Back to Work.

I go back to work this week: three days this week and three days next week, then back to full time. Of course, that's a misleading statement-- I've worked harder these last 10 weeks than I've ever worked before. There were days when "doing a little something for myself" meant taking a bathroom break, and nights when I thought lack of sleep would cause me to shrivel up like a salted slug. So in a sense, my cubicle will be a break from the constant mental vigilance I've learned to maintain for the past two and a half months. As busy as work will be, nobody will go hungry, or become a sociopath, or be left to wallow in their own filth if I don't write great direct mail copy. It'll also be nice to make my lunch choices based on criteria other than a) can I make it one-handed while holding a squirmy baby? and b) if I spill it on her head will it leave a permanent mark?

All these benefits will be pale comfort. I'm going to miss my baby, badly. And nobody at work will get my new joke, which kills here: it goes "CCHCHHHH! AGAAA!" But I'm very lucky that my mom has volunteered (or did I volunteer her?) to watch Nora for the next couple of months while I'm at work. It's a relief to know that she'll be in such good hands, even if she did refer to her granddaughter as "Laura" and "Norma" during the same conversation last week.

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In a couple of months, Nora will go into a great daycare with a wonderful woman who comes highly recommended. My daughter will learn how to be around other kids, and she'll get a ton of mental stimulation from being in a new environment. She'll be fine. I just hope for my own sake that it won't always seem like a cosmic injustice that, in order to take care of my daughter, I have to spend the majority of her waking hours apart from her.