And So Its Begun

Saying goodbye early on Monday morning - my first day back

I am officially a working Mumma. The jury is still out with the decision about how I feel about this title. It's a combination of:
Excitement to be back in the classroom and having a challenge for my brain.
Relief that Noah is being stimulated by other children and different experiences that we simply don't have space to provide for him here in our house.
Jealousy of the childcare workers that the fact that I'm paying them to spend time with my son.
Frustration about having to express milk rather than being able to snuggle with Noah to feed him each day (but so far I am successfully maintaining a full time breast feeding routine that means that we still have cuddles time at night - a silver lining to this situation)

Guilt that I'm not with Noah.
Fear that I will regret not staying home with him. I lay awake at night doing stupid things like calculating the waking hours I get to spend with him in comparison to the hours childcare have. It's 47.5hrs childcare, 51 hours me... just in case anyway was desperately interested.

I don't think that it's been a smooth transition into it for Andrew or I. The saying 'it never rains, but it pours' definitely rang true for us this past week. BUT... we survived! It's Sunday now, I'm back on top of my school and house work and I've just successfully breast fed Noah into a beautiful morning sleep. So you see, things always work out in the end. I just have to keep perspective. I've decided the only 2 questions worth asking myself about the the decision to put Noah into childcare full time are - 1) Is he happy? 2) Is he healthy?
If I can confidently answer 'yes' to both of these questions, then all is right in the world.

You see, I'm realising that all of my other emotions - guilt, regret, fear etc. all relate to how I'm feeling about the situation and unfortunately this is just a harsh lesson in the fact that parenting is a completely selfless act. While raising Noah gives me the most joy I've ever experienced in my life, this is a secondary benefit to the fact that my job is to raise him. Give to him. Provide for him. Sacrifice for him. Put my needs and emotions second to him. Hence, in the end my emotions come second to what is best for him. Right now, my earning money to provide for him and him being exposed to all the experiences and lessons childcare have to offer are absolutely what is best for him. So Mummy... time to like it or lump it!!!

On a less philosophical note, here are some of the things we've been getting up to since our return: