Tucker Tuesday: Week 13

Today is the last day of my maternity leave.  I can't believe how quickly it has gone by!  People ask me all the time if I'm ready to go back to work.  I have to say that I am very excited to see my coworkers, put my brain to use, and of course, take care of patients.  And then, I start to think about leaving my baby and all I can feel is overwhelming sadness and anxiety.  I know that lots of women in America go back to work at least part time after having children and everyone does fine, but I haven't worked in over four months!  Will the knowledge and experience that I've accumulated in my nursing career remain intact or will I be rusty and fail miserably?  How will our house maintain any sort of order?  And most importantly, how will my baby adjust to less "Mommy time?"  Tucker will be with Daddy for my first three 12-hour shifts, so I guess I will have to take comfort in knowing that he is in very loving, capable hands while I'm gone.

Enough with the "pity me" talk!  We have had quite the adventurous week!  Tucker has been napping a little better.  We can usually get two or three 1-hour naps in the crib with the help of a swaddle blanket sometimes.  He did have one nap that lasted over two hours, and I had to check on him a few times because I thought something might have happened!  He is very into sucking on his fist and doesn't really seem to like the pacifier anymore.  Yay!  We pretty much are only using the pacifier at nap time, and we are hoping to keep it that way.  Our big adventure happened on Friday.  Daddy was at work, so Tucker and I went on a little roadtrip.  We stopped at my work unit to get my schedule, and then went down to my Mom's office while we waited for my parents to get off for the day.  Tucker, Grandpa, and I all went down to Iowa for an evening with Great Grandma.  Tucker had been an angel all night, so we ended up staying a little later than we had planned.  It was well past his bed time when we left, and it was on the way home that the real adventure started.  We were only about two miles from Great Grandma's when we got a flat tire.  We pulled into a driveway, and began the motions of changing the tire but couldn't find the jack or half the wrench.  Luckily, the owners of the farm pulled in behind us after just a couple of minutes and offered to help us out.  They brought all the necessary tools and even changed the tire for us!  Tucker seemed to enjoy watching the action and remained an angel during the whole process!  We made it back to Grandma and Grandpa's house, but we all decided that it would be unsafe to drive all the way home on a spare tire in the middle of the night so Tucker and I stayed for an impromptu sleepover.  It all worked out just fine, but we now have all the appropriate emergency equipment in both of our vehicles!!  Here are a few pictures of our big boy from this week...

Tucker will be three months old on Thursday, but he is already in mostly six month outfits!  Most of them are slightly too big, but his little feet were at the end of the three month outfits!

Here he is playing with one of his Great Grandmas.  She certainly doesn't act like the oldest person in Tucker's life.  She carried him around and played on the ground with him all night, and he loved every minute of it!

And here are a few smiley pictures before a walk...