The Giant Leap

The first 12 weeks of Lucas' life absolutely flew by. I could barely believe it when my maternity leave officially ended on December 21. But I returned to work for two days before having off again for 10 days for Winter Break. It was a nice way to ease back into the work scene. It was the first time I was away for Lucas for more than 3 hours when we weren't sleeping, so it was particularly nice to have my parents come up to watch Lucas for those two days so there was one less thing to worry about (thanks Mom and Dad!). He took a bottle with no problem and pumping at work actually wasn't as horrible as I remembered. Around this time, Lucas started consistently sleeping through the night too - from about 11pm to 6-7am every single night. It definitely made going back to work easier not to feel like a complete sleep-deprived zombie. There were several times over the Holidays that he slept in until 9 or even 10am so we started pushing his bedtime earlier (since sleeping in until 9 isn't an option when we're both working). For some reason, the extended sleep doesn't seem to work as well when he goes to bed earlier (he's a night owl?) because when we try to put him down at 9 or 9:30, it takes him a long time to get down for the night and then he wakes up at 4 or 5am. So, we're still trying to figure out how to handle bedtime with him.
Lucas and Opa (and he's not asleep!)
Anyway, in the middle of all of our Christmas festivities, Lucas had his "Transition Week" (I explained about this transition at the school with Ellie a few months ago) into daycare the last week of December. Marty took him in and stayed there with him for a few hours on that Monday and Tuesday, then I dropped him off for a few hours on Friday. He seemed to like daycare - there was so much to look at! - and we were already familiar and friendly with the teachers in the Infant/Toddler Room, as Ellie was in there for a year and the same teachers are all still there. We really like everyone there and feel sure that they are taking good care of our baby.

That being said, dropping him off for his first official day on January 5th was much harder than I thought it would be. I figured since this was our second time putting a baby into daycare and because we know and like this daycare so much that it would be easier this time around. Unfortunately that was not the case. It is hard to leave your 3 month old baby at daycare, no matter how much you like and trust the people. It's still daycare and it's still hard. To make things harder, I had a really big important grant due on January 12th that required an enormous amount of time and work, so I couldn't go in late and leave early to ease Lucas into the whole daycare thing, like I did when we first put Ellie into daycare. In fact, I was working even longer hours than I usually do. It was less of an ease back in and more like a giant leap.

Even though I have been having a bit of a hard time with it, luckily Lucas seems to be adjusting perfectly fine. He is eating and sleeping well and seems perfectly happy when we drop him off and pick him up. He hasn't even been particularly clingy to me or showing any other signs of missing us. Ellie, on the other hand, is a different story.

I have a new appendage and it's 3 feet long and 29 pounds. Sometimes it's connected to my leg and sometimes to my neck, but seems to always be attached. In what can't be just a coincidence, since I went back to work Ellie has been clinging to me like crazy. She wants only me to do everything for her, constantly tells me how much she loves me and literally clings to me until I physically pry her off of me. Of course I love her affection, but getting things done (making dinner, eating, laundry, bathroom...) when you have a two year old attached to you is very challenging. What is going on here? Obviously Ellie was not at home with me while I was on maternity leave, but she did reap many of the benefits. I was home all day with Lucas, so when she got home from school, I was able to shower her with attention. Now that they are both in daycare my one on one time with Lucas is suddenly very limited. I think she's feeling a little short changed because I now have to split the attention between the two of them in the evenings. Like everything I am sure this is just an adjustment, something that she'll get used to eventually.
Lucas and Gram
In the world of adjustments, Marty and I are still trying to figure out the logistics of getting ourselves and two children up, ready, fed and out the door by 7:15am. We still have not figured it out - our departure time ranging anywhere from 7:30 to 8:00 (we have yet to make our 7:15 goal). What time we wake up doesn't seem to have any real correlation to getting out of the house on time, so there are still a lot of things we need to work out. It seems like the key is going to be to have all food packed, coffee prepared, clothes set out, bags packed, etc the night before. However, even with all these things done and getting up really early, it seems like something else always seems to come up to make us late. Luckily most days it doesn't matter what time we get to work.