Thursday 3: April 12, 2018

Does anyone else feel like this week flew by? This was our first week back to school after spring break, and I felt like we hit the ground running in the classroom. I’ve barely had time to catch my breath. Nevertheless, I found some things to love this week.

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We are renting our house and have struggled with babyproofing our kitchen. While we’re able to latch the double-door cabinets easily with a slide lock, we didn’t know what to do with our single-door cabinets. The kit we bought required us drilling into the cabinets to install the lock, which is not an option for us.

We spent a good three or four months randomly finding baking dishes and bags of flour around the house, pilfered by our sweet little angel from one of our single-door cabinets and carelessly abandoned at the precise location in which something more interesting caught her eye.

One day, my husband came home from work very excited. He had an idea to solve our problem. He pulled out a package of Command Picture & Frame Hanging Strips. Made out of Velcro, they allow you to hang a picture without damaging your walls. My husband thought they’d be perfect for our single-door cabinets. They can sustain a lot of force being pulled on them without detaching from one another and they don’t require us to drill into the cabinets. Plus, they are CHEAP in comparison to the baby-proofing gadgets available. (Seriously, put the word baby or wedding in a product and watch the price skyrocket.)

He Velcroed two strips together, pulled off the backing on the adhesives, and placed one adhesive side on the cabinet frame. Then he closed the door and pushed hard on where the Command strips were placed. After a few minutes, we tried opening the door. We had to give a fairly hard tug, but it opened up without a problem. When we close the door, we make sure we push where the strips are placed so that they Velcro back together. So far, our little peach hasn’t been able to open the cabinets, and our floors have been blissfully clear of measuring cups and cupcake liners for the last few weeks.

Today I interviewed for a teaching position in my town’s school district. I really hate driving a total of an hour a day to get to and from work, and I would much rather work in the community in which I live. That being said, I am not desperate to leave my current job.

The wonderful thing about interviewing for a job when you already have a job is that it’s not as big of a deal if you don’t get offered the position. The last two times I was interviewing for jobs, I was unemployed. It was vital for me to give my best performance at every interview. I needed an income to put food on the table and to pay my bills!

This time around, I wasn’t as uptight about the process. When my husband was asking me interview questions last night, we didn’t even argue. We got into a lot of arguments last year when I was going through the interview process because I was so worked up about doing it just right. Today, I flubbed a bit, realized I am way better at writing than I am at speaking, and may have completely blown my chances with my answer to their last question, but it’s all good. Because I’ve already got a job. I’m employed. Getting a job that’s closer to home is just icing on the cake.

For a very long time, my daughter was not a fan of books. She had colic her first 3 months, so if I even tried reading to her she wouldn’t be able to hear me over the screaming. After the colic ended, I kept trying to read to her and show her pictures in books, but she had the attention span of a gnat. Books really didn’t interest her at all.

Seemingly overnight, she began engaging in her books at about 15 months old. The living room would be a cacophony of singing toys, loud bangs, and shrieks and giggles, and then suddenly it would get very quiet. Too quiet. My husband or I would peek our head into the living room to see what kind of trouble she’d gotten herself into and would find her sitting with a book in her lap. Be still my heart!

Now she regularly brings us books to read to her and it is too adorable when she waves to the people on the pages. She also looooves any dog she sees in a book. She squeals and starts frantically petting the page, which has convinced me that we need to get a dog.

The very best part of reading with my little girl is cuddling up with her on my lap, her hand on top of mine, sharing in her wonder and delight. These small, intimate moments are the reason I wanted to become a mother, and I am grateful that they have finally arrived for us.

I am looking forward to filing taxes, researching car insurance, and paying bills this weekend! In other words, adulting. We also might meet up with a friend at the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival. The tulip fields are blooming. If you haven’t checked out my guide to the Tulip Festival, head on over here to see what you shouldn’t miss when you visit.