Working Mother

I've made it through two weeks of being a working mother. Two weeks of varied nighttime wake ups and 5:30 am mornings and pumping at work and trying to rush home atthe end of the day to get some quality time in before bedtime.

I am realizing that I will need more than two weeks to understand what being a working mother really means, that I'll need to give myself time to learn to do a job that I've loved and done wholeheartedly in a new way. I'll need to teach myself how to multitask-- which will involve writing myself far more "to do lists" than ever before, as baby-brain has made me more forgetful than I imagined it would. I'll need to find a way to leave work at work at the end of the day and go home to Zoe, giving her one hundred percent, and turning work back on after she's in bed on the days that it is needed.

Eventually, I have to believe, this will just become life and I'll do it as well as I can. Eventually, I may even allow someone else to hold her after I get home at 5:30....I may even make a plan that doesn't include her on a weekend day. Eventually, I might not feel a pit in my stomach on the nights of work events, or view after school commitments as baby-time-thievery. Eventually.

For now, I'll try to let myself be okay with feeling like life is an all day juggling act. For now, I'll remind myself that I'm allowed to make mistakes, big ones-- and I have a little more time where I can still blame the back to work adjustment and be forgiven! For now, I'll either learn to cut my own hair or ignore the split ends because I'm not about to give up my baby time to go for a hair cut and what was I thinking not taking care of that during maternity leave? For now, I'll let the working mothers I know out there know that I had no idea, all this time, what they were grappling with or how impressive they truly are.

Loving my Sunday with Zoe!