The Salvateenies: Transitions

OK...this is it. I'm going back to work tomorrow. Nine hours from now I will be on the road, headed South to school. Eleven hours from now (hopefully), the babies will be waking up for their first morning feeding without me. Luckily, their daddy will be here to handle it, so maybe they won't notice that anything is different. That'd be great.

But it would also be sad.

The signs have been coming for a while - signs that life is going back to "normal".

First it was the mental signs - I've been having much more active dreams the past few weeks, and more often than not they in some way include my classroom or my students. I've caught myself lesson planning in my head - how will I introduce myself to classes that have been together for a whole semester with other teachers? What's the first unit I'm going to cover? How many pictures of the babies is it appropriate to force on them?

Then it was the physical signs. The pregnancy hormones are wearing off. My fingernails, indestructible for nearly a year, are snagging and tearing like the paper-thin excuses they've always been. My hair, which hadn't succumbed to any of the pregnancy horror story scenarios I'd read about, now takes up residence in clumps in the shower drain every morning (or afternoon, depending when the babies let me get to the shower).

I think the babies can sense the change coming as well. The boys were extra fussy during the day today, and tonight Max and Caroline simply refused to finish their bottles. I'm going to have to lay out my clothes ahead of time so I don't keep the light on in the office adjacent (and visible through a glass door) to their nursery for too long so that they can sleep in as long as possible.

People keep asking if I'm "ready" to go back to work. I think I am ready to be back, though I'm not sure I'm ready to leave the babies for nine to ten hours a day. I know I have to go back - we can't afford to have me take unpaid leave, and we really, really need the health insurance. :) And after seven full months constantly together, I think it'll be good for me and Joe to have some more time on our own (though his will be with three infants and mine will be with a hundred and fifty or more teenagers).

At least the first two days are meetings so I'll have time to ease myself into being away from my kids and with all my students.

On our last day together, the babies met some new friends - Alanna and Ashling visited. Alanna had already met the babies - when they were teeny tiny 'teenies - but they'd slept through most of that visit, so this was new! She helped feed them, and Ashling cuddled with them and told them how cute they are. She swears Caroline said her own name, which is interesting because our friend Quynn was sure she said HER name when she visited earlier in the week. High expectations for this little one!

Earlier in the week, we had our final Xmas celebration with our friends the Linerts, who have been very generous with the babies and whose daughter even serenaded them!