My friends Tigger & Pooh

My mornings have totally changed...

I now have somewhat of a new morning schedule.

I wake up, around 6:15 AM, and am actually out-of-bed by 6:30 AM. I know that my wife is up and almost ready for her day by the time I get up because I hear the running of the shower while I am rustling through the covers trying to convince myself to get out of the bed, while Mandy Moore or Aerosmith play in the background. We have an iPod alarm clock, so we wake up to different music in the mornings.

I finally open my eyes, to the day, and see the bathroom light is on, yet my wife, Laura, has finished her daily routine of bathing, applying makeup and fixing her hair. I can smell the sweet scent of her perfume as I lazily walk myself through the door on my way to the toilet to use our facilities. I kind of look half drunk in the mornings, but my wife loves me despite all this... most people would say "bless his heart!" (That is if you are from the South.)

After taking care of important business, (I know TMI) I push open the door and can hear, a series of high-pitch squeels. Mauldin, our little boy has figured out he has a voice... surprisingly he uses it, A LOT. But, mostly to let us know he is happy! The squeels are pretty much... well, adorable. At times, that they can keep my wife from putting him to bed...

"But, he was making me laugh," said Laura. "I thought, what is another 30 minutes?"

I have to agree with her, he is so cute sometimes it just melts my heart...

My morning used to be one of Sirius Satellite Radio 20 on 20... but now I spend my mornings rushing through a shower and making sure I keep our little dude entertained until it is time for us to pack up and head out the door for day care.

Mauldin really loves watching "My Friends Tigger & Pooh," and I certainly like them since they keep him occupied and "not" crying while I am trying to put on my clothes for the day. Although, I will say... who the heck is Darby???? Hello? Christopher Robin?

At times he drops his rattle or toy and I have to go hand it back to him, but otherwise he is pretty much enthralled by the TV.

I know I am running late if "Disney's Little Einsteins" starts.. "Comon and ride on our .. blaa blaa rocket ship... blaa naaa naa naa Little Einsteins!"

I check to make sure the dogs have plenty of water, put the gate up as so the dogs won't go upstairs, grab his bag of bottles my wife has no nicely set out for me, change MJ's diaper one last time, place him in his car seat, there are days he is okay with this, others he protests... run out the door and pull the car out, MJ is just fine, Logan makes sure he doesn't go anywhere! I come back in, grab him up, put him in the car and we are off on our 30 minute drive to Gloria's! (Gloria is MJ's & our "Mary Poppins.")

Sometimes, if I am not running late, I stop by Starbucks for a quick Vanilla Latte, especially if MJ has kept us up all night...

I will say, my mornings are not what they used to be, but oddly, I love the change. I may be sleepier than normal, but I really love getting to spend the morning drive with our little man. It's cool being able to drop him off and say "Daddy loves you!"

Okay, I admit it, I am such a dork.

The search is on...

The search is on…

For what, you ask?

Child care, of course! We would, certainly, love to have a personal Mary Poppins, but now-a-days… we really cannot afford that. We certainly want what is best for our little man-child so we decided we would start the interviewing process to weed out the ones we like and the one’s we’d like to see fly off on their broom sticks.

We did have a potential lead, but sadly, for that Mary Poppins, the wind changed directions and we are unable to secure a spot. Thus, the pre-aforementioned “search.”

After Laura’s maternity leave, she will have the summer to spend with “the baby” (Laura’s trade is a kick-ass teacher) and not be going back to work, full-time, until the fall. With that said, we need to find someone who will not charge us for the summer months when Laura is out for break.

We decided we’d be pro-active and start looking for potential care for Mauldin. I mean someone has to watch him while “mom and dad” are at work. We certainly can’t ask our parents to drive an hour every day to watch his little booty.

Our main goal is to find an “in-home” facility and not commercial day care. Why? It’s our personal choice.

My wife, Laura, is the smartest woman I know. She went to the state website and did a search for “at-home” day cares in the local area. Low and behold the first one we called she sounded “practically perfect in every way.” Although, just because she sounds great on paper, we need to meet her to make sure she holds up to our expectations.

I figured we needed to do this systematically and so what did we do…?

Busted out the manila folders, of course. We printed off each applicant and wrote all the supplied information they gave us and the ones that did not pass the phone interview got a BIG BLACK “X” on their page. Laura, I am sure, felt like Miranda Hillard from “Mrs. Doubtfire” when she was talking to some of these ladies.

Some were so loud it reminded me of the scene from the movie:

“Laylaaaa! Get back in your cage before I have to get the hose!”

So, at the moment we have two potential choices and luckily our “practically perfect” choice takes deposits to hold a space for our little bugger… We hope to meet this nice lady, to confirm she is a nice lady, this weekend.

Wish us luck!