoops.

I have discovered that she sleeps magnificently in a really dark room. Tricia, I don't know how many times you suggested that and I didn't think it would make a big difference, so I never tried to black it out completely. The first thing I am going to do when I get home is cover her window (as classily as possible) with tin foil! I am a big fan of one 2-3 hour nap a day. Big fan.

Here are some pictures of Elea and her untwin Lexi (Angie's little girl who is about 6 weeks younger than Elea).

Crawling!

Yesterday I pulled out my camera so that I could take a picture of Elea's latest signature move. If you've ever done yoga, it's very similar to the "downward dog" position. However, Elea has learned in her few short months that if a camera is out you should stare at it and get to it as fast as possible. Well, it just so happens that getting to the camera as fast as possible required crawling on hands and knees- not staying in one place doing her yoga pose. So I spent the next 20 minutes racing around the room trying to get her to crawl one way while I took pictures from the other way. It sort of worked.


Later, I was able to distract her long enough to get the yoga pose saved for posterity as well. If I had known that she would start legitimately crawling when I pulled out the camera, I would have done that a week ago when my mom was here!

Sharin' the germs and other fun tales

Elea and I have been passing some sort of cold back and forth all of 2009. Sadly for her, it's more often her than me. Maybe it's allergies. Who knows. What I do know is that I am about sick of blowing my nose and wiping/ sucking out hers. She seemed better for about 4 days and now she's back to the wheezing, coughing, snotting, etc. yummy.

Her latest cool trick is that if she starts to cough really hard or if we put something in her mouth that she doesn't like or if it is too thick she coughs/gags twice and then throws up. All over. This isn't just like the little baby spit up anymore folks. This is the wretching, launching, gallon-challenge-esk style vomitting- out her nose and everything. I feel bad for her when it happens because it's not like she does it on purpose, although she usually ends up getting an extra bath that day, which she loves, so maybe for her it's worth the trade-off.

I think she may be teething again too. Her bottom gums are huge right now, and I swear I can see two little teeth under there. But who knows- I may just be making things up. I don't know if all kids hate orajel or this is unique to Elea, but she getsTICKED when I put it on. I tried it a couple of weeks ago and she got mad, but I didn't know if it was because of the orajel or that I was sticking my finger in her mouth uninvited. So since she has been so ornery today and constantly sliming everything she can get her mouth on I figured it was worth a shot again just in case. Yeah that didn't go over too well. She got so mad. So maybe she is like her mother and hates being numb. When I fed her a bottle later I realized she was drooling so bad that it was pooling in her neck crease. Reminded me of trips home from the dentist as a kid. I swear my mom stopped at wendy and got us frosty's just because she thought it was hilarious to watch us try to eat them with half of our face numb.