At 4:09 tomorrow morning, Liam will be 12 weeks old! After this week, I’ll probably stop sharing his age in weeks when people ask, and start telling his age in months (although I’ll keep doing a weekly update here!). He’ll be 3 months old on April 1, which is my first day back to work. I go back on April Fool’s Day, of all days! I wish it were an April Fool’s Day joke that I had to leave him!!!
It will only be 3 days a week for the next 3 months, then I’ll be back to full-time. I am grateful to have a job that is family friendly enough to allow me that extra time to adjust. However, I wish more than anything I could stay home with him this entire first year! I feel like I’m abandoning him.
I (or Nathan) probably ~could~ manage to stay home, and I don’t think we’d suffer too terribly. We’d have to sacrifice quite a bit – after all, I do have school loans to pay that cost me the same amount as my mortgage each month! If I thought my job would still be waiting for me after a year, then maybe I’d consider trying to do that. But the job I have now is too much of an opportunity to let fall from the table. It was very much a “right place, right time” situation, and I highly doubt, in this economy, I’d find a better opportunity for me to learn, grow, and put my education into practice. In addition, I have plenty of PTO available to me, and my department is very flexible, which will allow me to grow my career without neglecting family. If I must work, then I am in a good company to do so without feeling as though I must battle to keep my priorities properly aligned. And it doesn’t make sense to let that go.
As far as my staying home long-term goes, well, we could probably arrange that too. I know plenty of families who manage on less than what my husband or I would bring home in pay. However, if we did that, there is so much we would be unable to do for Liam. Nathan and I both agree that life experiences are important for a child, maybe even more so than having a parent stay home. I know a lot of people would disagree with us, but it is important to us to be able to show him the world, both literally and figuratively. I want to have a college savings fund for him, to take him out of the country, to introduce things like the symphony, the theatre, and fine dining to him, to hopefully send him to a good private school, and so much more that we couldn’t do on one salary alone.
Liam is continuing to grow and learn all the time! This week, he discovered his feet! He likes to examine them closely. He’ll stare down at them for minutes at a time with such a serious look on his face!
His vocal abilities are increasing all the time. He makes all kinds of sounds – the “g” sound, the “m” sound and the “w” sound in addition to his regular coos and oooohs.
He rolled over again, but it was on our bed, and I was sitting on it so he had a bit of a slope, so I don’t know if he can do it on the floor just yet! I need to give him more floor time so he can have a chance to try!
He has mastered sucking on his fist. He constantly has it, or his arm, in his mouth. If I don’t give him his paci when putting him to sleep, he’ll now suck on himself instead.
Baths are going better – the last few baths he has fussed about getting out instead of going in. I decided that trying to give him a bath when he is fussy isn’t a good idea, but if he is in a good mood, he seems to love it.
He has such an intense little personality! When he is happy, he is VERY happy. But when he is mad, he gets VERY mad. Maybe he’s going to have a lot of passion!
This week, I have been trying to focus on giving him more tummy time (I’m terrible about making him do it since I know he doesn’t like it), and that’s also when I took most of my pictures! I discovered he doesn’t mind it nearly as much when a Boppy pillow is involved. I’m sure it’s more comfortable than the hard floor.
He likes it better with a Boppy, and when there's college basketball to watch!
Enough work for one day!
Hmm, I wonder if I could crawl...
