Since giving birth I’ve been out on maternity leave for about 12 weeks. Having originally requested 8, the extra few weeks were both a bonus and a burden. On the one hand it was awesome to have more time to spend with my daughter and get her into a semi schedule. But the downside was my FMLA only covered 8 weeks, so for 4 extra weeks I was on my own money wise. Needless to say things got a bit tight. But now it’s back to work and back to making money. Goodbye Law & Order: Special Victims Unit! Goodbye Xena Warrior Princess! Hello web design and print ads!
Luckily, my employer was cool enough to allow me to work from home and after having looked at daycare prices I’m certainly glad they did. It’s ridiculous how expensive that is. I’m so relieved that I don’t have to worry about finding a daycare, getting the courage up to leave Amelia alone with strangers, and shelling out a paycheck a month to pay for it. But of course taking care of your kid while you work from home is no picnic either. So I’m going to relay my experiences of my first day back to work.
First of all let me state that I am not a morning person. I can get the perfect amount of sleep and yet still feel absolutely wrecked at 7 in the morning. Usually Dustin takes the morning shift and lets me sleep in until it’s time for him to leave for work. He comes in, gives me a kiss goodbye and the rundown of Amelia’s morning activities. Diapers been changed, what time she was fed, and that she’s sound asleep. That last part is always funny as no matter how passed out she is, the moment Dustin closes the front door she’s instantly awake and ready to play. I think she does that on purpose just to mess with me. It’s like I’m a drug addict chasing the dragon except my dragon is a few extra hours of sleep. And it never happens. So you can imagine how I was feeling at 7 am this morning, an hour earlier than when I’m usually awake. Zombeh DieDie was in full effect. But luckily a shower and some tea was all I needed to wake up.
I got the morning stuff all taken care of and signed in to work via Log Me In a pretty sweet website that allows you to sign into your work computer remotely. It’s 7:40am and so far everything’s a breeze. I went through my email and let the HR department know I was back so that they could reactivate my time card. I get a reply back that it’s been put in the system yet I won’t be able to clock in til tomorrow. Now considering I had spoken with them on Friday letting them know I was back Monday, I was a little peeved. Sure they had told me to email them on Monday when I was in, but couldn’t they have set this up on Friday so that I could at least clock in for my first day back? Apparently not. I then informed my boss so that there would be no question as to the status of my hours. So all good there.
I’m steadily plucking away when I hear the stirrings of Amelia. She let me work til 9 am and greeted me with the biggest smile. A good start to my work week. I fed her, changed her, and played with her til she started getting cranky. This is always a sure sign she’s sleepy and usually her morning nap is about 4 to 5 hours. I set her down and bam! She’s out like a light. Back to work I go.
Getting back into the habit of things turned out to be much easier than I expected. So far not a lot has changed at work. I took back my project management files and did some tweaking to get them up to speed. Granted I had a helper at work to take care of them while I was away, but everyone does things differently. So it’s never quite the same as your own order. I guess that’s the reason our department decided to “organize our filing system” on our own computers. I still have a ways to go on that project. All in all it was a very productive 3 hours. Around 1 o’clock Amelia woke up.
We ate lunch together, watched an episode of Law & Order and played with her toys. She’s friggen adorable when she’s bubbly and happy. But she took a shorter morning nap then usual and I could already tell by her yawns that another nap was soon to come. Sure enough at around 3 pm she passed out. So I was free to go back to the main computer. I say main as I also have a laptop to monitor my emails for when I’m out in the living room just in case any emergency projects/emails need my attention. I wasn’t really expecting any for my first day back, but you never know. Plus it’s always good to be prepared and to have a plan in place for those crazy days.
Overall Amelia showed me what an optimal day at work could be like with her. Now I just have to see what a bad day will be like. Hopefully, this good streak will continue. I already have some projects to work on and I’m feeling pretty good about them. Granted I’m probably a little rusty with eblasts and I hear there’s a newer procedure to go with them, but that’s the fun of work. I’m certainly glad to be back.
So how am I feeling now that my first day is over? Tired. I don’t think I’ve spent this many consecutive hours in front of the computer in my past 2 months off. It’s going to take a bit of getting used to as not only do I need to take care of the clients at work, but also the little client at home. I’m not doing this on my own though. I have a fantastic mate that makes sure I have the time to do the things I want to do. Plus if Amelia gets too unruly during the day, Dustin has promised to watch her when he comes home and allow me the time to focus on my work projects. Teamwork. That’s what it’s all about. Oh and ice cream! You can never go wrong with a little bribery.
