Everybody's Working for the Weekend

Not to toot my own horn here, but I have fabulous hair.  Really, it must be those prenatal vitamins.  All during pregnancy and even now, two plus months after, I have a lush mop of black hair that has resisted falling out.  However, my sister assures me that the day will come when I'm in the shower and boom, I will have a handful of hair where a palm full of shampoo once was.  I've heard that prenatal vitamins usually keep your hair from coming out in its normal quantities, and it has definitely done that job for me.  Not that I couldn't use a little thinning (I'm typing this while knocking on wood).  Before I got pregnant, when my mane was out of control Z would refer to me as "H.O.H.," an antonym for head of hair.

C-rad's hair is one of the most obviously growing parts on him (with the exception of his belly, which inflates and deflates depending on when mealtime was/is).  What Zach once lovingly referred to as his George Kostanza hairline is filling in enthusiastically, with hair encroaching on his forehead as it was when he was first born.  His eyebrows are filling in, too, making his furrowed brow and other facial expressions that much more emphatic.  It's amazing watching his face develop and seeing him work on taking control of it.

Sometimes I wonder how much control I have over my own face.  At the end of my first day back to work I can say that it was hard, but not as hard as I thought it would be.  That doesn't mean, however, that my eyes don't temporarily glaze over in the middle of meetings.  I imagine that at those moments my jaw goes slack and my mouth partially opens, much like 'Rad's does in his baby way.  And I don't think that I have much control over my expression when I'm asked what I think about something when I haven't been paying to the context of the question.  How many times can you just smile at something or laugh and say, "That's so funny!" before being exposed as an inattentive audience?  I think I might be pushing the limits.  Good thing it's the weekend.

This is the picture I received this morning on my way to work after leaving Z, Connor, and Blue boy at home for their first boys' day.  At the end of the day Zach told me that 'Rad wasn't so smiley all day, but that he wasn't too bad for him and that all in all, things went well.  I was glad to hear it, really I was.  But I also hope that his day taking care of 'Rad-a-dude gave him a greater appreciation for what it was like for me on maternity leave.  Nothing can give him an idea of what it's really like to be the mom, but any little experience that gives him a taste, well, I appreciate it.

I never full-out felt spiteful of him when I had to breastfeed Connor in the middle of the night or when, unbeknownst to him, he was assuming that I was 'Rad's primary caretaker and he was just my backup.  But sometimes you want something to happen so you can say, "See?  See what I've had to handle all by myself for (enter amount of time here)?"  I really hope that "I told you so" feeling goes away, though.  It doesn't seem like a healthy one to harbor, especially when you're talking about caring for your own creation.  I think being a first-time mom means dealing with a lot of feelings like that. Ones where you want someone to understand you and commiserate with you in some real sense so you don't feel like such a crazy person.  I'm starting to find those people, but I'm pretty sure that I'm still crazy.