Laura’s maternity leave gave out in early November. Since then I’ve been watching Riley during the day, just the two of us here at home. I’ve also still been working for IBM, 20 hours a week or more. So I haven’t accomplished much else for a while.

It’s gotten steadily more difficult to meet expectations at work as Riley’s gotten older. He’s at the stage where’s developed enough to want to interact and explore, but not developed enough to accomplish much himself. So he gets bored and frustrated unless you’re right there entertaining him all the time. Which of course I’m perfectly happy to do, but then I can’t be working too. (Not that I haven’t tried; sadly, watching me type is as boring to him as it would be to anyone, no matter how dramatically I read aloud as I do it.)

When I started out, Riley was napping for two or three hours every morning, and at least an hour every afternoon. Then after a few weeks his naps kind of evaporated. So for the past month or two, most of the work I’ve been able to do has been at night after he’s gone to sleep. About the last thing I want to do at night is read dry technical articles about database software. So I’ve felt less and less motivated to go the extra worker bee mile.

As much as I like my job (and I really do, despite how this must sound), I don’t want to end up resenting it or doing it badly. So I’m phasing myself out of it now. I’ll stay for another month or so, while they find someone to replace me, and then take a hiatus to focus completely on Riley. My manager said he’d love to have me back when I’m ready, which is great. The idea here is to leave while that’s still true. I would like to come back eventually, if it’s feasible.

Meanwhile, I can’t believe how fast Riley’s grown. I look at the earliest photos of him now and can’t fathom that he used to be that small. See for yourself. He’s so much more fun these days, he smiles and babbles at us a lot. He responds well to music, and really loves getting swung around in the air. He also loves going out wherever and watching new people. We’ll be doing a lot more of that once I’ve stopped working. He’s going to love it.

Well, it’s a good thing my LiveJournal isn’t a potted plant.

There’ve been some pretty major events since my last update:

1. We had a second ultrasound and discovered that we’re having a boy. All his digits and such are accounted for, and developmentally he’s on target for his age. (I put a few scans here.)
2. We flew out to Missouri for a few days to visit my family. We had lots of fun, especially with my little nephews. They also gave us a baby shower. Little by little the baby’s room is starting to take shape. We still have a lot to do, though.
3. I got laid off. It was kind of a surprise, since it was unrelated to my job performance, but I think in the long run it’ll end up being good for me. I had been with the same company for kind of a long time by software industry standards. Now I’m interviewing again for the first time in eight and a half years, oh joy. I had been using their laptop as my main computer, so I was offline for a while getting my old one upgraded (then for another while, because we painted the little home office room).

Now we’re going to see a twilight showing of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. The commercials on television have me salivating. I’m leaving all my fanboy expectations behind and giving it a clean slate. I expect I’ll have some things to say about it later.