Vacation's Over...

Last week marked my start with my new job, a start I was looking forward to with equal parts of enthusiasm and dread. After getting back into the routine of working over the summer, it took me some time to transition into the role of stay-at-home mom. And it seems like just when I was getting the hang of that role and taking it in stride, I had to come to peace with the idea of going back to work again.

My first day was on Wednesday. Tuesday night I went to bed feeling more dread than anything else. I hated the idea of leaving Kai with someone else...and for 3 full days in a row. While I worked 5 days/week during the summer, I was only working half days so I was never gone from Kai for more than 4 or 5 hours at a time.

But as I sat through a few hours of orientation at my new job and then got rolling with the job itself, I felt that same rush of excitement and enthusiasm that I have felt about every day of work since landing in health care (a field that I truly love and am passionate about). So the day went faster and more smoothly than expected. But as I drove home at the end of the day, all I could think about was Kai and how much I missed him and how I couldn't wait to squeeze him.

Kai's first day without Mommy seems like it went pretty smooth as well--minus the fact that he refused to nap for his babysitter and was a fussy wreck by the time I made it home. Thursday I got the same report, but on Friday I came home to a napping Kai so I am optimistic that he is adjusting to me being back at work as well.

The biggest perk of my job is that it is flexible and affords me the opportunity to work out of my home part of the time, with the goal of being able to work from home all of the time down the road. What is it that I'm doing, you might ask? In the simplest of terms I am the interim Director of Operations for a relatively new home health agency, Healthy Living at Home, Inc.

For those of you who don't know what home health entails, basically my company coordinates skilled nursing and rehab services for patients who are residing in their own homes or an assisted living setting. And it happens to be a rapidly growing business. Which makes sense, because who wouldn't rather be at home (than in a hospital or nursing home) given the choice?

Initially I will be a consultant to the company (thus the "interim" in my title) with the hopes that this job will be a good fit for me and will turn into a long term position. In an ideal world, I will eventually get to focus more on operations and less on business development and, therefore, work almost entirely from home....and get to kiss Kai anytime I want. I find myself daydreaming about that day already--when I can prove to myself and the world that it really is possible to have the best of both worlds.

If that isn't motivation enough to work my butt off for the next few months, I don't know what is.

Happy 10 Months, Kai!

It's hard to believe that Kai is already 10-months-old (and just 2 months away from his first birthday). I love my wannabe toddler, but am already starting to miss my baby especially when I look back through his pictures and realize just how much he has changed.

November 7, 2009

 1 Month

2 Months

3 months

4 Months

5 Months

6 Months

7 Months

8 Months

9 Months

10 Months

Welcome to the good life...

Quality Time

August has been a month of many changes. Yo started his new job. I resigned from my old job. And now I've decided to do some contract-based work for a Home Health company that is new to the Bay area called Healthy Living at Home. Not only am I excited to learn about a new and growing area of health care, I am excited that this job will give me a lot of flexibility and still plenty of time to hang out with Kai at home.

But for this month, hanging out with Kai has been my full time job. Here are some pictures of our trip to the park yesterday:

 Eating Grass

 Crawling down the hill in a hurry!

 Taking a break

 Playing with bubbles

 Looking pensive

 Racing the basketball down the hill

My Little Ladies' Man

Our cute friends Justin and Josie have a beautiful baby girl who is exactly one month older than Kai. Her name is Macy and I think Kai is fascinated with her. As for me, I am just smitten.

So apparently this is how a 9 and 10-month-old baby play together. One baby has a toy. The other baby takes it away. Kai thought this game was awesome. Just look how happy he is. On the other hand, I think it stressed poor Macy out.

A Night to Remember

Two weekends ago Kai's babysitter for the summer, Julia, married her high school sweetheart, Lester. Kai just loves his babysitter so he wanted to pull out all the stops for her reception. Which, of course, means that he wore his tuxedo. Here are a couple of shots of the reception. Didn't they do an amazing job transforming the cultural hall? It was just a beautiful reception for a beautiful couple. We couldn't be happier for you guys, Julia and Lester!

The little ladies were swooning over my dapper little man:

A sweet moment between the bride and her dad:

If it weren't for the basketball hoop, you'd never know we were in a gym:

Checking out my hot date:

Make that, my two hot dates:

Another shot of Mommy and Kai:

And Kai and his Papa: