Alright, it's official. I am not cut out to be a stay-at-home mom. Yeah, I already knew this, but you never really know it until you try it out for a while. I'm about to go absolutely bat-shit stir-crazy and am counting the days until I head back to work. Of course, I'm still in the midst of my physical recovery, which became strikingly obvious during my half-mile walk with Hubby and the Monkey this afternoon. Plus, we're still trying to get the hang of our new lack-of sleep schedule that Monkey is orchestrating. In spite of this exhaustion, I'm already planning out experiments for my return the lab. I'm also looking forward to a quick work trip after Thanksgiving to pick up my maternity leave work pile, which I put together the week before going into labor. ("Nesting" for a lab-workaholic evidently manifests itself as organizing lab notebooks, manuscripts, and data for the home office.)

More than anything, though, I'm looking forward to experiencing normalcy again. Not that I don't enjoy motherhood - I'm absolutely in love with the Monkey and couldn't be happier to have him here. But going from the intense intellectual stimulation of my previous life to the mundane chores of cooking, cleaning, and laundry (and OMG there's so much laundry), mixed in with diaper changes and feedings, has got me feeling quite nostalgic for the bench. The cure for my cabin fever? Well, I started cruising the job search engines this week, and I'll likely begin surfing PubMed this weekend. I'm also hoping to bring this blog back to life, although my posts may be a little heavy on Monkey talk until I get back into the full swing of work. In the meantime, I'm imagining some interesting posts on balancing diaper changes with manuscript composition, or juggling breastfeeding with collaborator conference calls. Quite the visuals, huh?