New Job = New Things

Ok, so all work and no play make for a very boring environment right? Well I think we have taken that to heart in the Borden house. With 2 incomes it has allowed us to make some very nice upgrades to our happy little home. The first of these was our refrigerator. We have not had a working / functioning ice maker in our fridge for about 3 + years. So our first purchase was a new Stainless Steel French door refrigerator. Is it sad that I was so excited about an appliance for our kitchen? Well once we got one stainless appliance it was the course of natural progression that we would replace the rest of the appliances! In defense all of the appliances in our home are the original from when the house was built so did see some wear and tear. We found a great reseller on Craigslist and he hooked us up with a new dishwasher, over the stove microwave and stove. The stove was delivered today and was the final piece in our partial kitchen make over. I am pleased as punch with everything and even came home from work and cooked dinner. Now that is something that has not happened much since I've started working. My oven is so “neat” and I almost need a degree in engineering to figure out all the knobs and controls. I'm going to have fun figuring it all out. Elyssa loves having ice in the door, she gets glass after glass of ice and keeps dumping it in the dogs bowls. Good thing the dogs like ice!

Eddie is actually home this week. His new job is a travel job again and he was away all last week in Washington DC. The first couple days were really, really hard on Elyssa. She cried and cried for daddy and begged him on the phone to come home. It was not easy on me either. I had to not only get her up, dressed in her uniform and to school over an hour earlier than she is used to but also then drive to work for 9 hours and then drive home to pick her up every evening. I have a new found respect for working single moms. As a stay at home mom I used to think that stay at home moms had the hardest job out there. I ate my words the first week I went back to work! Working parents have it hard as well and I have to think on a whole different level. I almost think it is harder than my life as a stay at home mom. Before Eddie's new job he would get her up ,ready in the morning and take her to school. I would pick her up bring her home, feed her and bath her for bed. We split the responsibility. At that time, I felt like I had “0” me time, and I was exhausted all the time. Now when Eddie is away all week, I do it all....! I am over exhausted and I have to wake my poor baby up at 5:15 am, to get her to school when they open. She is the first one in the building and it is still all dark. I really thought she was going to take it a lot harder , but I think she liked having the teacher all to herself for that time before the other kids showed up. That's my little Elyssa, she is real trooper. I think that from this point forward when Eddie is gone, I'm just going to try to exist and keep us afloat! I really, really miss my days as a stay at home mom sometimes, so any stay at home mom's out there- don't do it! Don't go back to work if you don't have to! Really the grass is not greener. Take it from someone who has now walked on both sides of the grass. I almost desperately want to run back to my old life some days! But I keep reminding myself that this is ultimately good for Elyssa and she does love going to school. We have her in 3 different extra curricular activities. She is taking Tae Kwon Do, Ballet and Jazz class, and a Stretch and Grow class. Yes, they cost extra but it gives her more things to do at school and I don’t have to take her to a class after school with more time I don't ever have! She gets her karate and dance while at school. The academy does have a lot of wonderful classes that she takes part in that are all part of our tuition. She has Spanish immersion class everyday and boy does this kid know her Spanish. She came home one day and started a whole conversation with me in Spanish, I nearly fell off my chair! Amazing what their little minds will absorb. She also has music class and a computer class every week. Once she is starts kindergarten she not only takes Spanish everyday she can choose another language such as French or Arabic. We are really impressed with the school so far.

Well it is almost 10pm and way past this girls bedtime. Last night we were in bed by 8:45...yes, life as a working mom with a 4 year old....

They say change is good right?

Well I think that we in the Borden house have seen our share of change in the past few months for sure. My last post was about the wedding we went to in April, by June I had a new job. Yes , you read that right, I had a job. I really had no intention of going back to work, in fact I was not sure if I ever wanted to go back to work, of course our financial situation had something to do with it as well. Eddie was looking for a new job, but the current economic environment was just not making it easy. So when a friend of mine called and asked me to come back to work with her I had to give it a second thought. She insisted that I email her my resume as soon as possible. This was a Friday evening, on Monday I emailed her my resume to review and unbeknownst to me she had already forwarded my resume to her manager who in turn called me within 15 minutes! I must say I was a bit impressed, for someone who has been out of the work force for over 6 years it was a bit flattering and frightening. Of course my friend Jamie had a lot to do with it , she talked me up, not really sure how since I'd been a college student / stay at home mom for 6 years! Anyway I had 2 interviews within the week and was offered the job the following Monday. To be honest if it had not been such a good offer financially I would have never, ever dreamed of leaving my precious little princess to re- enter the work force. So began my problem....what the heck was I going to do with Elyssa. I explained my situation to the HR person for my new employer and I was able to put off my start date for about 3 weeks. Hopefully long enough to allow me to find suitable care for my precious little Elyssa...

….and then came the tears. I started crying daily at the thoughts of leaving Elyssa. To be honest she was really ok with it. She was actually excited about going to school. Eddie was ok about it, he was not so sure about me going back to work and the fact that we had to leave Elyssa with strangers. I started interviewing a few different day cares every day. I was slowly getting discouraged because everyone I walked into felt so institutionalized. The kids were in one room all day and the kids all seemed out of control. The last place I looked at and yes, it ended up where we placed Elyssa was a new Montessori Academy that I happened to notice while driving by one day. I honestly thought the place would cost way to much just by looking at it and reading about it, but I figured what the heck. I had already decided to raise the bar a bit since looking at some of my other options. I knew I was not going to leave Elyssa anyplace that I did not get that “warm/ fuzzy” feeling. We had our appointment with the Montessori academy on Thursday and by Monday Elyssa was enrolled on her new journey. We were both about to embark on a new adventure. I at that point had 2 more weeks before I was going to start my job. I spent the first week spending everyday doing fun things with her all day long. We did the zoo, spray parks, and play dates. The next week Elyssa started school. I wanted to spend a week breaking her into her new schedule. She was going to be there everyday from about 7:30 when Daddy dropped her off until about 5:20 when I would be able to get her. The first day I dropped her off, I thought my heart was being ripped from my body. I cried all the way home and thought I was doing all the wrong things. I drove home as fast as I could and jumped on my computer, the Academy had online viewing web cams so I was able to watch my little princess all day long. It really did help, but of course I did not get anything done that day at all. So much for free time, I was to busy watching Elyssa Cam! She did wonderfully her first day. I only left her about 6 hours the first day, just enough time for her to get acquainted. I took her a bit earlier the next day and I thought it would get better but I think I cried even more the second day. I have to say I was glad that I had not started work that week and allowed myself the time to adjust to leaving her with strangers. I knew that all to soon these teachers would become more like family to her than teachers just because of the mere amount of time she would spend with them, but for that first week, it was just all to new for both of us. Now, for Elyssa she loved it. She was excited to go everyday and could not stop talking about it all the way home. She would ask if she was able to go back the next day! The week went well and by Friday I was feeling a lot better about starting my own new adventure the following Monday. I started my job on July 5, 2011, and things have never been the same. On the flip side, a little over a month after I started my job, Eddie got a new job. Not just a new job, an incredible new job, that had I just waited a bit longer , would never have had to go back to work. Funny how life works like that, right? We are blessed to be in the situation we are in now. Believe me it is tempting to quit work , but Elyssa is enrolled till July and paid through July of next year so she will be in school anyway. Next year she will be in kindergarten so she will be in school all day anyway , so I will keep working. The Montessori Academy goes to 6th grade, so as long as she likes it and is progressing we see no reason to take her out.

We have all kinds of new things going on right now, but I think this is a good start to the new chapter in our lives...stay tuned for more to come...!

Reflections and Utter Ramblings...

Well Elyssa’s birthday was an utter success! We celebrated it at Bounce Town in Wylie, an establishment I will actually never visit again after that experience but her b-day party went well none the less. Everything we do in life is a learning experience and again that party was a learning experience for us. Aunt Heidi flew in for Elyssa’s birthday again. She has been here for every birthday celebration for Elyssa. Unfortunately we only get to see her once a year so it is always nice to visit. I know we all wished she lived closer to us. I’ve lived so far away from my family for so long; poor Elyssa barely knows them at all. She does recognize my parents in pictures but has not seen them in over a year. My cousin Lisa came to visit also for Elyssa birthday. She actually came the week after and overlapped with Aunt Heidi. It was quite a reunion since Lisa and Heidi had not seen each other in almost 15 years?? Funny how family dynamics work out. Cousin Lisa is actually coming to visit us again! She will be here June 15th to June 27th! She works for Raytheon and is actually coming to the Garland location to work. As a perk, she gets to stay with us and visit while she is here on business. I can’t say that I’m not extremely excited about the upcoming visit, it is so nice to reconnect!
As Elyssa turned 4, I celebrated my 40th birthday in May. Talk about a weird feeling. I am 10 times the age of my beautiful daughter. I will be 54 years old when she graduates from high school…I’ll be 58 when she graduates from college…I’ll be..wait I don’t want to go any further than that…lol, guess I just need to get her through kindergarten and let the rest of it fall into place right? When I look back on my life, it is hard for me to believe that I am 40 with a 4 year old. I guess there are worse places I could be. I now have the next 40 years to look forward to! I’ve thought about creating a “bucket list” of things I would like to accomplish but when I think about it all the things are centered on Elyssa. I have to admit that since I’ve had Elyssa my priorities and things that matter to me have changed so much.
In April over Easter weekend, Elyssa was in my friend Carla’s wedding as an adorable little flower girl. She had so much fun at the wedding. Well I’m not so sure how much she enjoyed the wedding but she really expressed herself at the reception. Our little girl danced the night away with the bride, groom and the bridesmaids! She also made some really sweet friends with some of the kids there as well. She wanted nothing to do with dancing with daddy or mommy; she only wanted to dance with everyone else. It was actually quite comical. The only way we got her off the dance floor to leave for the evening was that they shut the music down! Elyssa is quite the little partier! I can honestly say she did not get that from her mommy, I’m sure that came from daddy!!
Elyssa continues to amaze me with her abilities and words of wisdom. She recently had her first ballet dance recital. To be honest I had no idea what to expect. She was either going to get on that stage and just stand there or she was going to steal the show. To my surprise she did wonderfully and in my own personal biased opinion think she stole the show! It was definitely one of those proud mommy moments where your heart swells and you can’t stop clapping and yelling “whooo hooo!” as she finished her performance. They even awarded trophies to all the little dancers. She was so darn proud of her trophy, she put it beside her bed so she could sleep beside it. She has been attending a preschool class at one of the local city recreation centers and seems to really enjoy herself. It was actually quite humorous, her teacher kept spelling her name incorrectly. Once she spelled it with an “A” and then once with only one “s”. Well little miss smarty pants would not let it go, she kept telling her teacher that her name is spelled “E-l-y-s-s-a”. Her teacher told me each time I picked her up that she was corrected by Elyssa, she got the biggest kick out of it. We are taking a break from the class for the next 6 weeks and will pick it up again in late July.
The swimming pool is open and Elyssa is back to being a little fish again. The first couple times she got in with daddy she was very hesitant to trust her floates, but I got in with her and she finally trusted her own ability and is again floating all around the pool like a pro. Of course she loves the pool so much as soon as she wakes up in the morning she wants to go swimming! Today I told her she can when daddy comes home, to which she answered “mommy that is forever from now!” Yeah, at 4 I guess that does seem like forever doesn’t it?
Well summer is upon us and the new Dallas Zoo membership is bought and the season passes to Six Flags are being used in full force! Hopefully I can find ways to keep Elyssa happy and content this summer. Our only dilemma is she is very sensitive to the hot and is very anxious / angry when she gets too hot. I think this girl needs to get used to the idea that she lives in TX and when it’s hot, it’s really stinking hot!
Until next time….

She is turning 4...

I sit and ask myself where did the time go? I remember the sleepless nights where I was up every 2 hours till she was 2, I remember the colic from 6 weeks to 14 weeks old when all she would do was scream from 6-10:30pm and Eddie was away traveling all the time, I remember the almost 2 months of time spent in the DOC band, I remember the almost 2 years we spent with her in feeding therapy because she would not eat… and now, she is turning 4. She can recognize all her letters, count to 20, recognizes almost all her numbers to 10, can spell her name, spells dad, mom, bible, and happy, knows her address, sings all kinds of songs, knows lots of nursery rhymes and knows all the days of the week and a bunch of things I am sure I’m forgetting. She can ride her tricycle like a pro, runs her scooter up and down the street and is starting to ride her big girl 2 wheel bike with training wheels. She is extremely observant and can give me directions to places we go on a normal basis. She can even tell people how to get to our house by telling them to “turn on Westgate to Georgetown”. She is shy at first but warms up quickly, has a innocent little smile but is quick to correct me when I call and motorcycle a bike. You can’t pull the wool over her eyes, she is quick to tell you just the way it is. I tried to get her to believe the whole idea of Santa this year and she was very insistent with me that “mommy, Santa is just a story” and the Santa at the mall was "just a man dressed up like Santa". She is very inquisitive and learned this year how echoes are created, the laws of inertia and what gravity is. She is always asking why and the definition of new words and the most recent was “dormant”. I sit in wonder all the time trying to figure out where she gets the ideas and words she comes up with. She is a skilled negotiator and will argue with the best of them. She is always coming up with new “deals” for me to agree to and is always insisting that we “shake one it” to seal the deal. She has a beautiful face that I never tire of looking at and twinkly eyes that can melt my heart. She will always be my baby and yes, she is turning 4 in five days...

Trick or Treat?

Ok, so I’ve let some time go by and now my age is showing. Yes, I cannot remember what has been going on so in order to refresh my memory I have to look through pictures since my last post. Yes, I know sad, but a sign of my time. To add insult to injury, I am now suffering from a miserable fall cold/ sinus thing. No fun at all right now for this mommy.
Elyssa is doing great as well. She is in that stage where everything is very “literal”. The other day I was getting her in the car and said “Elyssa we are off like a herd of turtles” and she said “mommy, we can’t be off like turtles, turtles don’t drive, they swim!” and then just yesterday I was telling her my nose was running so much it was going to run away to which she answered “ mommy, your funny, your nose can’t run away it does not have legs” and of course there is always the “good night Elyssa , don’t let the bed bugs bite” and she replies “Mommy, they can’t , the windows are not open!”…aww, the wisdom of a 3 year old! Her reasoning skills have just taken off! I swear she has the reasoning skills of a 12 year old. I cannot make an excuse for anything without her challenging me on it. She corrects me if I say “Dang it” and tells me I’m only allowed to say “Gummit” (this is her version of another colorful metaphor that we allow her to say when she is mad!) She is getting very excited about Christmas and there is no doubt in my mind that this year she knows exactly who Santa Claus is and that he is going to bring her toys if she is good. She has such a compassionate soul. She is always asking me if I am ok if she sees me get hurt, she says she is sorry when she has done something wrong without even being prompted. She will tell me she has made a mess and say she is sorry and helps clean it up. It amazes me how she is blossoming into a beautiful young girl. I just hope that age 13 I am still singing her praises and not trying to sell her to the highest bidder!!
Halloween was a ton of fun for us this year. Because our budget is so tight these days, we found lots and lots of free things and festivals to do. On one evening Elyssa and I went to a festival at a local church. They had 10 different bounce house and games galore for the kids to play. Everything the kids did they got candy for doing. Funny thing is Elyssa was more excited about bouncing and playing games that she almost ignored all the candy. We also went to another pumpkin patch with a friend of ours were she got to pet all kinds of arm animals and jump in the hay. The city we live in also had a community even for Halloween on the Thursday before Halloween called Boo On Ballard. It was quite an event with bounce houses, hay mazes, and candy galore of course. We spent some time there but it was very, very crowed! Trick or treating was quite an even this year. We started out at Aunt Tonia’s house for about an hour of trick or treating and then headed over to our house to hit a few of the neighbors houses. When we got back to our house, Aunt Lisa joined us for from trick or treating as well and Daddy and Keith stayed home to give out candy at our house. Elyssa did not have a long endurance for the house to house thing so we did not go very far or for very long. I think she enjoyed handing out candy at the house just as much as going house to house to get candy. She got so excited when the door bell rang!
Not much is going on here except the excitement of Thanksgiving in the air. I am going to be doing some Thanksgiving crafts with Elyssa, just not sure how creative I can get. We are spending a quiet Thanksgiving at home this year. I think Eddie has to work the day after Thanksgiving (he has not yet found out), and if he doesn’t we are going to probably run out and get in the middle of all the Black Friday madness. We used to do it all the time before Elyssa was born and we actually took her the first year she was born but since then have not. So this year should be an adventure for us all….but that is another story yet to come!

Croquet Anyone...?

Elyssa got a new obsession this week. I say obsession because it seems like when she gets anything new it becomes the one thing we have to do all day long. So now we have jumping on the trampoline and her new croquet set from Aunt Red and her mom. We had a GNO at Aunt Red’s apartment on Monday. She is moving again this weekend and Aunt Lisa, Aunt Tonia and Elyssa and I, all went to help her pack up some of her apartment. While we were there Red pulled out a bag she said her mom got for Elyssa. Well, it was her new Croquet set and let’s just say Elyssa loved it! We played Croquet and jumped all day Tuesday to the point where mommy just had to say no! I love my little girl to death but being Elyssa’s favorite playmate 24/7 is a bit trying some days. On Wednesday we had to take the croquet set with us to Aunt Lisa’s house to play with, so Aunt Lisa got to play croquet as well. I can only imagine just how comical it looked to see Lisa and I playing a child size croquet set in her front yard. Like I said I love my little girl to death and will do anything for her even if it means embarrassing myself and my friends to get it done!

Well Eddie did have Thursday off and Elyssa chose to go to the pumpkin patch. We had so much fun we ended up spending almost 4 hours there enjoying it all. The weather was just perfect, a sunny beautiful day and the temperature was about 74 degrees. We could not have asked for better weather for our day. On the flip side of the beautiful sunny weather, I was not thinking about sunburn! Who worries about sunburn in October?? Well I ended up beet red all over my arms and my neck. Thank goodness Elyssa has Eddies skin and she did not get sunburned at all. I am so glad she was blessed with Eddies skin, I would hate for her to have to deal with pale, fair skinned crap! None the less we had lots of fun. Elyssa ran all through the pumpkins picking out a ton that she wanted. They had about 5 bounce houses, a merry go round and of course a hayride. Believe it or not, the whole event was free! I could not believe how much fun she had on the merry go round. It was quite cute all the little boys were pushing it round and round while the while the little girls enjoyed the ride. They would stop to let the little kids on and off, I was actually surprised how well they all behaved on the darn thing. While we were there we enjoyed a funnel cake and lemonade at one of the many picnic tables they had all set up. Of course Elyssa picked one of the small kid sized tables for us to sit at so we all huddled around it as a family. It was nice getting to spend some time as a family. Eddie has been working a lot and has not been home much these days. He informed me on the drive to the pumpkin patch that he has to work this Sunday 7am-7pm. This would all be great if he were hourly and not salary, but since he is salary it just means less time together.

Today we had a fun play date with our friends Ashley, Jack and Luke. We all took a walk to the park by their house and the kids had fun climbing on rocks and playing on the swings. It is amazing just how much the kids are growing up. It seems like yesterday when Elyssa and Jack were learning how to walk and now they are running, jumping, and riding scooters and bikes. It sure does not take long for them to grow up.

Well we are sitting here watching the Rangers play the Yankees on TV while Elyssa is in her playroom watching “How to Train your Dragon”. Honestly I’ve spent more time watching her movie than the baseball game. Watching Baseball to me is like watching the grass grow, yeah, just about that exciting. Eddie is enraged about it because apparently Texas is not doing as well as he expects them to. It is almost like he feels he could do a better job! O’well, at least he is passionate about something right?

Another year older...

…For daddy that is! Yes, we celebrated Eddie’s birthday this past weekend. His birthday was actually on Friday so while he was at work, Elyssa and I proceeded to make and decorate cupcakes for him. They were red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese icing. Elyssa had a blast making them; she is quite the little cook. She knows how to crack the eggs (I put them in the mix though), she is great at pouring in all the ingredients and she knows how to use my mixer to mix it all together. I love letting her do it, she gets so excited and of course loves to lick the bowls and the spatula when it all done. I took her shirt off for her to lick the bowl this time, last time I had red velvet batter all over her clothes, this time I got just a bit smarter. While the cupcakes were cooling in the freezer we went to Wal-Mart to get some icing and sprinkles to decorate the cupcakes with. If any of you know Elyssa well, you already know that her favorite part of decorating is the sprinkles and true to form the 4 cupcakes she concentrated on were covered with sprinkles! There wasn’t a bare patch of icing anywhere on her creation. In fact we had sprinkles everywhere including the table, her chair, and all over the floor. It was ok though, the cleanup crew (our dogs Nana and Nicole) were there to take care of everything that fell from the table. I even found sprinkles in Nicole’s fur! Elyssa surprised daddy when he got home from work and insisted on putting candles on the cupcakes and making him blow out the candles as soon as he walked through the door. He of course obliged her and she helped him blow them out. That evening Aunt Tonia came over and we all went out to eat at Souper Salad for dinner. Poor daddy was so tired from working so much last week that I’m not so sure he even enjoyed dinner. Eddie has been working a lot lately. In fact last week Elyssa and I barely even saw him. He was leaving for work at 7am and not getting home till almost 9 every night. In fact Thursday night he did not come home at all. He came home at about 3 am Friday morning and went back to work at 8am Friday morning. It was a really long week last week!

Saturday Eddie and I actually got to have a free evening. Aunt Tonia took Elyssa to see “Alpha and Omega” at the movie. Elyssa loved the movie and did wonderfully again in the theater. For our date night Eddie and I went to the Mattel Store and did almost all of Elyssa’s Christmas Shopping. We then went to Home Depot to pick up some salt for the pool, dropped everything off at home and went to dinner. Elyssa and Aunt Tonia were not even done with dinner when Eddie and I were on our way home so we met them at McDonalds. Yeah, I know a “fun and exciting” date night huh? We were home by 9pm!! I guess that all that matters is that we had fun and enjoyed each other’s company. I have to say it was nice to be able to eat a meal and not worry about what someone else was eating and doing!

Because Eddie worked so much last week, he is getting a day off this week. We have decided for him to take Thursday off. He wants to for us to go to the Zoo or go to a Pumpkin patch. We have not decided yet, but the weather is supposed to be just incredible for whatever we decide. I think that Elyssa is pushing for the Zoo, of course with her that could change today. Such is life with a 3 year old…the adventure continues…