After four months off from work and blogging, I’m back at it. I think I’ll wait until my next blog to continue with my Retail Data Collector blog series, and instead tell a little about what I’ve been up to during my four months off (also known as the best four months of my life!).
To start, I had a baby, thus the reason for the four months of maternity leave! My son Holden was born healthy, happy, and eight days late, on June 12th. It was the most painful, yet amazing experience of my life. After nine months of “preparing” for his arrival, my husband, Stan, and I still were nowhere near prepared. We were prepared as much as we could have been I guess, but you don’t really know what you’re in for until it really happens.
When we first brought Holden home, it seemed so surreal. The first thing we had to do was introduce him to our two dogs. We were unsure how this would go and were hoping that the dogs would play nice because if not, someone would have to go, and Holden certainly wasn’t going anywhere :) Luckily for everyone, they loved him from the first moment. They were of course extremely curious and a bit shocked; I mean how can this mini person-looking thing make so much noise?! But after a couple days they were used to him being around.
The first few weeks were nice because we had family come visit and help out with the little rugrat. It’s always nice to let someone else change a diaper from time to time! We were even lucky enough to have a few gap visitors which helped me at least kind of keep up with all the changes that were going on back in the office. They also brought pizza and flowers, so that was pretty awesome. When our company left it was just Stan, Holden and me. Thankfully, we adapted quite well to our new lifestyle and quickly got used to the fact that Holden runs the show and we are now on his time schedule.
During the first couple months, I spent a lot of time at the house with Holden, a little nervous to brave the world with my new baby. It’s just such a production to go anywhere. But after a while it got easier and more fun. My outlook was that we might as try to go places and do fun things, and if it doesn’t work out, we can just leave.
Holden quickly became quite the traveler. We went to my 10 year high school reunion in Durango, CO for a long weekend. He did great on the flight and the 4 hour drive! A couple months later, we road tripped to Sedona, AZ for a week and it was really amazing. Good thing I shook off the hecklers in the office and decided to get my mom van so we could pack it full of all the baby stuff we wanted to take with us :). I kept trying to tell everyone, mini vans really are very cool! Then, the weekend before I came back to work, Holden and I flew to see my sister in Denver, CO for another long weekend. He had a couple short crying jags on the plane, but nothing major and he received several compliments for being such a good baby. What a relief! It’s nice to know that we have a good traveler on our hands, and hopefully there are many more fun family trips to come.
Like I said, the last four months have been the best four months of my life. Life has changed in ways I never could have imagined and it is so incredible. It’s been hard to leave Holden at daycare, but it’s also good to be back at work and around the energy and people that come along with. I’m sure I’ll be needing a few extra trips to Starbucks from time to time to keep from falling asleep at my desk with this new, unpredictable sleep schedule I’m finding myself on. I know it won’t be a challenge to find a fellow gapper to go with me. I’m also planning to attend one of the Yoga Restore classes (adult nap time I hear)! That will come as a very welcome mid-day nap.
