Monday, January 24, 2011

Working Mom and Her Monkey Business

I know you have all been sitting on the edge of your seats, frantically hitting refresh, and begging for details since 9:01 this morning. It’s ok, mommy is here to fill you in with all the gory details and nasty bits of my first day back at work.

5:15 am-Bennett wakes up for his first feeding. He slept for 10 hours straight! If only I could have slept better myself, I wouldn’t have been begging for sleep since noon.

5:45-lay back down, fool myself into thinking I’ll sleep the thirty minutes until I have to hit snooze for the first time.

6:45-actually get out of bed, even though I finally fell back to sleep at 6:43. Spend the next forty-five minutes showering, dressing and taking a leisurely breakfast. The past twelve weeks prepared me to bathe and dress in record time, allowing me a cup of coffee and a large bowl of Honey Bunches of Oats with my old friends Mika, Joe and Willy. I missed you friends!

7:30-Bennett Boy up and at’em. Pissed. Angry. Screaming bloody murder. He’s a morning person. He must have been having a bad dream about getting dressed, or the evil gas monster, or the ceiling fan being turned off. His bad dreams become a reality when I make him wear the silly monkey shirt. He cries when I have the audacity to feed him. I assume he’s trying to make this easier on me by playing the role of Bad Bennett, not Cheery Morning Smiles Bennett. Then CMSB returns, pulling at my heart strings with wide mouth smiles until I strap him into his car seat and heaven help him, make him wear a hat.

8:45-Drop off goes well. He calms down when the baby keeper holds him. She repeats over and over that he’ll be ok here, as if trying to convince herself. I try desperately to ignore the two coughing children that will be sharing her attention.

9:20-I arrive to work, unpack my snacks, decorate my desk with snapshots and hide the new illegal mini-fridge under my desk.

9:24-10:12-catch up on the three months of work I missed.

10:13-4:00-Pretend to look very busy, not obsessed with my baby, ask every person that passes my desk if they’d like to see a recent picture. I have adult conversations. I eat lunch with both hands, and go eight whole hours without swaying back and forth or patting someone’s bottom.

4:00-5:00- Check the clock every thirty-four seconds. Prepare for my new self-imposed mommy-departure time. I didn’t ask for it. I just told them I would be present sixty minutes less post-baby. Victory is mine!

5:30-Pick-up the sweet boy. He's content and she doesn't tell me he can't come back.

6:30-Angel drops off dinner. She reassures me that it reheats well if we don’t get to eat until the babe goes to bed, must be a mom herself.

8:30-Bennett’s new bedtime. We’re hoping it will keep the sleep demons away and dinner warm.

Then we eat, wash bottles, clean the kitchen, set out our clothes and update the blog. One day down, two-thousand something to go until he’s in kindergarten and our routines get all jumbled up again. My heart hurts. My eyes are heavy.

In many ways it was easier than I expected. Yet, I wonder if it will get easier or is it chipping away at my gut like wood block, each cut makeing me weaker. She knows how to get my baby to nap, to take a pacifier, to eat 4 ounces in one sitting. Just knowing I have thousands of days more alone and distracted might break me.

2 comments:

  1. I'm so glad everything went (almost) as planned today!

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  2. Is Bennett's hair getting lighter or is it just the photo? I have got to get there and see this baby -- he's growing up so quickly!

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