Tuesday, January 13, 2015

back to work

I am alive, Sebastian is alive, it's all good.

Well. I miss his little smile, his smell, his everything to torturous levels, and I am terrified he is going to forget who I am. Am I now just going to be this random stranger that dresses him, take him to nursery, picks him up, baths him and puts him to bed?
How will he even know I'm his mummy anymore?

These are the thoughts that bombard my mind all day long at my desk, coupled with a few lades of guilt, drizzled with sadness.
The little urchin already has a snotty, streaming nose, and I suspect that will be it until he is at least 3.

All those thoughts and things aside, my first two days have been alright. I have no idea what's going on, and it's difficult not to compare myself with my Former Self almost constantly (she who knew her job seamlessly, inside and out, was slick and efficient, a professional true to form), and she who left work carrying Two Babies.

Some of the folks in other teams still don't know, so there are a bunch of awkward conversations heading my way.

On the plus side, one of the best perks here is that we are fed delicious, beautiful food. Tons of it. It's healthy and abundant, so that definitely softens the blow. I also managed to run almost two miles - two freakin' miles - yesterday on the treadmill, so I feel awfully proud about that.

I raced home using tubes, buses, anything I could last night to get home as quickly as I could to spend as much time as I could with my baby before he went to bed.
The reality is, I will get about an hour.
And this hour will be filled with bath time, stories, bottles and endless hugs and smiles. For even if I have had the worst day on the planet, and my phone is ringing off the hook, that will need to be completely ignored until his little head rests in his cot.
This is the hour where we put our game faces on and shower our little boy with as much love and affection as we possibly can in 60 minutes, short of smothering the child.

The same in the morning. I get up an hour earlier than usual (but never fear! Weekends are for lie-ins! I only have to get up at 7:00am on a weekend, woohoo!)
It's get up, wash and enclothe myself, then pick up my boy, bring him into bed with us as he has his bottle, forget it's morning and be sparkly, spritely and positive.

The harsh reality is that I will spend around 2.5 hours with my son a day. I have to squeeze every second out of it that I can.

Then go to work and try and grab the last fragments of my job that I can. I am covering roughly the same patch as I was before, which helps. But I still have no idea where to really start in terms of getting cracking on my new projects, and getting in touch with people.

I'm hoping and pleading this will all just fall into place as time goes on.

4 comments:

Bug Eyed said...

Well done baby shoes:)

Peas on Toast said...

Thanks Bug Eyes x

Val said...

It gets better as it goes along. My DIL has the same misgivings and guilt but those precious moments make up for the absence. It was better with the second child! :) You and Sebastian and the Brit will do just fine. x

Anonymous said...

well done Peas I always find the most stressful time is trying to get home as fast as possible feeling desperate to get my hands on my little James