Friday, May 21, 2004
I feel like I should write something to commemorate these last few days of my maternity leave - the end of this brief phase in my life when I was a stay-at-home mom.
I can't say that I completely loved it, or that I'm sure that I would like to be a stay-at-home mom for a longer period of time if I had the option (maybe, or maybe not), but I can tell you that almost every time I think about going back to work on Monday, I start crying.
It's not that I dread going back to work. In fact, I'm kind of looking forward to it. It seems like a far off world, but a world that I kind of enjoyed - the world of being an adult, in my own office, with my own adult job to do, dealing with lots of different people both in our department and in many different states for which we handle claims. It's a foreign but welcome idea that when I need to go to the bathroom or eat lunch, I will be able to go right that very minute, without waiting until the baby is asleep or soothed or has finished eating her own lunch, or until Geoff is available to take her. I don't love title insurance, but I must admit that I am actually kind of excited about solving intellectual problems as well as child-rearing ones.
And Geoff will be home with her, so I'm not worried about her well-being the way I might be if I were leaving her in a day care situation (not that I think day care is a horrible scary place, just that I know it would make me worry at least a little bit, at least for the first few days, to leave Katie in a strange place with people who are as yet strangers, and I know that she's better off with her dad). She's staying at home with her daddy, and she's not old enough yet that she'll even miss me. She'll be glad to see me when I get home (I hope), but she won't really notice that I'm gone (other than possibly thinking, "hey, why do I have to eat from bottles during the day now, instead of from my mommy's boobs?").
But I am going to miss that little round smiling face.
And that little round sleeping face.
And those little round chubby legs.
And those beautiful blue eyes.
And her round soft kissable cheeks.
What I'm going to miss the most, I think, are those unexpected moments in the middle of the day when, for no apparent reason, she looks at me, and I look back at her, and she babbles at me and smiles and laughs her weird little coughing-laugh, and I tell her things and laugh with her, and we are both so obviously delighted by each other.
I'll still get to be with her for all of those things, of course. It's not like I'm leaving forever, or even close to it.
I guess I'm just saying that when Monday morning comes, it will be hard to go.
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