One of these days

I have told myself countless times that anxiety and worry don't help one iota, and they certainly increase my stress level. Will I ever truly learn this lesson? I have really been trying not to worry about Paul's job search. I keep reminding myself that God is in control. Our neighbor told Paul last week that he accepted a job offer at a local hospital. He will start the job when he completes his degree in nursing in a few weeks. Paul feels like he made the wrong choice when he decided to pursue a Ph.D. in chemistry. We've been submitting applications for five months now. At one point we thought he'd start a new job in January. Now we've been praying for a job in his field by August. He's applied for 43 jobs so far, and 21 of those appear to be still active. If he applies for the local temporary job, that would be application number 44. We would rank that one above seven of the active ones and below the other fourteen. Part of me really, really wants the suspense to be over, but I'd rather be in suspense longer if it means ending up at the place best suited for our whole family.

The last few weeks I've been frustrated over Nadia's soccer situation. Before I signed her up, I asked when the practices were to be sure it wouldn't conflict with Cubbies or ballet/tap. The administrator told me it wouldn't be a problem, but then when the coach called me 4 weeks ago she told me the practices were on Wednesdays at 5:30, which would not work with Cubbies. The administrator emailed me on March 4 to tell me she was switching Nadia to a team that practiced on Mondays and that she'd let me know the details within two days. I actually had to wait 21 days to find out, which means she missed at least one practice. I definitely was frustrated at her lack of returning my weekly phone call and email. She finally called me back today, and I found out that a man from our church will be her coach on Thursday nights. What a relief! I assumed I wouldn't know her coach or anyone on the team. It seems like it all worked out for the best, and my getting worked up about it over the past few weeks did not help at all. I'm trying to keep this in mind the next time I feel myself getting anxious about the job search. Easier said than done.

Oliver has been waking up around 4:30am every morning for quite a few days in a row. I do not like waking up at that hour because by the time I put him back down it's 5:30am (or later), and I have the hardest time going back to sleep even though I feel tired. If he wakes up at say 3:00am, I have a much easier time going back to sleep at 4:00am. Yesterday afternoon we went to see Puss 'n Boots. Because of church in the morning and our trip to the theatre in the afternoon, Oliver had three very tiny naps (around 20 minutes each). I decided to put him to bed earlier than usual because of the sleep he lost and also in the hopes that then he might wake up earlier in the night. Even though I put him down at 7:30pm, he still woke up at 4:30am. Thankfully I was exhausted enough that I slept for another hour after I got him back down. I really don't like for  my day to start at 4:30 every morning. Putting him down earlier did result in him getting more sleep than usual. Lately he's been sleeping for 10 hours total (sleeps 8 hours, is up for one hour, and then sleeps 2 more hours). Last night he slept for 9 hours, was up for 40 minutes, and then slept for another 2 hours and 50 minutes, which meant he slept almost 12 hours total! There was a time when Nadia was young that she regularly slept 12 hours a night, but that was never a norm with Ian. The longest we have gotten him to sleep (with any sort of regularity) has been 11 hours. Oliver's cough has gone away (thankfully!) so if he keeps waking up at 4:30 I am going to have to let him cry it out at some point because I know he could sleep 10-11 hours straight at night because he did it for more than 2 months a few months ago.