An update on my work situation and some pics of BBZ

Thank you all so much for your comments and your suggestions on my last blog! I think I am going to work on writing a letter to my boss, which will include a proposal of how this whole situation might not be as bad for him as he is thinking it is. He is a really nice guy, and I am hoping that if I can really get him to see my side and how important this is to me, while assuring him that my plan is to be back to my normal schedule in about a year, that he might reconsider and be willing to try to work something out with me. I am trying (for now) to not get too upset.

As far as the laws go... for a small business in Missouri, there is absolutely no laws that I can find that protect me, or help me as a mother, they only protect my boss. Since we are under 50 employees, I am not even guaranteed maternity leave. We have saved up enough money to cover my loss of income, while I am off work for 3 months after the baby is here. I am saving all of my vacation and sick pay for that time as well. But really, my boss doesn't even have to save my position for me or let me take off any work at all. So I am grateful that he is allowing me to take off those three months.

I would LOVE to stay home full time. If money was not an issue, there would be no question about it. But the money we would save on daycare, gas and everything else is not enough to offset the loss of my income. If we could still afford to stay in our house and pay all of our bills then I would definitely do it. Even if we could sell our home and move into an apartment, just so that I could stay home with our baby, I would do it. I really would. I have always wanted to stay at home with my kids. But because of financial decisions we have made in the past, and how much we have tied up in our home vs how much it would sell for, and everything going on with the economy, this is not really an option either.

Joe applied for a 2nd job last week. He thought, with the baby coming, it might be nice to make the extra money to have for whatever came up, or to pay off some bills. He has a friend that has been working for this company that routes calls from infommercials and other things to peoples homes to take the calls and their order. Its not bad pay, just to sit in your own home, answer the phone and take their order. We didn't think we would hear back for a while, as it took them a month to respond to Joe's friend, but Joe got an email back from them on Friday telling him they had accepted his application. It was a wierd coincidence that they emailed back the day my boss laid that news on me. Maybe this is something we can do to help us in our situation somehow. I haven't quite figured that out yet... but I am working on it.

Maybe all of this happened so I could figure out a better situation then I was planning on in the first place. I hope so. I just really want to do is be able to spend as much time as possible with my baby and to be able to breastfeed.

Saturday morning I got to spend some time with BBZ. This is my friend Anrazel's little munchkin. She dropped the little goober off while she went to get her hair done. I had so much fun playing with him. He is easily one of the happiest (and cutest) babies I have ever met in my entire life.