Being at work a few hours a day has been fantastic. I still have my moments when I leave Sammy in the morning, but I know how much he loves Eli - he has started asking for her when she's not here - and I know he's in great hands. And I do feel more like myself when I'm at school - I missed making my Ethics kids' heads spin with what ifs. I missed the energy of a high school classroom. I missed the kids who shake their heads and say, "Miss - you're crazy." I miss the look on their faces when they get it or I've somehow made them see a connection they hadn't seen before. It's a lot of work, but I'm grateful that it's work I thoroughly enjoy, and even more grateful that my director is so willing to work with whatever schedule I can do.

What is not so fantastic? How quickly illnesses fly around school - and we've only had two weeks of classes! I've already managed to make close friends with some stomach bug, and I'm anti-bac'ing like a madwoman and praying even more fervently that I don't get the flu-like fun that left my coworker in rough shape for a few days. I'm especially paranoid, having read on a heart blog recently that their doctor said that bronchitis can turn into pneumonia and kill even a healthy kid. For as normal as he seems, we will always need to be extra vigilant when it comes to Sammy and illness. Toss in my insane anxiety levels and OCD tendencies and his surgery next spring, this could turn into an obsessive control issue for me this winter.

When we first brought Sammy home, I needed control over something. Strangely enough, it was the labels on the containers of pumped breastmilk we stored in the fridge. The labels needed to be perfectly straight because on some level, I truly believed that something bad was going to happen if they weren't. It took a lot of work on a conscious level to train myself to understand that straight labels were not going to make my son okay and it wasn't going to hurt him if they weren't straight. They were just labels on a container. Even though it's gotten better, I still can't sleep if Sammy's two little stuffed bears - L'il Heart and L'il Samson - aren't tucked into his bed with him. They've been with him every single night since birth, and I can't go to bed if they're not there. On a conscious level I know it doesn't matter if they're in his bed or not, but in my brain, I somehow believe he's safe if they're there. Crazy? Actually, a tad bit, yes. Fun times, but at least I'm aware of it and can hopefully manage it when it starts to crop up again, because really - we CAN take very real measures to keep Sammy healthy.

Not really where I was going with this post. Oh well.

So our playdate today has been pushed back so that I can nap while Sammy does. Here's hoping whatever has taken up residence in my body leaves as quickly as it came because we've got a full weekend - a 30-family yard sale I've been looking forward to in the morning, a day at the lake tomorrow, the Water Ceremony at the UU Church Sunday morning, and potentially the playdate raindate Sunday afternoon while Jay watches the Pats. In the meantime, it's warm flat Coke for this tummy and some serious hoping that Sammy and Jay don't catch this as well.