The story on daycare and being a working mom - week 1

Well, our Christmas tree is still up. Dalton's dresser still has newborn clothes in it, and those chunky thighs sure don't fit into teeny onesies anymore.

After last night, that jersey he's been wearing since 5 days old is officially retired. Sad face.

But in my defense, Netflix now has Friends. And I managed to take the ornaments off the tree. Progress.

I've made it through a week of being a working mom. Although it's completely cheating to say that, because we had a snow day Tuesday, and 2 hour delays Wednesday and Thursday. (2 hour delays are when school opens late due to weather. I had never heard of this until I moved down south. In the North, where I'm from, school opens no matter what. I think I had like one snow day experience ever as a student, during the ice storm when the entire town lost power.)

Actually, one day was just a cold delay.

He stayed warm.

This week was definitely better than I anticipated, but to be fair, that's not saying much, because I anticipated a fate worse than death. I would give anything to be a stay at home mom. Maybe not forever, but at least during this time when he's tiny. I have awful mom guilt about being with him all day, every day, since he was an embryo, and then suddenly throwing him to the wolves and leaving him with someone he barely knows. I know it would just be harder, not easier, if he was older (that's what I hear) but it's hard on me not being able to explain anything to him or assure him I'll be back. I can get really out of control jealous of SAHMs. I'm not a fan of paying someone else a lot of money for the privilege of hanging out with my kid all day. I want that privilege.

He just wants to eat his hands.

That's not happening in my life though, so I'm trying to focus on all the positives. Socialization and another loving adult who cares about him in his life and having something else to direct my brain power to that I'm actually good at instead of obsessing over naps and feedings and baby issues and fearing going back to work. After dreading it for so long, it's a relief that I can stop fretting over it 24/7. And I've never been so happy to greet a weekend.

I promise I will now stop using this blog to complain about how I'm too poor to be a stay at home mom. Maybe that should be my New Year's Resolution.

But before I move on, let's talk about some related topics.

Like when do animals on the butt stop being cute? I hope I have awhile.

Sleep: I agonize over a lot of mommy problems (despite what I just said above) like napping and bedtime but I'll save that for mom friends.

He just spontaneously fell asleep on me today. It's been a minute since that happened. Love it.

As far as my own sleep goes, my goal is to go to bed right after Dalton. We have no exact time yet but it's usually like 8-9pm, so that lets me get a decent amount of sleep in between night wakeups. It's a challenge because that means I need to make and eat dinner, make my lunch for the next day, wash/prepare bottles, get ready for bed and do anything else that needs to be done around the house while Dalton takes an evening nap, so I can spend the little time we have together while he is awake actually together. I would be pretty happy to never wash another bottle, which is an issue since it's only been a week.

Workouts: I got up work out before work 4/5 days. Granted, 3 of those days I was able to go back to bed due to weather closings/delays, but I still demand credit because actually got out of bed and that's the toughest part.

Pumping: I spend my 25 minute lunch housing a sandwich while pumping in a freezing closet (in addition to two other pumping sessions during the work day). That's seriously inferior to actually being with my baby and nursing him. But the more I get into a routine, the better it goes. I'm still taking it a day at a time, and grateful I'm able to do it at all.  It is vastly improved by listening to the Serial Podcast.

So addicted.

Claim to fame for fellow fans: The students attend a high school in the school district that Eric and I work for, and Eric knows Adnan's track coach. I used to tutor at the Woodlawn library. It's cool being able to actually picture a lot of the places they describe! I'm on episode 10 though, and I don't know how I'll be able to go on when I'm finished.

In closing, if my plan to win the lottery doesn't pan out, and Obama doesn't use this year to get maternity leave up to par, I will continue to work on convincing Eric that we need to move to Canada for kid #2. Canada has schools, so we could theoretically get jobs, eh? Until then, working and sending my kid to daycare isn't terrible, although I miss him like crazy. Washing bottles and waking up to an alarm clock is terrible.

What do you look forward to most at the end of the day? It used to be getting into my pajamas and putting my feet up and getting either warm or cold finally, depending on the season. Now it's obviously baby snuggles.

 

 

Who else is a Serial fan?