The Truth on Maternity leave

I am nearing the end of my maternity leave from work, 2 weeks from tomorrow I return to work. As much as I enjoyed being home this Spring for 12 weeks, returning to work is not a bad thing.

  The highlights of my maternity leave besides the obvious being able to spend lots of quality time with Evelyn and Ben are the following:

1) Being home in the mornings. I am a morning person and I love being able to drink coffee at home and see my kids wake up. Also the household sleeping in until 730/8 is plus, better than my 530 wake up.. especially good when you are up in the night with a baby once or twice.

2) Seeing my husband more.. since we work opposite shifts, being able to go as a family places in the morning like the zoo, park, Target was kind of a nice treat.   Pretty soon I will back to see him on his 2-3 nights off a week and then weekend mornings. Quite grateful he has a 3 week paternity leave when I return to work!

3) Actually somewhat keeping up on laundry.. an endless task

4) Being able to read a book during afternoon naps.. if they nap at the same time and if i chose to not do some other dumb household task...

5) Cooking dinner... or attempting to.

6) Afternoon Starbucks frappacino run on occasion... thankful they have drive thrus! :)

7) Several lunch and shopping dates with good  friends when I just had Evie on the 2 afternoons a week Ben  went to daycare to stay in his routine:)

8) Sunday nights.. not thinking about having to go to work on Monday. Sounds obvious but I was always thankful then.

9) Midweek shopping during the day when Jon was home and could stay with the kids.. priceless.

10) Many trips to the zoo and park and not having to rush the trips like I normally do on evenings or a weekend.

11) Traveling with my family on Jon's days off.

Reasons I am looking forward to returning to work.
1) Seeing coworkers

2) Return of a paycheck... needed.

3) Maybe feeling productive... sometimes staying home with kids, you feel so unproductive for the day yet I know raising kids is being productive in itself, its just how I feel sometimes if I am honest.