All good things must come to an end, and in this case, it was my maternity leave. I feel so lucky to have spent the past 12 weeks at home with Parker, even if it meant an entire summer without my main source of income (one of the very few downsides of self-employment). But on Tuesday, I kissed him goodbye at 3 pm and was off to my studio for my first full afternoon/evening of work since May.
To be honest, I really loved it. Seeing all of my students again was so wonderful — they were excited to be back, and wanted to know all about baby Parker — and I remembered how much I enjoy the work I do. Knowing that Parker is only a few rooms away from me, and that he is in the care of his grandmas and our awesome sitter Greta, is what has made this transition manageable.
There were definitely times throughout the summer that I thought I would enjoy being a stay-at-home mom, but heading back to work has confirmed that this is what is best for our whole family. I get to spend the entire day with my baby, and then do a job I love from the comfort of home. Financially, it allows us to save more, pay off our mortgage quicker (we’re shooting for 40 — that’s less than ten years away!), and still have plenty of money after expenses to do the things we love, especially travel.
Anyway, enough about me. Let’s get to my favorite topic in the whole wide world: my beautiful baby boy! Unbelievably, he is turning 3 months old tomorrow. Each week, he seems to become a little bit more chill and is smiling so much!
He was so cute this morning when Zach brought him to me after changing his diaper at 6 am; I said “hi” and he had the hugest grin on his face. It was almost like he woke us up on purpose just so that he could see us! Luckily after I fed him, he went right back to sleep so that I could begin my 6 am routine of coffee, breakfast, pumping, and getting things done around the house.
Parker is getting much better at taking the pacifier, which is a big plus since he’s spending so much time away from me now. It comes in super handy when we’re out in public, like yesterday when I took him to Target and he started getting a little fussy. It made me cringe thinking back to a few weeks ago (before he got the hang of the paci) when we were at Kohl’s, and he had a complete meltdown in the Ergo carrier. Hopefully we won’t relive that traumatic experience again.
The one bummer about this week is that Parker still isn’t gaining as much weight as he was up until now. He is right under the 10% mark for weight, even though he is a good eater, and seems happy and satisfied after his feedings. He continues to grow in length like a week, so I’m just hoping that during his 3-month growth spurt, his weight catches up.
This blog post is getting ridiculously long, so I’m going to end with a video of Parker’s first dip in grandma’s pool last weekend. He loved it!
