The Best Vacation Ever

Uh Hi there! Yea, yea I am still alive. And all is well around these parts.

This week I started back at work. Well sort of. After being on Maternity leave since April 12th, it was actually kinda nice to be back in the office, sitting at a desk, and catching up with co-workers. I wasn't really doing much work work, more busy work as most people didn't know I was there and I was mostly there to get adminy things accomplished, like updating passwords, getting access back to systems, setting up my laptop which died while I was on leave and submitting for a 5 week vacation.

Yea, that's right, 5 weeks. I have taken the disability and bonding leaves supported by the lovely state of California which paid out some monies for part of that time and protected my job, but now I'm back but have 6 weeks of time off accrued so I'm going to take some of that to tack onto the end of my leave to extend this precious time with my growing up way too fast baby girl.

I had been accruing vacation time and saving it for just this reason for years. Each time I'd hit the ceiling of how much they let us accrue, I'd be reminded that I didn't have a baby yet. But finally, I got to sit down and sign into the HR system thingy and submit my request for a whole lot of time off. It felt weird. It felt wrong. I thought, I could come back earlier and save more of this time. I'm stingy with my vacation time because it always costs money to go on vacation, money I didn't really have, and I always wanted to be able to have this chunk of time to take when I had a baby. And here I am. with a baby. so day by day I asked for 8 hours off. It was pretty much awesome.

We might go away for some of it. We might not. We might take day trips. We might just stay home and stare in awe at our little miracle and repeatedly say, "did you see what she just did?" as she learns and explores the world around her.

I'm very grateful I have had this time with her. I don't know if going back to the corporate world later will be easier or harder than if I went back after the 8 week disability leave, but I don't really want to think about that right now because today, right now, will never come again and I'm loving just being in love with my baby.

When the Baby naps...

The baby is starting to wake up from a 2.5 hour nap. You'd think this means I got some crap done around the house, right?

Well I try to lay down with her for the afternoon nap because it seems to make her sleep longer. As in her usual 20-30 minute nap turns magically into 2+ hours. And these long nap days usually coincide with easy put to bed nights. Plus, I'm going back to work soon so these opportunities are limited so I gotta get'em while the gettin's good.

So great! You got in a nap too. Don't you feel better? Stop rubbing it in! - you might say.

But alas, I think I looked at my phone for the whole time. Twitter, Facebook, reading and re-reading blog posts and articles, BPA Free teething toy research, talking to lovey while he looks at BPA Free chewy things at the store.

However, even though I didn't sleep, I still feel a little refreshed. Wonder if my lovey made dinner? Maybe he got the tea stains out of the kitchen sink from his mother's recent visit. (I'll answer that now before I even leave the bedroom -- no and no)

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DATE NIGHT!

My Mother-in-Law is visiting for a week. She hasn't been here since the wee little baby was a month old. She stayed with us for 3 weeks back then and has been itching to come back out since before she left.

Tonight, kind of spur of the moment, we decided to go out on a date night while MIL watched the baby. LilMiss has started taking a long nap later in the evening (which I know everyone advices against but its what her little clock is doing, so we're going with it) so about half way through we got ready and headed out.

We went to one of those Brazilian steakhouses where they come around to the tables with meat on swords and they cut off pieces for you as you want it. There was a little salad bar/veggie buffet thing, you know to make it a round meal, but that's not why people go to these places. We were there for the meat, and for the most part the meat was GOOD!

Sure, we talked about parenty type stuff the whole time, a little family gossip, a little "wonder if I've pissed off my friends with unsolicited advice" talk, a little "are we on the same page?" talk, and a little "I really appreciate you" talk. It was great. The bulk of the talk was around co-sleeping and how to make that work and for how long. Questions like... how might a couple have more kids in that situation, if you know what I mean!

We got home to a fairly happy baby girl who took a bottle well, and had slept for another hour after we left (although woke up screaming which isn't normal for her), and was on the floor with Grammy playing on her tummy (did I mention she's rolling now, ALL THE TIME, like won't stay on her back for anything). Of course now she is fighting with all her might against daddy because she's sleepy but you know, she's a fighter! And me, I just pumped a ton because baby got a bottle and mama was uncomfortable.

Oh, I hear the daddy walking this way with a bounce in his step and going "shhhhh". She's asleep but refusing to be put down. See, she knows we left her and she's not letting us do that again! :-)
I guess I'm off to get ready for bed. I have a feeling someone will be sleeping with me all night and I'm totally ok with that.