Surviving . . .

Well, it has been two weeks since I started back to work . . . how has it been you ask? Don't ask! Seriously, thought, it hasn't been that bad. I am completely and utterly exhausted! And feel like I am running around like a chicken with my head cut off most of the time, but it is slowly getting better.

We are starting to get into a good morning routine. I am up at 5am (yuck!), Liam is up at 5:30am and Daddy is up sometime around then as well. We are all ready and out the door by 6am . . . unless Liam decides to have a poop, which he seems to do most days about 5 minutes before we are supposed to leave. And it is always the huge explosive type . . . fortunately, as long as we are gone by 6:15, we are good!

Work starts for me at 7:20, with Liam, a later shift would be much easier, but we only have one car and Henry works at 7, so we don't have a choice. Getting into a good routine at work is proving to be more difficult than getting into a routine of getting out of the house. I am working with Toddlers again and even though I have many years of toddler experience, I have been away from them for 3 years. In a lot of ways, it is like starting a brand new job! I forget how much these kids can do for themselves (compared to the babies that I worked with before my maternity leave) and am constantly stressing myself by trying to do things for them that I should be letting them do for themselves. I hate having to ask questions that someone who has work at the daycare for as long as I have (eight years) should know, but having been away for 8 months, so many things have changed!

One nice thing about being with the toddlers is that many of the kids that were babies with me when I was pregnant are "my kids" again in the toddler program. They have changed so much but it is amazing to see how they have grown up.

I do love working with toddlers and I know that once I get used to the noise that is created by a room full of 20 toddlers and get back into the toddler educator frame of mind, everything will be fine! Until then, I am going to muddle my way through it and hope for the best!

I am still undecided on what is busier, work or after work! Once we get home, Liam wants attention, usually a bottle and then his supper, I have to cook our supper, eat supper, give Liam a bath and get him ready for bed. There is little or not time to sit and relax until Liam is in bed for the night. Even then, there is always so much to do . . . make formula and lunches for the next day, clean up the kitchen . . . and the list goes on and on!

Eventually I will get used to it all . . . but for now, I am just surviving! (And wishing for that money tree to appear in my back yard.)