Holy crow, what's going on around here?!

Recently, I've re-entered the working world and find the I have little to no time for anything but school and family. The house is a mess, the dogs are neglected (except Babe) and this formerly organic, eating our veggies from the garden family is instead inhaling take-out or stuff that comes frozen in a bag the majority of the week! What is going on!?

For those of you who don't know, for the past 4 years I have been teaching in a small town about 45 minutes (if you take, and consequently pay for, the toll ways) to an hour and 15 minutes (if you take the other way filled with traffic and extremely long red lights) away from where we live. This year I FINALLY got a job in the town we live in - yay! It is a great district and extremely hard to get into and I have been interviewing with different schools in the area for 2 years! My commute is now 15 minutes (on the days I drop Wade at Grandma M.'s house) or even shorter when I take him to "day-care" across the street. The school is brand-new and B-E-AUTIFUL! It is also in a great area where the parents are supportive and giving- both with supplies for their child's classroom, and with their own time to help out the teacher- WHAT!? I'd never even met the majority of the parents in the previous schools I've worked in, and half of the time it was conferencing with them about what we could do to get their kid's behavior in line. On Meet the Teacher Night this year, I met 17 of my 20 parents and on the first day of school I met the other 2. Talk about another world...

However, it has been quite a whirlwind. I was hired 6 pm the night before Meet the Teacher Night, which in turn was only 5 days before the first day of school. I had my classroom already set up and ready to go, so had to tear it down, box it up, drive it 45 minutes to the new school, hide the boxes in places and put on a smile all in the span of about 10 hours!!! Thankfully I have a great team who have been wonderful in explaining the language of the new district to me (as I missed the "new" teacher orientation- darn) and just being an all around wonderful bunch of teachers to work with!!!

Now, onto the fun stuff... Wade is crawling at full speed. I put him down, turn my back, and he's somewhere else completely. Getting into something I didn't think he could reach. Did I mention he's also pulling up on couches, windowsills, Babe, walls, etc.

He's also trying out more foods. He's decided that babyfood is boring, so he eats pretty much what we eat. Macaroni noodles with spaghetti sauce is a favorite, so are scrambled eggs, cut up fruit and cooked veggies, chicken, mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese and of course his favorite, yogurt.

Cloth diapers are in full swing and going really well. An old high school friend of mine knitted a wool diaper cover (below) for Wade. Apparently after you lanolize (waterproof) it, wool is the best fabric for diapers covers- who knew? It's a little big, but really cute, so I put in an "order" for 2 more!

He's also developing quite the personality. He wants what he wants and usually wants it NOW! If you take it away, it is definately the end of the world. He also lets us know, very politely, when he's awake by gently shaking the rail of his crib. And by gently I mean as hard as he possibly can :)