Oh hey, poor little neglected blog of mine.

I feel like I’m just coming out of a fog. The past few weeks at work have been intense. My boss warned me to expect my workload to get really heavy around the end of February, but I didn’t really know just how involved it was all going to be. For the last few weeks, my life has looked more or less like this on the days I had the kids with me:

* Get up, get myself & the kids dressed, get them to school/daycare.
* Come home, sit at desk, work work work.
* Pick kids up, feed them dinner, bathe them, and get them to bed.
* As soon as the kids are asleep, sit back down at my desk and work until 2 a.m.
* Get up at 7 a.m. and repeat.

On the days when the kids were with Dave, I’d just roll out of bed, plop at my desk in my PJs and work straight through until 2 or 3 a.m. There were days (DAYS!) without showers. I’m not proud.

It was insane. There was one other co-worker who was doing a lot of work on this same project, and we’d be sending each other emails in the middle of the night to check in. When we finished this project last week, he emailed me and said, “I feel like I just survived a war with you.” (Obviously an exaggeration, but… yeah.)

The weird thing is? As exhausting as it was, and as stressful as it got at times, I really loved it. I’m fortunate to have a job that I genuinely enjoy, and I loved feeling like part of a team effort, and getting positive feedback from manager-types that they liked what I had done.

So, everything officially finished and “went live” online last week. I took most of this week off, and I’ve been a lazy bum, and it has been glorious. I found a Groupon deal for a massage, which I desperately needed after sitting at my desk for so many hours (my shoulders were in knots), I got a haircut, I took naps. The downtime has been really nice. And hopefully when I get back to work on Monday, the pace will be a little more normal and not quite as frantic as it has been.

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The downside to the crazy workload is that I felt like I was neglecting everything else in my life: my kids didn’t have my full attention when they were here, and Chris and I didn’t get much time either. So I’ve been trying to make it up to them.

Last Friday – the day after my project finished – Catie’s school had their annual Fun Run, and it also happened that daycare was closed for a teacher workday. So I kept Lucy with me, and we went to Catie’s school to watch the Fun Run.

Lucy and I found a spot where we could see Catie as she ran by, and she could high-five us as she passed.

Since people can sponsor the kids based on the number of laps that they run, they cap them at 35 laps. Catie ran 37 – the extra 2 were just for fun. She’s a better runner than I’ll ever be.

(It’s worth noting that because of my job, I almost never get to see these types of things, so this was a really special treat for all of us.)

After the Fun Run, Lucy and I headed up to my office (funny that I have a cubicle there, even though I mostly work from home) to pick up some Girl Scout cookies that one of my co-workers was keeping for me. Lucy had never been to my office before, so that was kind of fun. I had told her that she’d need to be quiet so she wouldn’t disturb anyone. As we walked through the office, she kept loudly stage-whispering, “We hafta be quiet so peoples can do their work!” Yeah. Nice job there, kiddo. Let’s grab our cookies and get outta here.

It was a fun day, although it sort of emphasized to me what it probably feels like to be a stay-at-home mom on an average weekday, and I realized that life is not for me. It feels terrible to say, but as much as I love my kids, I’m a much better mom when I get a break from them. (Plus the fact that I really do like my job, which I think helps.) By 6 p.m., I was tossing back Advil and ready for bed. I don’t think I could be a stay-at-home mom every day. Hats off to those of you who do it.

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As long as I’m blogging about things that happened a week ago: last Saturday, we finally had some really nice spring weather, and my dad and I took the kids to our nearby greenway to let them ride their bikes.

Catie, my ever-cautious girl, won’t let us take the training wheels off her bike yet, but she’s getting a lot better at riding independently and not being scared of her bike, so we’ll call it progress.

When I mentioned taking the training wheels off, she said, “maybe next year when I’m 8.” Ok, baby, whatever you say. I’m not really in any big rush to make her hit those big-kid milestones before she’s ready.

Lucy, on the other hand, very much wanted to steer her tricycle all over the path, and she was a little annoyed that Pop-Pop had the handle in back and kept making her go straight and not veer off in front of random joggers and their dogs.

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This weekend, the girls are with Dave, and I have absolutely nothing on my agenda. It feels foreign and strange and lovely. I’m planning to go for a long (or longer than usual) run, then hit up my local drugstore in search of Easter basket treats and a new mascara. Not a bad way to spend a Saturday, I gotta say.