Back in the Saddle Again

The past three weeks have been full of change and learning and growth and sleep deprivation. And not a whole lot else. As I choose to keep most of the stuff about the baby on her blog (which I will probably be switching to private before too long), there hadn't been much to put on this blog. That will be changing soon. As of today I am back to my regular schedule. Ready or not, here I come.

We took Eliana to church for the first time today. We did fairly well in getting there on time. We were only 10 minutes late and that included giving her a bath and feeding her before we left for 9 a.m. church. I'll take that. We dressed her in her frilly pink go-home-from-the-hospital dress for the last time. She did fairly well. Not so for me. I was worried about where to put her car seat in sacrament meeting. In Sunday School I freaked out when the child in the row in front of us began to cough. I was tempted to douse both children in hand sanitizer. Finally, I dropped a hymn book on Eliana in Relief Society. I think it only hit the car seat rather than her. The whole experience finally worked out. Everyone told me how cute she is and how good I look. It makes me smile.


Tomorrow I go back to work. I have not been planning on it or desiring it, but it's time. My friend and coworker, who has been so wonderful in stepping up to do the extra work, has come across some very unfortunate circumstances and will not be able to work as much. I have not been mentally prepared to return to work, so it's helpful to me that I have to go back now. On the plus side, I can take my daughter to work with me. It would break my heart to have to leave her with someone else. Another good thing is that I've already gone through the worst part of my return. I have no desire for myself and the baby to be exclaimed over. One person at work exclaims over everything (everything includes things like, "You lived in California?!? My great-aunt's neighbor's best friend once lived in California!" I'm not kidding.), leaving me to believe that coming back to work will cause a happy-shriek that will be heard in the next county. However, this coworker saw me on Friday when I tried to sneak in for a minute. There was exclaiming, but not so much as there would have been if I'd brought the baby. Now that I've been sufficiently exclaimed over I'll only have to hear it about the baby. Then again, who wouldn't exclaim over Eliana?