Change is good. Life is good!

It's been a while since my last blog post, and a LOT has happened! Natalie's daycare (FIO) announced on June 9th that they would be closing..... on June 30th. We had three measly weeks to find a new daycare for our babe. Our top two daycare centers in-town had impossibly long waiting lists - one had 100 people on the list, and the other had a three year waiting list. Finding a daycare we liked that was also convenient just wasn't going to happen, so we decided that I would quit my job to stay home with Natalie until we figured things out. I started looking for jobs OTP (outside the perimeter, for you non-Atlantians) near Jeremy's office and where there are plenty of daycare centers with immediate openings. I posted my resume on dice.com and got a call the next day (on a Tuesday) from a recruiter about a job in Norcross, then had a phone interview with the company on Thursday, then was called for an in-person interview the following Monday. Ultimately, I had the interview on my first day off of work and I was offered the job the very same day! And they wanted me to start ASAP! I told them I'd need two weeks since we were faced with finding a house to rent in the 'burbs and most importantly, a new daycare for NatNat.

I spent the next few days driving around to look at houses and tour daycare centers. I was less than impressed with the first three centers I toured and was starting to get a little nervous. Then I found Legacy Academy at Berkeley Lake. It reminded me of FIO in that it really felt like a learning center, not just a daycare. Luckily, we also found a great house to rent just 1.5 miles from Legacy! The next several days were spent packing up our house in Midtown, and then we moved to the 'burbs that Friday. Then I started work and Natalie started daycare the following Monday.

WHEW! Now you understand why the blog posts have been few and far between ;-).

I wish I could say that Natalie transitioned to her new daycare seamlessly, but sadly that would be far from the truth. She has developed separation anxiety, which is perfectly normal and expected at her age, but no easier for mom and dad to take. Each morning last week, she started wailing when I got ready to leave her classroom. The first day was the absolute worst. She cried and reached for me until I started crying too and then showed up for my first day of work with puffy eyes and a heavy heart. The rest of the week she did a little better - she sat with the other babies and played while I filled out her journal and put her things away, but the tears came whenever I started to leave. We're hoping and praying that she'll adjust to her new surroundings this week and we can have our happy-at-daycare baby back!

We haven't taken many pictures lately, but here's a cutie from a few weeks ago when she had her first baby pool experience: