On the Other Hand Times Infinity

First, we must discuss this.

Not the crazy eyes or the terrible lighting, but that massive belly. This is 24 weeks! What is WRONG with you, 24 weeks? You are not 34 weeks, you silly overachiever! You are 24 freaking weeks. Now uterus, get yourself together and get over these delusions of grandeur. My maternity clothes are clearly straining to keep up with you. You don’t win any prizes for being extra big. You don’t get to skip ahead to the third trimester. We haven’t even had our glucose tolerance test yet! You are making me look bad!

Now, back to the issue at hand.

So the decision has been made. I’m leaving my job. The question right now is when.

My official leave-date is 11/11, which is in less than two weeks. My boss and I planned to extend beyond that. I’m just not sure if I should extend, or how long.

As long as I stay at work, the Bug keeps going to daycare 3 days a week. I have no problem with that. But daycare and therapy are not mixing as well as I would’ve hoped. It’s a small enough group that Graham’s peers notice things are different. And his providers seem uncomfortable with his long sessions. Last week, while I was recovering in bed, I think most of this was worked out.

Graham has ANOTHER new schedule. It’s starting to feel like he gets a new one every week. That schedule has lighter visits on daycare days and packs a lot in on my days at home. Wednesday, for example, we have therapy non-stop all day long. It starts at 7:45, pauses for naptime at 12:15, starts again at 2:30 and goes till 6. Friday is pretty similar. I want the Bug to get his therapy hours in, but I worry that on these days it’s getting to be too heavy. And I still have no time to run any errands during the week.

On the other hand, I feel like the socialization he’s getting at daycare is really positive. I hear great reports from the therapist and his daycare provider. I am glad he’s getting in with the other kids. He is more receptive to food there. He is happy to go with the kids from activity to activity. So basically it’s kind of like the opposite of home. And I want that for him. I don’t want us to get stuck in a rut once he’s at home all the time again.

On the other hand, Graham’s schedule has been so unstable for such a long time that I want to at least give him some consistency in the months before the baby comes. But how best to do that? Pull him out of daycare after a month but let him have a good 14 weeks at home? Or keep him in daycare longer so he has some consistency now since he’ll be at home for who-knows-how-long after that?

Plus there’s all the obligations I have at work. My job is not particularly busy but I don’t know how long it will be until they find a replacement for me. Things will hopefully wind down a bit, but I still hate leaving things undone without someone who will step in right away.

Oh, and I have absolutely zero leave left at work. So any time I have an appointment I get unpaid leave. Any time I’m late I get unpaid leave. And I can’t make up the time because I have to make sure I have Graham in and out of daycare without getting charged extra. So last week, I’m pretty sure we lost money or came pretty close to breaking even since I only worked a single day but Graham still had his full week of daycare.

Ugh.

I just need to make a decision so I stop thinking about the decision. But I haven’t reached a conclusion yet. Now I’m leaning towards an end date of December 2nd. An extra 3 weeks. It’ll be light the week of Thanksgiving. And right after that we’ll be traveling so it seems like a decent time to transition. If this week goes well enough I think that will be the plan. But we’ll see how this week goes. I haven’t worked a full set of hours in a week since I switched to 3 days. Whoops.

I’m not so worried about it all this week. I’m back at work and getting in the groove and feeling okay. But I should be a little more worried considering my back and hips are being wonky today, which usually only happens at night. Working when I can’t really walk won’t be fun. Then again, will being at home with a 2-year-old be much better?

Related Posts:

• So Long, 2011
• Miscellanea
• Sunrise, Sunset