3 weeks

I go back to work 3 weeks from today.

The emotions, thoughts, feelings this time around are quite different from when I was home with Layla. The entire month before I went back to work with her I was in tears. I would break down crying every time I thought about having to leave her. However, when the day came, I did just fine...and so did she!

With Piper, I'm feeling very calm. There are no nerves about leaving her. I am 100% confident in the place we take her. I've done this before. I know my daughter will thrive and learn. I know she will be happy. I know she will always know that I'm her mommy. :-)

With Layla I always wanted to tell the workers not to tell me when she crawled, took a step, said a word....I wanted to enjoy her "firsts" at home. I didn't want to think about the fact that someone else saw her take her first step. However, I never really got around to speaking those thoughts to the workers. And it didn't matter. She truly saved all her "firsts" for home. How do I know this? Because time and again I would pick up Layla and the workers would comment about how they saw her pull up and were excited for her...how she's started saying "uh-oh" and it was so cute...and I just smiled (and sighed with relief) because every time they said those things we had been seeing/hearing them at home for at least a week.

However, this won't stop me from actually verbalizing my wishes this time around. Piper will only be 3 months. Layla was 5.5 months. A lot happens in those 2+ months. She does have the same odds as Layla for experiencing a "first" at home or at daycare. I think we lucked out with Layla. I'm not willing to risk it this time only to have my heart broken that I missed something. Ignorance is bliss, right? Maybe not. But in cases like this I believe it is. :-)

As for returning to work, this also feels foreign compared to my feelings with Layla. I was going in to a new school (into a different subject than I was initially told - and a subject I didn't enjoy nearly as much) and into full-time teaching. While pregnant with Layla, and the time I took off with her, I was in a part-time position. Thinking about leaving my daughter for the first time on top of these new changes was a bit overwhelming to think about.

This time I am going back to the same position. There's comfort there because I know what it is I'm doing. I'm also going back to the beginning of a HUGE project for the kids. This is great because everything will (for the most part) be planned and there's less grading on my part because of the way the project is set up. So less planning and less grading will make my transition back to work fairly smooth.

One thing I am not looking forward to is actually returning to the same students I left. I know that sounds strange, but let me explain. With Layla, I was done for the year. I told my sub that it was her classroom and she could do what she liked. I didn't have to worry about the ramifications. With me having to to actually go back, I could potentially have quite a bit of "cleaning up" to do which is why I left about 10 pages of notes for my sub and that wasn't even including lesson plans I left. Seriously! I spent so much of my plan time trying to think of every minute detail to explain so she would understand what was going on and how to run things. Did she read it all? I hope so...but probably not. It definitely would have been a lot to take in. I'm left wondering what state my classroom will be in upon my return. Will all my hard work at the beginning of the year to set up structure and discipline still be in place or has it been lost? Will I have to be a tough, firm, no-fun teacher for a while to get things back in order? I sure hope not. That will only add stress to my life. I fear I will, though. I am holding on to a glimmer of hope that when the students see me back in the room they will straighten back up because they know I mean business. Or a different shred of hope that things transitioned smoothly between me leaving and my sub taking over. I won't know until I actually step back in the classroom. No use fretting over something I can't control, right? Easier said than done...