What a week last week was. It was my return to being a working mom, after taking 12 weeks off for maternity leave. As I wrote last week, I really enjoyed staying home with my new baby, learning to be a mom to two. But, it was time to return to work.

My work week was great. I was welcomed with lots of hugs, welcome greetings and even coffee, bagels and pastries for the team.

The rest of my week was what turned out to be crappy. On the first day of my return, my mother-in-law died. She had suffered for a long time and it was not unexpected, but jarring none the less. That first evening home was filled with phone calls and a depressed feeling.

Night number two involved explaining the death to my 3-year-old son. That went better than I expected, but was hard. Last night he thought my husband was talking to Grandma on the phone and I had to explain that it wasn’t her.

Night number three was just as challenging. My husband was out of town making arrangements for his mother, so it was my first working-mom evening without him. I picked up both kids from school, drove home in the pouring rain and ran inside the house. Upon opening the door I was pounded with the smell of pee and poop in the front room: The dog had an accident. Next, I heard meowing coming from inside my son’s bedroom. One of the cats got locked in there all day. I found poop on the bed.

I threw the poop in the toilet, mopped up the pee, put the comforter in the wash, fed the baby and next thing I know it’s nearly 8:00 p.m. and I haven’t feed my son dinner (or myself!). My husband came home shortly after that and put my son to bed, only to find there was pee on the sheets that I had missed when cleaning up the comforter. What a night!

Thank God for Friday. Except, that’s when I found out I was unfriended by someone on Facebook.  It my not be the first time this has happened to me, but it’s the first time I’ve realized it.

So, it was a  whirlwind of a week. At least this week is sure to be better — my husband will be in town all week and it’s not supposed to rain. I think I’ll stay off Facebook just to be safe.

If you’ve been wondering about me, I’m OK, just slightly preoccupied these days. Maternity leave is supposed to be this blissful time when you bond with your newborn child. A time when you don’t have to work. The only thing you have to do is “sleep when the baby sleeps.” That never happens. If I haven’t talked to you or seen you in a few weeks, don’t take it personally. I’ve got a lot on my plate:

My daughter is now 5 weeks old. She’s got reflux which  makes her cranky. We feed her, change her diaper, swaddle her — do all the Dr. Karp things. Sometimes, many times, nothing works. She just cries. Eventually, she settles down. Sometimes only for 20 minutes. Like, now. She’s in bed, but I am typing 90 words per minute to try to crank this post out before she starts crying again.

My son is 3 and asks questions all day long. What does that mean, Mommy? Why did they do that Mommy? Why? Why? Why? It’s exhausting. Cute, but exhausting.

I have a 16-year-old tabby cat that has had more than one stroke. She walks with a limp, but is my first baby. She is one of the sweetest cats I’ve ever known. The trouble these days is that she has decided to poop on my bed. More than once. Once when I was in bed!

We have a 14-year-old dog that my husband brought home one day after work, claiming it was going to die. He found it starving in the parking lot at his job. Penny is a sweet dog, but is terrified of storms. The wind even scares her. She can sense a storm coming that is hours away. It literally scares the crap out of her. I’m tired of picking it up.

Then, there’s our ornery 6-year-old cat, Scarlet. Named after a stoic cat who braved a fire to save her kittens, Scarlet is the biotch of the bunch. She doesn’t have any of the ailments the other two pets have, and has, surprisingly, become the least offensive of the bunch.

So, there you have it. My life in a nutshell. There’s more to it, but this gives you an idea why I haven’t called lately. Gotta go … I think the baby is crying, but to be honest I don’t know if the sound is in my head or real.

Occasionally I visit icanhascheezburger to see what they have: It’s always something funny. Today was a tug at my heart. It’s interesting … it’s a photo of a guy saving cats. Look at his face. He’s working so hard holding on to those cats, who most likely would have drowned, starved or otherwise died had he not grabbed them.

I saw another photo like this during the recent floods. A man went to save his dogs. Police didn’t want him returning to his home, but he couldn’t leave them so he and another man returned three times, drudging through the murky flood waters, until all his dogs were safe.

More cat pictures.

I’ve been up since 6:00 a.m., which to some may not seem that early. I consider it early when your kid is still asleep, yet you are awake for the day.  This morning, my husband found our beloved cat, Matisse, laying in the hallway this morning, unable to move. I picked her up and gave her love and attention, put her in a laundry basket and my husband took her to the vet at 7:00 a.m. — we just couldn’t bear (or risk) trying to put her in her normal cat carrier.

So, now I wait to hear what is wrong with her.

Pets are like people to owners. It’s sad when they are hurt. I know that Matisse won’t be with me forever, she’s 14 after all, but I hope she’s got some more in her.

I’ve written about getting kids to go to sleep — and sleep through the night, but what about the parents? I have no problem getting to sleep, but it seems I’m finding it hard to get a solid nights’ rest. I think we finally got my son back on track (I’ll have to write a separate post about how I did that), but now there are other things waking me up at night.

Sometimes it’s one of our pets — the cats are in the way on the bed, the dog needs to go outside, or it’s the neighbor’s dogs who are barking at something.

When I was working full-time I’d wake up in the middle of the night worrying about a project I was working on or a presentation I had to give. Sometimes it was stress waking me up, other times it was the excitement of the project. I do some of my best thinking at night.

I’ve learned to keep a notebook and pen on my nightstand for those middle of the night ideas. I wake up in the morning with something barely legible next to me, then I recall my great idea. The times I thought I would remember it on my own, I never did. Not only does writing it down help me remember, but it gets the idea out of my head so I can go back to sleep. I just wish that worked with the other distractions that keep me awake.