Sunday, September 29, 2013

A Long Week and Finding Time

This past week was my first full week back to work.  I am floored.

Having a baby and learning to care for that baby is very, very challenging.  I feel like I have accomplished many challenging things in my life and I still think that this is one of the most difficult things I have ever done.  I know that it will also be one of the most rewarding, but right now I am in the field, on the front line, and it is hard.

As you may know from my blog, I am a teacher.  This will afford me certain luxuries as a parent, for example I will have the same vacation days as my child, in theory, and have summers off with them.  I also have shorter work hours (at least it looks that way on the clock), which will mean more time with my little one.  That is wonderful.

But right now, it is hard.

There is no other way to describe it.  I am extremely lucky to have a supportive husband and family.  My parents are going above and beyond.  My Mom is taking care of Sweet Pea during the day and my Dad even comes by to lend his help and go for stroller walks.  I do not think I would have survived this past week without my parents and husband.  Everyone had made sacrifices to make this work (working full-time as a nursing Mom with a three-month old).

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Fast forward three weeks and I finally have time to finish this post.   My first Draft did not even include my horse,  which is very telling.   Due to my husband's change in work schedule to accommodate care for our now four-month-old,  I cannot get to Harley after work.   We had just hit a rhythm of visits before work started and now I am worse off than before as far as seeing my horse goes.

I will figure it out.   When it comes to my horse, I always do, but in the mean time, baby has dibs on Mommy.  Harley understands.