15 Month Appointment

This morning my day started at 5:45am.  I guess the DST effect was temporary for Ian. I gave the kids baths and did a little housework before we left for Ian's 9:35 doctor appointment and Nadia's 10:45 gymnastics class. One of the tasks on today's list was to clean the utility room - ours is just a closet in the kitchen so it didn't take very long to clean and organize in there. I also was to dust three of the bedrooms. Dusting the master bedroom was on last week's list. Dusting the kids' rooms didn't take too long, but Paul's office was another story. That room hadn't been dusted in forever.

Ian weighed in at 22.5 lbs (22nd percentile compared to 23rd at 12 months) and measured 30 inches long (18th percentile compared to 33rd at 12 months) with a head circumference of 47cm (45th percentile compared to 81st at 12 months). The doctor was pleased. He questioned having the skin test done. He said we could have a blood test done at their office and that a skin test isn't accurate at his age. I meant to talk about Ian's struggles to nap (the OT thinks he has restless leg syndrome), but I forgot. It's hard to remember everything when you're watching 2 toddlers in an exam room. The doctor showed Nadia some VeggieTale silly songs on his phone, which she loved! Ian got 2 shots, and Nadia got a sticker. That didn't seem very fair, but he's not into lollipops yet. He did eat a whole container of fruit for me at lunch today. Yesterday evening he threw up on a Puff, but he noshed on a cheese curl and graham cracker today (albeit very little went down his throat). They weren't concerned that he's not walking, and they didn't even ask me about his vocabulary (which seems delayed to me).

Yesterday morning on our small group's prayer list, I asked for courage to follow through with resigning. I felt the Lord was leading me that way, but I was having a hard time following through. After a discussion with Paul last night, I decided to ask Charles if I could teach 2 online courses. He wrote back this morning and said yes!! This seems like the perfect compromise. I won't be spending as much time on the road and when I do my work will be more flexible than if I was teaching on campus. I can still eat dinner with my kids, and it will be easier to find a babysitter because it could be a teenager (whereas before I was leaving at 2:50 - before the school bus dropped them off). It won't be hard to find someone (like Paul's parents) to come one Friday afternoon a month for faculty meeting.

I do know from experience that I'll want a little bit of babysitting help (while I'm at home) so that I can keep up with the grading. Another perk is the class size for online courses is MUCH less than face-to-face ones. A lot of the work for teaching online is put into setting it up. I've taught this course before (although not in several years), but I've never taught it online before. I saw that they are searching for an adjunct to teach this same online course this summer, so I asked my chair if I could also teach it this summer. If I'm going to invest the time in setting up a new online course, I'd like to teach it more than once. I didn't get his response yet to that request or exactly what my schedule will be this fall, but I did submit my request today to the Dean and Provost for a 50% reduction of my workload for the fall (childrearing leave) in light of Ian's medical issues. Hopefully I've made the right decision. I definitely want to be a SAHM at some point, but for financial reasons I'm going to work part-time at least one more semester. I am grateful that I'll be working from home most of the time. I'm going to have to give up some of the hobbies that I've had time for again lately (such as reading), but I'm planning to continue singing in the choir and attending ladies Bible study on Tuesday mornings. I am going to buy a laptop or netbook in the near future because I really need a computer with a built-in webcam for teaching an online course. Also, the amount of time I need to spend on the computer is going to increase (starting in the near future as I'd rather work a little bit at a time rather than trying to get it all together in a short amount of time). I'm going to have to go back to being on the computer some when I'm with the kids, and that's not possible if I'm using Paul's desktop.