Final Day of Summer

I go back to work tomorrow.

After two weeks of staycation with Calliope, I'm ready.

I loved being home with her, but man, it's exhausting.

Well, part of the exhaustion was forcing us back to a school year schedule, more or less. When we were at camp in the early part of the summer, I switched Calliope to an 8 pm - 8 am sleep schedule. Dinner wasn't until 6 pm and I often had a couple of patients I had to tend to before I could put her to bed, so a 7 pm bedtime was impossible.

While we were traveling, she was getting up on the earlier side, often 7 am, but since we've been home, I've several times been lucky enough to enjoy her sleeping until 9 am! Occasionally I sleep that late as well.

Bad habits for the school year, when I have to be at work by 8 am.

So the last week, I've gradually moved her bedtime to 7 pm. She's still sleeping more than 12 hours most nights, but I feel like it's important that she be awake before I leave for work, so I guess she's either going to be permanently overtired, take longer naps, or revert back to a 6:30 pm bedtime.

I've also worked on going to bed earlier myself, and getting up earlier also. More like 7 am though, and on mornings when I work out, I will need to get up by 5:30 am. Ugh.

I'm not looking forward to that. Just transitioning to a 7 am wake up time has been tiring enough. Like being jet lagged.

I've also been working out as much as possible, knowing that it will be hard enough to keep up once I have to revert to dawn workouts. Mid-day workouts, when C is napping, are a million times more pleasant. But totally impossible at work.

I'm hoping to start biking to work, but I'm also really nervous about it. Calliope and I have taken some bike rides together over the last few months, and I've loved them, but biking for transportation is a lot more serious. For one thing, it won't be entirely on bike paths. I'll have to ride in traffic, which always makes me nervous. And I'm worried about getting all sweaty and disheveled on the way to work, and that not being conducive to being focused at work. And remembering to carry work clothes, plus breakfast (I never eat first thing in the morning) and lunch along with me.

Luckily, there's no students this week, so I will have three whole days to unpack my office and get settled in. One day would be sufficient, so I plan to use the other two days to catch up on some personal stuff -- finishing Calliope's "Age One" photobook in particular. And will also offer my services to my administrators.

So it's a low pressure week. So I can't figure out why I'm feeling so anxious tonight.

I know that I wanted to have the apartment tidy and organized for the nanny... and I'm feeling totally stressed that I didn't quite pull that off. But it's really not that messy -- the kitchen just needs straightening. Not even a lot. So why does that feel totally overwhelming?

In unrelated news, I think Old Flame is being more distant... and I'm being more needy. I don't understand myself. Why do I do this? I know I'm not really that into him. I just like the idea of having someone. But I know that having someone just makes life more stressful. So I need to go back to not caring. Or at least, thinking of him as only a friend with benefits. But for now, when he owes me a text or phone call regarding potential plans for next weekend -- which I suspect he's going to cancel because he will have his daughter visiting -- I shouldn't be thinking of him at all!