First day success!

Cooper and I both had a great day today. Our morning was smooth like butter woo-hoo!! Even though Cooper got up 3 times during the night, he at least managed to give me a couple hours between waking me up which was a nice change from the past several nights. At 4:45 am he woke up before my alarm went off so I fed him, burped him, put him in the swing in our bedroom and I ran downstairs and fed the animals then back upstairs and jumped in the shower for the fastest shower in the world (Guinness, here I come). Once out, I returned to the bedroom and found Cooper "talking" to himself and smiling at the dog. Very cool. A few minutes later while I was doing my hair (another task for the record books) Cooper started to cry so I went in and just started singing to him and he started smiling and laughing again but as I started to walk away the crying started up so I got him out of the swing and propped him up on a pillow on the bed and I stood by the bed side while I got dressed and sang him songs and made funny faces at him which he seemed to really enjoy.

Once I was dressed I draped a burp cloth over my shoulder, picked him up and took him to his room for a diaper change and to dress him. He kept laughing at me as I made faces and sang made-up songs describing how fun a day we'd both be having (trying to visualize and materialize a happy day for us both - and it worked). I had to skip the make-up part of the process but that's ok - I can do that on the train (or not at all since I barely wear any anyway). I set Cooper down in his portable bed on the couch (with the ottoman pushed up against it of course) and turned on the TV and he proceeded to "talk" to me as I got his bottles out of the frig and let the dog outside. When Hunter was done doing her thing outside, she came in and I put my bags in the car in the garage and then I realized we were 20 minutes ahead of schedule so Cooper and I sat and "talked" and watched the news for a few minutes before I buckled him into his carseat and headed out the door with him.

We were the first parent/child duo to get to the daycare center and we were early so we sat in the car for 5 minutes (and I did the make up :)) and then we headed in and proceeded with the hand off. I was out of the center by 6:36 am and managed to get onto the 6:48 am train! I don't expect that to happen often - the train rolled in as my feet hit the platform so it was close. But that's OK because I'm OK with taking the next one - I can drop Cooper off and grab a coffee and get the 7:21 am train and do work while I wait and on the train and not have to worry about making up any time since I'll be working.

The day at the office was great too. Everyone was so welcoming and happy to see me and wanted to hear all about Cooper. Thankfully I remembered to bring pictures with me. My coach sent me a gorgeous plant for my office with a "welcome back" card attached - so totally thoughtful and sweet. I have a "mommy mentor" at work too and she called to check in and see how I was doing. I received eCards from colleagues. It took me quite a while to sort through and pull out the critical emails out of the over 2500 messages in my inbox...but I wasn't stressed about it at all - it was as if the "calm fairy" visited me last night or something. LOL. Seriously though, it was a super first day back and I'm so grateful for that!

Thank you, everyone, for your kind, supportive and encouraging words over this past week - it's really been a huge help to me as I prepared for this day. I know that each day will bring different challenges and won't necessarily be as smooth sailing as today was - but I'm glad this first day back was drama-free.

Bob is on his way home and will be here within the hour - yay!! He is going to keep Cooper home with him tomorrow and I won't have to get up at 4:45 am ;) and won't have to do the daycare dropoff before heading for the train so I'm excited about that. Cooper will be so happy to see his daddy. When Bob calls to check in with us each night, I put the phone on speaker so Bob can talk to Cooper. Cooper beams when he hears Bob's voice. He sometimes grabs the phone and tries to eat it haha!! They'll have fun together tomorrow while I focus on getting caught up with the latest goings on at work.