Adjusting ... and random rambling.

I'm two months in to the new job. I'm still not quite sure what I'm doing a lot of the time. I'm still definitely adjusting to the new environment, new people and new role. Oh, and this new 8:30 a.m.-5 p.m. schedule? Wowza.

I often crash on the couch now after I put Elle to bed. On nights that I can (Friday and Saturday, mostly), I try to take a nap and then wake up for a few hours when Tim gets home so I can see him. This doesn't really give me the best sleep schedule in terms of consistency. Some nights I manage to do a load of laundry and straighten up the kitchen. Other nights I might upload some photos to Facebook and do some online banking.  But for the most part, I'm not blogging. I'm not really e-mailing. I'm not crafting. If I'm baking, it's for our family. I owe Facebook messages to about a dozen people.

I'm still reading your blogs - it's just usually on my BlackBerry, during my lunch break (non-work related Internet use is strictly prohibited at the new job). So I can't comment. I'm hoping that as this transition continues and I find my new "normal" that I'll be able to pry myself off the couch more often (I wish I could at least say I was catching up on the DVR, but usually I'm just out cold) and be a somewhat productive member of society again.

I can say I've been making small improvements in the productivity department. But not leaps and bounds yet. I'm getting to the gym 3-4 mornings a week and taking Elle out in the jogging stroller on weekends. I'm trying to brace prepare myself for Christmas. And I am enjoying 4.5 days off this week that I've been looking forward to immensely.

But still, it's a process, right?

In the meantime, I'd like to share some tidbits:

* Speaking of Christmas, if you're doing some shopping for kids, sign up for the Melissa and Doug Treasured Toy and Birthday Club to receive a coupon for 10% off as well as some other perks.

* Have you all heard about the Johnson & Johnson dramz? I feel like now that I have a kid all of the tried-and-true baby products are being shot down as dangerous (i.e. Orajel). I feel like my poor kids are going to grow up with three arms and all sorts of random maladies despite my best effort to keep them healthy and safe.

* Speaking of dramz, it's my new word. I use it, but I hate it. Much like I use the word "whatevs" but hate it, too. I think I do it mostly to annoy Tim, who uses "totes ridic" to annoy me. I could go on and on with words like these that irritate me (although I'm sure I use some of them, too!). How do you feel about these kinds of words?

* A few weeks ago I won a giveaway from Krystal at Krystal's Kitch. I got my surprise the other week and am in love with the bag (at left) she sent and the super cute Halloween goodies she included. (Thanks again, Krystal!)

* I made these last weekend. Tim liked them, I liked them and Elle gobbled them up. I added black beans (hello, bean city), but they were healthy, super easy and will be made again soon.

* We're getting our family photos taken in a week. This is notable because we're doing it with about seven weeks after we were originally scheduled to and with the third photographer that we've had them scheduled with ... because nothing is ever easy in my life.

* Elle and I went shopping last weekend to try a few fall-ish dress clothes for her to wear to church. She has several super cute dresses, but in typical Florida fashion, they're summery and bright and I wanted to get some darker colors for the fall/winter. It was so fun to shop for her (we are lucky to get a lot of clothes as gifts and hand-me-downs), but so hard to limit my purchases! :) I found a bunch of great deals, which made it hard to pick just a few. (Dress at right is one of the new ones - I like that it can be made a little bright for spring with a sweater but is a nice, slightly darker alternative for fall.)

* We're celebrating Thanksgiving today - my sister and brother-in-law are going to be visiting, so rather than make a ton of food for Tim, Elle and I on Thursday, I'm going to make a ton of food for the five of us today, and I'm super excited.

Treading water

I am one week in to my new job. I am four days in to Death Cold 2011. My workouts have been thrown out the window courtesy of these two things. I am approximately eight mentally composed blog posts behind (a weight loss post! an Ohio trip recap! a giveaway! a sappy letter to Elle! all this could be yours if you choose to read it when I eventually post it!). I have about dozen things I need to do, another dozen I want to do, and no clue when any of them will be started, let alone completed.

WHEW.

Things at the new job are going well for only being there a week. I am incredibly overwhelmed - learning such a dramatically different new industry is frightening, y'all. A coworker told me today that I "need to be more confident," that I "know what I'm doing and just need to trust myself." Soooo not true. I'm coming off the confidence of being in the same industry for 12 years, working for multiple newspapers of various sizes in a multitude of positions, circumstances and environments. There, I was confident. Here, I'm scared to death that I'm going to eff something up. There is a lot to learn, and a lot at stake (like, oh, wasted material, money, the company's reputation, etc.) if I do something wrong.

My last job was with a large company. This is a very small company, and there are definite pros and cons to that. I'm thankful that my coworkers all seem great, but it's a major adjustment for me. And being the "new kid" on the small block makes me feel like I'm constantly being scrutinized.

Read: Pressure.

In some regards, though, it's going better than I thought. After the first two days, it was all I could do to take a deep breath and just keep plugging away. The last three days have been spotted with some successes, though, as I pick up on stuff, slowly but surely. I'm shocked that the shift from nights to days hasn't been hard at all (thank you, darling 14-month-old daughter). I'm awake during the day without the help of an insane amount of caffeine, and I even managed to go to the gym before work last week before Death Cold set in (sadly, the gym doesn't look any better at 6 a.m. than it does the rest of the day).

I came down with a runny nose - completely out of the blue - on Saturday. By Sunday, I had a stuffed nose, congestion and a scratchy throat. Monday was full of nose blowing (hi, new coworkers!). Tuesday brought me no voice (did I mention that my new job involves a decent amount of interaction with our clients? Yeah, other people had to take my calls and translate for me). And today I had a lot of nose-blowing, some dizziness and some coughing, but I *sounded* a little better. And now that I'm done breastfeeding, you can bet your bottom dollar that I'm medicating the crap out of myself. 

Would you not miss this face?

Provided that I survive Death Cold, I have faith that things will be OK. It's going to take time to adjust to this new life. I miss Elle like whoa. I miss our mornings together, miss getting stuff done around the condo in the morning while she napped. I love coming home to her or picking her up at the sitter's and eating dinner with her (and sometimes Tim, when he can get away from the office). I hate hardly seeing Tim, although it was fantastic to have two evenings at home with him this week. I still have a hard time going to bed early enough (like I should be doing right now). I love being able to put Elle to bed at night. I hate not being able to just run to the post office, make phone calls or schedule a doctor's appointment like I could when I worked nights.

But ultimately, as Modest Mouse says, we'll all float on. Some day (soon, I hope), I'll understand this complex land of my new industry. We'll hit a groove at home. I won't go through a box of tissues a day because my nose is full of snot. I'll blog regularly again. I'll reply to e-mails in a timely fashion. I'll get a massage every other week. OK, just kidding. Honestly, though, we've undergone a lot of change in our household in the last two years - if we didn't know how to adapt by now, I'd be worried.

Off to visit my pillow so my brain can be sponge-y and alert tomorrow!

A departure

Things have been a bit busy over in the land 'o Sea Cow Circus. (I find that a lot of bloggers get "quiet" soon before they announce big news - any one else notice that?)

The biggest news around these parts is that I am starting a new job in a few weeks.

I've worked at four newspapers since I graduated college eight years ago. It averages out pretty well, but the first three jobs were pretty short-lived - six months, 15 months and 16 months. It seemed like every year I needed two W-2s for my taxes. But this job? I've been here for five years and three months.

Being at one place so long means I actually pretty much kinda know what is going on. I'm currently the most senior designer in my department. I get a nice chunk of vacation time every year. I have been lucky enough to work for an amazing boss and with some pretty awesome people. (There are some pretty not-so-awesome people, too, but I don't want to dwell on that.) The other designers and I, for as much turnover as there has been, operate as a pretty well-oiled machine. There are certainly good things about where I'm at, and many things that I will miss.

That being said, there are definite cons to my job (and if you're related to me or friends with me IRL, you've heard ALLLLLL about them for years. Or even if you've read the blog for a few months, haha). Newspapers are not exactly a thriving industry. Because of across-the-board pay cuts two years ago and the suspension of raises, I actually make less than I did when I was hired. Another five percent pay cut was announced three days ago. Benefits have become, well, less beneficial. I work nights, weekends and holidays. I drive about 60 miles round trip on toll roads (read: tolls are expensive and gas isn't getting cheaper). The time I spend in the car (45 minutes on the way to work, 35 on the way home) eats in to time I'd rather be spending at home with my family.

So when I saw this particular job posting, I decided it was worth at least applying for - I figured, no matter what, it was good for me to get my resume and portfolio updated and organized. I was called for an interview. I was called for a second interview. And then, after a weekend of my stomach being tied in knots, I was offered the job. After talking things over with Tim and some negotiations with the new company, I accepted the job the next day and told my current employer that afternoon.

My commute will take up less than 25 minutes of my day, tops. I won't work nights, weekends or holidays. I'll work from 8:30 a.m. until 5 p.m., and I'll come home and eat dinner with my family and put my baby to bed each night. The benefits and perks are awesome, and the company is growing. There's plenty of opportunity for me there.We'll be saving on gas and childcare. If there was an emergency and I needed to get home right away, I could be home in 10 minutes instead of driving across three counties.

There are moments - either dramatically quiet or ridiculously busy times - when I realize just how much I'm going to miss what I do. How it will feel really, really weird to NOT be doing it. Working in a newsroom on a Friday night during high school football is something that I've done pretty much every year. Being at work at the peak of baseball season is kind of second nature now. I'm far too familiar with the NHL, NBA, MLB and NFL draft processes. And working on deadline - on newspaper deadline - can be chaotic and comforting.  Some nights I nail my shift and am on top of the world, other nights I'm frustrated and want to drown my sorrows in a bottle of wine. My body might be tense and my stomach in knots, but I maintain a sense of calm and determination when we're down to the wire and just get. stuff. done.

The commute has *some* perks, too. Some nights when I enjoy the drive home, watching lightning arc across the water. Some days when I revel in the time alone in the car - whether listening to an audio book, catching up on phone calls with friends and family or just driving.

The biggest downside? The part that eats at me and makes me realize that right now, short-term, this isn't a bad situation at all? I won't spend the majority of my mornings and early afternoons with Elle. There are other big drawbacks, too - my night-shift-working husband and I won't be on similar schedules. Our gym routine, which is very important to both of us, is going to be up in the air for a while. Tim and I have had A LOT of schedule changes in the last 13 months, and this is probably the longest stretch we've gone without one. We're in a groove, and that's all going to be shaken up and turned upside down. My vacation time is going to be extremely limited for the next few years as I rebuild with a new employer.

I try to look at the positives, though: I had more than a year of working full time but being home with Elle for most of her awake time. In a few years, if I was still working my current hours, I would never see Elle, as her school schedule would be opposite my work schedule. She'll be with one of her parents for the majority of the time. The new schedule allows for more childcare options (I could go on and on about the problems we've had with childcare in the past 10+ months). With the new job, Tim and I will be able to eventually have an entire day off together each week. We'll have a few evenings a week at home, together, as a family. And if he ever goes back to working days, we'll ... *gasp* ... be "normal."

(The biggest downside for Tim is that we'll no longer alternate the morning wake ups ... which means he'll be working nights and getting up with Elle five days a week. I'm tired for him.)

It will be really odd to be on the outside of newspapers for the first time in a long time, but as one of my senior editors told me when I shared the news, a decision made for your family is never a wrong one. This decision is the right one for myself and my family, and while I'm nostalgic about this chapter being over, I'm excited about the next chapter and all of the adventures that will come with it :)

My Pumping Prison

I've mentioned before how much I hate pumping. And every time I think that, I remind myself of the Super Women Exclusive Pumpers who pump many more times a day just so that their babies can have their breast milk, and I tell myself to suck it up and stop whining.

But it occurred to me that I've never really shared much information about the dungeon in which I pump :)

I must say that I am extremely grateful that my workplace provides a specific area for nursing mothers to pump. Federal law requires all employers to allow nursing mothers to take unpaid breaks, and I *believe* Florida law requires any company with more than 50 employees to provide a place for breastfeeding mothers to nurse or pump.

When I first found out I was pregnant, I knew I wanted to breastfeed, including long after my maternity leave would end. I suddenly started looking at my workplace with new eyes. I looked for outlets, for tucked away conference rooms, for bathrooms that received little to no traffic. I feared that I would be stuck sitting in one of the bathrooms, pumping 2-3 times a shift.

A few months in to my pregnancy, I was talking to a friend in human resources about my short-term disability coverage and other specifics of my maternity leave. I mentioned something about planning to breastfeed and her eyes lit up. She asked if I knew about the nursing mother's room.

"The what?" I said.

She took me down a hallway and we ended in front of a door I'd never seen before. There was a sign:

And then she showed me the mini-fridge, the outlets, how the door locked, etc. And while it's nice to have the designated space to pump, I've had several problems:

1. It's ug-lay. This room has no personality, no charm, no warmth. It barely has cell phone reception.

You know you're jealous.

2. The arm chair is good for naps, but not for pumping. It tilts back too far to comfortably pump anything, so that leaves ...

3. The uncomfortable office chair.

4. The security guards (and some former staffers - former, because apparently they were caught) apparently use the room for naps. I found this out one afternoon when I opened the door and a big, burly security guard acted in surprise, saying he was taking a snooze between shifts. I said, "Sorry, but I need to use this room right now." I don't have anything against expectant moms using the room - goodness knows if I knew this room existed when I was in the throes of all day morning sickness, I would have retreated there myself - but I'm not a fan of people looking for a cushy chair parking themselves in there.

5. The room is on the deserted first floor. I work on the third floor, and I often feel like I'm being banished to the basement when I go pump.

There aren't a lot of women in my building who use the room - by my count, there have been three other women who have pumped during my (now 11!) months using the room. I work nights and weekends, and the other moms work Monday-Friday day shifts. I'm sure I could have livened the room up a bit - brought in some posters, fake flowers, air fresheners, lamps, etc. But I don't know what other people like/don't like. Maybe one of the other pumping mamas has a traumatic childhood memory of tulips. Or one of the mamas is sensitive to the smell of a plug-in air freshener? Best not to mess with the room, I decided.

I don't really have fond memories of this room. There have been at least two times when I knocked something over or a storage bag tipped, and I lost precious ounces of milk.

Sad face. Very, very sad face.

The first time this happened, my sister sent me a hilarious card, and it is so, so true:

I was lying awake in bed the other night and calculated the rest of my pumping days (that's how eager I am to be done with the pump). We're going on a trip in a few weeks, and I need to keep up my extra pumping session (the one I do on my way home from work during my work week to keep me from getting too engorged over night) until I have enough milk for 2-3 bottles while we're on the trip. Then I can drop that session. And when we come back to Florida right before (gasp!) Elle's first birthday, I will likely stop pumping at work, too - leaving only 2-3 nursing sessions a day for the foreseeable future. I'm not going to stop breastfeeding automatically at one year - but I not going to stay married to the pump.

My pumping sessions have sometimes brought a much-needed break from work, but it would be nice to not be a necessary break. I work at a newspaper, and the natural course of my shift ebbs and flows, but sometimes there is breaking news and I'm not able to get away to pump. This gets more common in the fall, with hectic football and baseball schedules, and lately I've been stressing about stepping away from my desk to pump. So pumping is not only a pain, it's going to become increasingly more difficult to do in the coming months. My work-time pumping gave me a chance to read books, clip coupons, cross-stitch and catch up on little stuff that I never stop long enough to finish at home, like thank you notes and grocery lists. But that was the only perk. I trek down three flights of stairs each day, lock myself in the window-less room and sit there for 20-30 minutes. On my way in to my office, I stop there and drop my pump off. On my way out of the office, I stop and pick up my pump, pump parts and refrigerated milk. (And let's not even get in to the pain that is the preparing of bottles, cleaning of pump parts and freezing of milk, because 'tis not fun.)

So while I'm glad that I've been able to pump and supply breast milk for Elle (and others!), I am counting down the days til I don't have to worry about it anymore. I have no idea how I've done it this long (except for the fact that I'm incredibly stubborn and kept thinking 'I've made it this far, I should just keep going'). It's been extremely important to me to breastfeed Elle for the first year of her life, but I would be lying if I said I didn't want to stop pumping ASAP.

I have mad respect for moms who exclusively pump - you women rock.And I hope your pumping set-up is a little cheerier than mine :)

Therapeutic and symbolic

I've worked at the same place for almost five years. I've had the same desk for about four of those years (there was some major re-organization and remodeling soon after I started, but for the most part, I've been in the same place). I work in another department occasionally, but my "home desk" is where my personal stuff - calendar, photos, coffee mug, water bottle, etc. - reside.

We have a new coworker, and in preparation for his arrival, a desk was emptied and cleared. We updated deadline sheets, phone lists and other pertinent information that we thought would help welcome him to the new job.

It made me think about my own workspace. So I decided to simplify it.

I'm often teased about the insane moderate number of photos I keep on my desk of the cutest baby in the world. So I started there.

Unmoving focal point :) August 2010.

I wanted to keep several photos of Elle in plain sight, but I wanted them to be special photos, not just "every cute photo I have every taken of my daughter." I have a photo album flip book on my desk that now holds the accumulated/swapped out photos like that, but a special few remain tacked up to my desk.

I targeted the random notes all over my workspace next. I threw away the older, irrelevant ones, consolidated log-in name and password information and made things significantly more organized.

Then I went through the framed photos, little knick-knacks and silly memorabilia on my desk. One thing is sure - I have a lot of photos from various times and places in my life!

With my youngest brother Doug at my other brother's wedding, Aug. 2007.

With Meghan at a college newspaper banquet, May 2003.

With Jen at a Starbucks (of course!), fall 2002ish?

With my sister, Christmas 2005.

I tossed the toys in a drawer (we have a lot of kids-of-employees in at various times, and my desk has been an endless source of entertainment).

Going through the framed photos was like sifting through a time capsule, and it was very revealing - there were framed photos of people who quite simply no longer need to be in framed photos on my desk.

And photos of people (and animals!) who definitely do.

December 2007.

November 2008.

March 2011.

The end result of the Great Desk Cleaning on 2011 is refreshing. There is less clutter. There is more meaning. There is more organization. The phone lists and passwords are easily accessible, the workspace is much more open. The photos that *do* remain on my desk are of the people who are nearest and dearest to me, arranged so that no matter where I turn, I see reminders of my life - the parts that don't exist within the realms of my 40-hour+ work week, work station and time card.

And just in case I forget while I'm in the office:
The boss of my very much non-desk job :)

Down

My college roommate came to visit this past Saturday. She had surprised her mom, who lives about an hour north of me, with a visit from Ohio, and we always try to get together when she's in the state. Kristine and her daughter, Josephine, hung out with Elle and I for the morning and then we headed to get some lunch. I joked several times that our daughters will be college roommates some day :) It was SO nice to catch up with Kristine, spend time with a girlfriend who has known me for (eek) more than a dozen years and just be comfortable, relaxed. Even with two youngsters there (Joey is just 10 months older than Elle), it was easy and fun. Actually, maybe because there were two youngsters there. I realized that a day like this with friends who don't have kids might not happen, because they wouldn't understand why conversation halted when one kid tore in to a jelly packet, or why departure was rushed because one kid was whining the needs-a-nap-desperation-clock-is-winding-down whine. I know I didn't get it before Elle. I wasn't entirely clueless, but I didn't GET it. Now, I do.

The day with Kristine was great. But then I had to go to work that night.

And this is where my mood turns sour. I have a more upbeat version of this post started, but I'm definitely not in the mind frame to finish it with the same optimism that I started. And before I get too pity party-ish, know that I am extremely thankful for what I have - a husband, a daughter, a home, a job, all of the blessings in life that many are forced to go without. I know many people have it worse than me, and to some, my whining might seem shallow. But still, it's something that affects me greatly, and I need to vent and express some of my frustration.

The visit with Kristine reminded me of all of the nights we spent in our dorm, being silly, serious, whatever - compared to life now, we had few responsibilities, and we had a built-in social network. The seventh floor of our dorm yielded a tight bunch - many of us are still in touch, we've had reunions, we attend each other's weddings and baby showers. The memories we made seven and eight years ago, though, are what I flashed back to ... the hot chocolate in the hallway, the trips to the bars, the walks to the student center to study, the borrowing of clothes, the Friday night dinners. The friendship. The laughter. The knowledge that you were one knock away from a friend - or four - when you needed one.

Part of our fun dorm group, circa 2002.

Flash forward to something that been eating away at me for the last year or two - the lack of those very things. I don't think you can understand the life we lead unless you've done it yourself. You can imagine it, you can commiserate with it, you can complain about it on my behalf, but you can't understand unless you've been there. And maybe your situation is worse, but this is my blog so I'm gonna whine here :)

I am fortunate enough to have many good friends where we live. We've been here almost five years, and through our jobs and other outlets, we've established a solid support system of friends. The problem isn't having the friends - it's the getting to spend time with friends and develop those friendships. It's an issue that existed long before I was married, long before Elle was in our lives. Bottom line: It can be challenging to socialize with friends who work days when you work nights. Friends who spend time with their families on the weekends ... when you're working, anyway. Friends who live 30-60 minutes away - because you work 40 minutes from home and many of your closest friends are coworkers. Heck, it's a struggle to catch up with some of my friends from high school and college - because they're working when I'm home, and vice versa, so even a phone call is a challenge.

Getting time to spend with my husband can also  be a hefty task. For quite a while, we were working opposite shifts. Then we were working opposite days and sometimes opposite shifts. Then it switched back to opposite shifts again, and to save on childcare needs and costs, we're back to opposite days off, which is great because Elle is with one of us four days a week ... but awful because we rarely have a day off with all three of us. It's a choice we've made, but not a fun one. And we're both working weekends. And nights. And that means that in order to go out, by ourselves or with friends, on a "normal" schedule, we'd have to take off work, pay for a sitter, miss out on precious time with Elle and then add in gas/entertainment/etc. costs. Maternity leave was a dream - we could "play" the role of married couple with child, working 10-6, Monday through Friday. But then I went back to work, 3 p.m. to midnight, Wednesday through Sunday. Then Tim's schedule changed to nights with his promotion.

Now, we try to squeeze as much family time as possible out of the mornings and afternoons, but Tim usually heads in to work around 1 or 2 p.m. When we actually have a day off together, Tim and I often like to soak up as much "Mommy, Daddy and Elle" time as possible. We definitely like to go on dates and know how terribly important it is for our relationship and our family. Tim and I were "Tim and I" long before Elle, and it's important to us that we don't lose that as our family grows. But because of our ever-changing schedules, it hasn't happened much lately. We also try to make sure the other person gets "me" time - but again, that's a challenge when we have such opposite schedules. Usually, we trade off mornings and go to the gym/get haircuts/run errands during that time, before the other has to go to work or the babysitter arrives.

Between the distance, the timing and the money, we don't have a lot of options. I'm not the most social person in the world - I don't need to go out every weekend or get lunch with friends every week. I'll choose ordering in and renting a movie 9 out of 10 times. But I'm human - I miss those social interactions, with friends and my husband, and that one out of 10 times, I'd enjoy a movie at the theater, a baseball game, a night with friends at a bar. And for work purposes, do you know how hard it is to find a babysitter who will come watch your child in your home on Friday *and* Saturday night? (Don't worry - I have a blog post started that will tell you alllll about it.) Any night daycares in the area aren't open on Saturdays, and we don't require full-time childcare, but we also don't want to have our baby sleeping in someone else's home until we stop by after work and wake her up at midnight to take her home, only to put her back to bed.

When I get down like this, I try to focus on a few things: 1. It could be worse. 2. It kicks my butt in gear to try to change things. 3. It likely won't always be like this. 4. There *are* perks of my schedule: It's easy to get to the post office, doctor's appointments, library, grocery store and to make phone calls without having to take away from work time or battle crowds. I'm able to be with Elle for large portions of her awake time. I'm able to attend my mid-afternoon mommy/baby group. And although longer than I'd like, my commute is fairly easy, especially at the completely off-peak hour of 12:30 a.m., and provides me ample time for mindless audiobook-listening. I used to be a morning person, now I'm a night owl who is forced to be functional in the morning.

I wouldn't trade Tim or Elle for the world, but I wouldn't mind if some of the other parts of life changed for the better. We both work because a) we have billz and b) we have goals that require money to achieve, so we push on. But as I push 30 (gasp!), I realize that I never imagined working nights and weekends forever. I keep trying to keep the faith (see: unpublished, positive blog post on a topic like this), but it's hard when so many of my other friends have the slightly social life I crave; the steady, regular schedule that is compatible with their loved ones' schedule; an "easy" childcare solution; a close network of family and friends less than 1,000 miles away. It's a different, far cry away from those carefree days of doing my hair in a bathroom with my three other suitemates milling around, talking about the details of our dinner plans that night or who would be the designated driver that weekend.

I'm not asking to go back to that time - certainly, I loved those years, but I've loved the journey I've been on since then. I'm just looking for a glimmer of hope that current circumstances will change, allow for more family time, more friend time.

Tomorrow

Tomorrow I go back to work. I'm not going to dwell on it, but to say I'm sad about it would be an understatement, and while I'm grateful for the nearly 11 weeks of paid time off I got to take (made possible by short-term disability time off and extra vacation and personal time I tacked on to the end of it), I wish there was a way we could afford for me to not work full-time.

I'm trying to focus on the fact that I'm providing for our daughter, and someday, I might be able to stay at home with her.

But right now, I have to work.

I'm fortunate that Tim is off tomorrow and will be taking care of her on my first day of many away from her. And even though my work schedule leaves much to be desired, it does allow Elle to be with either Tim or I almost all the time. We like our sitter, and I know that Tim or the sitter will take good care of Elle. It just kills me that after our nearly three months constantly together, we're now going to be apart.

We've spent today ignoring the errands I should have run, pushing aside the urgency of my growing to-do list and paying no attention to the last-minute projects I could try to finish. I realize that I'm going to work full-time and will have significantly less time to catch up on all of the things I already feel dramatically behind on, but today was about this:

She's been a little off schedule and feverish from her vaccinations yesterday, so we've cuddled, napped, played, read books and went for a walk. Biggest mistake of the day? Reading this book without a box of tissues next to me. 

Do I know how I'm going to get through tomorrow? No. But I will, and I'll be flying out of bed to greet her when she wakes up the next morning with her cheesy grin.