Last Day Of Leave Block

Today is the final day of my 10 week family leave. I get 12 weeks but I only took a 10 week block, so I could use the last 10 days throughout the rest of the year.

Leave went by too fast but I'm extremely grateful that I got it. I feel like I got to really bond with him by spending all this time with him, and I think I wouldn't have bonded so quickly if I had to go back to work sooner. I honestly think that everything would have been 100x harder if I went back to work right away. The first month was pretty rough when it came to sleep, and being able to easily do split shifts without one of us having to get ready for work in the morning was extremely helpful. He still doesn't sleep through the night (feeding/bed by 9:30PM, feeding at 2:00AM-3:00AM, feeding at 4:30AM-5:30AM) but it has gotten 100% better and is more manageable. I tend to handle the 4:30AM-5:30AM feeding, so lately I've been staying up at 5:00AM, which hasn't been too rough and I'll likely maintain that schedule once I go back to work.

Going back to work is a double edged sword of feelings. I'm pretty excited to get back into the swing of things at work but I'm also pretty bummed that I don't get to be around him as much every day, and then start to wonder how much I'll miss during the day. He is in good hands though since my wife does an amazing job at taking care of him.

Even though I am going back to work, it will be nice to be able to use my remaining 10 days of leave to take off two days a month (Mon/Fri at the end of the month) so I can have some three day weekends each month. I could take off a two week block, but I figure two three day weekends each month until the end of the year will let us go do things with him during the week, like going to the zoo, etc and with my remaining leave and PTO I have around 28 days to use up before the end of the year!

He has grown and changed so much in just the last 72 days, it is crazy.