Bye bye, beautiful.

In less than a week, I go back to work. I always knew it was going to happen, I just don't understand how it happened so fast. I had about three months off of work. That's a quarter of a year. Sometimes an hour of trying to get an overtired baby to sleep seems like six months, and when he's really crabby the days seem like years... but the happy, smiling baby days outnumber the crabby, screaming baby days by so many, and those happy days go so quickly. Still.. how did three months pass by like they never really happened?

I feel like it's ending, even though I know that's crazy. I feel like Mason isn't going to need me as much as he does now or he'll need me so much and cry the whole time I'm gone. Either one sounds awful. I know I have to go back.. we're broke and babies are expensive. But I'm clinging to this last week. I don't want to put him down. I want to tell him what's going to happen so he won't be blindsighted. I keep telling him that I'm just going to be at work and that I'll only be gone for a few hours but I know he doesn't understand.

I google everything. I always have. So of course, I'm googling things like "coping with returning to work", "back to work transition after baby", and "how to not feel so devastated about leaving your baby that you want to stick your head in the oven". Nothing's helping. The advice they give: get lots of rest, visit baby on your lunch break, and make sure baby is with a responsible care-giver. Duh. There's nothing about dealing with the guilt I feel from leaving him or the way that my heart breaks when I have to be away even for three hours to go to counseling once a week.

Honestly, what's bugging the crap out of me is that stuff I learned in child development. Piaget and his damn object permanence. He pretty much said that infants, up until they're nine or so months old, have no concept of what he calls object permanence. When something disappears from their view, whether it's a toy or a person, babies just think it's gone forever. What a depressing thought. Thanks, Piaget. You help moms everywhere realize that as soon as they walk out the door, their babies forget they ever existed.

I always have something witty to say, but now I'm at a complete loss of words. Things are going to change, and I'm really not liking it.