Happy Birthday to Me!

Today is my 39th birthday! While some people wouldn't be excited to tell everyone about their 39th birthday, I am. The reason for that is this birthday is the first one that I can celebrate as a mommy! For the past 5 years, I have been very sad on my birthday as it was just another birthday without a child in my life. It was just another year that has passed me by still leaving a huge void in my life. I thank God that I didn't have to say that this morning. He has blessed me with a handsome baby boy. While Dawn has always made my birthdays special, today was even more special to be sharing my day with her and our beautiful son. She and Mason hid birthday surprises throughout the house for me to find. Mason was so excited about the presents that he couldn’t keep from waking up several times during the night to tell me about them. He finally won at 5:20am. I went upstairs to get him. I put him in his swing thinking he may go back to sleep for a little bit while I showered but he was too excited. He was “talking” up a storm. He was trying to tell me about all of the cool gifts that I needed to search for. When I went to get him out of the swing, he gave me his usual huge grin and of course I just melted. It was then that I knew that today was going to be the best birthday yet.

Daycare, Returning to Work and Rolling Over

Well last week was probably one of the most difficult weeks I have had in a LONG time. There are a couple reasons for this. (1) Having to leave Mason in daycare for 9 hours each and only getting to spend a couple hours each day with him. (2) Returning to work full time and being given a 5 million dollar budget to decipher with a brand new accounting system that I have never used! My heart and head hurt so badly all week. I really struggled with Mason being in daycare. So much so, I tried to find everything possible wrong with the place that we have him; when in fact, it isn’t a bad place at all. It has many advantages compared to some of the larger centers that we looked at. It is smaller and has less children so Mason really is getting more attention than he would be getting at a larger place. He has done much better than I have with the exception that he hasn’t slept longer than an hour and a half each day which makes for a VERY cranky, sleepy baby in the evenings. Even though he is pitiful in the evenings without much sleep it has had its advantages. He is starting to sleep better at night now! We have even had a couple of 5 – 6 hour stretches the first part of the night! The second half of the night is still a bit inconsistent but things are getting better. Dawn and I have worked out a sleeping / feeding pattern that is working much better for us. She stays up for the first of the night feedings and I take the second. That gives us both 4 – 6 hours of uninterrupted sleep a night. While this doesn’t sound ideal, it is MUCH better than our 1 – 3 hour stretches! Oh how I look forward to the nights when he sleeps ALL night. We really shouldn’t complain. He goes to bed between 7:30 and 8:00 wakes up 2 times to eat which consists of about an hour combined and has been sleeping until 7:00ish so out of 12 hours he is only up an hour! If I wasn’t such a freak-a-zoid , I could be getting more sleep but more on that later!

Now on to the second reason why last week was such a tough week. Returning to work was more difficult than I anticipated. I guess I didn’t prepare myself for things “feeling” so different. I told several people that I just felt like a fish out of water; like a stranger in a place that I have been for 14 years. It is hard to explain. Anyway, I know it is just me so things will get better soon. Everyone was glad to have me back and I guess I feel a little guilty that I wasn’t glad to be back! I also quickly realized that it was so much easier functioning on 4-5 hours of sleep when I was home all day than it is trying to work and actually having to “think”. Not that I didn’t have to think while I was at home. It was a different type of thought process. Entertaining an infant takes much less brain cells than does trying to figure out our association’s budget. I thanked my boss daily for dumping everything in my lap on my first day back. Nothing like hitting the ground running.

Now on to one of the positive things from last week, Mason has started to roll over. On Tuesday, I laid him on his activity mat while I was getting his bottle ready and when I went to walk away he flipped right over from his tummy to his back. I thought it was an accident so I flipped him back over and he did it again. Of course, I was so excited and couldn’t wait to tell someone. The first people I saw that morning was his daycare teachers and when I told her she said yeah, he did that yesterday for us too. Can you say my balloon was a little bit deflated! Over the weekend, we watched him try really hard to flip from his back to his tummy and he couldn’t ever quite get it. This morning when I took him to daycare, his teacher proceeds to tell me that he flipped from his back to his tummy for them on Friday. Ugggh! Another reason why I miss being away from him so much. Someone else is going to see many of his “first” milestones before we get to see them. Yes, I am selfish like that!

Thanks to everyone that sent me well wishes on my return to work. They made my return a bit more pleasurable. I know it will get easier and better so until then I will pout and whine about it for as long as I can.

Until next time…..

Kim