The new new new normal

Phewf. What a week.

As you may have heard, last weekend the Corbenator turned one, and the following day I hung up my yoga pants and sweatshirt for good, and traded them in for a laptop and my commuter shoes. (Which, truth be told, are the same as my regular shoes, they just spend more time in the car.)

Ending off my mat leave with a birthday party for C was the perfect finish. It was tiny, but fun and involved the ritualistic smashing of the cake and some very unflattering pictures of me blowing out the candles on said cake, which none of you will ever see. Griffin was quite happy to adopt all of his little brother's new toys, where Corben was more than happy to play with a 10 cent balloon all day long, and continue with his favourite pastime of eating kleenex.

Je ne joke pas.

Monday morning at the godforsaken hour of 5:30 am, we rolled out of bed, showered, coffee-d, woke up the kids, shoved them all in the car, dropped them all at daycare, and headed off to work.

Tuesday? See Monday. Wednesday, Thursday? Same.

It actually wasn't as bad as I thought. It's nice to be in a room with adults all day again. It's nice to have adult conversations with people, face to face, and not status to status on Facebook, or tweet to tweet on Twitter. (Not that I'm bashing either of those things, I would have gone bat shit crazy without them this past year!) It's nice to feel useful, beyond the laundry and picking up toys all day long. And it was nice to fall back into a familiar place, where I am not only comfortable, but good at what I do.

And, it's nice to have TWO little smiling munchkins come running to greet you at the end of the day when you finally arrive, nearly 10 1/2 hours later, to pick them up at daycare. (Corben more toddles, but it won't be long till he's running too.)

Corben is happy, happy, happy at daycare. And lawdy, I can not tell you how much easier that makes this all. He plays. He naps. He eats like a fiend. And he comes home happy and tired. All he wants to do is snuggle, nurse, and snuggle some more, and then sleep. I am happy to oblige him on every single one of those fronts.

Today was my first back to work Friday, which is to say my first Friday off, in a series of many Fridays off, as my return to work schedule consists of a 4 day week instead of a 5 day one. I took a nice little pay cut in order to retain a small portion of my sanity. The one where I work 57% of the days of the week, instead of 71% of them. Oh, it's only one little day but it makes ALL the freaking difference in the world. Today Griffin went to school, and Corben and I sat on the carpet and built towers. And knocked them over. Rinse and repeat. It. Was. Awesome.

There's another little tidbit that makes this all doable, and even forces it over into shades of awesome. Back there, up there at the top, did you notice I said "we?" We shove the kids in the car, we drop them off, we head to work. By we I mean Steve and I. And by head to work I mean together. To the same job. Some of you may think it's crazy, but WE think it's super cool. It works for us, and we make a pretty great little team. Mostly because I'm the boss.

(Kidding.)

(Mostly.)

So this is my, nay our, new life. So far, so good. Sure, there were a few mishaps along the way, but there were mishaps along the way when I spent 7 days a week at home, so that's to be expected. Hey, at least the house is cleaner since there's no one here to mess it up all day long. Things may be a little bit quieter around here for a while. Mostly because I've been falling asleep with Corben every night at 7:30. But that too shall pass. Frankly though, I kind of enjoy it, and if I don't have the time to lie down with my kids at the end of the day for a nice long snuggle, then what the hell is the point.

Exactly.