Howe's Life: Back to Work

I have finished my first week back to work since having Eleanor. It has been an interesting lesson in how little time 24 hours each day truly is! While I am missing the girls, our Wednesdays of fun, snuggling with Ella, and having plenty of time to run errands or do laundry . . . I am LOVING getting to go to the bathroom by myself for 8 hours a day! Pumping sucks just as much as it did with Madeline, but I am making the time and managing to just about equal what Ella eats at school each day. Due to this, I am staying up each night until about 10pm so I can get a final pump session in. This means that if I slept all of the way through the night until my alarm I would get 8 hours of sleep. Since Eleanor seems to be teething, she has stopped sleeping well and needless to say, I am tired. Our routine in the morning has been very smooth. I get up and get ready, Madi usually gets up during this time while Matt, Ella, and the dogs snuggle. Matt and Ella get up around 6:30, I take the girls downstairs and do breakfasts while he showers and puts Jameson in the tub for a foot soak (yep the bulldog is getting a daily footsoak). When Matt comes downstairs we feed the dogs, he walks them, one or both of us gets the girls dressed, teeth brushed for Madi, sunscreen, and out the door we go.

Madi wants the girls to match recently!

Work has been good. I love my classes, the kids are easy, and I am already down to only 5 weeks left until summer break! I did work for my fellowship this week, but I am way behind on work for CREEC and need to get going on it next week. I spent my last few weeks the girls trying to just focus on them and not work, so CREEC suffered a bit. This week, there was no after work me-time, however I am hoping that as I get more organized, I can spend a couple days a week at the gym. The stairs in my building say I need to work-out!

To help with the morning rush, I make lunches for the girls and myself each night, after cleaning the kitchen up from dinner. This means Madeline and I spend about 45 minutes in the kitchen where she "helps" and asks a billion questions. Generally she makes me crazy since she is always trying to hurry me (I wonder who she learned that one from . . . Matt??) and I try not to show her how little patience I have by that time of night and how badly I just want to sit down with my feet up and a glass of wine in my hand.

Another matching outfit!

How Madi sleeps when it's hot

The week before I went back to work was gorgeous and we really took advantage of it! We took dinner down to the beach Wednesday night and let Madeline have some sand time, we bbq-ed at the bay with the Johnson's another night, we took the girls to Silver Strand on Saturday, and we spent plenty of time outside on the patio as a family. It was very nice and I am already looking forward to more outdoor time this summer!