The Totem Pole

Here at work I think the best place to be is some where in the middle.  It’s hard to get to the top.  My boss and his boss have both been here for 25+ years and there are still 2 positions above them just here in the plant, I don’t even want to know how many in the company globally.  I’m OK with this though because around here the people at the top of the pole have just as good of a chance of going as the people at the bottom. 

There was an unexpected meeting called yesterday afternoon by the VP of Engineering.  Engineering includes many different departments, product (my dept), equipment design, manufacturing, facility, etc.  Anyway, on the meeting invite there was no information on what it was for.  My boss realized though that there were names missing from the invite list.  At the meeting all the VP said was that the latest “reduction in work force” affected the Engineering dept in a big way.  From what we can see, we have lost at least 4 people from the engineering departments.  Thankfully my little department of 4 people wasn’t effected.

This has me thinking though.  Every time they let people go, it puts me closer and closer to the bottom of this pole.  Yes in seniority there is one guy below me because he started a year after I started full time, in time served it’s over 2 years, but he has many more year experience than I do, so in reality we are probably even although our expertise are in different areas.

I’m scared to death to think that in the next 6 months they could do this again and I could be one that gets let go… My family can’t handle that right now.  Our bank account can’t handle that right now.  I need to step up my game at work and start shining.  I don’t have much room to move up, but I can prove myself to be a valuable employee! 

Time to re-structure my days, so if you find me not commenting on your blogs as much, it’s not because I don’t want to, I’m just trying to fit it in some where else so I spend less time on the internet at work (shh I don’t do that).

*After writing this, another meeting was held where we were informed that the entire equipment design group was dissolved.  I’m glad to hear that about half of the employees were absorbed by other groups, but scary to think they can just get rid of a group like that.  Can’t wait to hear what our 1pm meeting holds…

A New Sitter.... AKA a long rant

I have been becoming more and more frustrated with Laney’s sitter over the last few weeks.  She is a really nice lady, kids love her, she takes good care of them, but she just doesn’t seem listen to me.  I don’t think she blatantly ignores what I tell her, but I think she just doesn’t get it.

My biggest problem is with her feeding Laney.  She has been watching Laney for 14 weeks now and I have had to tell her to only feed on demand 4 times already.  Really I should have only had to tell her once.  But no, I’m having to tell her like every 3 weeks.

Friday she infuriated me when I learned that she purposely fed Laney at a certain time “so she’d be ready for me”.  Well really no, she wasn’t because she eats so much at your house that she doesn’t want to nurse for 4 hours or more after I pick her up!

After the first time she started constantly drinking 4 bottles at the sitter I looked at the book and realized most times she was finishing a bottle just before I got there at 4.  So I asked for her not to feed her after 3 unless it had been over 2 hours since her last feeding (this was when she was still eating every 2 hours).  The next day she woke Laney up from a nap just to make sure she had her 4^th bottle before 4!  Umm no, feeding on demand means you feed her when she’s hungry and my theory is to never wake a sleeping baby to eat unless they have a medical need for it. *And maybe a few other circumstances that may warrant it, but not just so she has the bottle*

After finding this out I told her, “just feed her on demand, when she’s hungry.  If I am going to be here to get her in the next 20 minutes or so, try holding her off so I can feed her.” *which I have to drive some where to do because she doesn’t think her son would be comfortable with me nursing her there, insert exasperated sigh and huge eye roll*

Anyway, this was working for a while, until last week.  Last Monday I told her that 1 of the 4 bottles I sent was 5oz instead of 4 because I just had some extra so not to worry if Laney didn’t finish it.  I also told her that the whole week I was exclusively nursing she was eating maybe every 3 hours, sometimes 4.  So the rest of the week when writing down what and when Laney ate, she wrote down 5oz for EVERY feeding!  This isn’t a huge deal, but irritates me because it means she wasn’t even looking at the bottles.  On Thursday she said “she really downed those bottles today.” So I told her “well maybe tomorrow I will send all 5oz bottles and maybe they will fill her up more.”  She said to me “You mean they haven’t been?  I thought you’ve been sending 5oz bottles.”  HELLO??? LISTEN!

So Friday after all week she’d been having 4 bottles a day I said “I’m not sure what you are using for hunger cues, but I always wait until she starts to whine at least and shake her head because he thumb doesn’t give her milk.”  Laney is a good self soother and sucks her thumb a lot, plus she’s teething so sucking and chewing are NOT signs of hunger.  That day she also called me at noon saying something was off with Laney and could I come check on her during lunch.  Of course I went and it was nothing more than her normal nightly discontent with whoever holds her sitting and what I think is a belly ache.  I got her to sleep and also called the Dr and made an apt for her cough (whooping cough is going around and her cough hadn’t gotten better in a week) anyway, I told the sitter I’d be back at 3 to get her.  She called me at 2 again and asked me if I wanted her to wake her up and feed her.  Um NO, if she isn’t hungry don’t feed her!  That day was the first day in a long time she slept over a half hour 45 minutes at the sitter.  And guess what, she only ate 1.5 bottles!

And last but not least, yesterday when I picked Laney up, she asked if I sent 5 bottles.  I said no why?   She said “I know I fed her 3 times today, but there is still 2 bottles left in the fridge.”  I knew then that she had only fed her twice because I knew that I had sent 4 bottles.  One was left from the day before and the other 3 were what I had pumped the day before.  I didn’t defrost milk and I never have more than needed any more.  When I got home and looked in her book tough, she had written down that she fed her 3 times.  This irritated the crap out of me.  What is she doing, filling out the book before she even feeds her?  Feeding her on a schedule which I specifically asked her not to do?  This morning I said to her “Did you find any empty bottles last night, if not you must have only fed her twice.”  She said “No, she must have slept through the 12:30 feeding.”  I said that very possible.  On Sunday she ate at 11 and then napped 1 to almost 4 and didn’t eat til after that.  I’m fine if she only eats twice as long as she’s only eating when she’s hungry.”

Today I’m sending out for information from a daycare center…

I hope this made sense, I don't have time to proof read at the moment

Loss

I can't imagine losing one of my girls.  I can't imagine the physical pain my heart would feel, my lungs and just my body overall.  When Lilian was born I had a separation anxiety that literally caused me to have chest pains even if B held her for 5 minutes on the couch next to me.  Thankfully with Delaney this has not been so bad.  While I think about them both all day at work and can't wait for that moment I can pick her up and hug her and the look on Lillian's face when I pull in the driveway, I'm doing ok.

While these days we have IRL (In Real Life) friends and "cyber" friends, I think there is a point in which your "cyber" friends can cross over and become your IRL friends.  I consider the girls I met on the What to Expect boards back in 2007 to be my IRL friends.  We talk at least a few times a week and while it might be on the computer and not over the phone, the conversation is the same, and honestly, probably more "real" than what I would have most of my IRL friends because what we talk about is family, kids, relationships, parenting and more.  These are things I don't really talk to my IRL friends about because they are all at different points when it comes to their families.  I have some that their youngest is a tween and some that aren't even beginning to think about having a family.

The point of this post... My friend Heather lost her 5 month old little boy on Friday.  I posted about Landon's arrival here.  He had a shunt put in his pulmonary artery during his first week of life.  After this surgery he developed NEC, and intestinal infection that is very common in heart babies.  Unfortunately Landon's was not caught before it made a perforation in his intestine.  He had to undergo another surgery to remove this part of his intestine.  During the surgery his heart wasn't doing very well so they gave him a "poop bag" and finished the surgery.  Landon did well with the bag and he was eating and gaining weight and was even home for quite some time.  On Friday he went in to have the "poop bag" removed and his intestine repaired.  After several screenings the doctors had determined he was strong enough for this.  But the doctors were wrong.  Little Landon left this world when his shunt became clogged and he lost oxygen to his body during this surgery.

My heart breaks for Heather and her family.  I can not imagine why such great people who have already been through so much would have to lose such a precious little boy.  A little boy that you would never even know had a problem besides being a little small.  I find myself asking why it happened, how could the doctors have let it happen and more.  And then I think about how I would handle life if it was me.  I honestly can't answer that question and I really don't think anyone can until they've been there.  For Heather and her husband I'm sure that their little girl who is Lillian's age will be what keeps them strong.

Her loss has made me wonder why I'm still working.  Why haven't I opened my shop and worked hard enough at it so I can stay home with my girls.  What can I do to spend more time with them and how can I make that time more enjoyable for all of us.

Please say a prayer for Landon and his family to have the strength to get through this hard time.

Hand Foot Mouth Disease

Lillian doesn't have it yet, but there is a good chance she will :(  Both of the boys at her sitter came down with the rash on their hands yesterday and by this morning they both had sores in their mouths.

Its times like these that show me the down falls of having a stay at home mom for a sitter.  While there are few disadvantages for me, this is a BIG one.  Normally at a day care the child would be sent home and not able to return until better.  Well, when the place is their home, that can't really happen.  From the reading I did quickly this morning, hfmd is a virus (like a cold) and some people carrying it may not even have symptoms while other have symptoms of rashes and fevers and can be contagious for weeks after the symptoms are gone!

I had to make a decision on the fly this morning about taking Lillian to the sitter or keeping her home.  After reading that the kids could be contagious for weeks I decided to take her.  May have been the wrong decision and she may get it, but I can't take a week, let alone weeks off from work.

Now the trouble will be keeping her away from baby sister.  There will be lots of hand washing going on in our house for the next month, that's for sure!

Once.A.Month.Cooking

My original plan for posting today was to put up the pictures from my surprise shower, but to be completely honest I don't feel like getting out of my chair to go get the cord to download the picture and then upload them, so instead I'll tell you about my goal of Once.A.Month.Cooking (OAMC)

This goal I started working while I was off the week between Christmas and New Years.  I found the site OnceAMonthMom and I'm in LOVE!!!  This site has monthly menus for all sorts of diets, including baby food!  Bonus, is that they have made the recipes customizable using Google.Documents!  All you do is type in the number of people you want to make the recipe for and it calculates what you need to make that recipe for that number of people to eat it twice that month!

My first attempt at a cooking day was essentially a failure in the sense that it took me well over one day to do the cooking and I wasn't even making all of the recipes!  I attribute this to several things. . . 1) I should have read the instructions page first and I would have realized they planned all the chopping for the night before.  2) I should have gone out to the shed and found the box my chopper is currently sitting in rather than doing it by hand.  For one meal it's no big deal, but chopping 8.25 cups of onions by hand is very time consuming!  And 3) I'm pregnant!  I have to take more breaks and sit more than the average OAMCooker.

The recipes I have found to be overall yummy.  There are a few things I might change up for my family's taste, but nothing major.  Like using regular 90% lean beef rather than turkey or chicken for some of the recipes.  Only because when my husband saw the turkey he flipped out.  Little does he realize he eats Turkey sausage all the time!  It must be a man thing cause really I can't tell the difference and now I'm stuck eating a whole meatloaf between Lillian and I.  I like meatloaf, but not enough to eat it for lunch and dinner every day!

And can I just say nights are so much more enjoyable not having to figure out what's for dinner!  I portioned everything out and wrote down how many servings of each thing I had.  Then I sat down with my calendar and worked out what nights we are home and what nights we are busy and planned what to eat each night.  Now all I have to do is look at my calendar and I know what's for dinner. 

I won't lie, I'm not looking forward to the shopping and cooking for this month, but I'm so excited to about the recipes in this months menu and not having to figure something out every night that it's sooooo worth it!  Especially with this little girl coming so soon!

30 Days of Thankful - Day 2 and 3

So it hit me this morning that I started this a day behind, surprised? I didn't think so!  So, today I'm going to do 2 and be caught up.

The first thing I'm going to be thankful for is my home.  More specifically, my home that has a working furnace again!  We went a week without a working furnace.  Thankfully we have a space heater that did a great job of keeping us warm.  Especially considering that the day the furnace quit working, this is what the house looked like:

The second thing I'm thankful for today is my job.  This is mostly because at this moment I need to remind myself I need to be thankful for this.  I could have a toddler and a baby on the way and be trying to live on a laborer's pay.  I got to work this morning to find that a worker threw away my samples I need for testing.  Partially my fault because I am behind on submitting the samples for testing, but there are several reasons not to throw away samples!  For Heaven's sake we don't even throw away samples for years after they have been tested!  She said "They were in the way."  Ugh.  But I am grateful to be hear and have to deal with this since it could be a lot worse than just needing to find samples.

Flaws

I have decided to give up on the party, there is just too much crap going on between the day we find out and the weekend we were going to have the party.  I'm very disappointed because this was going to be the only "celebration" for this baby.  It's just been too stressful trying to plan around this and that.  In reality it doesn't really matter to anyone else how they find out the gender of the baby.

There is also a flaw with my Poll, I still want to do the drawing for the hat, but if you want to be entered you also have to leave a comment with your guess because apparently I can't see who votes for what using that poll.  Sorry for that.

Then we have my own flaws, or possibly pregnancy flaws, but either way, I'm going nuts.  I'm already having anxiety attacks over leaving my babies when I have to return to work.  I still HATE leaving Lillian every morning and I know that when this baby gets here I'm going to feel even worse about leaving her because I will have even less one on one time with her.  Moving her to her big girl bed has really hit me hard.  I didn't realize how much the cuddle at night in my bed meant to me until it was gone.  I know that for her own good and mine I can't let her continue to be in the habit of going to bed with mommy, but I miss it.  It makes me cry.  I know it will get better, but these damn hormones make me feel like I'll always feel this way.  I've even wondered if I'm really cut out for this whole Mommy thing.  I mean I know I can raise my children up to be good, decently intelligent adults, but what I don't know is if I can handle the "firsts" and the letting go.  This Big Girl Bed has made me realize how many firsts I have coming, there are so many!!!  Her first day of school, her first time being left alone, her first shower without me in the room... That's just a few, but right now the thought of everyone of them makes me want to cry!

I'm sure it's just hormones, but I just feel like this feeling will never go away...

Hard Work

I got a nice surprise today.  Well, kind of nice.  It is review time at work, a time I generally dread for many reasons.  Today it was a nice surprise to read what my manager had to say about me though.

A little background is that back in 2009 after returning to work from my maternity leave, I found it very hard to get anything done, I couldn't concentrate on my work and I spent way too much time using the companies internet to communicate with fellow mommies.  So much so that my boss and the HR lady called me into a meeting where I broke down crying about how hard it is to be away from my daughter and how depressed I was.  Thanks to my boss, who I've been working for since 2002, I was not fired as he assured HR I was a very capable worker.  We came up with development plan to get me back on track and for the most part it worked.  After only a few month on the plan and meeting weekly to review my project statuses and sign papers for HR saying that I was following my plan and improving my work ability, the meetings started stretching out farther and my boss was complimenting on accomplishing some things and coming up with some great ideas for the group.

Last year's review was positive in the fact that I didn't have to have a special plan and I got a raise again.  I still struggle with my concentration on work and getting certain things done in a timely manner, but I'm working on it.

This year I think I've improved a little maybe.  Nothing drastic, but I work and get things done before the detrimental dead lines.  Which let me note, around here is not always done because everything is an emergency.

Today I got my review from my boss and to my surprise he feels that I am exceeding expectations in some areas and feels with a little improvement in a few other areas I will qualify for a promotion next year!  This is amazing to me cause honestly I had no idea what it would take to get a promotion around here.  Really, it's just a job title change and a little more $.  Even though this is a fortune 500 company, there isn't much room for career advancement  My boss and his boss have both been here 25 years or more and are still a distance from retirement.  There really isn't any where else to go besides their positions unless I move to another department, but then it's the same situation in all the departments...

So that's my happy news on hard work.  I'm thrilled at even the prospect of a new job title.  What scares me is the thought of what could happen when I come back from maternity leave this time.  At least I think HR will be more willing to work with me on the return to work transition this time, I hope...