A Year of Being Cheesey

Today marks the one year anniversary of Matt working at Kraft. It's amazing what a difference a year makes!

The biggest change the new job brought to our family was that Matt would be working nights. I worried about this a lot at first. Not so much for myself, but for Logan. I worried (I still worry at times) about if  L is getting enough "Daddy time." For the most part, I think we all handled the transition well. Matt has worked nights before, so it wasn't a huge adjustment to him. The biggest problem, which we are still struggling with to a degree, is that it really effected Logan's sleep. My child who once had no problem going to bed on his own now insists that one of us (AKA Mom) stay with him and "read on her e-reader" until he falls asleep. It took us awhile to figure out where this new behavior was coming from, but finally he told us that he was afraid that Mommy left the house too. However, with the double whammy of him having to be at school by 8:30 a.m., we haven't been able to really fix the problem. His sleep is more important to me than my one hour of  free time in the evening, and it's more important to me that he sleeps, not so much where he sleeps. There's been a lot of nights of  him sleeping in my bed (I got tired of tripping over his air mattress that we used at the beginning). It's not ideal, and it's not perfect, but I hope we can work to getting him back on track over the summer months.

The whole family schedule has had to change. Supper time is later, which makes the rest of the night later, which has been more of impact on Logan. His bathtime is a little later, his bedtime a little later. Fortunately he has adjusted well to this. I know it's odd that he is staying up a bit later when he has to get up earlier, but it's worked for us. And nope...he does not nap.  Laundry has been a challenge because I used to fold laundry in our room...kind of hard when someone is sleeping. I've resorted to doing that part in Logan's room and it has worked well for the past month or so. I don't do dishes after supper anymore, I just do them the next day. I hate washing dishes (no dishwasher), so I really have to push myself to not let them pile up.
Another big change...a much happier Matt! It's safe to say that when he would come home from IP, it was like walking on egg shells around him. He was just so beaten down. Sometimes it was just best not to even talk to him ;o) It was very hard seeing him like that, and I knew that there was absolutely nothing I could do to fix it, except pray really hard that he found another job, and fast! Pretty much as soon as he got the call that he had been hired at Kraft, he was a new Matt.

It's been a good year for our family. It hasn't always been easy, and we've had to make some changes, but it's working for us.