First weeks back at work
The work part of my first day back was nonexistent. I spent the day catching up on email and learning about all the changes that had taken place in the last six months. Yes, I know as an American living in the US, that I’m so lucky I had six months of maternity leave. For anyone living a country that is actually family oriented and you get more than six months – I’m not above accepting your sympathy in the form of large sums of cash sent to my PayPal account. Actually I don’t like PayPal cause they take too much of the cut. I’m closing my account, so you’ll have to send your sympathies via money order.
The toughest part of my day was leaving my baby at home asleep with our not-a-nanny. I didn’t even get a chance to say good-bye to her in the morning. I didn’t have the not-a-nanny’s email on my work email so one of my co-workers emailed the not-a-nanny my new phone number on my behalf. She sent it with the message, “Because she’s just waiting for you to call her. 
” She wasn’t lying, I’m that pathetic. Before returning to work the longest I had ever spent away from Sophia was about two hours and I only did that about four or five times. Thankfully our not-a-nanny agreed to drive to my work at lunch so I can feed Sophia. Actually I think it’s probably less of a favor for me and more of a sanity saver for her since Sophia refuses to have anything to do with a bottle from her. Sophia with drink from a tippy cup from Kurt, but would get very upset if presented with one from our not-a-nanny. Sophia doesn’t like it when I try to feed her via sippy cup either. She’s one smart cookie; she knows I’m a walking milk cart.
I started to get anxious around 11am and so my co-worker showed me the email volley between her and the not-a-nanny, “First day is going well. She seems to be sticking to her routine, except the part where she cried instead of played. *sigh* But it wasn’t nearly as bad as I feared it would be. And it wasn’t for very long. She’ll adjust quickly to the new situation, I think. Babies are so resilient.”
Co-worker, “Cool, she’ll be super happy about that. It’s so nice to have her back at work, but I know she misses her kid.”
Not-a-nanny, “If it makes Erica feel any better, Sophia misses her, too. She was doing fine until she realized an hour into being awake that I was doing all the things that Mommy should be doing, but I’m not Mommy. *chuckle* Then she got very angry. I felt so sorry for her. You can’t just tell a 5 month old that she’ll see Mommy in less than two hours. They don’t understand. But she calmed down after a while. She even smiled and cooed a bit before naptime.” That didn’t help me at all. Both Sophia and I were very happy to see each other at lunch. The not-a-nanny told me Sophia would play for a while then looks up at the not-the-nanny, realize she was not-the-mommy and becomes upset. Apparently she did this many times throughout the day for the first couple of days. I guess Sophia adjusted faster than I did. I’m just getting used to going to work now after a couple of weeks. Sophia does really well with the not-a-nanny, but wants my attention as soon as I get home.
Sophia doesn’t like it at all when we break the routine… We watch four episodes of M*A*S*H every night. Kurt plays with her during that time and it upsets her if she hears the theme song come on and Kurt isn’t at least in the room.
On Tuesday I left very early in the morning to go to Seattle for a Microsoft 2008 product launch and I didn’t get my usually baby visitation at lunch. Our not-a-nanny was great and sent me three pictures from her cellphone to mine, two of them with Sophia holding her own bottle. Apparently Sophia not only held the bottle, but even brought it to her mouth. That day was the first day Sophia didn’t get angry for the not-a-nanny suggesting that she drink from a bottle. She got confused when the not-a-nanny ate her lunch inside a restaurant instead of going through the drive thru and then got angry when they arrived home without stopping to see me. I didn’t get home until an hour after my usual time and I was about to explode. I wasn’t able to pump in the morning because I left much earlier then usual, didn’t get my baby fix in the afternoon, and it was an hour after my usual arrive at home time. I walked through the door in pain and couldn’t decide what to do first, go to the bathroom or feed the baby. Yesterday morning I could see Sophia checking things off her mental list as we went through our usual motions and seemed relieved that the day seemed to be starting the way in which she had become accustomed.
This morning we threw her for another loop. Kurt stayed home because he has a couple doctor appointments, so while I was getting ready for work he answered Sophia’s morning wakeup cries. She was not happy. The only time she would stop crying is when I held her – no one else. I finally had to go, so I left her screaming in Kurt’s arms. All was well once I left. She seems to think that the other people in the house are only to care for her if I’m not there. – The little shit.
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