Q&A - the A

If you would have had a boy what would you guys have named him?
Oh my gosh - it would have been a disaster.  Jon and I cannot agree on a boy name to save our lives.  When we found out we were pregnant we played the "name" game and agreed on Addison almost immediately.  But we kept arguing about the boy names.  Then we found out we were having a girl and the discussion ended (we were both pretty happy about not having to decide!).  But as we got closer and closer to the due date I started worrying that our girl wouldn't be a girl since the tests are never 100% accurate.  On our way to the hospital Jon and I were still arguing about the boy names and we actually never settled on one.  Lucky for us, Peanut was indeed a girl!

Just for the record though, Jon's favorite was Andrew and mine was Riley.

You've mentioned you're going back to work; how long was your maternity leave, are you working full/part-time, how did you decide what day care, etc.
I'll try to do this in some sort of reasonable order because my thoughts about this are all over the place.


First, the maternity leave.  Jon and I still work for the same company - a pretty small company.  The policy gave us both a week of paid maternity and paternity leave.  They also allowed me to take 11 more weeks of unpaid leave.  Thankfully, I have short term disability and some vacation time that we used to cover a portion of my leave.  


Which means that I have only 3 more weeks of maternity leave left.  Then I go back to work full time while Peanut goes to daycare.


That brings me to number two - my job.  I am going back to working full time which I am thankful and sad for.  I am excited to get back to the challenge of my job and the mingling with adults.  I am looking forward to actually finishing a hot cup of coffee without reheating it at least three times and having a conversation about something other than nursing, poop, and naps.  I am also looking forward to taking on the challenge of my career.  But I am sad to not spend every single minute with my Peanut.  I can't imagine not being there for every smile, giggle.  I don't know how I will drop her off with someone for an entire day without breaking down (I hear that I won't).  One of my biggest fears is missing a first!  Any advice from the moms out there on how to stay sane while balancing the two?


And on to the last one - daycare.  Jon and I spent a very long time researching and visiting the day cares in our area.  We knew that we wanted a place that's close to our home and work, a place that cared about our Peanut as much as we did, a place that has an open policy so I could visit Peanut at lunch.  We found a place that's about 5 minutes from home and 10 minutes from work that is perfect for us!  It was one of those places where we walked in and just felt right.  If you want to read some more about our day care decision, I did a post here.

I'm a fairly new reader and I have seen you mention Russia a few times. Is there a blog post with more details about your move to the US?
Actually - I don't think so.  I wouldn't even know where to start to be honest with you.  We moved for many reasons - one of which was my dad's job.  Many others had to do with my parents' decision to give my sister and me a better future than the quickly crumbling state that Russia was in.  I was almost 12 years old at the time.  My emotions about the move went from extreme happiness to depression on and off for a couple of years; but overall, I was glad we were starting our new life in the US.  I'll post some more details on this in the future.

I'll do another round of these at the end of next month - so keep 'em coming!