Crawling!

So Nathan will be 9 months old in a week and I honestly thought he would never crawl. I know that seems a bit dramatic, but seriously, when he is on his stomach, he screams. I am not kidding. He lays there and throws his arms and legs out and just screams. He just recently started getting up on his hands and knees/feet and rocking. And last night I witnessed him on his hands and feet and he moved his feet towards his hands, but then got stuck and just laid down and cried.

So, I guess I shouldn't be surprised that today he actually attempted to crawl. He moved his hands and feet and actually went forward a bit. He's by no means "mobile" yet, but he can at least get a toy that is out of reach. Which you would think would make him happy, and yet no. Even as I witnessed him attempting to crawl tonight, he cried through the entire procedure. He is seriously unhappy in a horizontal position.

Now, the bittersweet part. While he has finally started to crawl, I didn't see it happen. Yet again, he did a milestone in the presence of a babysitter. (He also rolled over for the first time at daycare.) I can't decide what makes me more sad, that I didn't get to see him crawl for the first time or that I know I didn't get to see him crawl.

When Lauren was a baby, she stayed at a home daycare that had been in this business for a while, so I have no doubt that Ms. Ashley witnessed many, if not all, of Lauren's firsts, but she never told me. So I have always just assumed that I got to see Lauren do everything for the first time. As for Nathan, I have been told in both cases that he preformed a milestone without me seeing it first.

I think for a lot of moms that work, there is a constant struggle with guilt over not being there. So when your baby does something momentous and you miss it, it just makes the guilt worse. I think one of the fun parts of being a parent is teaching your children. It is so fun to teach them to walk or to say their first word, and when someone else steps in and takes over that role, it is a very hard pill to swallow.

So, while I am trilled that Nathan is finally starting to crawl, I am also incredibly sad that I missed it. I hope that I get to see his first steps... or at least that his babysitter will not tell me that she saw it first.

Stress

So, I have a new job. About a month ago a job posting came up in my company for a manager position and I applied and got it. Two weeks ago was my first official day in my new position. I manage a team of web and vb.net developers at my company.

So far I have been so overwhelmed. The area that I moved to supports a bunch of systems that I have never worked with before. So, not only am I trying to get used to managing people, but I also am trying to learn several systems. It's hard. I hate not knowing what I am doing. It is so frustrating to spend my whole day not having any idea what people are talking about. I get emails all day long and most of the time I have no idea what they are talking about. Luckily the other managers on my team are fantastic and are so helpful. They are always willing to stop what they are doing and explain an email, or give advice about who should work on something or point me in the right direction for problem resolutions. My team that I manage is equally helpful. They will explain their systems to me in great detail and help me to understand what they are working on.

My days just fly by. On Tuesday, every time I looked up it was an hour later. I feel like I barely get anything accomplished during the day and I have yet to be able to leave work on time. I will be so glad when I start to settle in to my new role and things start making sense.