Today is the last day of my parental leave; Thursday is my first day back in the office. It has been an unqualifiedly fantastic six weeks "off." I'm sorry to see it end, and not just for the rare days of sleeping in until 8:27 a.m., the latest I've slept since prior to June 3, 2004. I also did a lot of reading and a fair amount of blogging, drank a stupid amount of coffee, and saw the dramatic and rapid change of seasons.
But Genevieve was, of course, the reason for the leave in the first place. I'll certainly treasure having been able to spend so much time with her. In these six weeks, she has undergone the numerous inevitable, typical, and yet also surpassingly amazing changes of any newborn, especially the obvious physical ones which are so wonderful to behold, like phenomenal cheekiness. But our less-and-less little baby is also piling up the mental developments, including a giant gummy grin for me last night and a growing number of what Julia describes as "hoots and coos." It's been unexpectedly fun to attune myself to her personality: the cry that means hunger, the distinctive sigh that means she's ready to sleep, the little gurgles that mean she's enjoying herself. I sure wish I had the ability to stay home longer and absorb more of her round-the-clock changes, but I have to remind myself that I've had half again as much time off with G. as I did with her sister.
That extra time off was good not only for me and Genevieve, but pretty helpful to Shannon, I think. I was not, in my extra fortnight, able to start nursing, as I'd hoped, but I did get back into the swing of bottle-feeding the little monster. In combination with Genevieve's easier temperament, my being home has contributed to Shannon's quicker recovery. She's already working out, testing the quality of the surgeon's sutures, and she even seems ready (in the sense of "not visibly terrified") to take on the responsibility of taking care of both girls all day - which starts in about twelve hours.
Then there's Julia, who was so much fun these past six weeks I can hardly really think about it. I teared up tonight while putting her to bed, just thinking about how much I'll miss her tomorrow. Since Gigi arrived, I've been able to spend nearly every waking hour with Julia, and I can't say I got even slightly tired of her, whether she climbing the playground ladders "all by MYself!", picking random stuff from the shelves (rice, makeup, a decorative black cat, an Elmo Christmas-tree ornament) while I tried to buy another bale of diapers at Target, scarfing down a blackberry scone at the coffee shop, looking at "all de bootiful pumpkings!", or just sitting upstairs, having one of her cracked tea parties. Over the time since Genevieve arrived (and maybe because the baby demands so much of her parents' time), Julia is engaging in quite a bit of more-or-less independent play that is also hilariously imaginative - rounding up all her farm animals before the hailstorm never gets old. And as always, her verbal novelties are fantastic. Sometime in the past few days, she's started asking the world's cryptickest question, "What's [insert noun or verb here] mean?" A few funny exempla include, "What's Mama mean?", "What's thunder mean?", "What's lightning mean?", and my favorite, "What's gourds mean?" As funny as the questions are, she's seriously interested in the answers (and a bit disappointed in our answer to that last query ["They mean fall is coming, honey."].)
Yes, fall is coming, and with it comes the end of my time "off." I'm looking forward to getting back to work, since in addition to my wonderful coworkers, I enjoy the rhythms and habits of work in general and the tasks and accomplishments of this job in particular. But boy, I'm going to miss the girls. I hope they'll miss me too. Four o'clock on Thursday afternoon can't come soon enough!