in two weeks

... I return to the workday routine. Alas!
It's been a great maternity leave. I was honestly not quite sure if I'd live through another maternity leave. The last one was unbelievably challenging. The sleep deprivation! The colic! The sub-freezing weather and tiny apartment! Not to mention the dramatic adjustments that a baby naturally necessitates. But this time ... it's been a lot different.

A lot of things are the same, but my life is already structured around being focused on kids. It's not like I'm sacrificing that much to 'start over.' And hoo boy, have a lot of things -- all the right things -- been different!


Matt and I joke that Madeline is a made-to-order baby, right down to her greater resemblance to -- and preference for -- her father. Well, perhaps preference is too strong, but she really seems to get a charge out of him. Her face lights up into the most delighted of smiles when he holds her. They really have a connection. He was the first one to figure out that we could 'talk' to her -- she's always been a cooer, and if we coo to her, she smiles big and often coos back. If her tummy is full and she's in a good mood, that is.
But I digress. She's a sleeper -- just like we wanted! She's a great latcher-on and eater, and doesn't spit up much -- just as I hoped for! She's quite healthy, which is of course wonderful. And we thought it would be fun to have a dark-haired flavor this time. Matt's mom keeps declaring that she looks like 'Matt in a dress.' I'm falling short of inflicting that description on her, but there certainly is a strong resemblance! And people are starting to say she looks a lot like Lizzy, too. It's those Maisel eyes.
Anyway ... it's been such a treat, getting to know her. It's going to be so hard to hand her over to someone else for 11 hours a day. ELEVEN HOURS. I don't think we ever left Lizzy for more than nine. Just the way the commute works out -- Maddie's day care will be close to our house, whereas Lizzy's was closer to our jobs -- but it just seems wrong. It's just tough to leave them, period. Don't get me wrong -- I have the highest respect for stay-at-home moms, but I'd quickly go insane if I was one -- but it's just tough nonetheless. You have to do what you have to do, I keep telling myself.
Two more weeks. Just two more weeks ...

Bonus photo -- we allowed Lizzy to decide when we went to the local, but very well-known and well-attended, farm's fall festival. Her school bus passes it twice a day, so she had its 'grand opening' date reinforced often, and thus she wanted to go this weekend. So we did, despite having only two hours on Sunday afternoon to do so. It's been an annual tradition of Matt's and mine since Lizzy was 11 months old -- long before we lived so close to it.

I ran around getting as many photos of the fam as I could with the dying camera battery I'd brought, and only realized at the end of the day that the lens had a huge smudge on it. Whoops.

If you pretend I'm the goat, it's a family photo!