The Week in iPhone Photos

Here’s what I did on my last week of maternity leave:

Sent bad doggie to day care to wipe him out for days

Played with new toys on a playdate

Shopped with Grammy

Hung out on the couch with Baxter and the baby

Lots of snuggling

Tormented the baby with a photo shoot this morning

More Retrospection

I have two weeks of maternity leave left. At this point, I’m technically on vacation.

As much as I dislike working (not necessarily my job, just working), I’m not good at home. I’m lazy yet bored. I feel isolated and some days desperate to talk to someone besides an infant and a puppy. Thankfully (?) people insist on talking to me about the baby all the time. As an aside: she’s dressed completely in pink, why would you think she’s a boy???

Here’s my big, ugly confession: I have named all of the baby’s toys.  They all have personalities too.  My world was rocked when I learned that Betty the Butterfly was really Freddie the Firefly.  Mortimer the Moose is a wannabe Brit, Tommy the Turtle may be gay.  I named a dog “Baxter 2” today.  I need to talk to grown ups!!!

If I knew I was staying home for more than 14 weeks, I think I would have had to get on a schedule. And I’d definitely have to get some stay at home mom friends, maybe even join a group or two. Being alone gets old fast. I’ve tried to make plans every day, and the days I don’t get out drive me crazy. I shop a lot but don’t necessarily buy anything.

I wouldn’t have listened to the people who told me I’d spoil the baby by holding her too much. I know that you can’t spoil a brand new baby. And I did (do) hold her a lot, but now that I won’t be with her all day, I wish I had held her more.  My favorite times are when she wakes up too early, eats and falls asleep on me.  Then I fall asleep, and Baxter joins us on the bed, and I wake up to Willie Geist on the Today show, and all is right with the world.

I learned I really do hate to clean. Faced with the option of cleaning or wandering stores aimlessly, I always choose wandering.

I learned (really, always knew), that left to my own devices, I will not exercise. I need to be told what to do and just do it. I can come up with 25 reasons not to jump on the treadmill or go for a walk. But if there’s a DVD with a man telling me to jump, I’ll do it.  Even if that man speaks about himself in the third person (Shaun T gets tired during Insanity!)

I learned that dressing a boy may have been easier.

I would have stayed off Pinterest – it just made me feel guilty.  I thought I’d do all this stuff when I had the time.  Now I have the time, but I still don’t want to be all crafty.  And, really, I don’t want my Elf on the Shelf to make a mess.  I have a dog for that.

Most importantly, I learned that no matter how tired I was/am/will be always, how ready I am to go back to work, how many nights I thought “What the hell have I gotten myself in to”, the fact my pants still don’t fit and possibly never will, the possibility that Molly the Monkey thinks I’m certifiable, all the “am I a good enough mom” worries I have at 3am when I’m wondering if the baby is okay…this makes it all worth it