Philo File: Singing A Song Is Fun To Do

I think I've been slacking a bit this year in general update-type posts on this blog, so sue me. But here's one for you now, if you are curious about our super duper (not) interesting life:

Sam still works as a teacher at Heritage (which is a residential treatment center for troubled kids). He works there now almost-full-time, and on weekends and odd hours he works as a maintenance guy for my old boss. He likes doing all of it. Right now, he's still technically a sub at Heritage, but is currently basically the whole Science department since they've had trouble hiring Science teachers and actually don't have any at the moment. He misses a little bit the variety of subbing in random classes at the school, but likes having his own room and stuff. I can't talk about his kids, but let's just say that he comes home with some interesting or hilarious stories some days, and other days with stories that make me want to march over there and punch these kids square in the jaw.

In July, Sam took the PRAXIS, which is sort of like the Bar but for teachers. After several grueling weeks of wringing our hands wondering how he did, we found out that not only did he PASS, but he did so with a pretty good score! I am so proud. This also meant that he was allowed to start on his student teaching early, so a couple science periods per day are dedicated to that purpose. He is finishing up his last semester of classes (just 2 this time, 3 if you count the student teaching), and will hopefully be finished with his program at the end of the year, and licensed in time to start a real teaching job in January! I can't even begin to tell you how happy this makes me. He's worked so hard the last couple of years, and it's lovely to see everything coming together. But we're not finished yet, so don't everybody breathe a sigh of relief at once. Rally to the end! Anyway.

As for me, I quit my job at the beginning of September. Through a series of circumstances, my replacement ended up being my sister-in-law, Abby. It was fun to train somebody I already knew, and it made it easy for those last-minute training sessions when I had to take Ros with me to the office ("Let's go see Aunt Abby for a bit!"). It's been weird though, and taken quite a bit of adjustment for me not to be working. I only allowed myself a couple of weeks' break when Ros was born, and I have been working pretty much steadily since college (with a little couple of months' break after we came back to Utah from Connecticut when I graduated). But I really wanted to be able to spend a little time parenting Ros properly before the baby comes, and I've definitely gotten my wish. There's a bit more alone time than I predicted (partly because I forgot Sam had classes til late this semester), but I'm learning her cues really well, and the problem she had with napping that developed a few months ago has pretty much resolved in the past couple of weeks. I'm also allowing myself time to rest and get used to the idea of having two kids, because I re-he-heally don't want to be running on empty when he gets here.

I do work on a couple of personal projects, but raising a toddler and gestating a fetus are both pretty energy-consuming daily tasks, so I try not to be hard on myself when I don't make progress on other things. I have a couple of goals: I try to walk at least a mile every day, and once a week I meet my mom to go for a longer walk, usually 2-3 miles. I also have nutrition goals, and stretching goals (bet you didn't know that was a thing), and I think I feel pretty good for being 28 weeks pregnant, usually. I'm excited for like...a year from now...when things start to feel normal again (hopefully), so maybe I can think about the photography thing again, or some other thing. I don't know guys.

Anyway, Rosalind usually gets her own update posts, but just know that her vocab is still increasing, and she's using partial sentences or phrases or whatever they're called. She calls herself "Yoz" or "Yoz-den" (it took forever for her to say anything close to her name, so I'll take it). She still can't run. She hates nursery (I shouldn't have said anything about her loving it) but is slowly warming up to it. She's starting to get interested in the toilet, but I'm not pushing her. Actually with being pregnant and tired, I kind of wish she wouldn't. Heh.

So there you are, a bit of an update on our little familia. I'll throw in a few random pictures from my phone to make this a little more interesting. I'll write more later when things start GOING DOWN in November/December! Get excited.