I guess all good things come to an end. After 11 weeks of maternity leave I am ready to head back to 
work on Monday. I do miss the interaction with my co-workers, but hanging out with little Andrew has been nice as well. The big boys have continued at daycare 3-4 days each week, so days with Andrew have been quiet and fairly productive. There are things I will miss–the baby snuggles, going for afternoon walks, occasionally taking a nap, the ability to catch up on dishes/laundry/housecleaning mid-day–but I also miss adult conversation, making some of my own money, and having structure in my days. My daycare takes excellent care of my boys and they learn so many good things there! As long as we can manage to keep things together at home, I plan on working 4 days per week for the summer. We will re-evaluate the situation in the fall, and then again next fall when William starts Kindergarten!! EEEE! I told Jason that William is in the class of 2030, and he forbid me from speaking for the rest of the day. One step at a time…first I need to get to work on Monday and survive the summer schedule with 3 little boys. I’m setting my alarm extra early because I have no idea how long it will take to get myself out of the house. It’s been awhile!
Update: I got to work on Monday. The weekend got a little crazy so I never finished the blog I started. He’s my second try two several weeks a month later.
My first week back at work went something like this: Boys go to Grandma Marion’s. William throws up. My car overheats. I buy a new radiator. Christopher throws up. I work a lot of hours. Suddenly it’s Friday. From what I can remember of it all, being back at work was wonderful, but work combined with regular responsibilities plus unexpected occurrences left us all feeling rather exhausted. This parenting stuff is intense. Constant, non-stop, intense.
The boys didn’t have much adjustment to me going back to work. If anything, they are now getting up 
earlier than they did before. Typically we could count on them sleeping til 7am. These days they are up with the sun, and 6am seems to be the new normal. I am hopeful that they self-adjust when fall comes around again. Jason has been doing most of the drop-offs and pick-ups which has been a nice break for me. It also gives me an hour or two several afternoons each week to do some dishes/laundry/errands before they get home. So far we’re holding things together, but it’s like a roller coaster where you can’t see what’s around the next bend. One big change is that weekends are more hectic (and exhausting) now that I’m back at work. Trying to cram everything into two days is a balancing act. We try to have a good mix of relaxing and fun–but there are always clothes to wash, meals to prep for the week, naps for the kids, and and a house to keep clean. I’ve also noticed I now spend a lot of time with my boys when they are overstimulated and overtired (ie evenings after daycare). A two and four-year-old can sure be temperamental. The other night Christopher tantrum’d so hard he threw up in the bathtub. I feel like the parenting handbook failed to include the section titled “Cleaning an Unwilling Participant”. *sigh*
One recent fun outing was to take the boys to Red Butte Gardens for the first time. It was my first time there as well. (For out of towners Red Butte is a roughly 20-acre arboretum with lots of interesting flowers, trees, and paths). Jason’s mom added us to her annual membership so we thought it would be fun to check out. Other than one wild moment where Christopher took a digger running down a hill, it was a pretty relaxing trip. After Christopher got his front teeth all capped I am significantly more fearful of him falling and bashing them all out. Literally every time he falls I’m like “not the teeth, not the teeth!”. On this particular trip his elbow caught his fall instead of his face (thankfully).
Despite the circus he has joined, Andrew remains a good little baby. A month ago he got his two month shots and has been sleeping 8-11 hours per night ever since. What a little trooper. He must have seen some of the looks I give his big brothers and just decided being up all night may have been the straw that broke me. His smiles are becoming more plentiful and we’ve gotten our first couple giggles. He is three months old and learning more and more every day. He is especially fond of laying on his play-mat and “catching” the toy giraffe and lion. He seems to be getting along quite well at daycare, and it doesn’t seem to have disrupted his schedule much–most days he still takes a 2-3 hour nap there even amongst the chaos.
Father’s day weekend we made our annual voyage to the Utah Foster Care Chalk Art Festival held at one of the outdoor malls downtown. We brought Grandpa Lee along this year so it was myself, and 5 Baxter boys. That’s a lot of Baxter boys in one place. 🙂 The art was great and the weather wasn’t too hot. Afterwards we had dinner and hung out at home on the patio. I was a very nice evening.
We’ve been slowly doing summer lawn things over the past month. We had quite a bit of rain the first half of June including one nasty thunderstorm that dropped hail at our house. My hostas are pretty torn up, and a bunch of the garden has probably been set back a couple weeks, but I think everything is going to come around except for possibly the peas and one potted plant I already replaced. Turns out peas don’t like being pounded into the mud and if you strip all the leaves off a little annual plant it just gives up. In other lawn/garden news I went through and dead-headed all the roses. They were beautiful again this spring, but didn’t last very long due to a couple very windy/rainy storms followed by the hail. Hopefully now that I have trimmed them they will work on giving us some more flowers. Saturday morning we took advantage of a beautiful 80 degree day and raked the seed pods off the front lawn, mowed all the grass, fertilized, and watered the lawn. We had it all wrapped up by noon…and then all 4 of the boys in the house were napping. I should have napped, but chose to enjoy the quiet instead.
This past week we had a bit of a work reunion at my house. 6 moms and 13 kids under 6! I’m so thankful work has let me get to know all of these awesome ladies. It’s nice to know that a lot of what you struggle with while having a newborn/toddler/little kid is just a stage that all kids go through instead of believing you’ve won the unlucky lottery and gotten a little demon. It was fun to catch up in the midst of the pandemonium. I wish all of my stay-at-home mom friends would come back to work with me!
I’m going to try to get my next post out more quickly after the 4th of July. My monthly blogging goal didn’t happen for June. In the upcoming weeks we have July 4th, a tea-party invite, a 4-year-old friend birthday party, and Jason’s boss is coming to town. Busy summer weekends ahead. Take care everyone!!
S.~
Some other things that have happened in pictures including my brother’s visit to meet Andrew:
