Wednesday, April 15, 2009

The New Job & Fattening the Calf....

Thought I’d update everyone on the new job. Things are going great. I haven’t put gas in my car for a week and I’m still on half a tank. That’s even after going to Springfield last weekend. I’m loving not having to leave the house until 7:40 and getting home by 4:45. I’ve also gone home for a lunch a few times. It’s great.

I’m not sure though that Cade is excited about it as Jay and I are. A little background before I tell you why – Cade has gotten really thin. He’s gotten taller but he lost some weight when he was so sick last month. I started paying closer attention to his eating habits and he’s just not eating enough. He’s too busy doing other things and he won’t sit down long enough to eat. It’s partly my fault because I’ve never pressed him to eat. I had the attitude of “he’ll eat when he’s hungry”. I never wanted to force the clean your plate thing on him because of all the eating issues in our society. I’m not sure that was the best thing to do because he knows I won’t force him to eat and it’s came back to bite me.

I’ve now started to really watch what he’s eating and how much he’s eating. I’ve bought whole milk and I’m giving him ice cream or a root beer float or some other fatty treat in the evenings. Anything I can think of to put a little weight on him. Since I’m not leaving until 40 minutes later than I used to I’ve started fixing him breakfast so I can monitor two of his meals a day. He was eating breakfast at school and knowing how easily distracted he gets I don’t think he was eating much.

Well today I’m 8 days into this new breakfast routine and I think it’s going pretty well. I’ve managed to make a decent breakfast every day. So far I haven’t resorted to cold cereal. My oven has actually been turned on three times this week. This is a huge milestone for me. This morning Jay got Cade up and told him breakfast was ready. Jay was getting him up a little earlier because he needed to leave earlier. Cade was not happy about this development. Hearing that he needed to get up because breakfast was ready was the last straw for Cade. I was in the kitchen and heard his sleepy feet stomping in there. I looked up to see this tired, mad little boy. He yelled “I hate your new job”.

Of course I could hardly keep from laughing. Jay tried explaining to him that it was his fault and not mine that they had to leave earlier. I told Cade that I love being able to have breakfast together in the morning and get home earlier in the evening. Cade finally agreed that he liked that, but it was still stupid that he had to get up and eat breakfast…..as he shoveled in 1 ½ biscuits with jelly….

Jay said that someday we’ll look back on this time period as the summer we fattened the calf. I know that I’m creating many, many stories that Cade will relate to his future wife. At least I’m developing some memories that will cause him and his wife to laugh over the craziness that I subjected him to. Oh, he won’t appreciate all that I’m trying to do until he has children of his own. Then he’ll have more of an idea about how mother’s always get the bad rap for the things they do to and for their children. But he still won’t fully understand why mothers do what they do…..Jay still doesn’t understand why Sharon made him blow his nose and why I still help Cade blow his nose…. Only a mother can understand.

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