Back to Work

Well, today was my first day back to work.

We actually got out the door on time this morning, despite the fact that I was an acting single mother, and I even remembered to bring milk for Elsie. I was afraid I would get all the way there and have forgotten her food! As I was driving up to Judy's apartment, I started crying and I can't really explain where that came from. I was able to calm myself enough to give her some basic instructions. I had spent some time typing them all up last night only to find out that we have no ink in our printer. Smooth. Because I had to write it out by hand, I only put the very basics, saving my tome for another day. Judy has cared for babies before, but this is the first breastfed baby she's watched, so I had to explain about how to thaw (when necessary)/reheat the milk. [I did, however, forget to mention the yellow, runny poo, which freaked her out a little bit...haha.]

On the way to work, I started crying again. I tried to pull myself together, but failed miserably, and showed up to the new teacher training with my face all blotchy, with people probably thinking I didn't want to be at work. Partially true. During introductions, I explained why I was a mess and got several pitying looks, and throughout the day ladies kept coming up to me telling me about the first time they left their children.

At lunch, I left to go see my girl. I hadn't had the opportunity to pump (ouch!!!), so I was anxious to feed Elsie. So, of course, I would have left my lights on and my car was dead in the 100 degree heat. Yep. That's exactly what I did. Again. Do you remember that this also happened on my first day of work at my last job? I would have been fine jumping it off, but it just so happened that one of the other new hires that came out right after me is the new auto tech teacher at the high school, and he was happy to help. Alas, fifteen minutes of my lunch time wasted!

They were waiting for me outside, with Elsie in her stroller facing away from me. I greeted Judy and Jim and they made surprised expressions toward Elsie. Evidently she started kicking her feet and flailing her arms when she heard me. That made me feel good...and sad. We ate lunch, and too soon, it was time to leave.

Back at school, I knew I still needed to pump, but there wasn't a break for another hour. When I was able to sneak away, I found the counselor (who remembered me!) and she opened an empty office for me. Evidently it used to be the "pumping room" before they moved all the choir junk in there. She told me she would be happy to help me find places to pump this coming year. I knew going into it that several of the teachers there breastfed and pumped, but this definitely made me feel better.

And, we got done early for the day, so I asked the curriculum coordinator where my classroom was, so she got me some keys and showed me. Evidently the A/C is broken in my classroom right now, but the part is on order. I say, good, that means I won't be tempted to go up there Thursday or Friday and work. I can be at home finishing up projects started this past week.

Finally, I got over to Judy's, about 30 minutes earlier than I told her I would be there, and Elsie was wailing because Judy changed her clothes to "freshen her up," and, well, Elsie hates to have clothes pulled over her head. I told Judy that unless she was poopy or all wet from spitup that changing her clothes was an unnecessary step. It was sweet that she wanted her to be clean for me. :)

We're going to have to work out some kinks in the feeding area since I don't know how much milk Elsie actually drinks. Hard to tell.

I know that this will be good, but no one else is ME. They can't take care of my baby the way I do. This, again, is another control issue I'm going to have to work through.

I promised in my last post something vague involving pictures. If you don't remember, that's okay. I'm still working on that since it requires me to scan photographs, but being a single mom this weekend I didn't have the time to mess with the technology. Soon. Very soon.

Cheers.