And So it Ends...

This is it. The last day of my maternity leave. When I planned to be home for 10 weeks, I thought it would last a L O N G time...but I was wrong. I am kind of sad about it. I mean tomorrow I go back to work and will get four new classes of students. I haven't even really thought about that. Usually, I would have made copies of the syllabus and I would have everything all ready for the first day of school. Not this semester! I do have the syllabus ready and I am going up to work to make copies today, but I'm not terribly excited about the first day of school. It seems like last semester just started! The only thing that is keeping me from being nervous is...we don't have to put LJ in day care. That is soooo great and I am so thankful that we could work out our schedules to avoid that. Thanks to my niece, we don't have to put him in day care for one minute of the week. This is such a huge relief. Oh, and I only work from 7 - noon anyway...I'll still get to spend most of the day with little baby J. And, it is probably really good for LJ and RJ to get to spend time together. So, I'll survive, but this week will be a little hectic...getting used to yet another new schedule. Our trip to the wedding was really good. LJ was such a good baby! The trip out there took 8 hours, but we were rookies. We stopped to feed LJ his bottle...that wasted about half an hour of time when LJ is happy and quiet! So, we didn't make that mistake again...we feed him in the car from then on. He didn't get too fussy, too often and all-in-all we thought it went rather well. Any time he'd crank up, we'd play static on the radio and he'd quiet down pretty quickly. We were a little apprehensive about the hotel...thin walls and people on either side...crying baby...you understand. Well, the first night we weren't sure what we would do with LJ...see we didn't want to be able to hear his every breath or else we wouldn't get much sleep. So...we put him in his car seat in the closet! We left the door open half way and turned on the AC fan. Worked like a charm and he slept until 6:30 the next morning. I guess the car ride wore him out! The next day we "helped" decorate for the rehearsal dinner. We mostly held LJ, watched the work, and gave our opinion when asked. LJ behaved very well for the decorating and for the rehearsal dinner. We didn't have to go outside with a crying baby once. He even seemed to be watching the video of the bride and groom as children. The video made me cry! See, this is one of those weddings were you are really happy that these two people are getting married. They will be such a great team and I love them both so much. So, seeing them as children through adults with emotional music...well, it made me cry! The wedding was beautiful. Everyone looked so nice and the ceremony was really nice as well. Well, what I saw of it through the little window in the door! It was time for LJ to nap and I didn't want to take any chances. I didn't want to worry about him crying, so I just watched the ceremony from outside. RJ video taped most of it, so I'll catch those parts later. The reception was really nice also. LJ got to meet all his aunts, uncles, and cousins. I counted and 22 different people held him through the course of the weekend. He was such a good sport about it and didn't get fussy unless it was nap time. Then, he slept very nicely in his bouncy seat...even though there was a band playing and lots of people around. It was nice seeing all the family!

The ride home was great! It only took 7 hours and LJ was zonked most of the way. We are paying for it today though...he's being a little crank pot!