Monday, March 10, 2014

Returning to Work

After three months of being off from work (a glorious time!) I had to return on this Monday morning. I wish I had known that I would be losing an hour of sleep the weekend right before I went back or I might have worked it out to be a different day. Oh well, what can you do!

Sunday night I made a list for myself of everything I needed to be sure I brought with me. For your amusement, here is the list:


  • Boys' bag with their nap time blankets, the weekly check, and Silas' vaccination form
  • The boys' lunch boxes (don't forget to pack food in it too)
  • Silas' bag containing:
    • diapers
    • wipes
    • diaper cream
    • two changes of clothes
    • three bottles
    • An extra nursing cover (for me to nurse him there)
  • Bags of frozen breast milk for Silas (stick in my lunch bag until we get to day care)
  • My work bag
  • My purse
  • My lunch
  • The breast pump
  • My water bottle
If you're counting, that's 10 bags or groups of items.

I happened to acquire an extra nursing cover recently. I was going to give it away to one of the many people I know who are expecting and then I realized on Sunday evening that I could still use it. So I have one in my diaper bag that I can use when we are out and about. Now with this second one I can keep it with the stuff Silas needs at school each day and I can feed him there and have a nursing cover with me. I was worried about trying to keep up with my nursing cover and accidentally leaving it home one day or leaving it at school over the weekend. So having a second one ended up working out great!

Monday morning rolled around and I was ready. Or, I hoped I was. I had laid out clothes for myself and all three boys the night before. Plus all the stuff I needed to bring was piled up near the garage door. Here's how the morning went:

5:45 am: Phone alarm goes off. I reach over and turn it off, sit up and groggily look at the clock. Wonder if 5:45 is really necessary and then alarm clock alarm goes off. Decide that 5:45 is necessary. Get up, wake baby and change his diaper.

6:00 am: Bring baby into bed and start feeding him. Check iPod and see message from friend, read it, decide to respond later, bring up Morning Prayer to pray while baby eats.

6:20 am: Baby finishes on one side, burps, proceeds to poop, poop goes up his back due to my hand being right on his butt. Get up again and change his diaper and now also his clothes.

6:25 am: Back in bed and feeding baby on second side. Manage to finish up Morning Prayer.

6:35 am: Baby is done, put him back in bed, go downstairs to pump more milk.

6:45 am: Finish pumping, clean everything so I can take it to work, head back upstairs.

7:00 am: Shower, dress, dry hair, etc.

7:30 am: Join Hubby and the boys who are all already at the kitchen table eating breakfast. Realize that the goal of leaving the house at 7:45 am is probably not going to happen.

7:50 am: Finish up breakfast, go back upstairs to brush teeth and get baby from his crib.

8:00 am: Get baby in car seat, jackets on the boys, start loading all my bags into the car.

8:05 am: Finally pull out of the driveway, Hubby stops on the side of the road to bring the trash cans back around to the back of the house. I pull around him knowing that I'll now get to the day care long before him.

8:20 am (or thereabouts): Get to the day care, unload everybody and everything, get to the door and realize that I have forgotten the code again. Nice mom pulling out of the parking lot sees me and tells me what it is. Phew!

8:25 am: Drop off baby and his bag in his room, tell the teachers I'll be right back down, bring check and form to office, take boys upstairs to their room. Hubby shows up to say good bye to the boys.

8:30 am: Hubby and I are back in Silas' room, get everything squared away, say good bye to Hubby, I sit down to feed Silas one last time.

8:55 am: I leave the day care.

9:15 am: I finally find a parking spot and start walking to my building.

9:30 am: I walk into the library. Wonder if maybe 5:45 am isn't early enough. Can I do 5:30 am tomorrow?

By the time I got to work I had had a full day already!! I will say it hasn't been too bad yet. I've had one pumping session so far and I'm praying Silas has enough of my milk for the day. Feeding him when I dropped him off helps. I am hoping he will only need two feedings until I can pick him up again.

I have lots of catch up on. My desk kind of says it all:

Yes, somewhere back there is my desk. You can see the computer monitor off to the right. In front are two book trucks (with the breast pump sitting on top of one of them). Unfortunately, all that clutter, piles of papers, and other crap stuff is not a result of my being off the last three months. Sadly it often looks like this.

What you also don't see are the walls of bookshelves on two sides full of CDs, scores, dissertations and theses, books, and various cataloging tools and reference manuals. Obviously there is plenty to keep me busy.

With that said, I must get back to it. Hope you enjoyed the rundown of my first morning back to work. 

[This post was written in haste and for your amusement. If you are bothered by typos, misspellings, or grammatical failures, please keep them to yourself. Or, if you must say them aloud, share them with a friend as long as that friend is not me. My tired brain thanks you.]

No comments:

Post a Comment