Strong....and Growing

February 11th, 2010

It has been some time since I last posted something on our page, but a lot is going on!Let's get you up to speed!

Sydney has been the center of our attenting for the last few weeks. She decided that she wanted to climb over the railing of her crib and has fallen to the floor. While she was not injured, she was very frightened by her incident. Since then it is a constant struggle to get her to go to sleep....IN ANY BED! It has become a full blown battle to where she is using levredge to get away from the bed or me. Sydney has now learned that the teeth in her mouth (which she has now grown her two bottom first molars in) really hurt when they are put to use on a person. Especially when that person is mommy! She has also found that when you want to pull something, you probably shouldn't pull your own hair out.

I have put her in bed with me at night and Rodney has slept on the couch. With that said, I want to apologize to some people. I now know what it feels like to have tiny little toes kicking you in the ribs. I now know what it feels like when you are up all night because if you leave your child's side they are wide awake and a little more grumpy since you tried to leave. I now know what it feels like to have absolutly NO feeling in my arm for fear of removing it from behind my childs head in order to keep her asleep. I now know the importance of lubrication-for those squeeky hinges on the door that are another factor in prohibiting you from leaving your child in the bedroom to sleep alone. To anyone who as ever been through this because of me...I'M SO SORRY!

It is really heartbreaking to go through all of that with your child. I'm finding it hard to believe that Sydney isn't tired of me by the end of the day considering I stay home with her and go work at Outback at night while Rodney comes home to be with her. We transformed her crib into a toddler bed yesterday and she has done alight in it. I found her this morning talking to herself while looking at books in her bed. I assume she was reading to herself! We will see how things go from here!

At the Outback:

We are preparing for a huge over haul in the restaurant as far as employment goes. If you didn't already know, I was given the opportunity to take my management test-and I passed! It's just a matter of time when I can actually do the training for it. Because I only work for a few hours at a time, I am at Outback everynight except Wednesdays. I spend almost all of my time in the office and working on 'busy work'. Since doing that, I was given the title of Training Coordinator for our store. That position pays more then my normal position but is far fewer hours. I put a lot of time into this job getting new employees trained and on the floor, keeping current employees up to date, and making sure our paperwork is in proper order for when we get audited.

Rodney is still the Assistant Kitchen Manager and works that position a few times a week. He has been stressed at work recently due to the expectations of his title and what follow-through is being done with the tasks he has been assigned. He has now come to the conclusion that he wants to keep trying for the fire department here. Once that happens, he only plans to be at Outback for a rare dinner (he won't want Outback food for a long time after that).

Together, we've decided that we are going to get healthy!

After watching some very interesting infomercials late at night, I have found a workout program that looks like fun to do. My goal is to tone up and his is to lose all of the weight he has put on since Sydney came into our lives almost 2YEARS AGO! He also wants to look amazing for our wedding. =) We've decided that if it is possible for us to go to Bali, we're going to skip the wedding and elope there. That's just wishful thinking after watching Couples Retreat! Funny movie.

Something interesting happened yesterday and it really got me thinking.......

We had an appointment at Sears Portrait Studio for Sydney to get Valentines Day pictures done yesterday. On our way down the road to get to the interstate, we were stopped by a loooooonnnnnnnnggggggg line of cars and police. It just happens that this spot was blocked for construction work. Thinking someone hit a construction worker and tried to flee I sat there with Rodney and Sydney minding my business. Then an ambulance comes and I'm confirming my theory that someone is hurt. Then cars start turning around on the road and the closer we get I see a man being placed into handcuffs and put into a police car while at that same moment a hellicopter was flying above us!! Here's the real scoop on why all this was going on:

It started snowing here in Knoxville with some very bad winds so school was let out at about 11:45am. About an hour later a 4th grade teacher at a school just down the road from us went into the office of the school and shot 2 ladies-both the principal and asst. principal. Two children were there waiting on a ride home and two administrative staff members pulled them under a desk for saftey. The man in handcuffs in front of us was the man that did the shooting at the school. This is the 2nd school shooting here in Knoxville in 2 years. The first was at a high school where a student killed another. WHAT IS THIS WORLD COMING TO?! WE HAVE CHILDREN IN THESE SCHOOLS! HOW IS IT THAT AN AUTHORIZED TEACHER IN THAT BUILDING HAD A WEAPON ON THE SCHOOL GROUNDS?-HE WAS OBVIOUSLY NOT THE BEST PERSON FOR TAKING CARE OF CHILDREN ALL DAY. THE SCHOOL BOARD HAS POINTED OUT THAT THIS MAN WAS NOT GOING TO BE A RETURNING TEACHER NEXT YEAR AND THAT HE DIDN'T REALLY HAVE ANY TEACHING EXPERIENCE BECAUSE HE GOT HIS CERTIFICATION IN 2007. It terrifies me to think that Sydney could go to a school that will experience something like this.

With everything going on, we are trying to stay strong and grow from everything!

Just so you know, no new wedding plans have been made recently. We will inform you when there is more to know!