So this is my second week back at work and it has been fabulous. I only took off 10 weeks with Lila. Unfortunately, at my new job, they don’t pay for moms to be on maternity leave. Since I’ve been at this job for only 1 year, I haven’t accumulated a lot of sick or vacation time, so most of my maternity leave was “out of pocket.” Jason is the stay-at-home dad. I think every working parent should have an opportunity to be a stay-at-home parent for a week or two. It’s a VERY tough job to be home with the kids. I love seeing our kids grow up, but when you do it every day, day in, day out, it gets very old and tiring. You smell like spit up and you don’t bother getting out of your PJs because there’s no one to see except your kids. Though, my mother always said, you still want to look nice for your husband when he comes home from work (very old fashion thinking, but I do believe that is true). I think it’s just my type A behavior. When I was on maternity leave with Miles and Lila, we were out and about almost every day doing either playgroups or going out shopping. Thank goodness my parents live close by for us to go visit and my in-laws were in town for a month to help us out. When I hear my friends say “oh, I love being at home with my kids…” I think to myself, “What the hell’s wrong with me? Why don’t I want to be home with my kids?” Last week, Jason and I had a conversation about this. Twelve years ago when I first started graduate school, single and independent, I must have had some thought that I wasn’t going to be the “stay at home” type. I worked my ass off getting my doctorate degree, and I’ve worked my ass off getting to where I am today. I love working with children and families. I love my job and I love what I do. But if I won the lottery, would I keep on working? I think I would at least volunteer a few hours a week. Anyway, back to Jason. Jason is missing his recording studio and ultimately, we are going to try and get him back into the music scene. We recently got an architect to draw up some plans on the addition to our house. We decided to move forward with it and start the planning and building. Right now, we are in the process of getting permits. We’ll see how long that takes with the city.
