Mixed emotions

Ah so, another 2 weeks has flown by since my last post! I guess I have had other things keeping me occupied and haven't had much time to sit and type a coherent message. I can hardly believe it's been 6 weeks since Cameron became ours forever, how fast the time flies by! He's still doing great and definitely feels at home here with us. In fact I'm pretty sure he's figured out that he rules this household now! Ok, maybe not entirely, but of course so much of what we do revolves around him and his schedule now! Which is what happens when you have a baby I suspect, regardless of how that baby came into your life!

So I now have 2 weeks left before I go back to work and I'm having all kinds of mixed emotions about going back. I have always said I would go back to work, it really isn't financially an option for me to stay home. And if I'm being truly honest, I don't think being a SAHM is for me. I truly respect women who do stay home with their kids, it is definitely a full time job and takes a lot of patience and I would think creativity to keep the kids happy without losing your mind in the process! But for me, I think it would be too much to stay home full time. In all honesty I'm sort of looking forward to getting back to it...my mind feels kind of mushy from all the baby talk and playing and Sesame Street...but at the same time I feel guilty for leaving this sweet little boy who has come to trust and depend on me as his mommy. We do have a wonderful daycare lined up for him, one which I know he will like and I feel very confident in the facility and the staff there. I think he'll do fine and while those first couple days of separation will be the worst for both of us, I'm sure he will enjoy it. He loves being around other kids so this will be a good change from being with me and the dogs and cats all day! And my husband works goofy retail hours so he'll only be there 3-4 days a week and not full time, so that's a definite plus.

But still...people around me seem to be making me feel so guilty lately! I know they don't mean to but they do. I have had so many friends and aquantances ask me how I feel about going back to work soon and commenting on how hard that will be and asking me if I've ever considered staying home or working part time or whatever. I feel like saying to them, "What? No I never even THOUGHT about it, I'm so glad you gave me the idea! What the hell was I thinking?!" Of course I thought about it, long and hard, and I'm going back to work, does that make me a bad mother? I hope not. Any words of wisdom from working Mom's out there? How do you juggle career and family and not feel like you're coming up short on one end or the other? All I can do is give it a shot and see how it goes, right? Thank goodness for 2 more weeks!

I'm still here...

Wow, it's been a long time since I wrote anything...what a slacker! It's been a busy couple of weeks and time is flying by! I can't believe it's been 4 weeks since Cameron was placed in our arms forever! What a wonderful 4 weeks it has been!

Our little guy is still doing great and he seems very well adjusted and happy in his new home. Mommy and Daddy are adjusting as well, and I think we're finally feeling like a real family and I don't have as much anxiety that someone is going to take him away from us anymore. The boy's schedule is still all over the place but we're working on it. Some days he takes 2 good naps and other days hardly at all...and naptimes and bedtimes are a little sporadic. The worst part is getting him to go to sleep at night because we've gotten to this point where he can't/won't go to sleep unless I rock him and then lay him in his crib after he's fallen asleep in my arms. If we just lay him down awake he cries bloody murder and won't settle down until I pick him up again! I know he didn't do this for his foster mother...she said he would just fuss a little then fall asleep but when we were in Guatemala with him he wouldn't sleep unless I rocked him and now it's just carried over to home...I think we have created a monster! And I've been so worried about letting him "cry it out" because I didn't want him to feel abandoned by his new parents, but now that it's been a month we're feeling like he should be confident enough that we aren't going to leave him and we're working on getting him to go to sleep by himself. Naptimes are not as much of an issue for some reason, it's just a night that he's needing this so we're letting him cry a little at night and working up to *hopefully* him eventually falling asleep with just a little fussing at night. Wish us luck...listening to him cry is tough stuff!

Other than the sleeping thing, which to me given the circumstances is very minor, he's doing so wonderfully! He's getting more and more mobile all the time, he's scooting around a lot more and loves to stand up while being held by us or holding on to furniture. Yesterday he started trying to pull himself up on the coffee table too and he can almost do it by himself! It won't be long and he'll be getting into everything! We've got to finish childproofing the house ASAP!

Also, he went to the doctor last week who said developmentally he's right on target and is doing all the right things and making all the right sounds for his age. He's a little small compared to the stander US charts, but she charted his growth based on his check-ups in Guatemala and said he's growing at a good rate so he's doing fine and may just be a little smaller which we knew anyway. She ran tons of tests just to screen him for a million different things and since we haven't heard anything we're assuming all was ok. We'll get the results soon but she said she would call only if here was a problem. So no news must be good news, and overall he's a healthy little boy and doing great! Yay!

Anyway, that's all for today and I'll leave you with a few more pictures!

First we became buds with the kitty...now Puppy Molly is our good friend too!










I bet this "baby boat" will be more fun in Grandma's pool...but it's also fun in the living room!










Standing is fun...but I can't wait to get these legs moving!

What do you mean this isn't it's intended purpose?