We did it! A successful weekend before the end of maternity leave

I am dreading going back to work. I thought the second time around would be easier. I mean i have done this before and we absolutely love our daycare so why wouldn't this be easy. But it just isn't easy. Maybe it's because it is never easy or maybe it's because my son struggled so much for the majority of my maternity leave. Whatever the reason I kept finding myself inside my head begging my husband to let me stay home. I would never really ask him because it just wouldn't be fair to him. We need the 2nd income and that isn't solely his problem so how could i beg him with tears to stay home knowing that i am responsible for our needs too. Then i move on to being angry... angry that our country has such horrible maternity leave options. Just horrible options! But here we are almost 10 weeks in and I have 2 more days before I return to work. I feel awful that i couldn't stay home 12 weeks like i did with our first but i had to take unpaid time and we can't afford for me to have more time. It is a sad and difficult situation and I am grateful for the hard work my husband put in with overtime to help cover the costs so i could take at least 10 weeks.

So i wanted to make sure we had the weekend together... time to do something fun and be a family. We have had a few outings but made sure they were outside and not around a lot of people since our youngest hadn't had his immunizations yet. He got those 3 days ago so we can finally do some fun things and with the weather being cold now.....I am grateful being around others in public isn't so dangerous now. So we planned some Friday evening events (dinner and a hockey game) after having my last day of just cuddling my baby while his brother was at daycare. The boys were great! Super well behaved and almost too easy. The next morning we visited the children's museum and had some pizza for lunch. Again the boys were great! When we got home they both went down for a nap and I looked at my husband and said i wish every day could be just like today! Then Sunday came... I planned nothing... just a day to hang out and do some stuff around the house. I played a little more with my oldest and cuddled my youngest a little more .... knowing that when I go back to work i will only have the couple hours in the evenings and the hour or so in the mornings with them. It breaks my heart to know i can't be with them every minute of the day. But they love our daycare and she teaches them so much!

The tears are hard to fight off as I realize that time is going to start flying by and my boys are going to grow up so fast! I am so happy we had the best weekend to make memories and take pictures to look back on. I will show them when they get older how much we loved taking them places, how they were such sweet boys that everyone always smiles at, how dad loves showing them new things and playing at the museum with them, and how mom always tries to make sure we have memories to look back at.