10 Day Countdown

It is now ten days until my maternity leave ends and I return to work. Part of me feels ready to be reunited with my desk, with my Google calendar and daily emails and responsibilities and deadlines. The other part of me gets caught up in staring at Erez's face, hoping he will be okay in daycare, and feeling my heart break a little in advance of our separation. I wish things were different, that maternity leave was longer, that I could be present in a more complete way to witness his daily milestones. I ache that I won't be. But I also love my job and don't want to sacrifice it, or make a change in my career, or give up the second paycheck that benefits everyone in our family. It is a shame and wrong that our country isn't better about these things, about giving parents ample time to be with their babies without having to choose between their jobs and their children.

The past seven weeks with Erez has been everything: beautiful, rewarding, exhausting... He is and always will be my miracle baby. When I look at him, I think about my surgery last February. I think about the hard decision I made to give up pieces of my body in order to hopefully up my chances of a prolonged life, of being there for my kids, and how I was strangely rewarded by the universe with a pregnancy, as if I was being told my decision was a wise one for yet another reason. Erez is also proof that my body rallied after a crazy ordeal, and how lucky I am, at forty, to have had yet another healthy and uncomplicated pregnancy. He is my "everything happens for a reason" baby and my "expect the unexpected" baby.

Here is just a little of what I have learned about Erez over the past seven weeks: he is a better sleeper than either of my other children were; he loves to touch and hold fabric; he loves it when I gently touch his forehead; he really dislikes having a poopy diaper; he sleeps with his eyes open sometimes (creepy); he raises his left eyebrow a lot, like he is already highly skeptical of the world; he makes noises all the time - when eating, sleeping, peeing, breathing; he likes when I talk to him in a Minnie Mouse voice; he enjoys looking at lights and curtains; his resting face is that of an 87 year old man, but when he smiles he looks like a baby; he loves snuggles; he hates burping; he seems to notice all the artwork on our walls, and seems to especially like the tree art piece that I made that is hanging above his crib; he hates his car seat and bouncy chair but loves his rock n' play; his one left dimple is possibly the cutest thing in the entire world.

I hope that even when I return to work, I will feel like I have adequate time to notice lots of new things about Erez. I hope I will learn lots of new ways to make him smile and laugh, that I will appreciate his new sounds and movements, and especially that I will have enough time to show him how much I love and adore him, and how grateful I am to be his mommy.

I plan to make the most of these last ten days, and to try and embrace these hours as much as I can, knowing they won't last forever.