No One Cries Alone In Jack's Presence

Maternity leave officially came to a close today. I am so grateful to my wonderful boss and co-workers that made it possible for me to take a full 4 months off work to tend to my new babe.

I'm a firm believer that one of the biggest reasons breastfeeding rates are so dismal is because women in this country aren't granted decent maternity benefits. If I was Canadian, I'd be getting 60% of my pay for a full year. (Well, I probably wouldn't as I only worked part time, but you get the drift.) That is amazing! As a veteran pumper (with Spencer), I know first hand how bad it sucks (pun intended, ha!) to not only have to set aside time to pump, but then you actually have to feed the baby and wash all the bottles and pump parts. It is super time consuming. And to top it off, some women don't respond to a pump very well so it is possible that, upon returning to work, their supply will drop off dramatically.

But, I digress. This blog topic is not supposed to be about the US's craptastic maternity benefits.

It is, however, about my first day back to work.

I am so fortunate to work at a place where I can bring my kids. Spencer spent all of last school year with me as his teacher and will be moving up to the 4 year old room this year. For my return, I made a deal with my boss that moves me from working with 3 year olds all day to working in the baby room.

This is a huge plus for me and Jack alike. I don't have to swap classes with anyone when he's hungry and I certainly don't have to worry about pumping. He still gets to hang out with mommy all day and can still pretty much nurse as much as he wants, when he wants.

However, for one baby in class, today was a very bad day.

Cole is one of the sweetest babies you'll ever know. He just turned one and is usually a barrel of smiles and giggles. His mother, Kibbin, has worked in the baby room since he was a newborn, so he is used to being with her all day. All the pleasures that Jack is now enjoying used to be Cole's.

Kibbin has relocated to the 3 year old room now. She has another son who is 3 and she'll be spending this year with him. But this is very black news indeed for Mr. Cole.

Cole spent most of today in tears. There was nothing I could do. I wasn't his mommy and that's what the poor guy wanted. If he couldn't have mommy, nothing else would do. He decided that he would just lay on me and cry, cry, and cry some more. As I held him, he cried. If I put him down, he cried harder. Maybe some food would help? More tears ensued. I could not make him happy.

Jack was dazed and confused by this noise, to be sure. He is actually pretty sensitive to noise and is a VERY light sleeper. I feel terrible at the number of times a day I have to "shush" Spencer (I'll contribute to his therapy bill for that, I'm sure), but Jack wakes up at some of the smallest sounds you can imagine.

So when poor Cole realized his mommy was gone, GONE!, he started to cry. And in response, Jack started to cry. Liam even cried a little, but sweet little Lucy managed to maintain her composure through it all. Thank goodness for Lucy.

When Cole would stop crying for a minute, so would Jack. But when Cole started back up, so would Jack. At one point during the morning, I had Cole straddling my left leg with his head on my chest and Jack straddling my right leg with his head on my chest. They both fell asleep that way, I wish I'd have had a camera.

I managed to get Jack into a bouncer w/o waking him up, but the minute Cole's body touched the crib sheets he was awake and forlorn once again. And so was Jack.

We went on like this until around 11:30. Cole finally zonked out and Jack, after a very fretful nursing session, did the same. And they both slept, along with Lucy, for quite a while. I took Liam with me out into the hall to have lunch and a break.

Jack missed his morning nap due to all the chaos and spent about 2 hours asleep in the swing. Cole woke up after a little over an hour and, since the 3 year olds were napping, got some quality snuggle time with mommy in the hall.

Really, it was a good day. Hopefully Cole will be a bit more used to me by next week and we won't have so much sadness in our little part of the world. That's my goal: less sadness, more sleep. ;-)