.back at work.

[photo's taken by my friend, chelsea. also jack's carer and friend :)]

well, if you follow me over on instagram you may have seen that tuesday was my first day back to work. i started the day with bittersweet emotions. a mixture of sadness, excitement, nervousness, and worry. i knew this day was coming and like the organized fool i am, basically had everything ready by the front door like a kindergartener. jack's multiple items were packed for his carer [he's spending a mixture of days between my amazing mother-in-law and my amazing friend, both of whom jack and i love and trust impeccably], my outfit's for the week were picked out, and our meal plans were done. i was ready, but i just couldn't shake this feeling of sadness. 

after the initial drop off, i should share that i did shed a couple of tears in my car as it was parked outside my office. and it completely surprised me. perhaps because i wasn't really sure as to why i was crying.

i enjoy my job enough that i wasn't scared to go back. in fact my coworkers are great and i get along with a plethora of different clients which makes it fun. i'm not stuck in an office 9 - 5 and i'm pretty confident at what i do. i wasn't crying because i was sad at leaving jack with someone else [although that does kinda suck] and i understand that i am lucky that i have both my mil and my friend watching him rather than a stranger. i know jack is comfortable and probably about to have the time of his life playing with someone other than his old momma.

no, i was crying because it was yet again another change. yet another adjustment to make. our routine, that i felt was perfect, about to fade away.

as a girl who prides herself on usually embracing change, being a mom has really made me appreciate the normalcy of routine. the normalcy of just having the small moments count. the normalcy of family and good friends and how important love and respect is. i used to thrive on being busy, on not missing anything. on never saying 'no', but since jack has entered our lives those feelings of always having to do something different and exciting and wild has slowly diminished. i now simply enjoy knowing what's going to be happening today, tomorrow or the week after. and i think i felt that was all about to change. i sat in my car and cried because i didn't know if i would be able to handle this change, yet again. could i juggle work and being a mom? could i get us back to the perfect routine we had just the day before?

and then something great happened. my husband called just to say "you'll do great, erinn. i'm here for you if you need me". and like that, i realized that i don't have to juggle it all. i don't have to have a perfect routine fully organized to the last minute. life is about living. so with that i marched through those doors and was welcomed back with a bunch of smiles. and although i won't lie and say i'm not entirely pooped out, i can say that it wasn't that bad. the change, i mean. everything is going to be okay. i realized that a little change was good for jack and for me. and i realized that we're all much stronger than we sometimes give ourselves credit for.

**side note: i was struggling on what picture to add for this post and when chelsea sent me these pictures throughout the day today, i knew they were perfect. a play-by-play for a momma missing her baby boy.