One Year

Yesterday marked one year since I packed up my desk, said good-bye to my co-workers and left my career in I.T behind to start a new journey in parenthood. I have not had to go to work in an office in one year!

Being on maternity leave sure is not “time off”. I’ve worked longer, harder and with more dedication in the past year than I have in all my years in the job force put together. And the reward? While there is no financial gain in being on maternity leave – the Canadian government actually forces women on mat leave below the poverty line – the other rewards have been so amazing. We have the most beautiful, healthy, happy and most easy-going little boy on the planet. And he is happy. That boy is always smiling. If I leave the house, even just to take the garbage outside, when I return, my boy is so happy to see me, and it just melts my heart to see such a huge smile on his face.

Now, this week, I’m going to be leaving Nikolas at his day home for the first time. I don’t start work for a few weeks. Hell, it’s not even 100% confirmed that I have a job, but we’ve had to reserve a spot in a day home for Nikolas months in advance. And even though I’m not planning starting work until the end of September, we still have to pay for the whole month. So I figured, since we’re paying for the spot, we may as well start using it. Nikolas will get used to the idea of going to a different house 3 days a week, and the great thing is that there are 3 other boys similar in age that will be there on the same days.

I have such mixed feelings about this upcoming week. First of all, I can’t believe my year is over. It feels like just a few weeks ago, we were hanging out by the pool in Cuba, enjoying the hot sun, and thinking of going back to work wasn’t even on my radar. And now here we are.

Now I’m thinking of how life is just going to be so much busier with the hustle and bustle of coordinating 3 people’s schedules. I am only going back 3 days a week for now. It saddens me so much that on the days that I work, I will only get to see Nikolas for 2 hours in the evening before he goes to bed. I couldn’t imagine having to do that with a full time job!

On the other hand, I am looking forward to going back to work for a couple reasons. One of them being that I get to mix up my daily routine a bit, and I may even start to have some concept of time. Like what day of the week it is. The other one? The job I’m likely going to be doing is likely to be mundane. I’m okay with that. Because changing diapers all day is also mundane. I just need a different kind of mundane. Also, it’s going to make me appreciate the time I get to spend with Nikolas even more.