Back to work :(

Well, tomorrow I officially become a working mom (at a job that pays me $$, that is :). I have mixed feelings about this transition. On one hand, I have always thought working part-time would be the ideal situation: I can actually utilize my degrees that I spent a lot of time & money acquiring and have some adult time. There have been many times that I wished I had some time away throughout the week (for both Eli & myself). On the other hand, I have loved my time home with Eli. It's awesome to wake up each day and know that my one main job is to take care of our little man. No alarm clock (besides his ;), no boss (besides him ;), no commuting, just him & I deciding what each day holds. I feel very blessed that Eli has such wonderful Grandmas who are willing to spend 10-15 hours a week caring for him as this DEFINITELY eases my mind. I know they will care for him like he is their own....as Grandmas do :) I also will continue to attend breastfeeding group on Monday evenings and hopefully G-land friends will meet about 1-2 times a month for play groups as I think Eli needs socialization. So, we'll see if there are any tears on the way to work tomorrow (both Eli & I), but right now I feel okay. Oh, and this week will be a HUGE transition as I have to work FULL days T-F for training. Then my part-time schedule will kick in the following week. Wish us luck!!

Eli continues to crawl like crazy and get into everything he isn't supposed to. His most recent discovery is the fire place, as you can see below:

Our little pyro :)

He also crawls around the first floor and has discovered the gate on the stairs:

How did Mocha kitty get over there??

OH, this is how!!

He continues to pull up to his knees and put one foot out to prepare to pull up all the way, but hasn't yet. That will be soon, I'm sure. He just started to cruise the couch today, although slow, so I'm sure by the end of the week he'll be really fast:

Eli is also improving with his eating. He allows us to feed him bites of what we have on his tray and he tries to feed himself, but often misses his mouth (but tries really hard!!). He is eating a variety of fruits, veggies & grains. We tried avocado this week and it was REALLY messy as I gave him free reign to explore:

Yummy!

This week we had G-land play group at Beth & Addie's house. As I said last week, hopefully we can continue these play dates on the weekends 1-2 times a month so "working" moms can be included. We had a lot of fun! But, I forgot my camera so you'll have to go to Beth's site for pictures. Addie has great toys and was nice enough to lend us this toy, which Eli loves playing with, thanks Addie!!

Aunt Holly was here this weekend while Eric went to DM to participate in a computer game party at their house. So, it was just us. This was Eric's first time away from Eli and while Holly & mom helped a lot with Eli, I was the only one 100% responsible for him which gave me a little taste of being a single mom. YIKES!!! It can be hard! Of course, he was impossible to put down to bed last night and he seemed a little extra fussy so that made it harder. But, we made it and had fun overall! This afternoon we went to the park and Eli actually wore his hat:

He was smiling and giggling, just not in this picture :)

Love his cute little ears!!

Aunt Holly taught him a fun trick and he has continued to do it all day:

Hope everyone has a great week! I'll post this weekend about our big change!