New Life

This past week has been rather amazing!

Bryant is going back to school for a bachelor's degree in Computer Science with an emphasis in Networking. He was previously seeking management positions but as he has had more and more exposure to the life of the manager, we have decided that being a glorified babysitter is really not something that he would enjoy very much. I have previously been married to him when he was working a job that he really didn't like and it wasn't much fun and we didn't have any children at that point so I know that I want him to at least have some satisfaction from his work. We have also decided that he can't be a courier forever to be able to provide for our ever growing family. We originally thought he would need to keep his full-time route to provide for us which made the degree look like it would take forever and the benefit of a better providing job seemed daunting. But thanks to our housing situation where our rent is based on our income, it appears that we should be able to survive (tightly) on a part-time income.

Upon making this decision we came to find out that getting a morning part-time route (generally, the most coveted routes at the station) can be rather tricky for a full-time employee. When a route becomes available, all of the current part-time employees get to bid on the route first. If none of them want the route then the position is opened up to all employees at all FedEx stations worldwide. This is scary because there is no guarantee of your seniority. With this knowledge we felt it was important to begin the quest for the part-time route even though Bryant won't need it until Fall. We were grateful when a Monday thru Saturday (with Wednesdays off) route became available and did not get snatched by any of the part-time employees, although the thought of him having to work on Saturdays again was not very exciting. While he was awaiting to know if he would obtain this route, another part-time route became available for Monday thru Friday with better guaranteed hours. Bryant was able to talk with the manager and was told that if this second route did not get taken by any of the current part-timers he could have this route instead without it being posted to all the stations! Well we got the better route!

Bryant began the part-time route May 2. When he came home at lunch time on Monday Brylee was so surprised that he had an "early-out day" at work like Tucker and Hunter have at school. When Tucker and Hunter got home from school they were excited to see Bryant home. As dinner was almost ready to eat Tucker realized he had not yet asked Bryant to play soccer with him in the back yard. Something that usually only happens on Saturday and he was feeling pretty sad that he missed his chance for extra play. When I told him that Bryant would be home again Tuesday afternoon he finally realized what it meant for Bryant to have the part-time route and was so excited that Bryant would be home each day after school!

Having Bryant home has been wonderful for me! I am no longer sleeping well at night. I tend to wake every hour to roll over as my hips hurt so much. I have been able to have a nap every day that I have needed it without having to stay partially awake to ensure that Brylee, Gunnar, and Maelee were staying out of trouble. He has helped make dinner too, which I have been getting really sick of making lately. And on the nights that I cooked he was out playing with the kids, which they just love so much!

I have decided that we are going to have a rather awesome summer. I will have the baby to take care of and wear me out and he will be home every afternoon to help with the children and make dinner. I am especially grateful to have another adult at the dinner table. We have not had Bryant at the dinner table during the week for 2 years now. He usually arrived home as I'm finishing getting the kids ready for bed, we had prayers, and then the kids went to sleep. I was a little worried about how dinner would go once the baby comes along because my babies always want to eat as soon as dinner is on the table and with so many small ones needing some sort of assistance I was worried for the chaos that was likely to ensue.

When fall comes around Bryant will be in class until dinner time but he should still be able to be home for dinner most nights. I am so excited for the extra time that we are going to have together as a whole family!

Maelee had her first day of preschool today. She was so excited to go to school with a backpack! The bus was not yet scheduled so I took her to her first day of school. She was all smiles as we walked in and waited for her teacher. Once the aides showed up and I walked her over to them she crumbled to the floor and didn't want to grab onto the rope with the other kids that were there. I stood her up and gave her a nice pep talk, told her I loved her, gave her a hug and then left her on the floor next to her class. I knew that once I was gone she would give in and enjoy school. She was all smiles when I picked her up. When I asked her what she did she said 'I don't know.' After we got home and washed up for lunch, she told us that there was sink in her classroom where they washed their hands before having a snack of goldfish. Then when she was getting out paper to make a picture she remembered that they made a picture at school and hung it up on the wall. She is eagerly looking forward to riding the bus to school on Wednesday.