All Good Things

The baby party is officially over tomorrow morning -- my maternity leave is finally up. Not that I don't like my job and my co-workers, but there's a part of me that wishes I could stay home all day with my babies. But, then again, there's also a part of me that fears that I might go a little batty if I did ;). So, since all good things must come to an end, tomorrow I pack up my work bag (which once again contains an assortment of pumping paraphrenalia) for the first time since May and head off to the office.

These are the looks I got from the babies when I told them I had to go back to work tomorrow (Molly wanted to know if there'd still be milk):



I'm glad that I was able to have a proper maternity leave this time around -- it was really nice getting to spend a lot of time just taking care of and enjoying my baby. Max was still in the NICU when I went back to work, which was really rough. I took my remaining vacation time after he came home, but it wasn't even close to enough. It's hard working eight hour days when you're getting up to feed a very tiny baby every three hours, not to mention the fact that said baby takes an hour to eat and then you still have a half hour of pumping and clean-up time ahead of you. We managed to muddle through somehow, although I'm still not quite sure how we did it (especially since I had sworn off caffeiene entirely, as it made Max's reflux worse). It should be much easier this time around -- Molly nurses like a champ and is starting to sleep longer stretches at night. So, Mom will head off to work and Dad will hold down the baby fort. Molly will have a bottle for the first time in two months, although I'm sure the little piggy won't have any trouble sucking it down.

We're finishing up our Halloween preparations here (yes, once again I'm sewing costumes at the last minute). It never seems to matter how early I start, I'm always still doing stuff at the last minute. It'll be fun to take Max trick-or-treating at the neighbors' houses and I'll bring Molly along for the ride. We've been trying to teach him how to say "trick or treat," but so far he hasn't produced anything that sounds remotely promising. I am bummed because I never made it to the orchard/pumpkin patch with Max, due to poor timing and even poorer weather, so it looks like we're skipping the pumpkin carving this year. It has pretty much rained nonstop here for the last couple of weeks, which made scheduling outings a tad difficult. Molly did volunteer to stand in as the family pumpkin, though, so all is not lost. ;) I won't tell you what costumes Max and Molly will be wearing -- you'll have to stop back after Halloween and see for yourself. :)

I hope everyone has a great Halloween -- may you end up with more treats than tricks!