Penning Our Story: Where Did September Go?

\I've been gone from the blog for a month or so. September was crazy busy around here, which is odd because it is usually a chill month. I'll do a bit of a recap I suppose.

Labor Day (yes it's been that long since I blogged!) was pretty fun. We went shooting with some friends. My girls even got brave and shot a little survival rifle after seeing their friend do it. Later that afternoon we went swimming at the rec center on their last open day of the summer. It wasn't actually very warm but we had fun anyway.

At the beginning of the month Eleanor started feeling sick. Low fever, whiny. I assumed that since I had strep a few weeks prior that she had the same thing. We took her to a doctor and he said her throat looked "really strep-y" and even though her rapid strep test came back negative, he put her on antibiotics because he thought the strep culture would come back positive. A couple days later Lia had the same symptoms. I could tell her fever was high but she was eating and drinking and acting normal, so we decided to wait to take her in to see a doctor. Her fever was around 101 that afternoon. We took her to the instacare that evening and thought it would go the same as Eleanor's visit two days before. To our great surprise, Lia's fever was 105.6. They send us immediately downstairs to the ER where they took most of her clothes off, gave her ibuprofen and aspirin and wet rags for her forehead. Her fever went down quickly but they had to put an IV in her hand to draw blood. She was really upset and cried quite a bit, but I was proud of her for being so brave. It was pretty scary for a three-year-old but she calmed down and did great. They assumed she had some kind of infection for her fever to get so high, but after a follow-up visit a couple days later they decided that even though her throat and Enna's looked just like strep, it wasn't actually strep, just a nasty virus. Which was a bummer because it meant antibiotics weren't going to help, so for three days we endured both girls not eating and constantly crying that their throats hurt. Thank goodness for popsicles.

I felt like a pretty crappy parent for not realizing my daughter's fever was so dangerously high. My brain knew that it wasn't my fault and we just do the best we can for our kids, but my heart felt guilty and rotten. It was not a fun experience.

The other thing occupying us this month was job searching. We realized we were just not quite making it on Dustin's income alone, and I didn't want him to have to pick up a 2nd job because he is already so stressed and busy with his current job. So I updated my resume and got some references from the school I worked at in Logan and started interviewing at elementary schools nearby. I was looking for something similar to the part-time aide job I had in Logan. I had several interviews and even got some job offers, but finding babysitting for my girls proved almost impossible. Finally I found a part-time opening at a daycare nearby, which sounded ideal since I could bring the girls with me. Finally after much stressing and prayer and talking the ears off my friends (thanks for the advice, you all know who you are!) I accepted a job teaching the kindergarten class at the daycare.

I have worked there two weeks now and it has been much harder than I expected! The first week especially was rough. The girls didn't like being dropped off in their ages and would cry and cry. My class of 5-6 year olds was hard to control and tried to walk all over me because I was new. I ended up having to stay late the first week while I was still getting the hang of cleaning my classroom quickly at the end of the day. My house was a wreck because I wasn't getting home until 7 pm completely exhausted.

The good news is, the second week at my job was much better. My class is accepting me as an authority figure and they are responding to me much better. I'm faster at end-of-the-day cleanup. The girls still cry when they're dropped off, but they stop quickly and warm up to their teachers. I am even getting better at keeping my house clean and getting dinner prepared ahead of time (sometimes).

Going back to work has been harder than I expected. I'm glad we can rely on the Lord to give us inspiration for our families. I do feel like this is the right for our family but it is not easy.

We were able to go to the last demolition derby of the season with just Dustin, the girls and myself. It was actually a lot of fun. It wasn't to crowded so the girls were able to move around a little and weren't whiny. It was nice to spend some time together with our family.

Oh, and I never wrote about the Ogden Temple Open House. August 20th. We took the Young Women for an activity and since we went early in the day, I had to bring my daughters with me. They loved getting to actually go into the temple and the Young Women had fun "babysitting" them throughout the tour. We went out for ice cream afterward. The open house was the same day that my grandpa passed away; in fact my mom called me to tell me the news as I was driving back from the temple. I knew it was likely that he would pass that day, and being at the temple with my girls helped soothe my heart a bit.

Well, I think that's all for now. More posts later this month!