So my boy isn't quite 6 months old and he's got his second ear infection. He woke up screaming at about 4am the other night and I knew it was more than a cold and teething. My normally easy-to-soothe little guy was just inconsolable. Less than 24 hours after starting the antibiotic and he's clearly feeling much better.
We'll be back at the pediatrician's office in a week for his 6-month appointment, but they weighed him yesterday to make sure we are giving him the right doses of pain reliever. He is just 2 ounces shy of 21 pounds! Not that I'm surprised by that. My back and arms are victims of the boy's heft. I think I'll be a hunchback by the time he's walking.
Ben started daycare part-time last week and seems to be doing pretty well there. He cried the first day when I handed him to his teacher. It's so unlike him I couldn't help but think that somehow he KNEW that I was leaving soon. ;) But the next three days went without a hitch, so it's been a pretty stress free transition.
I go back to work in 4 weeks and that makes me want to weep. I'm just not ready for life to get that crazy again. It's not really the work or leaving the baby at daycare that stresses me out. It's the coordination of school drop off and pick up around 2 full-time schedules with 2+ hours of commuting for each of us, and then having to rush through everything in the evenings.
My girl is so excited for Halloween that she actually spent her own birthday money on Halloween decorations for the house. She also convinced my mother-in-law to part with a few dollars too. So, as I sit here at the dining room table, I am enjoying the lovely Halloween centerpiece they picked out and the front yard is decorated with 2 sparkly purple cats, a small scarecrow and various other decorations.
On Thursday I'll be making the 2 hour drive to my hometown to attend the memorial service for my friend's son. I still can't believe it. I can't imagine anything worse than losing one of my kids.
2 comments:
The scheduling is the crazy-making part - I was thinking about how I'm going to manage any of it when I got to the end of your post. I guess losing a child really puts everything else in perspective - now I'm just glad my daughter is snug in her bed.
My heart goes out to your friend, I can't even imagine going through that.
I was in no way ready to go back to work after our son was born. (Nor after the adoption of our other children, either.) Some women I know look forward to returning to work, but for the reasons you cite (that juggling act!) and others (my hyperactive maternal instinct!), I believe a majority of us find it wrenching and, well, unnatural. :-(
Is Ben's daycare close enough to your employment that you could visit him on lunch hours? We had an in-home sitter (with several preschoolers, it made sense for us), and I worked only 3 minutes' drive from home then. So I was a regular at lunch hours! It got me through the day, just.
So sorry about your friend's son. Terrifying. Our younger son's high school is infested with flu right now -- some of it H1N1, some regular, some just bad cold viruses. My daughter at Syracuse has called me twice in 2 days with an awful cough, and I've *ordered* her to get over to the Health Center there.
We're all helpless to some extent with an epidemic like this. I grew up hearing about my great-aunt who died at age 20 in the influenza outbreak of 1918 that laid waste to so many in the U.S. *shiver*
Best of luck to you and yours as you return to work.
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