Back To Work Again...

Where did the summer go? I feel like it never really started for me. Last year, I was happy to go back to work, because Juliana was so difficult with her constant screaming (I know, I'm horrible, go ahead and judge me). Then, we started seeing specialists and I realized she wasn't just a difficult baby and I wasn't a bad mom, she actually had problems, and I wanted to be home... well, part of me did. Part of me was happy to be occupied with my job so that I wasn't constantly worrying about whether or not she had eaten. Then, when I went to see my migraine doctor and she said my stress level and blood pressure were so high she worried about me having a stroke, I was thankful to be at work and not at home because I know it would have been that much higher.

This past Thursday was our first institute day. It started with tears. Noah was on the potty before we left to go to Theresa's. He kept saying he didn't want to go to Theresa's. That he would stay home with the dogs because he was a big boy. That he wanted mama to stay home and play with him all day just like we had all summer. I started to cry. As soon as I started to cry, Noah stopped crying and said, "Momma, stop crying. I want to go Theresa's house. I have fun there. It's okay. We go now." Which of course made me cry even more. When i picked them up at the end of the day, both kids were fine (of course).

On Friday, I literally had to pull Noah kicking and screaming out of his bed (I'm not kidding- he kicked me in the stomach twice and I almost dropped him) to get him up. Fortunately our institute day started at 8, so it was okay that this battle was taking up a large amount of time. After he kicked me, I called my mom. My mom is usually magical to Noah, and can usually talk him down from his naughtiness. Not that day. When I gave him the phone to talk to grandma, he closed it and threw it. Well, at that point I had had it with my little ray of sunshine. I put him on the couch and pulled off his shirt. Noah immediately began to sob and told me he was sorry. He cried so hard he almost threw up. I held him until he calmed down and we talked about how momma wanted to stay home too but had to go back to work so that we could use momma's insurance for Juliana to see all her special doctors and therapists and so Noah could see his special eye doctor and have glasses. After that he asked if we could call "framma" so that he could tell her he was sorry, and we did. Then, I dropped them off at Theresa's...

And went to school with a huge dose of working mom's guilt.