Update on various things

I heard back from my company, and they have accepted my proposal to work part time. They will be sending me a letter sometime soon with the details, but I'm going to be working Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays (24 hours/week). Which sounds good to me! That way I will have Mondays and Thursdays off to be with Julie and I also can do some work from home on those days if needed. I will try not to make a habit of it, but it's good to have that option if I need to. So, I have mixed feelings about returning to work. Intellectually, I know I should go back since we will need the income. I will give it a try and see how it goes. So, my official return to work date is Tuesday, January 19, 2010. So, I still have 2.5 months of mat leave left, so I am going to enjoy it to the max!

Good news: my dad will be receiving that paper he was waiting for within the next couple of days. Our local MP's office was really pushing them, so they finally processed that application. So, as soon as it arrives, my mom is going to send it overnight to the place to get his Austrian passport, which takes 4-6 weeks. The trip is 8 weeks away, so we should be okay there. Turns out we can also apply for his PR card at the same time, which is awesome. The current processing time for the PR cards is 4 months, but we can have it rushed since we have proof of travel arrangements. And our local MP's office will help us again with the PR card. So, it is actually looking hopeful that he will be able to come on the trip after all! I'm sure it will be down to the wire, but it may actually come out in our favour!

We took Julie to my parent's house tonight so Carlos and I could go out on a date. It was really nice; we should make an effort to do that more often! Julie was dressed up and looked adorable! We also took her to visit Thom and his girlfriend, also to Al's place, and to our neighbours. She was quite a hit! She was a little leopard:

I received a response

I got an email from my boss this afternoon which said the following regarding my proposal to work part time upon my return in mid-January:

"In concept it should be workable. We’ll be back to you with the details next week regarding a change to part-time employment. Talk soon."

I had a feeling he would come around once he thought about it a bit and talked to the other senior staff. So, it is looking promising that I will be able to work part time. I will wait and see what he sends me next week. I am hoping he is okay with a 24 hour work week, that would be me working 3 days per week. I think that would be the best option. It will still be very difficult to return to work, but with 3 days a week in the office, that means I would have 4 days a week with Julie, which is certainly better than 2!

Feeling a little lost

I had my meeting with my boss yesterday in which I told him I would like to work part time. He said he wasn't expecting that and he would have to think it over and talk to senior staff to see what they thought. I made it very clear that I was willing to take work home with me if there was something that really couldn't wait until I was back in the office. Turns out they just hired a hydrogeologist/senior project manager last week and he is in my former office. Which means when I go back, I won't have my own office anymore, I would be sharing. I couldn't expect them to keep my office for me, but when October came around and it was still empty, I thought there was a good chance I'd get it back! Oh well. If I am going to be part-time, I am totally okay with sharing an office since I won't be there all the time.

I told my boss I am flexible on the details but that I would work a minimum of 3 days per week and he agreed that 3 days in a row would probably be best for the company, so we're thinking Wed/Thurs/Fri. He seemed positive, so I am sure he will come back saying it is fine. He asked me whether this was just in transition or whether this would be my new hours permanently and I really couldn't answer that. I don't know whether I will be back full time down the road or if I want part time forever (at least until kids are in school).

The meeting yesterday really made me realize something: I don't want to go back to work at all. Which doesn't make rational sense since I like my job and love the people I work with. I just felt this tug on my heart saying that I don't wan to leave Julie at all. I would love to find some sort of job where I can work from home. That just doesn't seem to be an option right now.

So I am feeling very lost because I'm not sure if my boss will agree to part-time and if he doesn't, I'm not sure I will say yes to full-time, in which case I will be out of a job. I would be very surprised if they let me go, but on the other hand, I don't even want to go back. It's just a money thing. So, I'm feeling a little lost.

I feel like I could rip my hair out!

More drama on our vacation. We booked the rental house in June and at that time, I asked everyone to check their passports to make sure they are still valid. Everyone said they were good, so I didn't push the issue.

Yesterday, I checked Oma's passport and Thom's and Oma's expires soon and Thom's is already expired. No problem. I took Oma today to get her passport photos taken and I printed out the form and filled it out with her and I will take her next week to submit it. Since her passport was issued less than 6 years ago, she can go through the simplified renewal process - awesome.

Thom on the other hand, his passport expired in September 2008, so he will have to apply for a new one instead of the simplified renewal process. His passport was issued in September 2003, so if he had renewed his passport a month ago (or in June when I told everyone to check their passports!), he would have still been within the window of being able to do the simplified renewal. Fine. I printed off the longer application and was filling it out with him and he needs 2 documents as proof of identity and the only 2 on the list that he would have are driver's license and health card. Well, I asked him for these 2 documents, he handed me his driver's license and a little piece of paper with his health card number on it and our conversation went like this:

Me: What is this? Where is your health card?
Thom: I don't have a health card; I never have. This is all I have.
Me: You MUST have a health card. What do you show when you go to the doctor?
Thom: They never ask for it.

Mom looked in her files and he got a letter saying he had to renew his health card immediately, but there is no date on that, so it could be years old. I phoned right away and I got him an appointment for tomorrow morning. I am taking him down there to make sure it gets done and to ask them if they could rush it since we need that in order to apply for his passport. I will also ask if we could use his temporary one that he will get to apply for a passport.

What a pain! I am starting to feel like if I didn't push everyone, it would only be me, Carlos, and Julie going to Florida. Which wouldn't be such a bad thing, I suppose... but so not the point! This is supposed to be a family vacation and nobody seems to be putting in the effort to get their travel documents in order!

Grrrr - stupid government!

We have a family vacation to Florida planned at the end of December. We are all really excited. The only problem is I don't think my dad will be able to go. All because the government is being incompetent! My dad is a landed immigrant and his Austrian passport JUST expired in July. So, he had to go to Ottawa in person to apply for a new one. The only thing he is missing is his citizenship record search, which my mom applied for in mid-July. Well it STILL hasn't arrived. And he needs that to get his passport and he needs his passport to apply for a Permanent Resident card. We were getting really worried that we wouldn't get this done in time, so my mom called the office of the local MP and got in touch with someone to help. Well that lady phoned to see what was taking so long with the citizenship record search and they are REALLY backlogged and are currently completing requests submitted in April. So, at this rate, he won't get it until December and then his passport takes up to 6 weeks, and then he needs his PR card, so there just won't be enough time. The lady at the MP's office is going to try her best to push them, but it's not looking hopeful.

I am so sad because my dad really deserves a vacation! I will be so upset if he is not able to come!

You'd think that 5 months would be plenty of time to get travel documents in order, but apparently not! It's going to take that long just to get the first of the 3 steps required!

Julie is great!

We had the follow-up appointment today and it turns out Julie has a small ASD (Atrial Septal Defect) and the doctor said it is no cause for concern and the small ASDs almost always close up on their own. We need to have her re-tested if it persists in several months, but the doctor said she could barely hear the murmur today. I am hoping it is well on its way to closing up and perhaps by her next check-up with our family doctor on Nov 24, it will be completely gone. So, I am very glad that everything is okay!

Julie is now 8 months old and here are her stats: 18 lbs and 29 inches long! She is off the charts in terms of her length and is around the 35th percentile for weight for her age. So, the doctor said she is at the age where she should be getting a good portion of her daily calories form baby food, so I guess I have to up her intake of babyfood and cut back on the nursing a tad. I guess I only have a little over 3 months before I go back to work, and then she will need to be on babyfood during the day and only nursing morning and bedtime.

I had a nice weekend away at a ladies retreat with Julie, mom, and Oma. Julie was a real hit! So many people asked me "is she always this good?" She was an absolute angel!

The only downer was that Oma cried the whole time and said she wanted to go home. And we were 2.5 hours away from home. Yet when I asked her what was wrong, she would reply with "I don't know". Then I would tell her if she doesn't even know why she is upset, she should just decide not to be upset. Then we would have the same conversation 5 minutes later and again and again all weekend. I have really noticed a change in her in the last month or so. She just seems so depressed and sad all the time, yet she doesn't know why. Mom is taking her to the doctor tomorrow to get the doctor's opinion on whether Oma should go through the mediation process, so I think we will have a list of things to mention to the doctor. It is so sad to see Oma go through this. It has gotten really bad now she cries all the time and says "I don't know what I'm going to do". Yet she doesn't know why she is upset. And it's gotten to the point now that mom has to bribe her to shower and she refuses to wash her hair. I think we'll have to take her to a salon to have her hair washed once a week because she absolutely refuses to wash it herself yet she doesn't know why she doesn't want to. This is really hard on us all. I am looking after Oma the 2 evenings a week mom has to go to work. Tomorrow, mom is going to a support group for caregivers, so I really hope she gets some good support there.

On Thursday, we have Julie's follow-up appointment with the pediatrician to go over the results of her echo cardiogram, and I really hope everything is okay. I will be so relieved after that appointment.

On Saturday, one of my childhood friends is getting married. She and her fiance are getting married exactly one year to the day after their first date. I am looking forward to the wedding and then enjoying 2 turkey dinners on the weekend as well!