Unwritten.

So I've officially got two weeks until my maternity leave is over. The big day back is rapidly approaching and I've got mixed feelings about it... especially coming from someone who's contemplated having more kids just for the time off.

I kid.

I've said before that I'm the kind of person who has to work. I do. I like the routine and intellectual stimulation of working. I like having co-workers and interacting with clients. And I like having something to discuss over the dinner table beyond that which happened within these four walls or what I can see from out my front window.

I miss my job.

On the flip side, being home more has allowed me to be the mom I want to be. The one who sends the kids off to school with a hot breakfast in their bellies and who greets them off the bus with a hearty hug. I've been able to help my girls get ready for the day. I've supervised their outfits and even caught The Deuce with contraband eyeshadow before she was able to apply it. I've enjoyed making home-cooked meals (and even a dessert or two!) without feeling rushed or while juggling twenty other household chores.

And even though it's tough with a newborn, being home has allowed me to be a slightly better housekeeper. I've been able to organize and redecorate a little and run the vacuum more. Being home more has brought me closer to the Type A personality I've had to suppress over the years. My cleaning standards which had to be lowered out of necessity, have started to improve, if not just a little bit.

I know when I get back to work, I'm going to miss being home.

So here's the rub: I love my job and I love being home. I wish I could pick one and focus all my time, energy and talents to it, but I can't.

My sis-in-law, an incredibly brilliant stay-home mom, told me when she and my brother started having kids, she laid it out like this: "You (my bro, her hubby) work one, full-time job and I'm working two. How's that fair?"

It's not fair. Not at all.

And so I've been thinking a lot about working -- at home and at the office -- and how I like each separately, but when I do both am left feeling like I'm not doing either one as well as I'd like to.

I know other moms struggle with this all the time. My compliant is not unique. In fact, I'd venture to say it's the norm. I know a lot of moms who painfully sacrifice making home-cooked meals, for example, because of working long days at the office.

And so they (we) cut corners, work through lunches and regularly break the speed limit commuting to and fro in an effort to lessen the guilt.

Still... how can you be the best parent possible, when you have to spend less time than you want with your kids in the first place? When they don't get your "best" but instead, are stuck with what has to be "good enough."

So, say I want to chuck the day job and instead devote myself to the Home Life, what then? The financial impact would force its own series of "good enough" compromises to be made.

I've heard this phrase over and over: "Do you work to live or live to work?"

To that, I'd have to answer, "Yes."

And unless I win the lottery, can score a housekeeper, or am offered a job where I can work half the hours and earn twice the pay, we'll all going to have to settle for "good enough."

I read a great book a while back called, "I Don't Know How She Does It." about a working mom who struggles to balance a demanding career and raising her kids the way she wants to. I devoured the book, identifying with the main character on many levels -- from her faking a homemade pie for a bake sale and ducking a kiss from her jam-covered toddler so she could get to work stain free -- to her need to invent non-kid related explanations for being late to work for a boss who never heard of "work-life balance."

I read the book from cover to cover, dying to learn if the protagonist would get a happy ending -- and what on earth that happy ending could be. (The job? The kids? Both?)

And so I wonder, as I prepare to juggle it all once again, how will my own story end?