My first day back

I did it. I went back to work!

It was actually a really good experience overall...

The hardest part was leaving the house. Dick was feeding the babies on the couch and I was ready to go... I gave the babies kisses and told them I loved them... I was crying a bit... And I couldn't leave! It was very hard to get my feet to take me out the door and get into the car... I cried for a mile or so and then I pulled it together. (Don't want to get to work crying!)

Then, things got really good. Eight months is a great amount of time to take off work. The extended leave and the many life-changing things that happened to me while I was off made going back easier. I was actually excited about being there. My car didn't remember how to get there... the building smelled different... and of course it was a fun day because 1) it was Friday! 2) I only worked 5 hours (as will be my norm) and 3) everyone wanted to see pictures and talk about the babies!

Not to mention that I have a very flexible boss who let me just do whatever I needed to... which was simply getting caught up with my staff and cleaning out emails, cleaning my office a little, etc. The other thing that makes me happy about work is that I'll be demoting (that makes me happy!?). The good thing about this is that I'll have less responsibility and I won't be a supervisor anymore after May. (I demote officially in May.) Supervising can kinda suck sometimes... :-)

The bad things about demoting are that I won't be quite as "in the loop" as I have been. Also, less money of course! But even so, my boss assures me that if I want it, promotions will still be available to me (if I want to go back to full time in the future).

When I got home it turned out that everything went really well for both Dick and the nanny. Dick got the babies quietly to sleep for their morning nap. The nanny walked in the door and started folding laundry without being asked! When I got home, the babies were taking their second nap... She said she did have a little bit of a hard time getting them to sleep but not that bad. She said, "You didn't tell me what to do if they're both crying at the same time!" :-) Oops. Ha ha ha! Sorry!

When the babies woke from their nap, they were happy to see me. But they always are! So I'm not sure how aware they are that anything really changed. Next week they may have a harder time as they realize things have changed. But next week will be different anyway because my mom comes to town Wednesday night (!) so I'll be taking Thursday off and my mom will watch the babies when I work Friday.

Overall, a great first day! I'm really happy about it right now. Might even like this better than being home full time... but I better not get too excited... I'm sure work frustrations will kick in soon...