Today I finish work for 13.5 months of maternity leave.  I am excited/terrified/tired/anxious/ready/unprepared/worried/relieved

Its a day of finishing (for a year at least):

::The last day of wrestling Ellis into clothes whilst he sobs he doesn't want to go to nursery

::The last extortionate taxi ride  I will take to said nursery because I can no longer cycle there

::The last time I will blast Nina Simone as I waddle up the hill to my office

::I have finished talking about Full Cost Recovery, Social Return on Investment and iPerformance for at least a year (hopefully longer)

::My last cup of hot coffee, drunk without interruption, every time I drink a cup of coffee from 9am to 4pm

::Very possibly the last time I am able to go pee on my own, every time I pee from 9am to 4pm (god, I will miss that)

::We won't be getting dressed every morning because we have to BE somewhere

::And I won't be able to use work as an excuse for not cleaning the house

:: Its the beginning of the end of a small part of my own economic independence for awhile at least

:: The last time I will have to cram friends/crafting/cooking around a full work week, just TWO children and a husband with a busy work schedule.

:: The last work paid for trip to the highlands or West Coast of Scotland.. (sigh, its a fantastic thing to work to protect beautiful places...not least because a trip to see my boss means a train journey through the mountains to the coast)

:: The last time I HAVE to be somewhere and be social or at least polite.  From here in, getting out of the house will have to be on my own steam and I am no longer paid to be nice and helpful.

::I won't have to wear uncomfortable work trousers and could theoretically wear completely elasticated ones for over a year.  

::Spending my days with adults will be giving away to my days spent mostly in the company of small children...and a history of loneliness and depression.

::I won't feel like I am letting work down or worry that I have damaged my career every time a child is sick and I have to leave work.

Good, bad and scary. Positives definitely outweigh the negatives as above anything I have the opportunity to spend time with my children while they are little, with some financial help from work and no fear that doing so will cost me my job.  For that I am deeply, deeply grateful. But still worried about what it means to be a stay at home mother with 2 children, 2 cats and a goldfish. But today, for a year at least, my working life is finished.

Incidentally, I have also finished the Milo Vest and am seriously in love with the pattern and the way it turned out (with just over a skein of Mirasol Tupa for you fellow nerds...its the green one and much more green than the photo is picking up)

So I guess I will just have to make a new beginning

...on many levels