Babies Make Four: Thoughts on Maternity Leave

Welp, it's here. My last day alone with little Luke. I know that I don't go back to work until Monday, but Dillon will be home the rest of the week and my sister-in-law, Kenzie, and her husband, Taylor, are coming down to spend a long weekend with us. In a way, I'm grateful that Kenzie and Taylor will be here this weekend. It keeps my mind off of the fact that I'm returning to work. I'm hoping that we'll go to Shindig on the Green Saturday night and I've thought about hitting up Biltmore, even though it tends to be a little expensive. Could be a fun outing though.

All three of us (Myself, Dillon and the baby) have been fighting off a cold this week. I just returned from seeing our pediatrician making sure that what Luke has isn't anything more than a cold. Luckily, it's not. He's just got a stuffy nose and a little cough. Is it ridiculous to say that even his cough is cute?

Yesterday, we had some more visitors from Virginia! Dillon's mom, granny, aunt Libby, Cousin Deanna and her daughter Claudia all came down for the afternoon. We had such a good time getting together, taking turns holding the baby and eating pizza for dinner. I also got to listen to some really great stories from Granny about when she was little. Talking with her yesterday made my heart ache to listen to stories from my Grandpa and for him to meet Luke. I know that my grandparents are in heaven watching the baby grow and grow. There are some days that I really do miss living near our families.

Since today is my final day of all-alone maternity leave I thought I'd share some thoughts reflecting on my time off:

* Daytime t.v. rocks my socks: 5 hours of Dr. Phil, I believe I will. The same episode of Bridezillas for the umpteenth time, why, yes. What Not To Wear while I eat my lunch, can you believe they go out of the house that way? After Luke and I established a routine, I realized that there was a lot of "down time" with the baby. This isn't to say I wasn't busy, but when he takes 45 minutes to eat a bottle, I've got to figure out how to entertain myself someway. And that way was watching Dr. Phil work his magic one crazy person at a time. I'll miss you old buddy. I'm thinking of investing in a DVR just to keep up with him.

* Facebook sharing is caring: I always liked looking at pictures of my friends' kids on Facebook, but some people seem to get frustrated with the overabundant photos of babies and baby posts. That's one reason I made the blog, so that I didn't fill up my feed with baby stuff (and I know, I've failed miserably at that). I do understand that some people can get carried away with posting about their kids but now I totally understand why. I'm at the house all day. I've cleaned the floors, dusted, maybe cleaned the bathrooms (who am I kidding? I hate cleaning bathrooms. They probably didn't get clean) And now it's just me and the baby. And, look! He made a cute face... that I captured with my iPhone camera. Surely everyone wants to see it? People without kids (and I can say this because up until 3 months ago, I didn't get it either) don't understand. When you have this little person, it becomes your whole existence. And when you're home by yourself all day and your one major responsibility is taking care of the baby, that's really all you have to talk about. That and the crazy chick that was just on Dr. Phil.

* Baby cuddles are the best thing ever: Keeping a little baby is difficult. You're reward for keeping the wee one alive are the cuddles. Been awake all night with a screaming child? Pull them into bed with you at 5 AM and let them fall asleep on your chest and you'll forget all about it. Naps at 1:00 in the afternoon on the couch with the baby come in 2nd best to the morning cuddles. I will miss those naps.

* This has been the absolute best time of my life: Spending day in and day out with Luke has been awesome, probably the most precious time in my life. When he's grown up and out the door, I'll look back at these three months as our time. The time where it was just me and him and all we really had to worry about was learning about life. Realizing what your hands and feet are or that first smile. It's amazing how much he's grown in the last three months and I got to be there for pretty much every single moment. Starting next week, I'll miss some of his smiles in the few hours that I'm at work, but I know that it'll be the best feeling when I pick him up from daycare and he sees me and hopefully I'll get the biggest smile of the day.