Not so sure they were right

This week marks 3 months now that I've been back at work after maternity leave. Everyone told me when I came back that it would get easier. And in some ways it has, in some ways it hasn't.

Easier - we're better with a routine now. Tim is absolutely awesome at helping with this, so mad props to my husband, who I could never do this without. He usually figures out dinner at night while I feed Barrett. Then when we put kiddo to bed, we eat. Okay, so that means we're eating at 8 most nights, but at least we're maximizing our time while he's awake. We've got the bottle drill down now, the pumping thing figured out and the daycare drop-off working. Errands and cleaning are still tough, but we've just made some sacrifices in those departments. No one will be eating off our floors anytime soon and for about two weeks in May the contents of our refrigerator were beer and salad dressing (took me back to the post-college years!), but we survived.

The same - lack of sleep. Though he showed some promise with a few 10 hour nights in April, that was all a tease and now he's consistently waking up once a night, usually around 4:30am. The good news - he has been officially deswaddled and it was relatively painless for all of us. I think we broke it at a good time and now, even when he rolls over onto his belly, he will usually sleep that way. But he's still up during the night = mommy still up during the night = mommy very tired. I know we need to break him of this, but am not sure how I want to do it just yet.

Harder - On that first day back at work, I didn't think it could possibly get any harder to leave my baby, but somehow it has. It takes every ounce of restraint that I have to hand him over to the daycare provider every day when what I really want to do is hold him forever. I think of him all day long, wonder what he's doing and miss him with every ounce of my being the entire time we're apart. Right now he's doing SO many new things constantly. In just the last two weeks, we have experienced rolling back to front, one (maybe two!) little teeth popping through, and he's sitting unassisted for increasing amounts of time. It's crazy! I hate that I feel like I'm missing out on these new experiences and the time just keeps going faster and faster. 6 months next week? How is it that my little boy is already going to be 6 months next week??

So there you have the 3 month update of my experiences as a working mother, the good, the bad, and the bleary-eyed!