Mostekspecting: Final days of Maternity leave

The serious face

Everyone always says these days go by so quickly, and I'm finding it to be true. This last week has been so fantastic and yet so hard to acknowledge that our little honeymoon period is over. I admit, I'm feeling a bit dramatic about the whole thing. I'm really excited to go back to work, because I love my job and I miss my whole work environment. But it will be so hard to leave him. I can't help but think he'll think I abandoned him, but my rational side knows we'll both be just fine.

I've had the best time this week taking him on outings to see a lot of my local friends. Many of them have little ones of their own, so we had different play dates of sorts. I'm getting better at packing up to cover all of the "what ifs" of the day, and Owen is definitely enjoying our adventures as well. He's so interested in all sorts of things. I talk to him a lot on our walks, and he humors me by giving me "The serious face." His favorite books are definitely the Dr. Seuss books--probably "One Fish, Two Fish." Maybe I read those with extra gusto, but I get a lot of smiles and thoughtful studies of the pictures in them.

We've gone to the park, taken a lot of walks, had 80's dance parties in the living room, and enjoyed playtime with the fun gifts from Gramma and Grampa. When I need to get something accomplished, I put him in the Baby Bjorn and off we go. Yesterday we made banana bread together. He's particularly fascinated when I'm doing dishes. I can't explain it, but I hope that lasts forever.

Of course, it's not perfect, and I don't mean to paint a completely unrealistic picture of our time together, but right now in this phase of his life, he's been a pretty happy baby. And by this phase I mean the past 3 days or so? Yeah, probably 3 days of happy baby. I'll take it.

Nick has been really amazing, and I know he's enjoying this phase as well. We finally heard a real laugh just a few nights ago. It was really amazing, especially since we've been working so hard to make it happen! Owen thinks Daddy is much funnier than Mama, but he's probably right. I attempt funny, but it's just not the same. And by attempt I mean present every dance move I can manage, contort my face into various expressions, and try to make cool 'splosion sounds that only boys can do. And what do I get? I get "The serious face," Daddy gets the laughs.

And now I'm going to photo bomb the rest of this post. I have a lot of cute to share. And when crabby baby returns, I'm going to come back to this post and read it over and over.