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I ’ve had two weeks back at work so far, and I have to say it’s gone pretty well. I was very apprehensive in the weeks leading up to my return to the real world, and increasingly anxious as the day grew closer. I cleverly arranged to take some vacation time after my maternity leave was officially up, and even more cleverly arranged to return on a Tuesday, instead of a Monday, as my first day. This worked very well since my sister’s wedding was the weekend before and, as per Murphy’s Law, Junior got a tummy bug and was vomitous for that whole weekend.

Junior’s dodgy tummy and inability to keep down any food started the evening before the wedding. I chalked it up to an excitable evening and late dinner at my parents’ house. But when he threw up several more times the next day before I left to assume my maid of honour duties, we thought Stephen might have to stay home from the wedding to see if this required medical attention. Luckily, our babysitter was a dear and long-standing friend of mine with a 4-year-old of her own, so she was an old hand at comforting barfy babies, and is one of few people I would trust implicitly with my child. So in the end we both attended, although there were several calls home and a part of my brain was distracted during the whole event. This was unfortunate since it was a beautiful, fun and important wedding. But I’m learning that as a parent, you need to come to expect these things sometimes.

Up until my first day of work, the wedding was the longest I’d been away from Junior, leaving as I did at lunchtime to make my beauty appointments and missing entirely the bedtime routine. Three days later, my full day of work was even longer.

That Tuesday morning, Junior hadn’t vomited in almost 24 hours, and seemed back to his old good-natured self. I found that I had plenty of time to get ready and left the house in good time, a new experience since I used to rush and often was a few minutes late. Of course, being woken before 6 am by a chorus of “Da da da, ahh ghoom eeeeee” from Junior in his crib meant that we got an early start. And then the fact that Junior stayed in his pjs since he wasn’t going anywhere until after his morning nap, and Stephen took care of all the breakfast cleanup as part of his new “house dad” duties meant that I had almost two hours to get myself ready and help out only a bit with Junior’s morning routine.

My first morning went quickly, but at lunch time I found myself missing my boys. I called home, more to connect than to check up on.  It's a little bit weird to find my “new self” in my “old life,” as an astute friend articulated, without my small companion 10 hours a day. My new self has a whole new layer to fit back into this aspect of my old life that required a fair bit of focus. While I’m still getting the hang of things at work, I think overall it’s going pretty well. I do find that my short-term memory  is completely unreliable (ok, my long-term memory too) and I’ve taken to writing everything down in a notebook now that I CANNOT lose. I also find myself saying at the end of phone conversations, “ok, so just to re-cap, I’m going to blah blah blah,” so that I can be sure that I remember it for long enough to go into my notebook.

In terms of the home front, it’s very pleasant to leave Junior and not have to worry about his care. Another friend likened it to how she assumes it is for her working husband during the day. He gets to periodically smile fondly and comfortably picture his children clean, fed and well-cared-for by his stay-at-home wife during his work day, instead of guiltily imagining all kinds of neglect, tears and bullies at day care, as I believe many working women do. I find myself more in his camp: although I miss Jack during the day, I smile fondly at his pictures on my screensaver, and imagine picnics in the park and good old-fashioned father-son bonding.

S tephen is doing an excellent job, taking over all the cleaning (except vacuuming and mopping which we share on Saturdays), and doing all the laundry and grocery shopping with Junior in tow. In fact, he might be doing too well, having added menu planning and keeping our groceries on budget which I never did, choosing impulse buys at the grocery store and often deciding last minute that dinner would be grilled cheese only to discover we were out of cheese. I also returned home to find that by the end of the week, he’d taught Junior several new tricks, like stair climbing, how to shake hands and give high fives. All in all, I may find myself “out-mommed.”  Which I guess is a good thing for everyone, if my ego can take it.