1st day of work

I felt like I should take a picture of myself in front of our front door holding a "1st day of work, 9/28/2011" sign with my pump-in-style backpack on. I had the same feelings I had when it was Dylan's 1st day of kindergarten, (and his other 1st day of kindergarten.) I was leaving my kids for a while and it was the beginning of the next phase of life.
This week,

• I went back to work (even though I was only there for 3-1/2 hours)
• I went to my first book club meeting (even though I didn't even attempt to read a book)
• I finished "The Entitlement Trap" by Richard and Linda Eyer - cover to cover, I really read it!
• I will teach Joy School (actually we bumped it to next Monday)
• Gunny Bag will make an appearance for the first time
• I will have my 1st real photo session on Friday
• It's conference weekend at the end of the week so that will give me even more motivation for a fresh start

(General Conference is where you can hear motivational speakers for free!  We don't have regular church services twice a year and instead, go and watch the broadcast from Utah at the church building, or streaming online here.)

So how was the 1st time I left Tyler, you ask?

Our morning was great.  I slept in a little then we went for a run before we got cleaned up, fixed his nursery a little bit, and ate lunch.  But then I was nervous. I packed up lots of pictures of him to take with me and I kissed him good bye.  Steven's "relax" mix tape was playing, so I listened to some Bob Marley and Jimmy Buffet on my way to work and tried not to worry about a thing.

I walked into work and was greeted by my first patient who was really excited that I was there. He sees me every month, but thought he'd be seeing the other hygienist since I was still supposed to be on maternity leave. It was a good reaction, and I told him that Tyler came early, so I'm back early! I was able to show him the whole photo album of Tyler pictures. He had seen most of them b/c he's a Facebook friend. That was a good first patient to have because my other patients were new to me or hadn't been in in over a year so there wasn't an opportunity to tell them how lucky they were to have me back on my first day back. They didn't notice the new baby pictures on the shelves either. That's ok.

I wanted to call to check on the baby, but if he was crying, I knew that I would probably cry too, so I resisted the urge.  And it's a good thing.  Apparently he woke up right after I left and cried for about 2 hours with "moments" of being okay.  So sad!  But then he slept for over 3 hours.  He didn't seem traumatized when I held him.  I fed him the bottle that had already been thawed out for him and he drank it up just fine.  I took him to the book club meeting that evening then we went to bed.