All about Kyleigh

Kyleigh playing peek-a-boo

When we had time off over Christmas break, it seemed like Kyleigh's vocabulary suddenly exploded. She was talking up a storm (some words we understood, but most still sounded like gibberish). Just in the last couple of weeks, it has started again. Now she repeats many of the words we say.

Last night, I picked Kyleigh up from her school (daycare, but we call it school because they do have teaching time already at the age of 2). Since it was a Friday, we had to take home her bedding from naptime and so I had my arms full of a sheet, blanket, her sweater from earlier in the day and her lunch, so I had her hold my hand rather than carrying her. She was such a big girl and walked the whole way to the car and then stood by the door while I opened it up for her. She'd asked for a bottle and so I got her in her car seat and reached into her lunch bag only to find it almost empty. I grabbed one of the bottles that I refill it with and asked Kyleigh to hold the lid for me. She seemed pretty excited to help Mommy (she loves to help!) and I said, "Thank you, sweetie!" She looked up grinned and said, "Tank oo, eetie!" Such a little mimicker!

Today, I got up and needed to work on the mess that is my kitchen and so I put Kyleigh in her high chair for her breakfast and turned on some cartoons (I mean what is a Saturday morning without some cartoons!). Her breakfast consisted of a pretty good size bowl of Honey Nut Cheerio's (without any milk on them), though she did have a bottle of milk to drink. She has also recently found our Pit game that has one of those bell ringers (the kind that Doctor's offices often have on their counter to ding if they aren't around). When I went to put her into her high chair, she saw the Pit game and wanted to hold the bell. So she was dinging it. When I got her the cereal, she put it aside into one of the cup holders on the high chair tray and started eating.

This freed me up to wash some dishes and load my dishwasher. I was almost done with the dishes I was working on when she decided she was "All done!" (this she says very clearly). I guess she didn't think I heard her (although I can see her the whole time from the sink and knew that she thought she was finished), so the next thing I knew she was pushing the bell and saying "All done" as she pushed it. Too funny!

I had one last big pot to do that takes up the whole entire sink, so I wanted to get that one washed and out of the way. I was finishing that up when I heard what I thought sounded like, "big mess!". I wasn't too concerned because she'd only had dry cheerio's and that doesn't take much to clean up. Shortly after hearing that, I was trying to rinse off the big pot and had to use the sprayer when I sprayed it all over me (this is pretty normal for me when I do dishes). I rinsed it all off, turned on the dishwasher and then headed out to see what "big mess" she'd made. Well, she wasn't joking there were cheerio's everywhere on the floor. I said, "I see you weren't kidding about the big mess." She pointed at my shirt and said, "Mommy, mess!"

I went into my room to get a dry shirt on and came back out and started picking up the Cheerio's. She told me again that she was "All done!" and I told her I was trying to pick up the mess, I believe my exact words went something like "Kyleigh made a mess and I'm trying to get it cleaned up." Next thing I know, she starts giggling and saying, "Mommy made a mess! Mommy made a mess!" over and over. I said, "No, Mommy didn't make the mess. Kyleigh made the mess." She thought this was pretty funny and just kept laughing and saying "Mommy made a mess!"

After getting the mess cleaned up and then vacuuming the floor, I finally got Kyleigh out of her high chair. She went to play for a little bit and then looked like she was making her "going to the bathroom" face. Shortly after that she came over and wanted to sit on my lap and watch cartoons together (something we do frequently). I decided to check her pants and sure enough, she was stinky. I went into her room getting ready to change her diaper and she went and grabbed her "puppy" that talks to her (It's a Fisher Price Learn and Play puppy, I think). She was pushing the buttons on her puppy while I changed her diaper and the puppy said, "You're wonderful!" and she said, "I know!" I had to try so hard not to laugh.

I think she is pretty wonderful, but I didn't know she agreed! Life with Kyleigh is so much fun and I'm so blessed to be her Mommy.

Losing my job...and the aftermath:

I have been so bad about keeping everybody updated on here, but part of the reason I wasn't writing was because we didn't have anything finalized and I didn't want to jump the gun and write about something that wasn't going to even happen. So after months of not writing...I'm back - for now!

On Tuesday, February 28, 2012, I went into work like I'd been doing every Tuesday since the school year had started back up. Things were finally settling down and I was finally getting things all caught up from surviving another year of what we called "busy season". Since I handled 8 different national accounts for The Salvation Army, we were always bombarded by donations that needed to be put into the database over the holiday's. As soon as Thanksgiving rush would get over Christmas would hit. As soon as Christmas would get over end of year gifts were sent in to try to get their final tax deductions. It was a crazy time of year and it was finally coming to a close. Those things that had been put aside because they weren't as important were finally getting some attention.

Every Tuesday, I would go into work and work like a crazy person because I only had one day in the office per week. The other four I was able to work from home and watch my baby girl. So like every Tuesday, I was trying to get as much done as possible of things that had to be done in the office. Around 3:30, I received a phone call from our HR VP and was asked to come to her office for a little bit. I was wracking my brain trying to figure out if I'd done anything to anybody. I couldn't come up with anything, so figured that I'd just go see what was up.

I entered into her office and saw that my boss was already sitting in there (at this point, he didn't come in on Tuesday's so I was kind of surprised to see him). As many of you already know, I was told that they were downsizing my department and that my services were no longer needed. I could take my time clearing out what little stuff I still had in the office and say goodbye to people if I wanted, but I was no longer an employee.

I guess you could probably say I was in shock. I couldn't believe that they were letting me go. Who was going to take care of my clients - no longer my concern. I showed my boss where everything was and where I was at for everything because I wanted to make sure that my clients wouldn't suffer.

That first night, I couldn't sleep. It was the first night in a long time that Kyleigh actually fell asleep on time and slept the night. That night she would have been a welcome distraction from the lack of sleep and the tossing and turning that took place with me.

The next day was so long! I was so used to our schedule and me being busy while Kyleigh played quietly by herself that I didn't know what to do. I played with her, but the day just seemed to drag. I normally looked forward to her naps since that was when I could get the most done on my work, but did she really need to sleep that long? I needed something to do.

Kyleigh started to get really fussy and I could tell that my being down was making her upset. I told her that God was in control and He knew what He was doing and He would take care of us. That became my mantra over the next few days. After the first two days, I started to see what a blessing it was. I actually had time to do things I'd been neglecting. I actually got to hang out with my adorable and incredibly smart little girl. Not just watch her while I worked, but interact with her - all day!

Like I said, I really was only down for a couple of days. But the more I told Kyleigh that God was in control the more I really started believing it. The more I started thinking that maybe this was God's way of pushing us over the edge to trust Him completely and His way of showing us He had something else for us now. Maybe, just maybe our time in Pennsylvania was finally drawing to a close.