Leaving work

I am confronted with a bitter-sweet anticipation. I have one week left at my current "official" place of work. I am standing on the edge of a cliff, only, unlike during dramatic changes in one's life where you feel that you are about to jump off into the great unknown, I feel like am facing the other way. Instead of preparing myself to plummet out into the vast abyss, I have my back to the chasm. I feel like I have spent the last four years pulling myself up this impossible rock and have reached a level and grassy, and somewhat unchallenging plateau.

I am relinquishing my responsibilities as small business owner, health advisor, dispenser of baby-know-how and giver of (more often than not) pain-free injections to humans in the 0 to 2 year category. 

4 years! How do you give up your "baby" after 4 years? 4 years of walking a road with clients who have become dear friends.  4 years of crying with parents over the unbearable loss of a stillborn child or the frustration of infertility. 4 years of anxiously waiting for pregnancy test results. 4 years of watching little bumps swell into radiant full term pregnancies and welcoming the tiny little bundles that grow and change so incredibly rapidly over the next few weeks, months and years. 4 years of nurturing the breastfeeding partnership of mother and child. 4 year of adapting/ adjusting/ advising/ alternating/ alleviating/ answering/ arguing/ assessing/ assisting/ bandaging/ breastfeeding/ breathing/ bruising/ calming/ campaigning/ caring/ carrying/ challenging/ changing/ cleaning/ collecting/ co-operating/ cradling/ creaming/ crying/ daring/ diagnosing/ diapering/ disinfecting/ educating/ embracing/ encouraging/ evaluating/ failing/ feeding/ fighting/ finding/ giving/ giving-up/ growing/ guessing/ healing/ holding/ implementing/ joking/ knowing/ laughing/ learning/ losing sleep/ loving/ massaging/ measuring/ meeting/ monitoring/ needing/ not sleeping/ nursing/ phoning/ planning/ pleading/ praying/ pricking/ promoting/ protecting/ recording/ repeating/ researching/ reupholstering/ rocking/ serving/ soothing/ sterilising/ suggesting/ swaddling/ testing/ tickling/ treating/ trying/ vaccinating/ visiting/ watching/ weighing/ winding/ winning/ worrying. 

Leaving this behind me, in part feels like giving up a child for adoption. A sense of guilt over abandoning this little business I have nurtured and grown for 4 years. And yet, as this season in my life rapidly draws to a close, I await what lies in store for me with some relief and excitement. I expect the next season to be relatively quiet and unobtrusive. A time of mothering, after-school taxiing, school outing accompaniament and general home management awaits.

I hate the term "Home Executive" - it sounds so like I'm trying to mask the fact that I scrub toilets and wipe noses and sort 4 people's underwear. Like I'm trying to make scratching mildew out of the tile grouting sound sophisticated. I think "Stay-at -Home-Mom" really covers it far better. Everyone knows that a mom does the dirty work, but everyone loves their mom for doing it. I don't need a fancy label. I will be knee deep in housework and and elbow-deep in homework. I will have mud under my cracked fingernails while I pull weeds out of the lawn. My wardrobe will not have anything that requires heels. I am a mom. And proud of it. 

(She bites her lip as she publishes her post)...