Best Things About Maternity Leave

Naps.  Waking up in the middle of the night to tend to a fussy baby is much more palatable knowing I can snooze during the day to catch up on missed sleep.

Wearing pajamas until 7:00pm.  Why even bother changing out of pajamas at 7:00pm?  Because that’s when we take the girls out for a walk and I’ve seen enough episodes of What Not To Wear to know better than to leave my house in pjs.

Catching up on 2 seasons of Supernatural.  Dude – that’s a great show.  I’m so sorry I missed out on watching it from the beginning.
 

Quality time with my folks.  I spent a full week with my dad and 3 weeks with my mom.  This is time that I’ll cherish forever (if I can remember it through the blur). Plus an additional week with each of them at the end of my leave.

These guys.  

Maternity Leave and Going Back to Work

I was going to write about the end of maternity leave and having to go back to work, but I am just way too tired to do that.  And that perfectly sums up how I feel about going back to work:  I operate in a state of utter exhaustion all day long.  Why?  Thanks in large part to my 1.5 hour commute each morning and evening I’m up at 5am, home by 5:30pm, take care of kids from 5:30pm-9:00pm, and in bed by 9:30pm.  (Back story – my department moved to our LA office 50 miles away from our current office while I was pregnant.  Since I was pregnant, I worked out of the old office, now that I’m not pregnant I have to make the commute).   Luckily, this schedule won’t last too long – I start a new job next Monday and the commute is less than 15 minutes.  I just have to power through 5 more days of living like a zombie.

Our Little Feces Monsters

16 weeks ago this past Monday, two of us went to the doctor's office for a routine ultrasound and non-stress test. Five days later, four of us walked out.  As my maternity leave comes to an end, I've found myself reflecting on how much the girls have grown and changed since those first stress-filled, sleepless, crazy weeks; and I've also thought about how much our lives have changed since we brought them home.

1. Once upon a time 4am meant I was stumbling into bed.  Now it means I'm stumbling out of it
2. Disco naps have been replaced with "nap while the kids nap" naps
3. Poop and toots have become the primary conversation topic at casa de Flinn
4. Living with babies is like living in Italy under Il Duche - the trains (or rather, the food) will always arrive on schedule
5. Last-minute drives to LA to catch a concert have been replaced with last-minute drives to Target for everything.  
6. Before kids - I would never leave the house in pajama pants. Now, I consider wearing pajama pants being dressed up. 
7. A continuous night's sleep has become a myth - oft-talked about yet never seen.

As crazy as they made me those first few months (I seriously think I should have been put on meds at one point), they're pretty awesome dudes.  I remember what our life was like before they arrived, but now I can't imagine my life without them.