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| That's me! |
So I'll hit on the highlights (and lowlights) of each and try to be better next week.
***Side Note*** As a follower of blogs myself I hate when my favorite bloggers aren't consistent. Though I doubt I can count myself among anyone's favorite bloggers (yet? or is that wishful thinking?), consistency is still important. ***End of Side Note***
Work
As previously mentioned, I'm going to be vague about my nanny job for the privacy of the family I am working for. This was my first full week, and it was a doozy. The girls don't start school until September, and so they are home all day long. This means my days are about 10-11 hours (once school starts I'll have a 4-5 hour break in the middle of the day). They needed me for a bit yesterday, so I did get to go home early on Wednesday and Thursday, which was awesome since I had errands I needed to run and a dog I needed to rescue from our bathroom (more later on the dog).
Going from working 0 hours a day for 5 months to 10+ hours a day is not an easy adjustment. And starting any new job is always rough. This combination didn't make for a super week, but I am sure next week will be better.
I do have to say that I didn't realize how difficult nannying would be. I worked at an after school program after college and it was cake compared to this (mmm cake). I can't really pinpoint the reason it's so hard (maybe it really is just the long hours and fact I'm learning as I go?), but I found myself wondering a few times this week how moms and dads (especially stay-at-home parents who are with their kids 24/7) do it. It's not that the girls are bad, they are super cute and very smart, it's just HARD and a lot of responsibility.
I think these feelings depressed me a bit this week too, which probably didn't help the whole adjusting to work thing.
My whole life all I wanted to be was a stay-at-home mom (SAHM for those of you who don't read a lot of mom-blogs). I've been counting down the days until Joe and I can start a family and have worked out budgets so that we can see if having kids at some point when he is still in dental school is even feasible. After this week, I don't mind waiting, and even told him if we had to wait until after dental school I'd be 100% fine with that.
Buster
As I mentioned in my last post, we are having trouble with Buster's separation anxiety. When I came home on Thursday he had pooped in the bathroom and tracked it everywhere. He also covered the main mound with his towel, so after I had cleaned up almost everything and went to move the towel to his bed, I had a nice
He also found something to rub his nose on in the bathroom and injured it further. Also, based on the placement of his toys it looks like he is neither playing with his toys nor laying in his bed. We think he's just crying at the door and jumping up and down in the bathroom (he used to jump up and down at the shelter and Joe found a blood mark on the door pretty high up - we assume from his nose). I mean, seriously, it's like a crime scene every time we come home.
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| Not true, but made me laugh |
Since the bathroom isn't helping and we can't chance him getting poop all over our bed again by leaving him in the bedroom, we decided we are going back to the crate. At least in the crate he doesn't poop, he's safe (if we can figure out how to protect his nose), and he seems to settle down eventually. When we come to get him out he's usually laying there pretty calm.
I also contacted a dog trainer and am going to read some books on separation anxiety. This little pup is costing us a pretty penny, but we love him so much we don't care.
Hmmmm. Wait a minute. I may have had another "aha moment."
I've always been a person who likes dogs, but said I'd never put up with BS from one of my own. I would see people baby their animals and put up with bad habits, etc. Behaviors in another animals would drive me crazy, but Buster doing the exact same things I find cute or, at the very least, easy to forgive.
It must be the same way with children. So even though nannying is tough and scaring me a bit from having kids of my own, I'm sure I'll find that I love them so much that the hard times won't be so hard. It'll just be different.
This actually makes me feel better. Blogging is SOOO therapeutic ;)
Joe
Joe's orientation went well. He's really excited about school starting and more confident than ever that he made the right choice picking Penn.
There were events at night during the week and we attended most of them so we could get to know people. I was EXHAUSTED from work, but went anyway because it's important to start these next 4 years off on the right foot and I was hoping to meet other dental school wives/girlfriends/etc. (which I didn't - wah wah).
It's tough not to have any friends in Philadelphia. The other dental students are very nice and include me in things with Joe. Once school starts, though, it's not like they are going to have free time to be my friend. And if they do have free time, that means Joe will also have free time and I am sure I'll be desperate for some quality 1:1 time with him. I started a Facebook group for significant others of Penn Dental Students, but only one guy has joined it.
Oh, well. At least I have Buster ;)
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