Lots of changes and excitement this month. We started off the month with a birthday celebration for the Powers Cousins. Alicia went back to work and Tim started his six weeks of paternity leave. Lydia continues to progress in her growth and development. In the middle of the month we all passed around a cold. Tim had it the worst with a high fever one day. Unfortunately, Lydia also caught it toward the end of the month, so we had to deal with a congested unhappy baby for several days and some lack of sleep. We hosted Tim’s co-workers for a party and hangout, it was a nice chance to visit and meet the families. Overall we seem to have stayed pretty busy this month.
Our other big news for this month is that we finalized our childcare plans for 2019. We will be hosting an Au Pair (foreign live-in nanny) starting in January for 12 months. We spent a focused week interviewing and reviewing various candidates and finally chose a lady from central Mexico. We are very excited to have found a good match and look forward to having her join us in January.
Cordelia has been having a bit more emotional difficulty this month. She’s been letting her frustration emotions get the better of her sometimes. But she has been much quicker at recovering so it’s still an improvement. She really desires to be a good kid and loving daughter/sister. There have been several occasions when we’ve needed her help and she has stepped in with a willing heart. Corrie still really enjoys Lydia, picking out her clothes and getting her ready in the mornings. She also has been playing with her during the day and got Lydia to do her second laugh while shaking a jingle bell. Cordelia continues to do great in all her activities. She really enjoys school. She brings home lots of art work and likes making drawings and things for her teacher and friends at school. She is also continuing to do great at AWANA. It has been a really nice opportunity to talk with her more about God during the week as we practice the verses. She also enjoys her ice skating class and was gaining a lot of confidence during her last session, so we signed her up for classes through the end of the year. We’re going to take the opportunity to make that her special time with Tim or Alicia (we’ll trade off) so she gets some focused parent time. At the end of the month we got her a desk just for herself so she has a place to do her art.
Anthony has had lots of moments of disagreeableness this month. He will contrary just for contrary’s sake. Whatever you say, he says the opposite. It can be frustrating dealing with this and we try our best to respond appropriately with love, sometimes better than other times! In spite of his disagreeableness he still is a pretty emotionally sensitive boy and gets sad and upset when bad things happen. Anthony is certainly a follower and often follows Corrie around doing or saying whatever she does/says. He is pretty gentle with Lydia and will give her toys and kisses. He will also let us know when quotshe needs a grown up.quot When we are driving in the car sometimes we listen to worship music and it is very heartwarming to hear him singing along and praising Jesus. While Cordelia is at AWANA, Tim and Alicia have been taking turns having some special time with him, going to playgrounds and then getting a special desert treat.
Lydia reached several more big milestones this month. She started rolling over onto her stomach at the beginning of the month and now at the end of the month she rolls all over with ease. She also started reaching for her toys in the middle of the month, pulling everything into her mouth. She continues to do well sleeping at night and slept through the night until she got her cold. Then she had several bad nights for about a week as she recovered. Due to her getting so good at rolling over we stopped swaddling her at nights the last weekend. The first night was tough with several awake times crying but she’s been figuring it out pretty quickly. Since Alicia went back to work this month Lydia also had to get comfortable drinking from a bottle. She has been doing well with that and it’s been a pretty smooth transition.
Alicia went back to work this month. She eased into it by working half days for the first two weeks before returning full time. It has been a little tight with the feeding schedule to get in a full days work, but she has been productive enough. On her first day back she came to her cube and it was filled with boxes and crates so she couldn’t even get to her desk. Once that got cleared out it was back to work. People had not forgotten about Alicia while she was out and there were several projects lined up for her. She has been back four weeks at the end of the month and already her tasks are starting to increase. It has been good and she enjoys being appreciated and even personally requested for one task. Alicia has been maintaining a good home balance, spending some good family times in the evenings and weekends.
Tim worked at the beginning of the month but then started his six weeks of paternity leave in the middle of the month. While at home he’s been able to enjoy more time with the kids and doing things around the house. While the kids are in preschool he’s been doing some house tasks. He painted and fixed up one of the upstairs rooms for Cordelia and Lydia to move into. It is a pretty big room and required a lot of effort. Alicia took the kids out for a full Friday morning so Tim could finish the painting. Then Cordelia and Anthony got to help move Cordelia’s bed and decorations over into her new room. Tim’s cold in the middle of the month threw off his work-out routine but he’s getting back into it towards the end of the month, taking Strider out for walks and using his gymnast rings in the backyard. Tim has also made some delicious meals this month. For his work friends’ party he smoked 8lb of pulled pork and three racks of ribs. It all turned out amazing. He also made cinnamon rolls for our family, which were super yummy too. Tim has been playing guitar more at church and as a result he’s been playing more during the week too. He’s on the church schedule to play every other Sunday.
We are very blessed and are thankful for so many things God has given us. Alicia’s part time work and Tim’s leave came at just the right time while we were making our Au Pair selection. We were able to spend more time together during that week and make the process go much quicker. We are also appreciative to have Grandparents so close. Grandma was a great help watching the kids during Alicia’s first week back to work.
As we head into November we will be starting the kids in swim class. We also look forward to spending Thanksgiving with the Powers clan. We are also praying for guidance on making family friends and what that actually looks like for us. We are thankful for the friends we are making at church and there are a few families that we are reaching out to as potential families to hang out with.
